Hey /tg/ I'm planning on running a campaign with just 2 people. Does anyone know any good systems that work with just a GM and one player?
>>48331063
Just toss the game aside and fuck. It's much more fun and much easier logistically.
>>48331063
Sex
>>48331063
Failing that, shitty wizard thread
>>48331091
>>48331090
Ayyyy. Mah compatriot of African descent.
>>48331091
>>48331090
I appreciate the advice, but we're two brothers and not all that interested
>>48331148
>Two brothers
>Not all that interested
>>48331148
>I appreciate the advice, but I'm his onii-san and i-it'd be wrong to hold his tender body. W-we're both boys, after all...
FTFYInstead of an RPG, why not a nice board game?
>New York 1901
Complex, strategic, but kinda pricey.
>Dr. Eureka
Very high-energy.
>Abalone
>Quarto
If you like simple but elegant strategy games.
>Nefarious
The Twists are what make it great--every game is a little different.
I would say most systems that don't revolve around giving powerlevels to encounters will work fine. The reason being that these power levels are balanced toward a certain group of characters and also focused on combat, meaning you're gonna have to put in more work to balance it.
Yep I've done it in D&D 3.5 with my dad. He plays two characters, a dragon shaman / rogue and a druid / wizard that will soon be an arcane hierophant, I run a DMPC cleric who mostly heal-bots and does buffs and saves his big spells for when they are really needed.
In our other 3.5 campaign that involves my younger brother, we had one point where my brothers characters split off from my dads characters and they went on their own adventures for a while before eventually rejoining.
That campaign's been going for 8 years now, I did super-slow XP gain (like 1/4th normal) so they are only 10th level. It will probably wrap up in the next couple of years.
So to answer your question, yes, it works well. It feels a bit awkward and quiet with just two players but it's fun. Family is the most accessible when it comes to players, and since we all live together there is very little off-topic chatter.
>>48331091
>>48331090
Pretty gay to be honest.
>>48331148
Yeah I also did a 1 on 1 zombie survival campaign with my brother, his character was a butcher who killed zombies with a meat cleaver, had a few NPCs one of whom was a hot college student he fucc'd and she eventually got eaten by zombies. A fun campaign I need to get back to some day.
>>48331264
This a list of good 2 player board games?
>>48331270
Actually I did pretty well running 3.5 and adjusting encounters on the fly. I just lowered the CRs by 1 and made ample ability to escape. I don't really care about encounter balance anyway, the world is the world and you can't be expected to fight everything and win. I can't believe the time I described an owlbear killing a black bear in just a few seconds (that the PCs had just had trouble fighting off one of the night before) and they insisted on fighting it and half of them died. I know it makes me a shitty DM but I don't care.
>>48331330
>Pretty gay to be honest.
You know what's REALLY gay? Homophobia.
>>48331369
You know what's really, REALLY gay? Tumblr. You should go back there, faggot
>>48331357
Well, aside from Abalone and Quarto, they're 2+ player games, but essentially yes."Hey, hand me the dice," you say. It takes him a moment so you just reach for them yourself--and your hands meet.
"Oh... I just--" he stutters and trails off.
"Forget it," you say as you take the dice. Out of the corner of your eye you see he's blushing. Out of the corner of his eye he sees you are, too.
>>48331357
Well, I'm not saying encounters should always be winnable, I'm saying that those kinds of games are desgined with a certain mindset which makes it a little harder to run with just one player. Really most systems work fine with one player, I can't really think of any that don't.
>>48331063
Scarlet Heroes is an OSR game specifically designed to let you do one-on-one games, and have a lone adventurer who can run through old-school modules by himself. Wade through scores of enemies and cut them down, or burn them to ash with magical fire, you don't need a party when you're a one man (or woman) wrecking machine.
Black Streams - Solo Heroes is a free Labyrinth Lord supplement that was the first version of the rules that would become Scarlet Heroes. (Labyrinth Lord is a Moldvay Basic D&D clone)
>>48331490
Thanks, that'll be a big help if we decide to go with D&D.
>>48331330
Same with this, the zombie idea is also pretty intriguing.
>>48331270
Yeah, I've read espionage games work pretty well one on one, do you know of any good ones?
>>48331063
I'm running a Microlite 20 homebrew with one player.
>>48331063
Almost anything works fine as long as you tailor the adventures to fit the party. For instance, D&D tends to be niche-oriented with its classes, but if the PC is a thief, you run an adventure that works for a thief and doesn't rely on any capabilities they don't have at their disposal (either through their own abilities, an NPC companion, magic item, or whatever). With 1 player, I often have a few NPCs along for the ride to give them somebody to interact with, but it really depends on what they're doing. Since there's only 1 PC, everything revolves around them, and everything is tailored for them. So NPCs can drop in and out as is appropriate.
>>48331419
Fair enough. 3.5 is one of those games you have to fine-tune to balance... actually most D&D is. People always said CR sucked a big one in D&D, which is true, but you could usually figure out if your party could handle it if you had a year or so of DM experience and knew the party somewhat well.
>>48331490
AD&D almost feels like the best edition for solo play. Except maybe 4e.
>>48331063
It works with most things. When I was young a lot of my tabletop time was 2 person games with me or my brother running a game for the other one. We did this in D&D 3.5 mostly. This is how it works: make a mostly passive DMPC to support the player.
>>48331063
Weaver Dice.
>>48331693
You know, I don't know any espionage games. I've heard of spycraft but I've never played it so I can't recommend it. That's a real gap in my pnp knowledge
>>48332008
>AD&D almost feels like the best edition for solo play. Except maybe 4e.
4e is kinda terrible for solo play because of the reliance on class roles; a solo character would almost always be heavily gimped, no matter how OP it is (though I think there are some hybrids that could manage), unless you mean one player controls an entire party and randomly rolls what happens, in which case, sure.
