(TL;DR) I need help planning a one on one campaign with my friend.
I have been Dm'ing for my friends from high school over Roll20 when we are all at college. The online format was tiring for me (a story for another day), and I asked one of my players, who had DM'd before and done a great job, if he would take over for the summer so I could prepare some material for the next school year. We then went through the process of asking, "Why would my character leave and go do something else?" We came up with his old grave-robbing teacher (my player was a grave-robbing rouge) sent him a letter about something big. My player was wanting to transition his character from simple grave robbing to full on treasure hunting and dungeon delving after the party explored a Dwarven ruined city. He would go off and explore this new opportunity.
We were gonna wave our hands and say, "he leveled throughout this adventure to be equal to what ever the party ends at", and call it a day. But I got the great idea from watching the campaign dairies of the legendary Matt Colville of doing a one on one campaign with him. I have looked around at a few online forums (mainly here https://www.rpg.net/columns/list-column.phtml?colname=duets) about how do this properly. I had the idea of him trying to go around and gain resources to start his own treasure hunting business. Does anyone have any suggestions or pointers for me? Do I include NPC party members so I can create more difficult challenges? Or do I design dungeons around just him?
I have a lot of fun designing one man dungeons. For rogues it's a lot of fun because they are always searching for the traps. Make dungeons where the rogue can spring traps or use terrain to distract/kill the enemies without actually engaging them. Rogues are not face to face attackers. Make a dungeon that would punish him for walking in and trying to backstab when there are five other enemies there. If he can get past the enemy party with stealth or intrigue, that's worth as much xp as killing them all.
Focus on the rogue being a puckish rogue. Make actual combat secondary.
Ive done 4 solo campaigns now and they are my favorite. Ask a bit about the characters and make a sweeping narrative thats personal. Bring in an NPC from his past that can help him connect with who he was while also filling a role. With a solo campaign you can also create rewardd that are deeply personal. My dwarven cleric just inherited a 1000 year old mace that can only be weilded by one with his heritage. My rogue discovered the father he thought dead is still alive, and in pursuit nabbed his cloak. These adventures are so rewarding to make and play with your PC's.
Here's something I have done recently. I have a game every other weekend, and an opportunity for a solo quest arose, that I know the rest of the party would not be keen on doing, because it was Paladin-centric. So I created small solo quests for each of my party members that I ran with them slowly online over the course of the weeks between sessions. This was pretty difficult, as some characters have different focuses that fit into the campaign differently, but I was able to pull it off. Though, with five players, I found myself overstretched throughout the weeks. Each of the players loved it, because they only interacted with me, while I was simultaneously interacting with each of the players.
It is important to note: none of the players' "side quests" would come close to interacting with each other, because that was the point.
I had a ranger trying to catch twig blights from three separate forests and bring them back to town alive, I had a fighter trying to hunt down a powerful undead creature in ruins (Spawn of Kyuss), I had a paladin trying to save a disciple of bahamut when she was trapped, and had her last surviving child with her (turned out to be a bronze dragon with an egg), a Ranger facing down a vampire spawn for a horde of silver, and a wizard with alzheimer's searching the ruins of the city for the bakery he thinks he used to like...
I've done it for a character that missed a session and wanted to still have something meaningful have happened to them. We made it quick and left a lot of the drama to the wayside in favor of getting back to the main quest, but some pretty important points came up and it made me consider how i'd run a full 1 on 1 campaign. The coolest thing about it is you can plan super well for one person with one goal and throw a lot of cinematic flair into it as opposed to catering to a big group. Making it centered on them and maybe a handful of important NPC'S really makes it seem more cinema, and the story can be laid out in that fashion. I'd love to try something like that someday just to see if it's what I envision it.
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#OpenDnD. #DnDBegone
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Hello,
(TL;DR) I need help planning a one on one campaign with my friend.
I have been Dm'ing for my friends from high school over Roll20 when we are all at college. The online format was tiring for me (a story for another day), and I asked one of my players, who had DM'd before and done a great job, if he would take over for the summer so I could prepare some material for the next school year. We then went through the process of asking, "Why would my character leave and go do something else?" We came up with his old grave-robbing teacher (my player was a grave-robbing rouge) sent him a letter about something big. My player was wanting to transition his character from simple grave robbing to full on treasure hunting and dungeon delving after the party explored a Dwarven ruined city. He would go off and explore this new opportunity.
We were gonna wave our hands and say, "he leveled throughout this adventure to be equal to what ever the party ends at", and call it a day. But I got the great idea from watching the campaign dairies of the legendary Matt Colville of doing a one on one campaign with him. I have looked around at a few online forums (mainly here https://www.rpg.net/columns/list-column.phtml?colname=duets) about how do this properly. I had the idea of him trying to go around and gain resources to start his own treasure hunting business. Does anyone have any suggestions or pointers for me? Do I include NPC party members so I can create more difficult challenges? Or do I design dungeons around just him?
Thanks a lot D&D beyond forums!
Cleric enthusiast
I have a lot of fun designing one man dungeons. For rogues it's a lot of fun because they are always searching for the traps. Make dungeons where the rogue can spring traps or use terrain to distract/kill the enemies without actually engaging them. Rogues are not face to face attackers. Make a dungeon that would punish him for walking in and trying to backstab when there are five other enemies there. If he can get past the enemy party with stealth or intrigue, that's worth as much xp as killing them all.
Focus on the rogue being a puckish rogue. Make actual combat secondary.
it could be worse, you could be on fire.
Ive done 4 solo campaigns now and they are my favorite. Ask a bit about the characters and make a sweeping narrative thats personal. Bring in an NPC from his past that can help him connect with who he was while also filling a role. With a solo campaign you can also create rewardd that are deeply personal. My dwarven cleric just inherited a 1000 year old mace that can only be weilded by one with his heritage. My rogue discovered the father he thought dead is still alive, and in pursuit nabbed his cloak. These adventures are so rewarding to make and play with your PC's.
Here's something I have done recently. I have a game every other weekend, and an opportunity for a solo quest arose, that I know the rest of the party would not be keen on doing, because it was Paladin-centric. So I created small solo quests for each of my party members that I ran with them slowly online over the course of the weeks between sessions. This was pretty difficult, as some characters have different focuses that fit into the campaign differently, but I was able to pull it off. Though, with five players, I found myself overstretched throughout the weeks. Each of the players loved it, because they only interacted with me, while I was simultaneously interacting with each of the players.
It is important to note: none of the players' "side quests" would come close to interacting with each other, because that was the point.
I had a ranger trying to catch twig blights from three separate forests and bring them back to town alive, I had a fighter trying to hunt down a powerful undead creature in ruins (Spawn of Kyuss), I had a paladin trying to save a disciple of bahamut when she was trapped, and had her last surviving child with her (turned out to be a bronze dragon with an egg), a Ranger facing down a vampire spawn for a horde of silver, and a wizard with alzheimer's searching the ruins of the city for the bakery he thinks he used to like...
it could be worse, you could be on fire.
I've done it for a character that missed a session and wanted to still have something meaningful have happened to them. We made it quick and left a lot of the drama to the wayside in favor of getting back to the main quest, but some pretty important points came up and it made me consider how i'd run a full 1 on 1 campaign. The coolest thing about it is you can plan super well for one person with one goal and throw a lot of cinematic flair into it as opposed to catering to a big group. Making it centered on them and maybe a handful of important NPC'S really makes it seem more cinema, and the story can be laid out in that fashion. I'd love to try something like that someday just to see if it's what I envision it.
#OpenDnD. #DnDBegone