Hey guys, I'm a new DM and one of my party members (and best friend) who I drive to work with even day asked if during our car rides we could do our own little campaign for us each to practice. I love the idea, but he doesn't want to play two characters since he's still getting a hang of things (and would be the one driving) and I don't know about running multiple NPCs as full on party members while also trying to figure out the stories and all while I'm still so new to DM-ing, so I guess what I'm asking is if any of you have any advice on how to make a single player campaign not be too difficult for him to be able to defeat monsters?
There are adventures out there that cater to this. One that comes to mind is First Blush on DMs Guild if you are looking for ideas. Otherwise keep it simple, perhaps there's a master/student relationship. With the student having to complete some sort of trial or training. This way you can modify the difficulty as you figure things out.
Last time I ran a game for one player her character had a soldier background, so I added a party NPC as her subordinate and gave him a quiet personality. She wasn't explicitly running the second character, but most of the time his actions were determined by the orders she was giving. Between that and keeping him one level lower, he didn't overshadow her PC in either social or combat situations, but he added enough to dampen some of the risk in fights and provide some useful skills. The fact that he spent most of his time following instructions also made him less of a load for me to run.
Bear in mind too that you don't need to use a fully fleshed out character for this if you don't want to - you can quite reasonably grab a humanoid statblock that more or less fits what you want, and other NPCs can come and go as appropriate if you think it's useful.
You could just try to tune everything for a one character party, but it's a lot easier for a fight to go south unexpectedly that way.
There are adventures out there that cater to this. One that comes to mind is First Blush on DMs Guild if you are looking for ideas. Otherwise keep it simple, perhaps there's a master/student relationship. With the student having to complete some sort of trial or training. This way you can modify the difficulty as you figure things out.
I went and checked it out and it's perfect!!! Thank you
When your friend decides what kind of character they want to be, you will have an easier time tailoring combat. Every class has strengths and weakness in combat, so think about using monsters that the character will be able to be effective against. For example magic users and characters with ranged weapons will have an easier time against flying creatures, while melee focused might be in trouble.
Also think about adjusting the hit points of the monsters, as most often those HP totals are factored for a party of players and not a single damage dealer. And your monsters don't need to always fight to the death...if the fight is rough and you're worried about the next round of combat, the creature can back off and run away, or beg for mercy, or try to intimidate the character into standing down.
Hey guys, I'm a new DM and one of my party members (and best friend) who I drive to work with even day asked if during our car rides we could do our own little campaign for us each to practice. I love the idea, but he doesn't want to play two characters since he's still getting a hang of things (and would be the one driving) and I don't know about running multiple NPCs as full on party members while also trying to figure out the stories and all while I'm still so new to DM-ing, so I guess what I'm asking is if any of you have any advice on how to make a single player campaign not be too difficult for him to be able to defeat monsters?
There are adventures out there that cater to this. One that comes to mind is First Blush on DMs Guild if you are looking for ideas. Otherwise keep it simple, perhaps there's a master/student relationship. With the student having to complete some sort of trial or training. This way you can modify the difficulty as you figure things out.
Last time I ran a game for one player her character had a soldier background, so I added a party NPC as her subordinate and gave him a quiet personality. She wasn't explicitly running the second character, but most of the time his actions were determined by the orders she was giving. Between that and keeping him one level lower, he didn't overshadow her PC in either social or combat situations, but he added enough to dampen some of the risk in fights and provide some useful skills. The fact that he spent most of his time following instructions also made him less of a load for me to run.
Bear in mind too that you don't need to use a fully fleshed out character for this if you don't want to - you can quite reasonably grab a humanoid statblock that more or less fits what you want, and other NPCs can come and go as appropriate if you think it's useful.
You could just try to tune everything for a one character party, but it's a lot easier for a fight to go south unexpectedly that way.
I went and checked it out and it's perfect!!! Thank you
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InsiderWhen your friend decides what kind of character they want to be, you will have an easier time tailoring combat. Every class has strengths and weakness in combat, so think about using monsters that the character will be able to be effective against. For example magic users and characters with ranged weapons will have an easier time against flying creatures, while melee focused might be in trouble.
Also think about adjusting the hit points of the monsters, as most often those HP totals are factored for a party of players and not a single damage dealer. And your monsters don't need to always fight to the death...if the fight is rough and you're worried about the next round of combat, the creature can back off and run away, or beg for mercy, or try to intimidate the character into standing down.
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