I have often thought there is a gap in the market for one-on-one (i.e., one PC and one DM) campaigns in which the PC is a 'high concept' character from a work of literature or folk tale. This could perhaps take on an aspect of storygamish co-creation rather than being a straightforward 'old school' campaign, although the latter would work well too.
Some examples will illustrate this idea best:
The Mayor from Hamelin. In some accounts of the Pied Piper legend, the Mayor is exiled from the town to wander the Earth until he finds the lost children, 'and is still wandering now'. There is a high concept campaign for you - with the Mayor passing through the centuries and witnessing history unfold as he pursues his desperate quest to save the youth of Hamelin (even though their parents, parents' parents, parents' parents' parents, and so on, are long dead).
Rumpelstiltskin's Child. What if the queen had never guessed Rumpelstiltskin's name? He would have taken her baby away. What would have become of a child raised by the malevolent dwarf? (This is an example that could in fact be extended to a group of PCs, working on the assumption that Rumpelstiltskin is a habitual child-thief.)
The Man of the Crowd. So...who was Poe's 'Man of the Crowd'? Let's find out.
The Blue Wizards. This has come up on the blog before, and it is perhaps an idea that has become trite. Strictly speaking, it would also have to be a two-PC, rather than one-PC, campaign. But the story of what happened to Tolkien's Blue Wizards, compadres of Gandalf, Radagast and Saruman, is for me one of the most evocative and stimulating mysteries in fantasy fiction.
Reepicheep. At the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Reepicheep goes off on a great adventure, in search of the End of the World. What does he find on his way?
Moriarty. In the NextGen episode, 'Ship in a Bottle', the villainous hologram, Moriarty, is trapped in a memory cube which contains an entire galaxy for him to spend eternity exploring. What kind of a galaxy is it? What happens on Moriarty's infinite adventures?
I could go on, but you get the drift. The implication of this idea is that the main PC would somehow have plot immunity, although it would not necessarily have to be the case; if the main PC were to die, the focus could of course simply switch to another character already present or invented. (The son of Reepicheep? The Man of the Crowd's wife?)
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