Greetings all,
I have a wife that is not into DnD, or pen and paper rpg's in general. She loves rpg video games and actively plays games such as City of Heroes and Guild Wars. I've wanted to introduce her to DnD before but she's never had much desire after a horrendous test run of another RPG run by someone at the local hobby shop (I learned the ever important lesson of never bringing a new gamer to a game run by a bad GM).
She's recently told me that she'd be willing to try DnD if I came up with a small adventure for me to run her through. I asked if a published adventure in Dungeon would work, she agreed to that. I've thought about what to run and have decided to try running the first module of the AoW AP.
My problem is going to be scaling it from the expected four person party to handle just a single character. I know I can just reduce the number of monsters per encounter, maybe have a NPC assistant come with her, reduce or remove traps (unless she makes a rogue), but I'm not sure how much to adjust the numbers.
Anyone have any suggestions? I would expect that she'll be making a druid once we sit down and roll up a character.
Greetings all,
I have a wife that is not into DnD, or pen and paper rpg's in general. She loves rpg video games and actively plays games such as City of Heroes and Guild Wars. I've wanted to introduce her to DnD before but she's never had much desire after a horrendous test run of another RPG run by someone at the local hobby shop (I learned the ever important lesson of never bringing a new gamer to a game run by a bad GM).
She's recently told me that she'd be willing to try DnD if I came up with a small adventure for me to run her through. I asked if a published adventure in Dungeon would work, she agreed to that. I've thought about what to run and have decided to try running the first module of the AoW AP.
My problem is going to be scaling it from the expected four person party to handle just a single character. I know I can just reduce the number of monsters per encounter, maybe have a NPC assistant come with her, reduce or remove traps (unless she makes a rogue), but I'm not sure how much to adjust the numbers.
Anyone have any suggestions? I would expect that she'll be making a druid once we sit down and roll up a character.
I remember at some point working out the math for smaller/larger parties and ELs.
Off the top of my head, a good rule of thumb is: with one party member, use ELs four lower than you would for a group of PCs of the same level.
So, in the as-written adventure, if there's an EL 6 encounter, reduce the EL to EL 2 and you should be fine.
Editing each encounter is tedious, however. A better solution might be to simply start her four levels higher.
Another possibility is having her be accompanied by an NPC or two. With a party of two, use EL -2; with three, use EL -1. This applies equally to character levels.
Does that make sense?
My suggestion is to not do it. It's way too long for an intro to D&D, and it's somewhat deadly besides.
I suggest using Buzz in the Bridge (issue 110).
Better yet, make up a very simple little game for her to wet her whistle on. For a solo game, you would be much better off tailoring a small off-the-cuff game for your wife to enjoy. After all, the goal here is to entice her with all the best aspects of the game, so she will fall in love with it and want to return for more! The Age of Worms campaign doesn't really lend itself to just one player; there are so many different situations which lie ahead, that one player will not really be able to fully experience the campaign as a solo. Besides, you know your wife better than any published adventure, so you can best decide what kind of things she will enjoy... roleplaying, NPC interaction, monster hunting, treasure seeking, power-mongering, magic exploration, etc... and run a fun game that will appeal to her interests specifically. Best of all, after you have wooed her with the wondrous world of D&D and she has become an avid pen-n'-paper gamer, you can gather a small band of your less-offensive gamer friends and run them -- with the new addition of your loving wife! -- through the spectacular "Age of Worms" adventure path as a group. That way, you, your wife, and your friends can all enjoy this incredibly detailed and well-designed campaign in the full, lush, non-neutered manner it was intended; as an intricate challenge for a band of adventurers with many different skills and abilities to draw from.
Hi,
I successfuly managed to bring in my fiancee to RPG, even though she had no interest at all in gaming. It was thanks to a short and tailored adventure. I am not sure it would have worked with a standard, full-fledged, dungeon crawl (as good as TWC is).
First of all, you should let her come up completely freely with a character concept and express how she sees her character interacting with the world she is in. On that basis it should be pretty easy to come up with an adapted adventure that would fit her expectations.
In my case, my fiancee decided to play an animal-loving druid. It was then easy to come up with a short story with increasing challenges. I took her from saving a deer and tend to some trees (no real skill checks involved, just made her roll so she gets the gist of how it works); then brought her on to protect a badger family from a pair of dire rats; then investigate why the river turned sour; find the evil goblins behind and kick their ass.
Gradually she got used to fights (which she loathed at first) and also learned to enjoy playing her role.
So, maybe it would be better not to use the Whispering Cairn, but to come up with something especially made for her. That's the advantage of soloing: you need to catter for only one person, so you can really make it about this one character!
;-)
Bocklin
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I've done the soloing thing with my wife several times (we moved away from our regular MERP group, and it's taken a long time to establish a new one). I generally dislike running NPCs, but in this case, I would suggest doing that first. Add some NPC that best compliments whatever skills her character is most lacking in. In the case of WC, I think she's really going to miss a rogue.
Also, in my experience, avoid letting her multi-class early. I've been tempted before to talk my wife into doing this to make up for the lack of diversity. You just end up over-complicating what she has to deal with as a newbie. The rules are already hard enough to grasp at first, without throwing in the complications of multiple classes.
I would start with something smaller in Diamond Lake first, to both introduce her to the game and also to beef up her character so she's quite a bit more powerful than the suggested starting players. I did this with my current group (3 characters who are approaching 5th level early in the second adventure). You could also give her some special item that makes it easier for her to escape overwhelming situations, like a ring of invisibility or something.
Lastly, you're going to have to cut way back on the encounters in WC, and especially in 3FOE. Maybe one wolf, one bombadeer beetle, and one (or even no) swarm. The thing that makes WC hard is that, IMHO, the traps are the killers, not the combat encounters. I think you're going to have to make the traps less deadly if your wife's character is not to end up one of the skeletons in the WC. Maybe try to talk her into being a rogue and eliminate most of the fighting?? That's a really tough call.
Let us know how you do. I'm sure I'll end up doing a solo adventure with my wife again someday, and any conclusions you draw from the experience are bound to help.
I personally love running and playing in solo adventures. Typically you can get much deeper into role-playing that with games that have multiple characters.
I would suggest that if you are going to run AoW, which is fine, that you focus a LOT On role-playing. Expect that she will still have an adventuring group she is a part of, but she will need to form them around her character.
Start with an encounter that really delves into why her character would have such a strong desire to leave this wretched city. Things like: family is evicted after missing only one payment and can barely afford food working at the wages of minors; brawls, drug use and habitual and deadly gambling in the bar... you really want to play up the slumy side of things... even better if you can set up the likes of Smenk as a BBEG guy at this point. But really RP this... don't expect combat though.
Once the idea is placed then nudge her to realize that there may be other, lesser known cairns still waiting to be plundered and that might be her ticket out of there. If she doesn't think of this on her own then have her meet up with her best friend at the bar (good time to play up the above scenes at the bar) and have that person know someone with access to the old maps at the barracks or have access themselves (first NPC to join group).
That NPC might say, "I will take care of finding a map and a cairn, you get us the other people we need to successfully take on this place."
The beauty part of the solo game is that you can have the other members of the group have much more background and twists and turns in the plot involving them than you can in a multi-player game as the spot light doesn't need to be shared.
Don't be afriad to build up the relationship with the friend and then let that NPC die before the end of the adventure... this is dramatic and no one is whining that they have to roll up a new one!
It is fine if after or during the first adventure that members of the party change, you don't need to try and have them all stay together all the time to make sure no one is sitting there waiting for others to get done... if the player wants to role-play little aspects of their characters life you can.
Anyway... good luck to you on this... let us know how it goes.
Sean Mahoney
Run something short and sweet like returning to her Druid Master's grove upon hearing of her masters passing to find the grove over run with goblins.
Something you can run in an hour or two so that you don't over whelm her.
Something in a terrain that favors her character (Druid), and lets her use her druid spells/abilities to their best affect.
Something that she can "Win". Especially if she is used to video games.
Maybe allow her to have a more powerful than usual animal companion.
Just keep it short and simple, and roll the dice behind the screen so that you can fudge them id you need to.
New players hate creating a character only to have it get smoked in the first or second encounter.
I would not start her off with the Whispering Cairn! To complex, and to deadly, plus you will have to do a lot of work to tweek it so you can run it solo, and a druid is probably not the best character for it anyway.
ASEO out
I agree that a druid might not be the best for the WC at 1st level solo but if you do like a few posts say and start with some simple side trek like adventures centered around Diamond Lake it could turn out very good. Maybe once she is around 3rd or 4th level she is asked to go along with a fellow ranger that is investigating the Cairn. Running a Solo is great way to get in good Role-playing one on one. And Druids work best as Solo characters if they are roleplayed right. In all my experience as a DM Druids just hamper the party if they are played right. Even think how that Druid in the Baulders Gate PC game kept complaining about eveyone in the party. LOL
Personnaly, I would start with any 1st level character and do a little adventure totally geared towards her abilities and skill selection. Later I would propose that she either try different character classes (fighter type, rogue type, mage type) or have her be joined by variuous NPCs (one at the time) so that she can get familiar with the specifics of each ... I'm concerned that starting at higher level than 1st entails too many decisions and choices that may not make much sense to a novice player ... I would even suggest that you create a very simple fighter with her that could be her nemesis during the first "mini-adventure" ... I find that fighter is the best class to introduce D&D ... plus as she fights him, she'll understand better her strengths and weaknesses compared to another class type ...