As a huge fan of "one gm & one player" gaming...
Aug 21, 2018 14:07:08 GMT -8
Post by HourEleven on Aug 21, 2018 14:07:08 GMT -8
Ok, so this started as an email to the show, then I realized it was much too long.
I’m an avid GM for “one gm & one player” tables. Single player games aren’t very popular, so I thought I’d share some of the benefits and some advice for those who might be interested. There’s not many cheerleaders for the one-on-one game, usually it’s seen just as the outcome of “not having enough players.” Well, I’m going to present my side as a GM who regularly runs single player games (and 2-4 player games just as often).
Downtime is good!
It can be exhausting for the gm and the player to be “on” for the whole session. Take those moments that would otherwise hinder full table games and make the most of them.
Look at those details instead of fast forwarding, those mundane things can add to immersion greatly and provide the player with extra control that would be murder to the pacing with a full table. Players shopping, describing their characters apartment, the things no one else at the table cares about, that can matter.
Spotlight sharing can still happen, but make sure the PC still has ownership of the action.
The character can’t be the center focus of triumph every second, they will need help sometimes (this ensures there’s more NPCs to interact with and complicate the story). But even when the NPC helper does something super cool, make sure the PC shares the triumph; they made the plan, they assisted in a way that lets them shine even if they weren’t the center of attention.
The PC should ALWAYS be involved or else it’s just GM masterbation.
Failures are good story!
At a full table, a characters failure or setback is generally a setback for everyone at the table. Too many of these can be detrimental to story momentum. This isn’t true with a single player. It’s a complication in the narrative that can be explored because the spotlight is on the failing character and their problems. It ceases to be a setback when it is the entirety of the narrative action in the moment. Broken characters and high drama work fantastically when the focus is on that complication and the complication is the story, not a setback to the larger story of everyone else.
Romance storylines are more possible and easy to incorporate.
Romance and love triangles involving a single character can derail the forward action of a large table. Everyone taking care of business and one player dealing with their love life issues is a major split in focus, action, and theme. With a single character, their emotional attachments are center stage. The story itself can follow those ups and downs without anyone being left out. We tend to skip past this major part of the human experience too much in games. How many books, movies, comics, etc do you see that have zero romantic or love based storylines? They can be an easy source of exciting drama, obstacles, and complication. Not to mention major character investment. There’s a reason people get so involved in fandoms and “shipping,” it’s fun and engages us on a different level than survival and action portions of a story do.
Some systems don’t mechanically support single player.
Don’t try and force it, most PBTA titles, for example, mechanically bind character interactions within the system (same with heist focused systems) and replacing the other characters with NPCs rarely works in systems where inter-party drama and assistance is mechanically essential to the game itself (monster hearts, dungeon world, etc). Work with a system that is friendly to single player action. Read the rules with an eye for mechanics that rely on PC to PC interaction and think honestly about if they are integral to the system at large or just tacked on.
Characters must have goals.
Even if it’s not a part of the system, have your player come up with short term and long term goals for the character and update them as they are accomplished or as the focus changes.
This helps you as a gm know the direction they want the story to drive and creates different milestones for progress.
With more personal and internal focused stories, the milestones might not be as clear as larger action epics, clear character goals keep the game looking forward and not meandering in circles (less players means less people driving the story, it’s important to keep forward momentum). Keep the goals front and center.
Embrace that you don’t need balance anymore.
House rules are dangerous because they can unbalance one character over another. It’s very easy to ruin a players fun if they feel their character has less value than another at the table. This isn’t a problem at all with a single player. If the players concept breaks balance completely but they think it’ll be fun, let them play a sorcerer with the fighters weapon and armor proficiencies and toss out the armor wearing penalties, what’s it matter? Charge to the frontline in full plate mail flinging fireballs. They won’t be stepping on any other players toes. Give them that crazy magic item, let them get away with that thing you normally wouldn’t, you can’t unbalance a game with a single player.
Combat has a different purpose.
In larger tables, combat serves multiple purposes, the most important being unification. It creates a struggle that is equally important to every character (survival and victory) and focuses them on the same goal with the same stakes (preventing tpk). All those disparate characters, with different goals and values, all become a single team when combat starts.
In a single player scenario you don’t need to unify in that way. Combat becomes just another type of threat. At a large table you don’t want to derail the momentum of a party by focusing too heavily on a personal struggle of a single character for too long, but in a single player game, that personal struggle can be just as epic as the unifying boss battle. Focus on those threats that would take the spot light to one person for too long in a large table game. Threats to their family, their lovers, economic threats, threats against personal security and safety; the smaller things that are huge and terrifying to the individual but not to a party.
Story over tactics.
Combats with a single player are not super tactical, especially battlemat style, it easily becomes a chess game where the gm controls all the pieces except one rook.
The strength is theatre-of-the-mind combat; again: because balance doesn’t really matter. Describe what’s happening, don’t worry about range and junk (these are important with groups because different characters shine under different circumstances and you want everyone to have their chance), let them describe what they are doing, let them add scenery to the fight. But most importantly, don’t ever have combat that is “one side wins when the other is out of hit points.” Have a purpose, a goal, in every fight. It’s not chess, it’s a story being told collaboratively between you and the player using dice to determine outcomes. Combat with one player is played out like an RP scene but with a few more dice rolls.
Give them more control than a traditional game allows.
That player at the full table that steals and hogs the spotlight, who creates whole new plot lines on their own that may or may not exclude other characters - that’s a problem with a group because it isn’t evenly sharing the fun, but in a single player game it actually IS just their story. Let them run in the direction they see the fun. Feel free to encourage the player to have more agency in the greater story if they want it. With two people telling the story, it’s a back and forth experience not a presentation of a situation for a group to interact with.
Tailor the game to the player
This is my favorite way to introduce a new player to the hobby. Ask them what kind of stories they like, their favorite books and movies, and make a game they can star in that is exactly the kind of story they want. Take advantage of the fact that you don’t have to balance game styles at the table to suit multiple players and the kind of fun each is looking for. It can be exactly the game they would run for themselves.
Thespian players get all the RP they can handle, combat monkeys get every kind of stabby, and everything in between.
Shorter sessions accomplish just as much story.
The amount of story told in a 4 or 5 hour session with a table of 4 or 5 players is equal to the amount of story played in about 2 hours with a single player. Without all those combat rounds and spotlight sharing, disagreements and down time, bathroom breaks and phones in hand.
A single player is fully engaged the whole time. Every moment is doing the work of the story.
I won’t say that one-on-one gaming is better (it’s not), it’s a completely different beast altogether. Some stories couldn’t be told as effectively at a full table, just as some stories couldn’t be told as effectively in a one-on-one game. They are practically different mediums (some stories fit movies better while some fit books, etc, etc) Both have their strengths, but I don’t think the single player game is given the credit it deserves for what it is capable of.