GMing a one-player table (campaign)


Advice

Scarab Sages

My group of players are simply unable or unwilling to show up at designated times and places consistently. I have one dedicated player who always plays each session (usually 3-4 times a month) and thus the game revolves around that player, which is fine.

We have 2 other players who play once a month if we are lucky, and 3 others who play once every 3 months.

For instance, I'm running Rise of the Runelords- since the summer of 2012. We've tried desperately to only play this campaign when at least 3 players are available, but this just hasn't happened.

Hence, I've decided to create "hirelings," custom-made characters the full-time PC can use along with his main character. I've created one of each class which the player can pick 3 from in order to form a party of 4. That player than controls the 3 "hirelings." Other issues notwithstanding like XP and treasure divisions, this really slows the game to a crawl.

The player is naturally ungodly slow anyways, so most of the time I'm sitting twiddling my thumbs while he figures out something to do. One combat encounter at level 10 often takes at least 3 hours.

This just won't do any longer. I understand the burden the player has- it would indeed be hard to keep track of the main character and the hirelings. So for our next campaign I have decided something needs to change.

My thoughts:

1. Don't go the Hireling route any more. Instead, have the player be by himself using only his main character (unless he takes other feats, spells, etc. in game). This character will use the 25 point buy (I currently use 20 pt) and I will scale back encounters based on a single player rather than the typical design of a party of 4-6.
a. I'm leaning this way, buy am afraid I don't know I how scale back an encounter. For instance, if I were doing RotRL for one player character, how would I go about this? Also, if the scaling is in effect, then the 25 point buy might be too high, eh?

2. Continue the Hireling route, but use only combat/melee Hirelings.
b. This player favors melee characters, so he would need that additional support of control/rogue/divine...

3. Allow the player to actually create and use 4 characters...i.e. instead of one main guy, the player will have 4 and control their advancement, etc.
c. This may speed up things a tad, but strikes at the heart of DnD, which is one player one character, and would be more of the same, really.

The key issue here is time and removing the burden the player has, realizing the fact that we just won't have the people dedicated to playing all the time.

I'm really leaning towards #1, scaling the encounters/campaigns/modules down for one player.

:(


Scalling the encounters doesnt really work well. Even if the encounters are easier, there are fundamental things a single person party will lack.

I have run successful 1 on 1 campaigns. My strategy is thus.

Gestalt - the rules from unearthed arcana are perfect for these situations. Making the character higher level, or the encounters lower cr doesnt solve the fact that one character doesnt have all the abilities a typical adventure expects. Gestalt allows them to dramatically expand those abilities. Add in a higher point buy or a generous rolling method, and he can have a much more capable character so long as he chooses 2 classes to gestalt the compliment eachother instead of stack(so a paladin/bard, instead of a fighter/barbarian). This means more versatile characters without making them significantly more numerically powerful

DMPC
Normally I shy away from these. But if theres just 1 player, there is some serious oportunity for roleplay, bonding and character development. You can have the buddy cop movie or whatever. And you can tailor your dmnpc to complement whatever the player picks, filling in any gaps in the 'party'.

Encourage Action economy and multi role classes:

The two absolute best classes for this situation are the summoner, and the druid. Normally the fact that these classes are potent casters AND get a powerful combat pet is disruptive. In a 2 person party its a non-issue. Theres no spotlight to steal. A party of a gestalt Summoner/ninja and a Druid/magus is a complete party. 4 sets of actions every turn, plenty of utility casting, healing/condition removal, control casting, skills, and combat power.

The pets are important because they offer that extra set of actions. In a small party the biggest issure is action economy. Even if you are a cleric/wizard, you still only cast one spell per turn. But the pets mean that the 'character' can attack and cast a spell, or attack twice, or do whatever. It evens things out and allows for more normal challenges.

The other classes I encourage are those that have an action economy boost (magus and spell combat, inquisitor with swift action buffs), that sort of thing.

With all that combined, you really dont have the change a thing for published adventures, and can pretty much run normally. They ought to have all the requisite abilities if they were created well and with versatility in mind.


Gestalts are a great option, but they can become wildly unbalanced, if you aren't very careful - like a dex-based elf ranger/guide/alchemist/mindchemist with an elven curved blade. At first, it seemed well rounded (good combat, AOE, spell support). It ended up being ridiculously overpowered.

Another option that fits well with published adventures or adventure paths is having the player run a pair of characters and have a pair of DMPCs. Make each pair consist of a "primary" with a 25 point buy and a "sidekick" with a 20 point buy (or 20 and 15, if you like). Encourage the player to make characters that will be the primary focus (the "face", skill guy, god wizard, paladin, etc.) and then make the DMPCs the lumps that round out the group.

The advantage is that you end up with a true party of 4 (which is what published stuff tends to assume). But the player has only two characters to play and one is a sidekick (should be fairly easy). Likewise, the DMPCs should be tag-a-long characters who look to the group leader (player's primary) for direction and guidance. The trick with this method is to just make sure the DMPCs don't steal the PC's thunder and spotlight.


Mike J wrote:

Gestalts are a great option, but they can become wildly unbalanced, if you aren't very careful - like a dex-based elf ranger/guide/alchemist/mindchemist with an elven curved blade. At first, it seemed well rounded (good combat, AOE, spell support). It ended up being ridiculously overpowered.

Well this is why I meantioned that the emphasis should be on filling in gaps and not on enhancing specific abilities. If you have lots of stacking abilities it will be an issue. If you deliberately make an effort not to do this but instead go for versatility, it is hands down your best option, and it doesnt overpower anything (when compared to 2 characters that is)

Quote:

Another option that fits well with published adventures or adventure paths is having the player run a pair of characters and have a pair of DMPCs. Make each pair consist of a "primary" with a 25 point buy and a "sidekick" with a 20 point buy (or 20 and 15, if you like). Encourage the player to make characters that will be the primary focus (the "face", skill guy, god wizard, paladin, etc.) and then make the DMPCs the lumps that round out the group.

The advantage is that you end up with a true party of 4 (which is what published stuff tends to assume). But the player has only two characters to play and one is a sidekick (should be fairly easy). Likewise, the DMPCs should be tag-a-long characters who look to the group leader (player's primary) for direction and guidance. The trick with this method is to just make sure the DMPCs don't steal the PC's thunder and spotlight.

I am not a fan of players running more then one character, but that is mostly me. I find that sort of thing makes it hard to have depth in roleplaying and character development, though ultimately it works just fine for the mechanical side of things.

Silver Crusade

I've never run a one-person game myself, but I've done a two-man Gestalt campaign and I've discovered a very important rule when choosing your enemies: completely throw out anything with "save or suck" abilities.

It seems obvious when said, but it's easy to forget this when you throw something fairly simple like a CR 4 Harpy at a level 8. Anything that can stun, paralyze, fascinate or otherwise incapacitate a character for more than a single round very quickly turns it into a "save or die" scenario. No matter how low the save DC is, at some point your solo character is going to roll a nat 1, and nobody likes ending a campaign over a single crappy die roll.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I feel for you, Lucanus. My mind is spinning but I can't imagine how to fix that situation except to avoid the published adventures and fly solo.

Kolokotroni brought up some great options but the truth is, if you're single player is as slow to make decisions as you say, a gestalt character is going to be just as complicated and time-consuming. They have even MORE options for each turn.

I think it would be wise to have your player create the melee PC he loves and just send him off into the wilderness to tackle monsters, find rumored treasure, rescue maidens, foil the evil designs of mad wizards and whatnot.

If you create his side-kick and run him/her as an NPC it could be a blast.

You could plan mini-adventures for those days when the others show up. As long as there is no time pressure on the main 'storyline', your hero could put it on hold and tackle a bigger challenge on these days when he has more firepower.

Those are my two cents.

Other consideration: Is the absence of the other players due to time commitment, distance to travel or something else? Would trying to incorporate them by computer be an option? I haven't done it myself, but I know others who are experimenting with it.


I ran a single player through a campaign. It lasted 11 years IRL.
She played a gestalt rogue/sorcerer. She mainly chose buffing spells and focused on stealth. It is rather amazing just how far into a dungeon a rogue can sneak when not encumbered with lumbering clankers in full plate.

She'd often sneak past all mooks, hide and wait until BBEG slept and then coup de grace. Since she was playing alone I loosened the conditions upon which she could coup de grace someone.

As your player prefers martials, I'd suggest a gestalt fighter/rogue:
* Gobs of feats
* Gobs of skills (especially Use Magic Device to activate scrolls, wands, rods, etc.)
* Stealth and sneak attack to nail BBEG for good damage without having to wade through mooks.
* Good HP and BAB for when you're detected.


I doubt it will be much fun doing published APs single player, and the level of work required by the GM to make sure every single event and encounter is suitable will likely be more than simply running a homebrew come-as-you-go adventure.

The important thing about running a single player table, is that the player has no help. A death is a real death when there is no one to drag you out and heal you.

Still, if you focus on a lot of skill challenges, sneaking about, etc, it can still be a lot of fun.

The thing that ends up happening with most single player tables, is it starts to actually feel lonely. Not necessarily because there are no other PCs, but that everything ends up being scaled down to 1 on 1, 1 on 2, or so. For this reason, you may want to work towards some abstracted systems to make the impact of the one lone adventurer more impactful. Ultimate Campaign has got 3 things that can do this. There's the downtime system, where the single PC would be able to manage a team of abstracted individuals. There's the kingdom building rules, where that single person might be able to build, or more likely, assume domain over, a small settlement, that could grow into a town/city/kingdom. This makes for a larger, vibrant, world, while still focusing on the single player's impact on that larger world, and from that single player's point of view. Then, there's the mass combat, where this single player can take over control of entire armies on large battlefields.

Grand Lodge

All good ideas.

I will most likely remove the "hireling" option from the player and allow him to then run his character only.

Then, I'll likely create 3 NPC characters which I will control and who will be int he party with him and advance; that way I won't have to scale adventures back and change published material. Ain't nobody got time for that.

We actually played this way several years ago; I used 3 NPCs but then got away from it because I felt the player wasn't getting much time for play...what with me controlling 3 turns, plus the enemies turns.

But that was far better than thumb twiddling, kept the player's mind clear, and allowed him to focus on his guy more. Plus, it did add a bit of roleplaying and story element...

Actually, i think I can just ask my player what sort of classes he'd like to adventure with, and I'll roll up whatever he likes and use them, rather than have me arbitrarily do so.


I have run a single player through chapters 1-4 of Council of Thieves. He ran two characters,

I allowed the player a rather strong point-buy to begin with; in addition, the characters started and progressed through the adventure path at two levels higher than each member of a four-man party would have. For example, the game started with them at level 3, and when the group of four would have been level 6, they were level 8.

This helps to boost their HP, saving throws, and access to skill points -- which is essential for two characters to survive in the place of four.

Treasure requires little adjustment for a long while using this system -- however, please be advised that as time goes on, the WBL for two characters of a given level X is actually less than the WBL of a character two levels higher than level X. tl;dr -- you will eventually need to start re-calculating your treasure hoards, or giving out just a little bonus money, or your characters will end up receiving less than their WBL.

I minimized and altered the use of save-or-die effects. Primarily, I tended to emphasize other powers; at the worst, I tended to turn save-or-dies into a two-stage power. The first round a creature used its SoD (like finger of death or dominate), a failed saving throw indicated instead that the target creature becomes Dazed, and the spell/spell-like ability is not expended. If the target of the spell fails to save against the same effect in the following round as well, then the effect takes place normally.

---

Here's how we fared with those base rules.

The player made two stealth characters, which would be a strong theme throughout the game. One was primarily a sorceror (party face), and the other was primarily a rogue.

The sorceror took several elemental cantrips, specialized in fire, and would eventually take rogue and oracle levels. This allowed him to cast spells without a verbal components. He preferred to remain in stealth with vanish and perform sneak attacks with his touch spells (thus almost always targeting AC 10), dealing sneak attack damage with an element that the enemy was not immune to. Eventually, the lynchpin of his build was using scorching ray to deal multiple sneak attacks with a standard action. He was physically weak, but tended to vanish out of danger and would summon creatures with good effect when necessary.

The rogue was the party tank, with very good AC and surprisingly decent hit points for a rogue. As a tiefling, he had Darkvision, would often us darkness, and his preferred attack was sniping with an enchanted seeking bow -- allowing him to keep many enemies confused and at a distance. Still, when plans went awry the game repeatedly resulted in him standing directly between an enemy and the sorceror.

They preferred to adventure by scouting at all possible times, then enter combat by ambushing their enemies or luring them into traps. They were able to quickly dispatch several of them using this, even though many enemies were physically formidable and very lethal when in a full attack range.

The worst enemies for the group were animated objects. Animated objects are good attackers, are immune to sneak attacks, critical hits, take half damage from energy damage, take half damage from projectiles, and then subtract Hardness. These characters could do effectively nothing against them without planning, as each of their strengths were negated or repeatedly mitigated.

Your mileage may vary.


I suppose I should also mention a couple things.

The player was a mid-level min-maxer. Very experienced, but also willingly made suboptimal choices for style or story reasons -- there were benefits to the oracle levels of both characters, but they may have otherwise pursued other choices.

Additionally, the game ran very quickly. A great deal of our other games are contingent on discussing plans at length -- which was obviously greatly shortened in this group of one. On the downside, it also meant that there were some stray occasions where a tactical or story choice could be made and the single player did not notice it, resulting in frustration at not knowing what to do or how to manage a couple really harrowing combats.

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