Best RPGs for Three Players?

Retreater · Jun 8, 2022

I'm finding myself in a situation where I have a group where it seems like there is always someone who has to miss the session. If it's not the guy with the new kid, it's the guy who travels for work all the time, or the guy who just got promoted to president of his company. It's important for us to get together and game when we can, but sometimes it's a month (or more) between times we can all get together. These are some of my oldest and closest friends, and cutting any of them out of the group in the hope of more play time is not an option. Since we live in different states, our only option is online.

We've tried online board games (Board Game Arena), but it doesn't really do the trick. Most of the time we just get together on Zoom for a chat even if we're missing some people- but it would be nice to have an RPG we could play as an option.

Can you suggest anything that matches some (or all) of these criteria...

1) A game that doesn't require specific party roles to function properly. [D&D and adjacent games require a lot of work if you're missing certain character classes.]
2) Something built for episodic, beer-and-pretzels play. [I'll lose them on deep mysteries.]
3) Works well on VTT (especially Foundry)

TheSword · Jun 8, 2022

The Witcher Board game is good for three players. As is Lords of Waterdeep the board game. Both are available on IPad.

Retreater · Jun 8, 2022

TheSword said:
The Witcher Board game is good for three players. As is Lords of Waterdeep the board game. Both are available on IPad.

Sorry. Realized the title was a little vague when I just wrote "games." Board games don't work for this group, unfortunately.

dragoner · Jun 8, 2022

Cepheus Engine has content devoted to Foundry

payn · Jun 8, 2022

You could go with D&D and do a west marches style sandbox. Short adventures that allow party composition to change between sessions based on availability.

I do get that D&D is tough for three due to its combat system. Traveller is pretty easy to run it doesn't have levels so combat wont change much during the life of the campaign and gameplay. Three Travellers also lends it self to ship combat pretty well. So, I think Traveller would be fine for this idea too; assuming sci-fi is an ok genre?

Call of Cthulhu works fine for three players. Each session could be a separate one shot or you could do an x-files type of thing to account for players coming and going. Horror is the obvious theme here.

I do think Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) is very flexible in genre type and play. Its obviously a step away from traditional TTRPG style so your players and GM style may not agree with this type of game. Though, I think it works well for a party of three.

Heroquest on tabletop sim could fit the bill. Though, I think you mentioned its was too difficult for you to use.

Campbell · Jun 8, 2022

Conan 2d20 would probably be a pretty good fit given those considerations. It has pulpy characters with pretty diverse skill sets. Great for episodic play. Pretty good foundry support. A fair deal of adventure content as well.

We played a year long game in its kissing cousin Infinity. It felt perfect with 3 players.

Mezuka · Jun 8, 2022

One thing I used to do with just 2 players is to give them 2 characters each. A main PC and a secondary PC that stayed in the background except when he is really needed. With AD&D we had Magic-User and Druid as main characters. Two fighters as secondary. Worked really well.

practicalm · Jun 8, 2022

James Bond 007 RPG works better with smaller groups. It can do larger groups but if you want to model the movies it works with 2-3 players better.

Traveller. Two players with a bunch of crew or just a 2 person scout ship.
Any SF RPG though might work as well

Superhero games work well with 2 players too.

hawkeyefan · Jun 8, 2022

I’d recommend most of the Year Zero games from Free League… Mutant Year Zero, Alien, Tales From the Loop, Vaesen (have no experience with this one myself).

The core mechanics are easy to grasp and simple to implement. You don’t need to have a VTT so you can just use Discord or Skype or whatever. The GM overhead is manageable on these games as well, so running them online, you can get by with having the book handy, or printing a few pages out as needed.

Most also don’t require party roles in order for the group to be effective.

Aldarc · Jun 8, 2022

Retreater said:
Can you suggest anything that matches some (or all) of these criteria...

1) A game that doesn't require specific party roles to function properly. [D&D and adjacent games require a lot of work if you're missing certain character classes.]
2) Something built for episodic, beer-and-pretzels play. [I'll lose them on deep mysteries.]
3) Works well on VTT (especially Foundry)

Index Card RPG