The Lone Wolf and the Small Team

[Jack7]

One thing I'd really like to see in 5th Edition would be some sort of system or design parameters for the creation of and how to handle Lone Adventures.

When my players want to play an adventure alone, or possibly with a small team, say one other player, instead of with a medium to large party I have a Vadding system in place for this.

But the game, generally, is not designed for this.

Nevertheless my players and I have had excellent, city, espionage/infiltration, ruin, wilderness, and even unusual dungeon adventures using Lone Adventurers, or Small Teams of between 2 and three players, each playing only a single character.

I'd like to see 5E take this on as either in a modular fashion, or maybe even have small section on how to best do this in the Core System. For instance, with a Lone wolf, of even high level one can hardly rely upon power or direct assault, and there is of course little to no backup. So one must rely upon stealth, guile, misdirection, magic, miracles, superb training, original thinking, creativity, and excellent preparation. These things must supercede normal team operations.


So, what ideas might you have for such situations or systems? To make D&D Lone Wolf compatible or freindly (at least in certain situations)?

 

[Aramax]

Im not sure I would have any use for this,having said this ,I think if there was a supplemnt for Lone or 2 player games ,I think I would buy it,Ive only ever ran 1 9 month solo game but that was in the Star Trek Universe
going from starfleet cadet to Honarary Klingon Admiral(its a long story)
Ive often toyed w/ the idea of a solo game in other systems but never went through w/ it.Im not sure how much interest there would be,maybe just a series of articles in the Dragon outlining some good princapals.

 

[mach1.9pants]

I'd love it too. I was part of a 7 or so player group at school for a year. After that, for the next 30 years, 90% of the time I have had 2 players so anything that worked towards that would be great.

 

[Jack7]

I certainly agree, that from my point of view, it wouldn't take anything like a separate book. Maybe a small module or section in the core book(s).

Just some basic parameters about how to run Lone Adventures and some good ideas about how to go about it.

I've also run some good solo adventures in my sci-fi, Star Trek games. Mainly espionage and infiltration.

In run a renegade Borg Cube, completely automated and machine, captured the Federation Battleship Napoleon. It infected the ship with components and an AI system which made the Napoleon much like itself.

It took control of the ship but retained the crew to study Federation species. It wouldn't let the crew leave or control the ship.

It then sent the Napoleon out on it's own to attack everyone and anything, including trying to start wars in the Alpha Quadrant by making others (Romulans, Lyrans, Kzinti, etc.) think the Federation was attacking them via the Napoleon.

Unable to ambush or stop the Napoleon in desperation the Federation designed a series of small Stealth ships to infiltrate any area they thought the Napoleon might be operating in order to try and disable, capture, or destroy it.

One crew member aboard the Napoleon kept trying to make secret contact with the Federation and to sabotage the Napoleon.

Another, an alien who was very good with AI systems was aboard one of the stealth craft, the Endeavour, in an attempt to track down and locate the Napoleon, which over time was changing and becoming ever more independent of the Machine-Borg control.

Both the tracker and the saboteur were played by single players and those were some really good and interesting missions.

In D&D most of my lone missions and adventures have involved sabotage, espionage, infiltration, and occasionally exploration of ruins and a couple of unusual dungeons. A lot also involve Vadding, and crime.

 

[Mark CMG]

My solution? Instead of tying advancement and adventures and even encounters to a strictly XP system based on conquest (or even overcoming obstacles or gathering wealth, etc.) that would require a certain party size, I've developed an "Event" based system that is more flexible with modification based on campaign parameters built right into the concept.

 

[Jack7]

Interesting Mark. Without disclosing proprietary details, can you elucidate a little?

I can see how this would be of advantage in advancement for Lone Operators.

 

[trancejeremy]

Early editions of D&D/AD&D solved this by having henchmen.

Granted, you have to make an effort to roleplay more than one character as individuals, rather than sort of a gestalt, especially henchmen. But it's not that hard to do.

Of course, as the game system grew more and more complex, this became harder to handle in terms of bookkeeping and the gaming aspect.

 

[Rechan]

I would like this to be taken into consideration as well. Although I've managed to do it with 4e.

 

[Stalker0]

I could definately see it for a splatbook, though I wouldn't want the core game balanced around it at all, because I think it is a smaller portion of the gaming groups out there. Most people play 3-6 people in a party, based on the polls they put out back int eh day.

 

[Jack7]

I could definately see it for a splatbook, though I wouldn't want the core game balanced around it at all, because I think it is a smaller portion of the gaming groups out there. Most people play 3-6 people in a party, based on the polls they put out back int eh day.

No, I wouldn't want to see the game built around it, but I would like to see it built into the game.

Early editions of D&D/AD&D solved this by having henchmen.

I think henchmen are very, very helpful to Lone Adventurers (as are friendly NPCs, hirelings, allies, etc) in certain situations.

In some situations they are your best shot at survival.