One-on-One D&D, Running The Game

almost every time I've run D&D for a single-player just me and one player that player later said that was the most fun I've had playing dandy in fact the very first D&D stream I ever did which is around here somewhere on YouTube was a one-on-one session just me and my friend Gertz back when we were all still working at Turtle Rock Studios and that session that live stream made me think streaming D&D could really change people's perception about the game and it has because people watching on twitch live said holy crap I didn't know you could play D&D with just one player and that surprised me because why would what is there in the rules that says you need a minimum of four players or three or seven so that's this video what I know about running D&D with a single player I'm not sure this is a how to do it there's probably a million ways to do it and you will work out your own way but this is what I've learned about it and like everything else in life I'm still learning if you watch that Street in which I don't recommend it was pretty primitive you can see most of my advice in action first of all do it hey you don't need any advice I didn't have any the first time I ran one-on-one in my 20s you can watch this video and hopefully it will help but the reality is if you sit down to play D&D with only one player that player is gonna have a good time trust me because they are gonna get 100% of your attention and when in our lives does that ever happen when was the last time you sat across the table from someone for four hours and and literally just talked to them so that's one issue your player is gonna have a good time because they get all of your attention because they are the star of the show I mean they're the only character or at least the only PC since there's only one PC we need to be really careful about our encounter design remember in fifth edition being outnumbered puts you at a huge disadvantage well that means if there's a more than one bad guy in a fight there's a good chance your solo player is going to lose that's bad and it's bad in an obvious way but it's also bad in a non obvious way obviously if one solution is just to keep most encounters to one bad guy and this isn't really hard in fact the higher tone of your game will change it'll become a lot more like a horror movie you know suddenly one zombie is a big deal at first level so you spend more time describing that zombie you go into a lot more detail and suddenly your world or at least this one show set in your world with only one PC is one in which a single zombie or god forbid an orc is a huge deal for a single first level character well that's really cool that is a super cool experience and one we don't normally have in D&D now a single low level monster can terrorize an entire town so obviously we need fewer monsters usually just one monster but there is a less obvious side effect normally we as Dungeon Master's can sort of relax once initiative is called because instead of spending the next hour chewing through all the content we had prepared we're gonna spend the next hour rolling dice and killing monsters and this is a fantastic break for us as storytellers but then a solo D&D game combat doesn't take that long in fact it speeds past you which means you need a much greater emphasis on role-playing and investigation narrative and that is a lot of work for us as Dungeon Master's and I have no real solution sometimes in life the only trick is working hard at something for hours and hours I would expect your solo game to chew through combat two or three or even four times faster than a party you would do it for a lot of reasons combat happens faster but also you're missing an entire pillar of role-playing I think most DMD sessions have these three pillars exposition where the DM sets the stage role-playing or the pcs talk to NPCs and explore and investigate and combat all of which you're gonna have in a one-on-one game but there is a fourth pillar of most sessions missing and that is debate in the absence of a party there is no one for your solo player to talk to no one for them to plan with now not having someone to argue with is great no more players fighting over the rules but there's also no new ideas which is a big part of D&D as far as I'm concerned if my players are arguing about what to do they're playing D&D if they're arguing about the rules well they're probably wasting time but arguing about what is the best thing to do is as far as I'm concerned and you don't get any of that in a solo game no debate with other players because there are no other players this adds up to your solo D&D game is going to be far more story-based than before one of the first solo games I ran for a single player I literally just lifted the plot of a Terry Pratchett novel because it seemed pretty straightforward there's an a plot about an assassination attempt ie a murder mystery and a B plot about the columns and the two plots converge in the end in a narrative ly satisfying way this worked for a couple reasons first I knew the book backwards and forwards that meant when things went off the rails that could improvise pretty easily also I wrote down my own outline for this adventure based on the book so it was mine and I understood it better as an adventure rather than a novel plot but also it was mostly the player going around the city following leads talking to people I think a lot of serial killer stories are great for this because telling the players to just walk around the city talking to people until they figure something out isn't but telling them they need to stop the killer before they kill again is great great verbs same basic idea still a murder mystery but a mystery where the murderer is still out there and will kill again is a thousand times better for us as Dungeon Master's because it means there are clear verbs and a ticking clock and also escalating stakes all of those are important I occasionally have folks on Twitter or in the comments asked me to do a video on how to run a mystery adventure but I honestly don't know what to tell people go read a bunch of mystery novels or watch a bunch of mysteries until you find one you like and rip it off I don't have a formula or a checklist but whatever adventure you come up with it's gonna be mostly you describing things to the player and the player exploring or walking around talking to people so by this point you're sitting there thinking well obviously let the player run more than one character sure actually yes and this is a great scenario for that since you only got one player they can focus on running two or three characters in a way that would probably slow a regular group way down but before you jump down that rabbit hole think about why you want more PCs in your solo game just so you can ramp up combat and include more bad guys well you don't need to you balance encounters for one player it just takes relearning encounter design and D&D characters aren't simple running several of them at the same time isn't easy and I'm also not sure it's fun and it doesn't solve the problem of debate the player is still alone there's still no one else for them to talk to what I usually do is I'd give the solo player a sidekick usually a cleric or a paladin someone who can heal buff the hero debuff the enemy and I run them the player doesn't run them so their experience isn't any more complex but now they have someone on their side I don't add a sidekick because I want to be able to ramp up combat I add a sidekick because I'm afraid with only one player that if they roll under a seven four times in a row in combat their character is going to die through no fault of their own in other words the tolerance for bad rolling is very low when there's only one player and bad rolling includes the bad guys rolling consistently well so a healing sidekick is great if I'm running them and the player has missed four turns in a row and is about to die I can just decide the sidekick crits of course you can combine a healing sidekick that you run with the player running more than one character if you want to go down that road I encourage you to check out the retainer rules in strongholds and followers so I guess that makes this an ADD but I wrote these rules on purpose to make it easier for you to do this the normal use case is letting players have npc followers that can join them in combat without adding to the complexity of being a D&D player this is what a retainer looks like this is angel from the chain of Acheron this is an entire character we can see their AC but notice not the armor they're wearing I don't care what armor they're wearing they're wearing whatever armor gets you to this AC the rules just say light or medium or heavy armor if they need to make a skill check you assume they have plus three to their role unless they're using one of the skills listed here in which case they add +5 so they're competent at everything and pretty good at a couple of things no need to list all their stats and skills they have an ability they can use every round in combat and then a couple of much more useful things they can do but only a few times each ability to chose you their bonus to hit and damage don't worry about their gear or their staff that's it that's the whole character notice no hit points no math no bookkeeping just a number of boxes equal to their level every time they take damage they make a saving throw if they succeed nothing happens no damage if they fail you mark off one box for every die of damage which is usually won once all the boxes are marked off they go unconscious it's simple it's simple on purpose very high utility very low complexity some folks freak out at no-hit points but you can always just you know there's a whole players handbook if you really want to run a second character in everything that comes with that this was one of the more controversial pieces of design in strongholds and followers during the play test but it's also proven to be one of the most popular lots of people use these in their games every week and report back great success they let players and DMS add more characters to their game those characters can fight and help and be relevant with only a little more complexity we could probably rewrite the description of these rules to be a little more straightforward i over explained it because it was a new idea and that muddied the waters but these rules have proven to work well and I think these retainers are a little tougher than a normal PC a retainer that sucks isn't much use but while they are competent in combat we need to resist the urge to make our NPCs the star of the show I did a whole video about running NPCs before and the number one takeaway is don't make an NPC who is the star of the show in fact I think my entire running example was edrick from the solo game I ran with Kurtz Adric was great very characterful and Gertz and the viewers loved him don't be afraid to give your NPCs a lot of character I don't mean do the voice an accent isn't a character I think sometimes folks confuse making an NPC fun and characterful with useful when you're running for a single player by all means make their sidekick fun lots of personality but do not let them take over the PC is the hero the NPC is the sidekick if you give your player a sidekick your player is naturally going to use them to try to avoid making decisions players don't like making decisions because decisions can be wrong and they want to avoid a bad outcome so they will naturally want to defer to the NPC because you are running the NPC and so presumably you what the least risky thing is so definitely don't do that make sure the player understands this sidekick is theirs they will follow orders but they defer to the hero they want the player to lead now here's the secret about sidekicks if the player feels like this is my sidekick they are my follower then when that sidekick does something cool even if it steals the spotlight from the player the player will be okay with it they will probably love it as long as it feels earned yes technically it's just you the DM using one of your tools the NPC to solve a problem you created and I'm sure if this is done badly then it will feel that way therefore I rarely let the NPC give actually useful advice or solve puzzles or unlock the next step in the plot but if the player has been doing most of the work then absolutely let their sidekick shine the player in my feet of clay game had an opportunity to recruit a golem Ally and this was a huge major plot point in the adventure but they couldn't see how to do it they hadn't read the book they didn't even realize it was possible well they were probably three hours into this solo adventure and so when I had the players sidekick figure out how to do it and then do it the player was like aha brilliant we have a golem even though technically it was just me using the NPC I created to solve the problem I created because the player had been doing all the work until then not only did they not mind that the NPC solved the next step it felt like teamwork to them it felt like my dude did that I made the NPC role so it still felt legitimate not DM Fiat that helped maybe you've figured out that the last couple of videos have all been leading to this one the downtime video is basically about solo play the stuff you do on your own between adventures my friend Wallace thought his PC ghoul might be able to sneak past the undead in the dungeon and rescue my friend Lara's PC so he tried it and we played all day just him and me exploring the dungeon dungeons are great for this having Wallace's ghoul tried to stealth and roleplay through an entire dungeon of mostly undead was wildly different than an entire party killing their way through the same dungeon we changed the mood and tone everything was way more tense descriptions and details were more important now yes we chewed through an entire dungeon in a few hours it would have taken the party a lot longer to kill their way through that and that meant my prepped content didn't last as long that's bad but Wallace later said it was the most fun he'd ever had playing D&D that's good my friends axe druid used a wild shape to turn into a spider and explore the ruins of castle rend in a solo session and we ran the whole thing with me using language to describe what he saw and him translating that into a map you know he's a spider racing through a large castle then trying to remember everything he saw afterwards so there should be some imperfections things he remembers wrong and I thought him having to rely on only my descriptions in a very old school 1970s D&D way we produced a map with some inaccuracies simulating faulty memory but as it turns out maybe because he's a professional artist his map was perfectly accurate but the act of being a spider exploring this ruin to keep seeing what was in there trying to map it all out was a blast just him and me Goethe's character had to sneak out of a prison camp in the Underdark and find his way back to the mundane world with just a sidekick and the transition from high fantasy underworld to low fantasy orc keep was amazing always wondering am i safe yet have I escaped yet when will I know that I'm free well every encounter had many failed States no test was just passed or failed there were always complications always ways to make sure that one bad roll just made things crazier it didn't stop the game and I gave him an NPC who had a lot of character but was obviously not going to lead Gertz anywhere or make any decisions for him my friend Aran ran Lord Kenway Abdal wrath through four years of university at the Imperial College of States craft in capital it took four sessions one for each year it was basically a skill challenge at the end of each year he made a skill check if he earned enough successes he graduated and earned new abilities depending on how well he did if he rolled badly well he did have to go to summer school one semester to make up for it each year there was an adventure secret societies rivals at school romance we did it all over fantasy grounds just text no voice and it's let me tell you it's not easier for me at least to roll play the young princess daughter of the Pharaoh falling in love with the Barbarian Prince from the Black Forest just over text then it would have been to do it over a box or god forbid in person I mean I like romance in my D&D game though you would not know it from the chain of Akron but doing it literally over just text for me it was effortless the doomed romance between the star-crossed lovers was awesome during these four sessions Lord Kenway decided since he was so far from home this was an opportunity to recruit his version of the Varangian guard his sidekick says well they got gladiator battles in the city very popular Kenway says brilliant let's go meet some gladiators they go to the arena they watch a few battles and there is definitely a star gladiator the dude everyone's here to watch well they find out these gladiators are all criminals forced to fight while they wait for a trial and of course there's a lot of money to be made in this sport and many of the best gladiators are innocent people accused of a crime they didn't commit because they looked like good fighters if they do poorly they die in the arena and no one ever knows the truth if they do well they make everyone a lot of money so they'll never see trial Kenway hears about all this and does not like it one bit after the fight he goes and talks to the master of the games and offers to pay the bail for the star gladiator you can't afford it they tell him well he's the rich scion of a noble family so in point of fact he can afford quite a lot he can afford so much the guards consider it which gladiator did you want to buy he tells them and they're like oh him yeah let's see what happens they bring the star gladiator out and show him the money and he is impressed that someone's that concerned about him but he spits on the money by my hand or none a free myself or die in Chains well now my friend Aaron definitely wants to recruit this dude how awesome is he of course what you have guessed and when Aaron didn't know is that gladiator was another PC my friend Austin's character Aaron was role-playing his way through his backstory in preparation for new campaign Austin was doing the same thing Austin wanted to play a gladiator who leads a rebellion which I think there's a movie about and when Aaron's character hit upon the idea of maybe recruiting a bodyguard I steered him towards Austin scare so of course Austin is going to refuse Erin's offer his whole backstory is about leading a rebellion against the corrupt officers who put him here the entire time Kenway was talking to this dude I was texting Austin Austin just thought more D&D great new role-playing encounter Aaron thought I was just setting up a cool NPC who would show up later to me that kind of play or there are several PC's each playing their own solo game and they meet each other but neither of them knows the other is a PC and then they meet up later Avengers style that is piqued D&D in fact I think once the chain wraps up we'll try something like that is this all the advice I got maybe if you're starting a new game maybe let the player start a third level that way there's more margin for error if they get in over their head with only one player you're gonna feel like you have to do all the talking but remember to prompt the player don't wait for them to chime in explicitly ask them how they react to things get them reacting acting describing their attitude it can't be a monologue it has to be a dialogue even though you will be doing most of the talking I think one-on-one games tend to resemble the ideal version of D&D new players have in their heads it is overwhelmingly narrative it is by definition character based you never argue about the rules you spend all the time on the world and the plot and the character so that a lot of people once they play this way they find it hard to go back I hear that a lot that's it folks that's the one-on-one D&D video very few monsters maybe only one more mystery exploration investigation negotiation less combat absolutely use a sidekick maybe try out the retainer rules for strongholds and followers be prepared to chew through whole adventures in one session remember to prompt your player how do you react what do you think what do you want to do use multiple fail States so one bad die roll doesn't ruin your entire game and that's all I got next video I don't know I got a lot I think maybe we'll start the campaign world tour where you do one video on each of a bunch of different old campaign worlds each of which is still super cool in its own way also the next dune video should drop soon if you are at all interested in the development of kingdoms and warfare I live streamed several times on Twitch they'll be a link in the dooblydoo and we play random games but we talk a lot about whatever I've been working on including kingdoms and warfare but also running MC diem like we hired a new full-time artist grace Chun you can check out her art in the link below she is awesome and already kicking ass and you'll get to meet her eventually once Arnott drops below zero I'm preferably way below and stays there for a while August I'm guessing if you liked this video and you're not slammed in these crazy times consider picking up strongholds and followers there's a link in the doobly-doo I guarantee you there is something in this book you will find useful and fun and we got dope shirts in the storm if you have any questions I strongly recommend our discord there's a link below over 7000 people are in it at any given moment and we work hard to make sure people can hang out and have fun without a bunch of Wang rods taking over if you want to get an alert when there's a new video you got to subscribe and hit the bell icon until next time peace wash your face and hands for 20 seconds at least out

Channel: Matthew Colville

Views: 328,588

Keywords: Matt Colville, Matthew Colville, Dungeons and Dragons, D&D, Dungeons & Dragons, Running the Game, Running D&D, Playing D&D, Playing Dungeons and Dragons, roleplaying, 1 on 1, Solo D&D, solo dnd

Id: OoJMNkgEqKA

Length: 20min 49sec (1249 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 29 2020