The Secrets of Great Solo Adventures
Picture by Scuzzpuck
D&D was designed for groups of 4 – 5 PCs. But sometimes you either don’t have that many players available, or you just want a smaller and more intimate game. If you’re planning a campaign for just yourself and one player, use this helpful advice to make your solo game a fun and memorable adventure for everyone involved.
Why Fly Solo?
There are plenty of reasons to run a solo game. Some places don’t have very much in the way of a gaming community, so players might be scarce. Or maybe you already run a regular game, but one of your friends wants to try a different campaign setting. Solo games are also great avenues for trying out new character classes, training up assistant DMs, introducing newbies to D&D, play-testing an adventure before unleashing it on your group at large, or engaging in highly personalized role-play with the featured PC.
But a lone PC can seem a little… well, lonely. Especially when a tribe of goblin cutters comes rushing in. To keep a lone PC from bleeding to death on their first outing, consider these proven strategies:
Shrink to Fit
If you’ve only got one PC, you want them to have a fighting chance. Toughen them up with magic items, or consider starting them at a higher level. During the course of the adventure, if you find that you’ve accidentally overwhelmed the PC, you can even out the odds by having some of the monsters flee or surrender. You could also convert some of the monsters to minions who drop at the first hit. It’s basically cheating, but for a good cause; you want the PC’s encounters to be a challenge, not a death sentence.
Fill In the Gaps
Another way to keep the PC alive is to fill in the gaps with NPCs. Draw up a healer and have them tag along. Or role-play a meeting between the PC and a noteworthy fighter who wants to mentor them. You can change the details to suit your game and the PC’s class. Of course, this tactic creates a little extra work for the DM, who has to run the NPC during battles. You can expand the group even more by letting the player run two PCs (if they’re experienced enough to feel comfortable doing so).
Make It Personal
The potential for customized adventures is one of the best parts of solo games. The PC is the star, and their character background is more important than ever. Everything revolves around them. Their hometown, relatives, allies and enemies can all be woven into the storyline with a level of detail that would be really hard to pull off in a 5-person game. You could even sit down with the player before you design the campaign, and ask them which features they want the most. (Combat? Political intrigue? Exploration?) Then you’ll be able to deliver exactly what the player wants.
Have you ever run a solo game? Did you like it? Do you have tips to share? Let’s hear them in the comments section!
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Arete
I run an off-and-on single-player game where the player runs 5 PCs. It works great, and it’s probably my longest-running RPG campaign ever. She’s returned the favor by GMing a game where I’m the only player.
Haha, why did you use that picture? It’s a picture of me! Crazy!
Because of time constraints (I can hardly get any afternoon free to play a serious game), I’ve started a solo campaign with my wife. We pick it up at any possible night right after doing the dishes and before going to bed.
I’ve started the first Pathfinder campaign (Rise of the Runelords) with the Pathfinder RPG Beta rules. So far, the first couple of encounters have been easy enough for her, but we planned to introduce an NPC to join the party (effectively sharing in the XP and treasure). Not only for the extra hand in combat, but also to grow an interesting inter-character relation between the two.
Another thing I might do in the future, is lower the XP bars to gain new levels (there are actually 3 progression charts in the Pathfinder RPG Beta rules that I can use).
And, of course, as a quick solution, I won’t hesitate to lower hit points, make enemies flee, have them make suboptimal tactical choices, and so on.
For a solo-campaign, it’s also much easier to incorporate player backgrounds into a published story, because you only have to do that for one PC. I have always been reluctant to change set story elements from published adventures, but in this case I will try to do just that, if only to learn to get comfortable with it, one small step at a time.
I haven’t run a solo game for 4e, but I used to do it all the time for 3.5e and AD&D. Your suggestions for tweaking the mechanics are sound and I think they’ll certainly level the playing field.
I’ve found that the best way to keep a solo game going for more than just a few encounters is to have a really interesting and compelling story. The role-playing has to be up front and in your face. The lone PC is the focus of this story, not an entire party. He has to be able to carry the adventure by himself. If the role-playing is missing or minimized then it just becomes a DM and a PC rolling dice, and if that’s all you’re interested in doing then you should just play Monopoly.
I don’t think I’ve ever run a solo CAMPAIGN, but plenty of solo games. I think it’s a great way to run subplots with characters that are actually part of a larger group. These sessions usually dovetail into larger campaigns.
As for “levels”, well, I’ve done it seemlessly in games where level isn’t an issue (superhero games, for example), but if it is an issue, then I try to keep such solo “chapters” firmy entrenched in character interaction (guild politics, for example) or keep encounters to equally solo enemies. A great way to introduce a nemesis.
I haven’t run one yet, but I’ve been trying to convince my wife to get her feet wet with gaming in a solo campaign. Crunch-heavy rules systems are definitely not something to start her with – being in the same room as a Shadowrun game puts her to sleep – and she likes horror and mystery, so I’m considering an Unknown Armies game. Simple percentile die rolls, and a simple one-page character sheet. Also it’s a sort of gritty Gaimanesque magic, and that’ll appeal to her.
Come to think of it, horror games would work really well for a solo campaign – the Lone Survivor trope.
@ Saragon: That’s a great idea for getting your wife into role-playing games. And Gaimanesque is my new favorite word. Thanks!
I’ve had success with Toon as well, especially for beginners. Short one-offs starring their own character eases new players into the rythm, until they’re asking for longer stories.
I think “Solo” is a misleading term. There is a long history of solo games, and those are games with just one player, period. It’s something you do alone.
I’ve always heard the term “Lone Wolf” for a campaign with a GM and just a single player.
Man, I would love to get my girl into RPGs. I’m still fairly new to role playing but a solo/ “Lone Wolf” would be awesome and I could practice being a DM. Perhaps I should get some DM training before i make her suffer from my mistakes though.
These are all good tips. I’ve been teaching my wife how to DM via a Lone Wolf campaign.
The NPC Interaction is the most important part in a good lone wolf session, but do not let the NPC’s solve too many problems. The NPC’s should be resources not leaders. Letting the solo player play a couple of NPC’s just in battle is also a good thing to do. It can help teach sprouting young players the mechanics of a couple of classes.
The solo campaign I run with my wife (and now includes my family from time to time) has been going on since October/November of 2008. We play about 2 or 3 times a month. I started with an extremely simple ruleset and a campaign that included her assistance on writing her involvement, and has really come alive.
I have written about solo games quite a bit on my blog and recently posted an “overview” page. http://oldguyrpg.blogspot.com/2009/04/running-solo-game.html
The best tip I can give is that solo gaming really is an intimate type of game where you both work together to make the game happen. Listen, get lots of feedback, and work your hardest to be a very impartial, but helpful, referee.
Iv run a few solo missions with one of my players of the group involving his rogue character going on thieving missions at times during the storyline when other players are training or just when they stop in a city. I generally try to tie these into the storyline of the party aswell to spice things up even more eg. the thief has to steal an item needed by the party to complete a quest.
I completely agree that these solo missions where a great time to completely customize the mission to the PC and during play it gives the PC free reign to do anything he wants! go wherever he like steal whatever he wants etc. Plus its much easier for me to create tension and intrigue when the PC is sneaking around a haunted mansion on his own… it try to aim for a “thief deadly shadows” type feel if anyones ever played that game :D.
Anyone remember the D&D Solo books? Those were pretty cool! Where, based on the choice of 3-4 actions it told you which page to turn to to keep reading…thus the adventure had MANY turns that you could do….Anyone at all remember them?
I like to print a random dungeon from the demonweb web site. Just follow the map then look up the room on the dungeon key to be surprised. Solo adventures are no fun if you already know whats in the room.
Draxxion says:
July 17, 2009 at 9:28 am
“Anyone remember the D&D Solo books? Those were pretty cool! Where, based on the choice of 3-4 actions it told you which page to turn to to keep reading…thus the adventure had MANY turns that you could do….Anyone at all remember them?”
This is what got me started on D&D so many years ago. I used to read the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books as a kid, even had to fight monsters throughout the book.
D&D became like one of those books for me, except that I created my own character, with specific skills, it was great. Have to say though, it was a little too streamlined for me…I like the freedom of being able to do whatever I want, when I want, how I want.
On the topic of “Solo” adventures, I am new to DM’ing 4e so I have been running a few adventures I found online that were just like the original D&D. You have specific actions to guide the story. I guess what I am more interested in is “Lone Wolf”. I have about 10 players that “SAY” they can’t wait to play, but it is always the same ONE that comes over to play, so I have been forced to run “Lone Wolf” encounters. I would like to come up with a good Solo Campaign just for him that he can use later to create his background, for future (hopefully larger) adventures.
I loved playing the Solo, meaning just me and not two of us, DnD stuff. I remember them, and they owned. I also love choose your path books, but they lack the character development. I for one role play chat, it’s like writing a novel with other people. All you do is bust into a chat room with a title like ‘Lloren Forest’ and start writing your character’s actions and what not like a novel. Even RPC is getting hard to have real dedicated players. I am seriously looking to find a 100% SOLO campaign, to just read the book, role the dice, choose what I can, and complete or die in a campaign. That’s what I want.
I’m with you Goldbold, I don’t have enough players to run the higher level encounters so I need something for 1 or 2 players to keep the game going. My buddy just hit level 2 and all I can find are level 1 solo encounters. I need a complete solo campaign
The website http://dnd.chromesphere.com/ has some great solo adventures. I died twice trying “the crypt” (tutorial) with a level one Ranger though. so far there are only encounters through level 7. Something worth checking out.
Alright! This thing is still going. I was a bit worried about how old the posts are, nice to meet you! Dude I will check those out. I think I have hit my ‘can’t count on people’ wall. People are all excited about gathering and playing and then everyone can’t commit, shit gets old. I’m glad I found you here perhaps we can help each other’s boredom. Btw that HBO show Game of Throwns, awesome. Books were great, show is awesome. I suggest it!!! I think I am getting to the idea of writing my own books because if I play RPC, and solo campaigns etc… I mean, I might as well use my imagination and create a world that I can share with others.
I have run a single player campaign for more than a decade alongside group campaigns that lasted anywhere from a month to five years of real-time. The core player is one of my best buds (going into the army soon, boo) and participates in every campaign. I’ve DMed six or more single player campaigns for him. I live in southeastern connecticut and my dice are always rolling.
I would love to team up but I’m in Louisiana, Baton Rouge in fact. I have been keeping my time company with Game of Thrones books. I drive a lot so I listen to audio books all day. So… Imagine wanting a crew to RP with, but filling my time with all sorts of fantasy etc… I’m going mad, I don’t think a solo game is going to save… (Anyone up for Rping on a message board, chat room, skype… Anything! Haha)