If you've read any fantasy books with a singular main character, there is a lot of useful stuff to mine and mimic; story focuses mostly on what the character cares about, a few friendly characters help out from time to time (I recommend giving such characters a monster-like stat-block rather than a full PC-style write-up, and letting the player handle the mechanical bits of what the character is up to even if you don't also let them portray the personality of the character), and the most of the bad guys would rather capture the character or even just assume they are dead without checking than actually go for the kill and make sure it worked.
Beyond that, I can only recommend keeping it light (don't plan too strictly or too much), let the player take the reigns as often as they want, and aim the difficulty of things so that it seems like it out to be really easy - because then when the dice inevitably betray the player, it only brings up the difficulty to a tough challenge rather than meaning sudden defeat.
As Sorce alluded to, there are some older "solo" adventures that TSR put out. Lathan's Gold was the first thing to came to mind but there are others. These were written to be played by just one person but were just as convenient to use as a DM with a solo player. There are some Dungeon Magazine indexes out there on the interweb, point your favourite search engine that direction and sort on "average party level" and you should see some with (SOLO) adjacent to the level number. There was a rogue solo adventure from the early years of Dungeon that was a splendid depiction of infiltrating an opposing thieves' guild.
As modern scenarios are written for a four PC party default, you could potentially reduce adversaries by half/three-quarters and see how that plays out and adjust as you go; it's easier to have one orc attack and others show up in later rounds if you want to up the challenge rather than explaining why three orcs run off as they're kicking butt on the PC.
Modules from 2nd edition called Head to Head Quest. They were published at the start of 90's and were designed for one to one playing (One DM and one player).
Also, remember one player doesn't mean that one character. You can let your player create 2-3 characters and play them at the same time.
I've run a few 2 people(DM/Player) campaigns and they turned out well. I make a few companion characters that augment the player or fill in missing skills and I rotate them in and out of the story, but I leave the player a few options if she wants to search out one of these NPC's to help her in a specific task or adventure or she can go it alone. Nudging the player toward some organization( Harpers, Thieves Guild, Merc Company, Zentarium) will help the player with resources and I found it a good way to pass off quests, missions, ideas to the player giving them options.
I try to make the player's adventure more like a novel but I let them guide where it goes.
I have started the player at 3rd level as well to help out some at lower levels. Just get an idea of what they want to progress as.
One Example is I had the player make their character normally, we started the campaign, the player ended up getting ambushed and knocked unconscious. She woke up in the back of a wagon, wounded, with new scars and new equipment and a small statue with a note attached to take to an arch mage in a far city and Level 3. Talking to her 'resucers' she realizes that 2 years have passed and she had no memory of what happened or how she got there, why she was wounded, and why people were looking for her, where the statue came from or even what it is.
Then as the player adventured I could offer hints of what happened during her 2 years and the player was invested in the hook because she wanted know what happened as well.
This http://geekandsundry.com/five-tips-for-dungeon-masters-with-small-player-groups-of-less-than-4/ has great tips for running smaller games! I'm also going to be running a smaller game, with two players. I'm having them each do the rolling for two characters, where one is their main character and the other is a follower who will simply do whatever that character decides on. I'm doing this because I, as DM, will be RPing for those follower characters and I don't want my advance knowledge of my plots to influence how the players interact with the world. You could do something like that, where the one player has hired a bunch of allies to adventure with them, but because they're hired by that PC they don't have any sway in the decisions. This allows them to run around adventuring without the need of other players. If others want to join the game, they can either take over for one of the followers who will then become greater friends with the PC and stops accepting payment for adventuring, or one of the followers could decide to sacrifice themselves for the PC and the group meets up with another daring adventurer who wants to see some action.
Or you could run a less combat-heavy game where it's about political intrigue and trying to influence this world on that kind of level.
I am also looking for ways of doing this, my regular group don't meet particularly regularly and I want to play something with my fiancé, although I'd also like to have a character in the game...
The number of CR 1/8 monsters that can attack the PC at once should never exceed the PC's level. Ever.
Unless, you augment the 4e minion rules, and make 1hp monsters that deal very low damage. I would also recommend giving them actions that aren't just straight damage, maybe they are trying to power up a machine, or cast a ritual?
I just played an hour and half mini one shot dungeon delve type game with my GF last night, she has never played before. I started her at 3rd level and gave her an extra CHA skill of her choice to help her in roleplaying situations. She was able to tackle 2 1/8s and a 1/4 at the same time and it still felt like an intense battle. Also I found that if you need to just flub the numbers in combat its not a big deal, its more fun if the PC doesn't die lol.
I ran a number of solo campaigns in the past. I found them a great way to create campaign and adventures that are not normally atypical. For example I ran a campaign about an assassin. This worked beautifully because he played an evil character (not something that usually works in a cohesive group), their wasn't a lot of hand to hand combat (lots of sneaking around, breaking in, poisoning, using a crossbow from a distance etc) and I could really mold the adventure to suit whatever whim or interest the player had. There was far more innovation and creating as I went because of this but it made for a far greater collaborate approach to the game rather than just me directing the story.
Another solo campaign I ran was with a pirate character which worked for similar reason as above and yet another was a character I played who was a Swashbuckler who had an arch nemesis. Fun games. The biggest problem is when combat occurs because if the character goes down there is no one to take up the slack and save them. One possible solution to that is for the character to have a 'side kick' NPC, animal companion (or powerful familiar), an intelligent magical item or a means to heal/escape if they are in dire straits. Bit of a cheat but otherwise you have to wrap your encounters in cotton wool to save your adventure from an early demise with a couple of lucky (or unlucky for them) dice rolls.
I've run a few 2 people(DM/Player) campaigns and they turned out well. I make a few companion characters that augment the player or fill in missing skills and I rotate them in and out of the story, but I leave the player a few options if she wants to search out one of these NPC's to help her in a specific task or adventure or she can go it alone. Nudging the player toward some organization( Harpers, Thieves Guild, Merc Company, Zentarium) will help the player with resources and I found it a good way to pass off quests, missions, ideas to the player giving them options.
I try to make the player's adventure more like a novel but I let them guide where it goes.
I have started the player at 3rd level as well to help out some at lower levels. Just get an idea of what they want to progress as.
One Example is I had the player make their character normally, we started the campaign, the player ended up getting ambushed and knocked unconscious. She woke up in the back of a wagon, wounded, with new scars and new equipment and a small statue with a note attached to take to an arch mage in a far city and Level 3. Talking to her 'resucers' she realizes that 2 years have passed and she had no memory of what happened or how she got there, why she was wounded, and why people were looking for her, where the statue came from or even what it is.
Then as the player adventured I could offer hints of what happened during her 2 years and the player was invested in the hook because she wanted know what happened as well.
What class is the player? I do not know yet so I'm gonna use a few classes that I have an idea for.
NOTE: I use a rule in my home game where I have 2 players that they get max health at level 1-3. And depending on their HD they may reroll certain numbers. Such as a d8. You can reroll 1-3 if your con is not like a +4 of course. Then it's just 1-2. So give him max health for say. 5 or 6 levels. You might think it OP but once again, if he is alone, two enemies can VERY easily gain advantage on him. Swashbucklers will always have sneak attack on him too, so max health for a good while is going to help keep him somewhat alive! ^^
Barbarian: Well, if he is a tribe barbarian you could have him exiled, forced to wander the lands forbidden by his tribe.
Ranger: Give him a pet. He protects the forest as a bounty hunter/guardian from the evil or the unnatural shit. You know, everything marked "Aberration". ^^
Rogue: Assassin or thief. Contracts are a good way to play it out. But can get boring very quickly. He could be hired as a dungeon delver. Picking locks and traps. And when caught stealing (or killing) he can make a run for it. Into a different part of the city or a totally new one. Waterdeep is so large that he would be able to run to different parts of it almost everyday! ^^
Bard: Probably one of the easier ones. He travels around, telling stories, playing music in taverns etc. He is hired by other adventurers and doing what any NPC bard would do. As they both have magic and very well can fight with an 18 dex and a rapier, if he gets a hand X-bow and perhaps takes college of swords he is gonna be a dangerous foe, trust me! And if he takes the crossbow expert feat well good luck only using single enemies! xD
Monk: I dunno. Probably on the run from his monk stuff. Or he is sent out into the large world to do whatever the ****.
Sorcerer: I dunno. Probably any of the above.
Wizard: A sage/wizardy lass who searches for arcane power and knowledge of forgotten shit.
Warlock: I dunno. Something about probably him not knowing wtf to do with his new found power and then ending up searching for his patron! ^^
Paladin: HE IS ON A HOLY QUEST, GIVEN TO HIM BY A CELESTIAL GUY OF HMMM THOSE ARMS! HE MUST CLEANSE THE LIGHT, UP HOLD THE LIGHT, SLAY THE EVIL, IN A PEACEFUL MANNER! Or he is an oathbreaker, because he made the worst choice of his life and went devotion or redemption paladin.
Fighter: Any of the above. Or perhaps he is a gladiator. Having to fight for his freedom!
And finally.
DA DRUID: He is on a quest to rid the world of the druidic law of now being able to wear metal armor and being able to use other weapons than the shittiest ones!
Play up the divine domain aspect. The cleric is going around trying to help people become more devout followers of (X God) through service. In essence a missionary, sometimes the best way to help people become more devout is to help them where your expertise is greatest. As such, adventurers seek out the cleric because of his general knowledge/arcane knowledge/ knowledge of the grave/ death/ nature/ the forge etc. If not a life domain cleric, the fact that he can throw some heals around is a bonus, but not the main reason that he's sought out. Additionally, he could have an apprentice who goes with him trying to learn all that they can. Figure out why people come to him and craft a story around that.
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Hey guys, I'm looking for tips on running games with a single player. Also, if you have any adventures that you'd recommend that'd be fabulous!
If you're curious which books I have: PHB,MM,DMG,VGtM and PotA. I also have access and like using DMsGuild.
If you love a character, you give them pain, ruin their lives, make them suffer. Maybe even throw in a heroic death.
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D&D Beyond FoundersDo you mean a game with two people: One DM and one player?
Or solo gaming where the module contains specific rules and you're playing the part of DM and player at the same time?
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Two people =) apologies for being unclear
If you love a character, you give them pain, ruin their lives, make them suffer. Maybe even throw in a heroic death.
Some of the older 2nd Edition stuff had things for solo play - and off memory Dungeon mag had some that were designed for smaller parties.
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If you've read any fantasy books with a singular main character, there is a lot of useful stuff to mine and mimic; story focuses mostly on what the character cares about, a few friendly characters help out from time to time (I recommend giving such characters a monster-like stat-block rather than a full PC-style write-up, and letting the player handle the mechanical bits of what the character is up to even if you don't also let them portray the personality of the character), and the most of the bad guys would rather capture the character or even just assume they are dead without checking than actually go for the kill and make sure it worked.
Beyond that, I can only recommend keeping it light (don't plan too strictly or too much), let the player take the reigns as often as they want, and aim the difficulty of things so that it seems like it out to be really easy - because then when the dice inevitably betray the player, it only brings up the difficulty to a tough challenge rather than meaning sudden defeat.
Aaron's advice is on point!
As Sorce alluded to, there are some older "solo" adventures that TSR put out. Lathan's Gold was the first thing to came to mind but there are others. These were written to be played by just one person but were just as convenient to use as a DM with a solo player. There are some Dungeon Magazine indexes out there on the interweb, point your favourite search engine that direction and sort on "average party level" and you should see some with (SOLO) adjacent to the level number. There was a rogue solo adventure from the early years of Dungeon that was a splendid depiction of infiltrating an opposing thieves' guild.
As modern scenarios are written for a four PC party default, you could potentially reduce adversaries by half/three-quarters and see how that plays out and adjust as you go; it's easier to have one orc attack and others show up in later rounds if you want to up the challenge rather than explaining why three orcs run off as they're kicking butt on the PC.
We all leave footprints in the sands of time.
Modules from 2nd edition called Head to Head Quest. They were published at the start of 90's and were designed for one to one playing (One DM and one player).
Also, remember one player doesn't mean that one character. You can let your player create 2-3 characters and play them at the same time.
Thanks guys!
If you love a character, you give them pain, ruin their lives, make them suffer. Maybe even throw in a heroic death.
I've run a few 2 people(DM/Player) campaigns and they turned out well. I make a few companion characters that augment the player or fill in missing skills and I rotate them in and out of the story, but I leave the player a few options if she wants to search out one of these NPC's to help her in a specific task or adventure or she can go it alone. Nudging the player toward some organization( Harpers, Thieves Guild, Merc Company, Zentarium) will help the player with resources and I found it a good way to pass off quests, missions, ideas to the player giving them options.
I try to make the player's adventure more like a novel but I let them guide where it goes.
I have started the player at 3rd level as well to help out some at lower levels. Just get an idea of what they want to progress as.
One Example is I had the player make their character normally, we started the campaign, the player ended up getting ambushed and knocked unconscious. She woke up in the back of a wagon, wounded, with new scars and new equipment and a small statue with a note attached to take to an arch mage in a far city and Level 3. Talking to her 'resucers' she realizes that 2 years have passed and she had no memory of what happened or how she got there, why she was wounded, and why people were looking for her, where the statue came from or even what it is.
Then as the player adventured I could offer hints of what happened during her 2 years and the player was invested in the hook because she wanted know what happened as well.
The number of CR 1/8 monsters that can attack the PC at once should never exceed the PC's level. Ever.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
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This http://geekandsundry.com/five-tips-for-dungeon-masters-with-small-player-groups-of-less-than-4/ has great tips for running smaller games! I'm also going to be running a smaller game, with two players. I'm having them each do the rolling for two characters, where one is their main character and the other is a follower who will simply do whatever that character decides on. I'm doing this because I, as DM, will be RPing for those follower characters and I don't want my advance knowledge of my plots to influence how the players interact with the world. You could do something like that, where the one player has hired a bunch of allies to adventure with them, but because they're hired by that PC they don't have any sway in the decisions. This allows them to run around adventuring without the need of other players. If others want to join the game, they can either take over for one of the followers who will then become greater friends with the PC and stops accepting payment for adventuring, or one of the followers could decide to sacrifice themselves for the PC and the group meets up with another daring adventurer who wants to see some action.
Or you could run a less combat-heavy game where it's about political intrigue and trying to influence this world on that kind of level.
I am also looking for ways of doing this, my regular group don't meet particularly regularly and I want to play something with my fiancé, although I'd also like to have a character in the game...
I just played an hour and half mini one shot dungeon delve type game with my GF last night, she has never played before. I started her at 3rd level and gave her an extra CHA skill of her choice to help her in roleplaying situations. She was able to tackle 2 1/8s and a 1/4 at the same time and it still felt like an intense battle. Also I found that if you need to just flub the numbers in combat its not a big deal, its more fun if the PC doesn't die lol.
I ran a number of solo campaigns in the past. I found them a great way to create campaign and adventures that are not normally atypical. For example I ran a campaign about an assassin. This worked beautifully because he played an evil character (not something that usually works in a cohesive group), their wasn't a lot of hand to hand combat (lots of sneaking around, breaking in, poisoning, using a crossbow from a distance etc) and I could really mold the adventure to suit whatever whim or interest the player had. There was far more innovation and creating as I went because of this but it made for a far greater collaborate approach to the game rather than just me directing the story.
Another solo campaign I ran was with a pirate character which worked for similar reason as above and yet another was a character I played who was a Swashbuckler who had an arch nemesis. Fun games. The biggest problem is when combat occurs because if the character goes down there is no one to take up the slack and save them. One possible solution to that is for the character to have a 'side kick' NPC, animal companion (or powerful familiar), an intelligent magical item or a means to heal/escape if they are in dire straits. Bit of a cheat but otherwise you have to wrap your encounters in cotton wool to save your adventure from an early demise with a couple of lucky (or unlucky for them) dice rolls.
https://koboldpress.com/howling-tower-cardtography/ This is by far the best one player method for random dungeons that you discover as you play.
What class is the player? I do not know yet so I'm gonna use a few classes that I have an idea for.
NOTE: I use a rule in my home game where I have 2 players that they get max health at level 1-3. And depending on their HD they may reroll certain numbers. Such as a d8. You can reroll 1-3 if your con is not like a +4 of course. Then it's just 1-2. So give him max health for say. 5 or 6 levels. You might think it OP but once again, if he is alone, two enemies can VERY easily gain advantage on him. Swashbucklers will always have sneak attack on him too, so max health for a good while is going to help keep him somewhat alive! ^^
Barbarian: Well, if he is a tribe barbarian you could have him exiled, forced to wander the lands forbidden by his tribe.
Ranger: Give him a pet. He protects the forest as a bounty hunter/guardian from the evil or the unnatural shit. You know, everything marked "Aberration". ^^
Rogue: Assassin or thief. Contracts are a good way to play it out. But can get boring very quickly. He could be hired as a dungeon delver. Picking locks and traps. And when caught stealing (or killing) he can make a run for it. Into a different part of the city or a totally new one. Waterdeep is so large that he would be able to run to different parts of it almost everyday! ^^
Bard: Probably one of the easier ones. He travels around, telling stories, playing music in taverns etc. He is hired by other adventurers and doing what any NPC bard would do. As they both have magic and very well can fight with an 18 dex and a rapier, if he gets a hand X-bow and perhaps takes college of swords he is gonna be a dangerous foe, trust me! And if he takes the crossbow expert feat well good luck only using single enemies! xD
Monk: I dunno. Probably on the run from his monk stuff. Or he is sent out into the large world to do whatever the ****.
Sorcerer: I dunno. Probably any of the above.
Wizard: A sage/wizardy lass who searches for arcane power and knowledge of forgotten shit.
Warlock: I dunno. Something about probably him not knowing wtf to do with his new found power and then ending up searching for his patron! ^^
Paladin: HE IS ON A HOLY QUEST, GIVEN TO HIM BY A CELESTIAL GUY OF HMMM THOSE ARMS! HE MUST CLEANSE THE LIGHT, UP HOLD THE LIGHT, SLAY THE EVIL, IN A PEACEFUL MANNER! Or he is an oathbreaker, because he made the worst choice of his life and went devotion or redemption paladin.
Fighter: Any of the above. Or perhaps he is a gladiator. Having to fight for his freedom!
And finally.
DA DRUID: He is on a quest to rid the world of the druidic law of now being able to wear metal armor and being able to use other weapons than the shittiest ones!
Or perhaps he is the villain! I dunno.
Anyway! Good luck.
Hilarious...I came to this thread looking for help running solo for my husband playing a cleric and of course that's the one you skipped. XD
Play up the divine domain aspect. The cleric is going around trying to help people become more devout followers of (X God) through service. In essence a missionary, sometimes the best way to help people become more devout is to help them where your expertise is greatest. As such, adventurers seek out the cleric because of his general knowledge/arcane knowledge/ knowledge of the grave/ death/ nature/ the forge etc. If not a life domain cleric, the fact that he can throw some heals around is a bonus, but not the main reason that he's sought out. Additionally, he could have an apprentice who goes with him trying to learn all that they can. Figure out why people come to him and craft a story around that.