# Two Player Pen and Paper Games



## Family (Jun 21, 2010)

What systems/games would you recomend for a husband and wife to play together? DMless or one DMing or whatever. Also any tips on how to keep this endevor from ending in a divorce? (Or bloodshed if the two aren't married.)

"Help me Obi-Wan you're my only hope." -Some homeless chick.


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## Bluenose (Jun 21, 2010)

Family said:


> What systems/games would you recomend for a husband and wife to play together? DMless or one DMing or whatever. Also any tips on how to keep this endevor from ending in a divorce? (Or bloodshed if the two aren't married.)
> 
> "Help me Obi-Wan you're my only hope." -Some homeless chick.




_Pendragon_. The source material is full of examples of solitary questing knights, and while a lot of the adventures are written with the idea that there will be a party of knights along it's not as if they require it. Without classes the specialisation that they enforce isn't as much part of the game, and one knight is fairly interchangeable with another is they play to their particular strengths. It could work too with a pair of knights errant riding the tournament circuit.

_Heroquest_. Supports a style with a main PC and his/her sidekicks, since a sidekick is in many ways just another keyword. Allows a greater variety of settings than Pendragon, so if you aren't into the chivalric knight concept you could use it for a lot of styles of play. Rather less emphasis on rules, more on GM adjudication, which might be more of a problem.

_Traveller_. More of a long shot here, but I'm pretty certain you could play Traveller with one player running the whole crew of a free trader. Generally there's one person active at a time, and it's not as if Travelller characters are particularly complicated. You could probably create a list of 'best skills' on the ship and simply use that on most occasions.

In general, I'd avod systems with classes or where character generation creates characters who are highly specialised, unless you're sure that most of the time only one PC will be taking a major role. Avoid a system which requires a lot of GM adjudication unless you're using it to allow things rather than dismiss them - that can lead to arguments, acrimony, and expensive attorneys.


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## dm4hire (Jun 21, 2010)

If you play 3.x or Pathfinder, Expeditious Retreat has created several 1 on 1 modules for various levels of play.  They are designed for one player and one DM/GM.  You might also check out Tunnels and Trolls as it was designed to be a solo/low number of players game.


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## Cor_Malek (Jun 21, 2010)

Cthulhu! If she expects to use a character multiple times it'd suggest she did not understood the foundations. With almost no combat, at least no that ends well for your protagonist, being alone will actually enhance the experience of solitude in a world of forgotten gods. One of you gets to narrate grim and thrilling story, and the other has to unravel terrible mysteries around; a truly personal experience.

Warning: might lead to mild bondage situations.


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## IronWolf (Jun 21, 2010)

dm4hire said:


> If you play 3.x or Pathfinder, Expeditious Retreat has created several 1 on 1 modules for various levels of play.




I would also recommend at least taking a look at this if 3.5/Pathfinder are your thing.  Several adventures, tailored for a DM and one player.  You can get all of them in the One on One Adventures Compendium.


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## nedjer (Jun 21, 2010)

Play loads of 1 2 1 or GM free with Traveller and Treasure. Both are modular and light, so it's dead easy to rapidly sketch settings and adventures in advance or 'on the fly'. That in turn makes it dead easy to play to 'negotiable guideliines' instead of 'fixed rules'. If something isn't covered or isn't working it's quick to patch or mod without disappearing into the world of rules law.

In either case you can get several sessions out of roleplaying PC design/ building and exploring sectors/ campaign settings.

Doing without a GM is helped in Treasure by everything you meet having uindividual 'preferred actions' and the ease of using the tables explore 'on the fly'. Traveller can get a boost from throwing in a selection of planetart and system events taken straight off google news.

Bit scared to comment on the avoiding divorce part, as I posted some opinion/ observations on encouraging female players to get more involved at Thistle Games last week. It turned into a bit of a bun fight here, so I'll simply say that the last section of the post may be of interest and it's not intended as a political polemic


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## dm4hire (Jun 21, 2010)

Another thought occured to me.  You might want to get her the book "Confessions of a Part Time Sorceress" from WotC.  It's presents gaming from a girls view to girls.


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## Celebrim (Jun 21, 2010)

If you are going to do two player sessions, I suggest you avoid old school games that were designed around the assumption of group interaction and concentrate on some newer independent games that really shine when you have intimate DM and player interaction.   My first choice would probably be something like 'Monsters and Other Childish Things' (which is almost unplayable IMO with more than one player), but I might do something like 'Dogs in the Vinyard' or 'My Life with Master' as well.


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## Woas (Jun 21, 2010)

Burning Wheel is great for a One on One game.


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## Pseudopsyche (Jun 21, 2010)

Woas said:


> Burning Wheel is great for a One on One game.



Should I assume this applies to Mouse Guard, too?  I'm reading through the Mouse Guard RPG book now, specifically with the aim of playing it solo with my wife.


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## Rel (Jun 21, 2010)

I've run quite a few solo games over the years.  I ran a couple using *Rolemaster *back in the day and those worked out pretty well.  Some of the cumbersome things about that system feel much less cumbersome when only one character is involved.

I also had great success using *Mage *for some solo games because a lot of the story focus could be on a single character and the player had a very creative mindset.  This was another case of a game that I think functions poorly with a bigger group was a good fit for a single player.

A couple years ago I ran a few sessions of a game vaguely similar to Supernatural/Anita Blake using *Risus*.  This was with my wife as the only player.  Extremely rules light, it again allowed for more focus on the story and the rules are easy and natural for that style of play.

Recently I've been running a very successful *Savage Worlds* conversion of a Dungeon Crawl Classic module from Goodman Games.  This is not a solo game but I'm running it for my wife and (8 year old) daughter and it's working out pretty well.  Fairly rules light but definitely crunchier than Risus.  It is a bit swingy at times though so if character survivability is of utmost importance then you might want to adopt a few special rules to let the PC save their butt when things get nasty.


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## Woas (Jun 21, 2010)

Pseudopsyche said:


> Should I assume this applies to Mouse Guard, too?  I'm reading through the Mouse Guard RPG book now, specifically with the aim of playing it solo with my wife.




I think it could work. There are plenty of single Guard Mice in the actual comic to set a precedent for lone Guardsmouse out in the territories.

However from having played the game, one area to be cautious of with a One on One MG game, sort of like D&D, MG assumes there are a few mice on a patrol working together. This isn't a huge deal since the game doesn't play at all like D&D with Hit Points and Armor Classes but situations and obstacles in MG often ask the mice to go above and beyond their abilities alone and get the mice to work together to overcome. 
So a lone Guardmouse might have trouble in some instances where he or she can't get some bonus dice from a friend or ally. But I don't think as a whole it would be a problem. A little foresight on the GM's part or just being a little more liberal with advantage dice and handing out fate points (in a One on One game, the player should be earning a lot of fate and persona since the player is getting all the attention anyway) an also bringing in the mouse's friends, allies, and relatives would cancel out any problems from being a lone Guardmouse.


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## Crothian (Jun 21, 2010)

Find something the wife and you both like and fits your style.  Any game can be done as a solo I've soloed a player through World's Largest Dungeon and succesffuly had great solo games in Rifts which is not the greatest gaming system for anything.  

Buffy RPG and Dr Who can work great if you are both fans for instance.


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## nedjer (Jun 21, 2010)

Got to reckon the Buffy and Mouse Guard suggestions would be winners. Haven't tried either solo but they've all the right hooks and ingredients.


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## Celebrim (Jun 21, 2010)

Rel said:


> I also had great success using *Mage *for some solo games because a lot of the story focus could be on a single character and the player had a very creative mindset.  This was another case of a game that I think functions poorly with a bigger group was a good fit for a single player.




Good choice.  Although its trite at this point, VtM is actually better suited in my opinion to 1 on 1 play than it is traditional RPG play.  

In my opinion, you should look for RPG's which are written with an eye toward the internal mental conflict of the protagonist and which are RP driven.



			
				Croathian said:
			
		

> Buffy RPG and Dr Who can work great if you are both fans for instance.




Also a good point.  Heck, take a ruleset and adapt 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' if that is something you are both into.


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## MortonStromgal (Jun 21, 2010)

Vampire and Mage are both great one on one and have a very different feel. I also think that playing a Decker in Shadowrun is a particularly awesome one on one game. You'll have to change the context of the game a bit but you can run the old skool matrix maps and have a blast without annoying the rest of the team.


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## amerigoV (Jun 21, 2010)

You might look at Mythic's GM Emulator.

http://www.mythic.wordpr.com/wm002demo.pdf


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## Gort (Jun 21, 2010)

amerigoV said:


> You might look at Mythic's GM Emulator.
> 
> http://www.mythic.wordpr.com/wm002demo.pdf




Your link doesn't actually say anything about how the GM Emulation works.


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## dm4hire (Jun 22, 2010)

Couple other games that could work well with just a GM and player that just crossed my mind.  Green Ronin's Blue Rose RPG and True20.  Perhaps World of Darkness Innocents.  Fantasy Flight Games' Grimm RPG or even the d20 64 page version of it.  FFG also put out a couple of other mini campaigns that might work such as Redline and Spellslinger.


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## guivre (Jun 22, 2010)

Mouse Guard is balanced for multiple players, it doesn't work well at all with one. That is not to say it can't be tweaked, but it's not going to work correctly out of the box.


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## Shades of Green (Jun 22, 2010)

Bluenose said:


> _Traveller_. More of a long shot here, but I'm pretty certain you could play Traveller with one player running the whole crew of a free trader. Generally there's one person active at a time, and it's not as if Travelller characters are particularly complicated. You could probably create a list of 'best skills' on the ship and simply use that on most occasions.



Better yet, hand the player a Type-S Scout/Courier. A single crewmember with the right skills can run that ship alone. Just make sure that the character has the Pilot, Navigation (Astrogation in the Mongoose version) and Engineering, and probably throw in a combat skill or two as well.

Also add a sidekick NPC with several interesting skills (Medic, Mechanic, maybe Computer or Electronics, or a Science skill in the Mongoose version)

Then start exploring the universe, one jump at a time.


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## Pseudopsyche (Jun 22, 2010)

guivre said:


> Mouse Guard is balanced for multiple players, it doesn't work well at all with one. That is not to say it can't be tweaked, but it's not going to work correctly out of the box.



Could you elaborate on this point?  The book claims that the game works for a range of 2-6 people including the GM, but I'm definitely concerned about whether the two players is a stretch.  (We've been frustrated by some board games that claim to work for two but that must include special, sometimes awkward rules to accommodate two.)

Is it a mechanical matter of the lone guardmouse not being able to muster enough dice for typical obstacles?  Or is it the social dynamic of needing to generate the narrative without a group to feed off of?  What doesn't work correctly?


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## Woas (Jun 22, 2010)

guivre said:


> Mouse Guard is balanced for multiple players, it doesn't work well at all with one. That is not to say it can't be tweaked, but it's not going to work correctly out of the box.





There are several instances in the book that give reminders or specifically point out when playing with one character and one GM. Since the book seems to imply this, I think MG is perfectly fine with a one-mouse patrol so long as the GM understands and preps for it, just as a GM would prep differently knowing they had a four-mouse patrol compared to a... two-mouse patrol. I don't think any tweaks or re-balancing is needed to make it work.

If you've had any experience with a One-on-one MG game and found it required work, by all means share. But it hasn't been my experience with the game, albeit I only played a short one-on-one game with it. Most of my experience comes with a three and four-mouse patrol game.


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## maddman75 (Jun 22, 2010)

dm4hire said:


> Another thought occured to me.  You might want to get her the book "Confessions of a Part Time Sorceress" from WotC.  It's presents gaming from a girls view to girls.




Both my girlfriend and I could only get halfway through it before deciding Shelly Mazzanoble was an insufferable twit and we'd kick her out of our group if she pulled half the disruptive, disrespectful crap she describes in the book.

If you want indie stuff, there's always this

IPR :: Game Books :: Breaking the Ice


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