Have you ever tried a "solo adventure" - just one GM and one player...

Have you ever tried a "solo adventure" - just one GM and one player? Has it always failed or have you ever been involved in a fun one? What can make solo games work?

A dedicated game for two people for example.

Been in several. Finished most of them.

They work better than larger groups because you can play more often and are less likely to get flakes.

There's that. I have a hard time running them because most players aren't 100% reliable, they can move faster, and I'm less good at the slice of life nonsense that will inevitable creep in when you're focusing on one character to such degree.
Also they're often in need of custom balancing because they fuck with action economies something fierce.

I ran a campaign for my wife...

...but it was sort of foreplay as well, so...

My wife and I do it sometimes, we actually just tried out 5th edition DnD with her DMing and me playing after a long time of us not playing together and before I start a campaign for a couple friends as an intro into the hobby.
It was nice, fun, I played a rogue who only killed a couple giant rats in a sewer and mostly focused on heists. After mostly playing nothing but All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Dark Heresy, Pathfinder and AdEva for the last few years, it was nice.

I like Stitches he's a pretty okay rapper

Honestly, I used a few solo adventures to lead the players into the campaign itself.

It's very fun.
Practically interrogative, and you get to see the player act out everything. At a table, there's a lot of noise and loss of detail, as well as coercion to play differently.

It honestly feels too intimate. If I'm going to play patty cake with someone I'd rather it be a girl.

If you're doing 1 player 1 GM with a long-term friend, that intimacy problem isn't really there.

It also helps that you can know your audience incredibly well and give them exactly what they want.

Actually, longest running campaign I ever did was one of these. I was from a small town and there weren't internet options back then, so my options were limited.

It works out, though there are some inherent difficulties—unless they're playing multiple characters, them falling unconscious means the end of player agency. If they survive, it's on your whim and they know it. This can make it hard to avoid pulling your punches. For that reason, if you believe your player to be capable of it, you should try to get them to play at least two characters. That way fights have more of a range of possible outcomes than Win or TPK.

I did one. It wasn't super amazing, but it worked and was fun, and I played it out to the end. About the only thing that structurally was different about it is that the campaign was very much customized to my tastes personally, which was nice, but in a way was also a bit weird, it was too perfect, if you know what I mean.

>it was too perfect, if you know what I mean
Your GM was a creepy stalker?

I've ran one-on-one sessions and they've worked well, either when players couldn't make it or as a side story. Never ran a whole one-on-one campaign but I'd be willing to try with a player I knew.

As an aside, I figure I'll take advantage of this thread to ask instead of making a new one:

Has anyone ever ran a game for a couple? How'd that go? I've been asked to run a game for a friend and his fiancee, both have played before in my campaigns, but my gut tells me this might not be such a good idea.

>If they survive, it's on your whim and they know it.
It's not as if that problem doesn't inherently exist in multi-player setups either. The problem there is getting an appropriate GM-Player relationship going.

I adore running one-person games. I never use an actual system for them though. It's all bookless, diceless. Pic related, it's the art I used for a Jason Bourne style campaign where the PC woke up in Siberia with a concussion, a crashed helicopter, no memories, and mysterious assassins after them. It was pretty great.

I dm pathfinder games for my wife. I'll have a healbot tank Npc and she gestalts something. We've done rise of the runelords and just finished mummy's mask. About to start skull and shackles.

If they dm knows what they're doing, it's easy. We have lots of fun and it's great that we don't have to coordinate times an dates and shit with unreliable players

Yes, but only ERP campaigns

They're great.

I've done plenty. I used to do it for each character's prologue, or to just catch a player up to speed after hiatus. However the most fun I usually had with one on one sessions was with a girl I dated for a long time. They were fun, cute little adventures that helped me world build and often led to weird roleplay sex.

>Has anyone ever ran a game for a couple? How'd that go?

I did. My sister and her husband, in fact. It was just after Christmas, and they both were gifted the 5e core books, so they were eager to give it a shot. I ran a one-off game and they enjoyed the adventure. So, it is very possible.

No, there was absolutely nothing perverted going on. Just good old fashioned violence.

My friend once did a very long campaign, actually divided into three normal length campaigns, for me and two or three of our other friends. In the third part the characters ware already well established, experienced some shit, had some stories to tell. Also both the players and the gm knew them very well. Then, in an important moment for the story, he did a solo session (I am specificaly avoiding the word adventure) for all or most of us, I don't remember. Those ware really good, had great atmosphere, established our characters even better. Good times.

Other that that, no, solo adventures I took part in with different gms ware always strange and rather awkward experiences. Mainly due to constant attention put on a single person.

It's literally the entire point of the game Scarlet Heroes.

>we don't have to coordinate times an dates and shit with unreliable players

Easily one of the selling points for me
(although I've gotten more reliable players recently for a "real" game)

Closest I've done is a game with one GM and two players (I was one of the players). I felt it worked since I and the other player were good at bouncing off each other, but I don't know about a solo adventure. At minimum I think it would require a specific type of player, one that's typically very active in shaping a game's narrative within a group. If they're normally a passive player who lets others decide things for the group without their input I imagine the game would fall apart quickly.

I learned to Table Top while playing with a DM that also played a character in the game. I know it seems like it would be lame but it wasnt. He let me make all decisions/mistakes never tried to alter the story line to save either of us, but he always had a way to pivot the story or steer it if he wanted to. He also wasnt a vengful bastard either, so if I did something he wasnt expecting or an NPC died that wasnt supposed to he never held it against me in game. Good Times, I would say its all about the DM and the Player involved

It was fun at first for me, until GM turned campaign into overpowered party of GMPCs fighting overpowered villains

lol yes, been there.

It's much easier and more personal, it can be tailor made for the character and really good fun if you want to really get into playing a role.

sounds like you're halfway to Narnia...

>It's all bookless, diceless
Gross

Does blowing your GM under the table count as a solo adventure?

me and a friend have been doing one for a few months. Homebrew collaborative setting, and a homebrew system I made. going great. really helps get into the game and delve into some of the stuff other players may find boring. scheduling's easier as well
10/10 would play a gun wielding kobold again

yes

It was great.

My DM and I were stuck working in Texas, and rain and wind shut us down. So we had 3 weeks, where we basically had nothing to do, other than sit in the motel room and wait on the weather.

We started a solo game. I can honestly say it was the best game I've even played in.

Yeah, it was a one-shot so my friend could practice his DMing

Events of the story proceeded as follows
>My Dwarf Cleric, Guy Something-or-other, is a cleric of the god of soldiers, who is a pacifist god and whose priests go to battlefields to provide "moral and spiritual support to the soldiers there."
>GM and I joke that "moral support" in context sounds a hell of a lot like gay sex.
>Fuck it, I'll make my manly Dwarf a flaming homosexual.

>Campaign starts. Wake up hungover in a bloodstained inn-room. Guards arrive shortly.
>I get accused of killing a hooker.
>"that's bullshit, I dindu nuffin. She must still be alive somewhere."
>I call the hooker's father an asshole and a terrible father to his face.
>got beaten unconscious by the hooker's father.
>Did I mention that the hooker's father was also the chief constable of the town? Because he was.
>Asshole constable-dad throws me in prison.
>I call my cell mate an asshole and effeminate to his face.
>In my defence, his name was Lawrence. What kind of man has a name like Lawrence?
>Lawrence tells me that he's the world's greatest thief. He's just in prison on purpose, and he'll totally be breaking out tomorrow. Totally.
>Call him out on his bullshit. Offer to pay him to bust me out also if he's so good.
>He says he'll break me out and help me with my problems if I give him a favor.
>He actually manages to unlock the gate and sneak me through the dungeons without tripping the guards.
>Return to the scene of the crime.
>Searching for clues, Lawrence finds tracks.
>Lawrence and I follow the tracks to the woods at the edge of town, find a bunch of cultists doing some spooky shit with what looks to be the captured hooker
>I rush in to kill the cultists while Lawrence makes himself scarce
>Save the girl, clear my name, live happily ever after
>Wait, I still owe a favour to Lawrence
>Turns out he's actually a Loki-esque god of thieves in disguise
>He's upset I made fun of him, and I owe this fag a favour
>Fuck

What is that picture?
It made me curious.

A mask made to look as unsettling and horrific as possible.

Okay. From where? What was it used for?
Who made it? Does it suffer from time dilation?

I'd start with a reverse image search and go from there.

most of the D&D Ive ever played has been one DM one player, and it works just fine

>"Stitches"
>BTFO by the Game
nigga you gay

This whole thread is gay