Just the Two of Us

Over at Known World, Old World, Andy discusses the issue of the single player session/game. One DM, one player. Mano a mano (or womano).

I don't get many, or indeed any, opportunities to do that sort of game, because unlike the surprising number of bloggers out there who play D&D with their spouse, the young woman I share a bed with will not display the slightest modicum of interest. She takes an entirely dim view of silly geek games and treats me with the kind of patient indulgence you would a small dog engaged in some unsavoury activity or other: He can't help doing such a stupid thing, it's in his nature, and, well, he is kind of cute when he does it.

I am sure every husband in the world is more than familiar with being looked at like this, for one reason or other.

That said, Andy's basic point is an interesting one - clearly, some games seem tailor-made for the single player, others not. D&D doesn't really leap out as a one-person game. There's nothing to stop you playing it one-on-one and having fun, of course, but D&D does feel reliant on the chemistry of having a group of PCs to really sing.

On the other hand, there are games, like Pendragon, say, and Call of Cthulhu, maybe the various World of Darkness settings, which I can well imagine being played solo (and not just because of this); I suppose this is because a single player game is probably the only situation in which I would imagine that developing a character in considerable depth would be just as, or more, important than the obviously "fun" stuff, and those games encourage that.

But I also think solo campaigns are a good way of doing something genuinely different. A number of gaming supplements - the various Sin Nomine sandbox kits, Renegade Crowns for WFRP, ACKS, Birthright even, if you want to go back that far - strike me as having the potential to be discrete two-player games, though not in the traditional sense; I am talking about setting creation as a game in itself. Working with somebody to riff on setting-creation tools could work all on its own, especially if a large element of randomness is worked into the process. Renegade Crowns would, indeed, be perfect for this, because it is all about rolling on tables and seeing what comes out; you would simply take it in turns to roll and describe what has been generated and the setting would evolve from there. Rules would have to be agreed on, of course - like, when one player is describing an element of the setting, the other has to accept it. Or has three vetoes.

Then again, there's also the "other" different thing: you each create a party of characters for some very rules-crunchy system and then have them try to kick the living shit out of each other in a combat arena.