Hey everyone. The gaming group I run with is pretty small, just the three of us in fact. While we are planning to add more players to the table eventually, but it still leaves some issues when running games in the meantime. So far we've been trading off who DM's and usually that DM will also run a PC that acts more like a NPC. We often run into the problem of the DM's PC becoming a background character and really only there as an additional body in combat to take/deal damage. Combat itself can also be tricky to balance as well. We end up having extremes of "too easy" or "we all almost died" regarding either creature strength, or number of creatures and it seems inconsistent as to what the reason is (Still trying to fine tune this aspect of the game). We as a party also end up taking a lot of long rests, which is understandable when we get tapped on resources and HP, but I cant help feeling that if we had more in our party that we wouldnt have the need for so many long rests. I'm not trying to make it sound like I'm complaining, I just want to make sure we aren't handicapping ourselves by missing something obvious or doing something stupid. So, I was wondering if anyone had any good tips or information about DMing for 2 PC's?
Try the sidekick rules from Tasha's. You can use them to help round out the party without overshadowing the PCs. Then if you do get more players, its pretty easy to sideline a sidekick.
And find one person to DM and stick with it for the whole campaign. Then you don't have the DM's character just kind of standing there, because there isn't one. It also helps because then any house rules are consistent from one session to the next. And if one DM makes a mistake, like giving away too many magic items, the others aren't stuck with the consequences.
Thanks Xalthu, I was planning on picking Tasha's in the near future, so I look forward to seeing what that is!
Quick clarification, we do actually just use one DM per campaign. We just run oneshots or short campaigns here and there so we can swap DM to player. For instance my buddy ran Mines of Phandelver and as we got about 3/4 the way through that, I started the Rick and Morty boxed set.
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Hey everyone. The gaming group I run with is pretty small, just the three of us in fact. While we are planning to add more players to the table eventually, but it still leaves some issues when running games in the meantime. So far we've been trading off who DM's and usually that DM will also run a PC that acts more like a NPC. We often run into the problem of the DM's PC becoming a background character and really only there as an additional body in combat to take/deal damage. Combat itself can also be tricky to balance as well. We end up having extremes of "too easy" or "we all almost died" regarding either creature strength, or number of creatures and it seems inconsistent as to what the reason is (Still trying to fine tune this aspect of the game). We as a party also end up taking a lot of long rests, which is understandable when we get tapped on resources and HP, but I cant help feeling that if we had more in our party that we wouldnt have the need for so many long rests. I'm not trying to make it sound like I'm complaining, I just want to make sure we aren't handicapping ourselves by missing something obvious or doing something stupid. So, I was wondering if anyone had any good tips or information about DMing for 2 PC's?
Try the sidekick rules from Tasha's. You can use them to help round out the party without overshadowing the PCs. Then if you do get more players, its pretty easy to sideline a sidekick.
And find one person to DM and stick with it for the whole campaign. Then you don't have the DM's character just kind of standing there, because there isn't one. It also helps because then any house rules are consistent from one session to the next. And if one DM makes a mistake, like giving away too many magic items, the others aren't stuck with the consequences.
Thanks Xalthu, I was planning on picking Tasha's in the near future, so I look forward to seeing what that is!
Quick clarification, we do actually just use one DM per campaign. We just run oneshots or short campaigns here and there so we can swap DM to player. For instance my buddy ran Mines of Phandelver and as we got about 3/4 the way through that, I started the Rick and Morty boxed set.