Best Practices for running single-player (or two-player) campaigns

[Alexander123]

Personally I detest single-player games. My advice would be to recruit more players and to postpone any game where you do not have enough players. It seems to me that it will be a horrible experience, since D&D has been designed for multi-players games. One of the first things about playing D&D is that it is about socialization, a fun activity with ones friends. Also, you are severely limiting the fun that is possible through a party. The first principle in the D&D fantasy world is the division of labor. It is unrealistic to have a one person game in my view and I think anyone who attempts to solo rightly deserves to face what a four-person party would face with no favors from the DM. As I said, any such game needs to be postponed until you have enough players.

 

[HeavensThunderHammer]

Personally I detest single-player games. My advice would be to recruit more players and to postpone any game where you do not have enough players. It seems to me that it will be a horrible experience, since D&D has been designed for multi-players games. One of the first things about playing D&D is that it is about socialization, a fun activity with ones friends. Also, you are severely limiting the fun that is possible through a party. The first principle in the D&D fantasy world is the division of labor. It is unrealistic to have a one person game in my view and I think anyone who attempts to solo rightly deserves to face what a four-person party would face with no favors from the DM. As I said, any such game needs to be postponed until you have enough players.

This just isn't a realistic attitude for many people, whether it is a serious scheduling conflicts with an existing group, or that no one games in your area in a (whatever) mile radius that makes gaming impossible.

Please read the solo guide I posted. It was primarily written by fellows who GMed for their wives, and really learned the craft of how to do GM a solo game well.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

. . . you are severely limiting the fun that is possible through a party.

So, those who are unfortunate enough to only ever get to play D&D with one DM and one player are having badwrongfun?

The first principle in the D&D fantasy world is the division of labor. It is unrealistic to have a one person game in my view and I think anyone who attempts to solo rightly deserves to face what a four-person party would face with no favors from the DM. As I said, any such game needs to be postponed until you have enough players.

You make it sound like people want to play singly in preference to playing in a group. Sometimes you just don't get the option. Thus my original post that began the thread asking what are some of the best practices to pull off a single player campaign as successfully as possible.

I can't tell you how many times I've read others on this forum mention in passing that they ran their child through a practice session of D&D to introduce them to the game. Those single player games worked well enough by every reading. The exact same possibility motivated my post, I have a young son who has been asking when he can play for years. He's turned 10 now. If it works out well we will try to recruit some others for a more full table.

The solo guide above has some very good suggestions I intend to try, as has this thread.

 

[Alexander123]

You're right, my post came off as if you were choosing to play solo. I'm sorry. I'm sure it could be a fun experience if done right. Of course my preference will always remain multi-player. (similar to Diablo single player vs. multi player.)

 

[ShadesOfGrey]

It's pretty doable I think. The DM just needs to put in a little thought in focusing a bit more on the non-combat stuff, roleplaying, skill use etc.

Dungeon crawling and combat wont work as well..

I'm thinking stuff like a rogue spyish character infiltrating a castle to find information or stealing the macguffin, or a ranger that is tracking a orc warband through the forrest and sets all kinds of traps or snipes the orcs one by one instead of fighting them directly.

Or basically anything played by anything, if you put the effort in the roleplaying part, it's not only going to work, it's going to work well in a depth that you wont easily see in larger groups.

And if combat is really difficult to avoid, an extra PC played as mostly silent apprentice or sidekick and some NPC hired swords will do the trick as long as you mind the challenge rating.

Personally I detest single-player games. My advice would be to recruit more players and to postpone any game where you do not have enough players. It seems to me that it will be a horrible experience, since D&D has been designed for multi-players games. One of the first things about playing D&D is that it is about socialization, a fun activity with ones friends. Also, you are severely limiting the fun that is possible through a party. The first principle in the D&D fantasy world is the division of labor. It is unrealistic to have a one person game in my view and I think anyone who attempts to solo rightly deserves to face what a four-person party would face with no favors from the DM. As I said, any such game needs to be postponed until you have enough players.

So basically, you feel that solo isnt fun, and therefore instead of putting some work into actually making it work & fun, you say the player should be punished so it'll be even less fun? I'm sorry to say this, but it's that kind of attitude that makes a game unfun even if you have a full table of players around =/

 

[athos]

If you like going solo, just disregard this first idea... but, have you thought about moving your game to online. I have a friend that was playing solo and they were getting burned out on just the two of them, so they moved to openRPG and skype, so that more people could get in on the action. Next thing you know, there were 7 in the group.

Next, do you play more sandbox style or scripted? If you have a premade city, the old JG citystates come to mind, then you could let the player wonder around and kind of "choose" what he wants to do. This is a more advanced option where the DM has to be ready for just about anything. A classical dungeon crawl kind of assumes that the 4 archetypes will be represented in some way or other, so that would be kind of difficult, IMO, to pull off.

Other adventures would depend strongly on class, but I do like the option someone made of giving the leadership feat for free, so he can have a cohort at least. NWN was like this, and it was quite fun for a computer game. This would at least give you two of the four archetypes, and depending on your classes, you could perhaps summon cannon fodder.

Rogues would seem to be the easiest class to run solo. They could be part of a thieves guild where they are sent out on assignments and given resources (like muscle) when they need it. Other classes could be part of a guild as well, you will just have to be creative.

I grew up in a small rural town, so I played a lot of times with just one and two players and I DM'd. I liked the sandbox approach where I would try and let the party pick out what they wanted to do, so as not to get the feel that I was railroading them all the time. This was great for more experienced players, but people new to the game need more structure, for them I would use the "assignment" method and tailor adventures to them, and let them move up in the guild as they moved up in level.

Best of luck to your game,

Athos

 

[MortonStromgal]

I recommend the old GURPS Conan solo adventures, the Lone Wolf books, and I believe there are other solo adventures out there as well.

 

[Chronologist]

I've run games with two people, neither of which Gestalted, and they handled things just fine. A Gestalt with a companion would proably be okay too.

Personally, I love the Skilled Leadership feats (fan-made, you can find them online). You can take them as of 1st level, but they don't give cohorts until 6th level. They also grant special bonuses with your followers and cohorts, and let you take special types of followers and cohorts like undead and constructs. I'd give it for free to any play in a single-character campaign.

In one 3.5 Spelljammer game I solo played (for 2 sessions), I was an Artificer/Rogue pirate with a crew of Constructs using the related Skilled Leadership feat. Good god that was awesome.

My only advice is the same as most people here: run a game designed for a single character. If I can add something, I'd advise that you reduce the cake-or-death scenarios to one or none in a given arc. Let the player be captured, only to plan a daring escape. Have the villain monologue. Go for cinematic action over slow story building. In my experience, characters develop best when in a group, while action is best suited for smaller groups (it's just faster!). Oh, and don't forget sending in the mooks every once in a while.

In summary, if you can make the game feel like something out of a James Bond movie, you're on the right path!