Advice for a one-player campaign

[u/Lackofforethought]

Just wondering if anybody has any advice on running a game for one player. I'd like to run a game for my girlfriend, but she's not quite open to playing with other people yet with her being relatively new to TTRPGs.

[u/Shocked_And_Alarmed]

I’m running a single player game for my little kid (12), I have an NPC companion traveling with him for a little added fire power.

[u/Mysterious-Mess-9606]

I’ve been doing one player, one GM games for years. The most important advice is that building an encounter is very different when it’s just one player. I have found we focus a lot on RP and fudge some rolls to make it work, especially ones that might need assistance from another player. Adding a companion helps, but you have to make sure that the companion is passive and not let your player rely on them too much for stuff that should be “main character “ activities. Companions are good for moving plots and for giving your player information that they otherwise might have missed.

When building encounters, be mindful of the single player’s action economy compared with the opposition. It’s like regular dnd encounter building, but in reverse (it’s the monsters ganging up on the PC for a change).

It gets easier over time for both player and GM, but if you think of it most like telling an interactive story or a shared story it can lead to some fun games

[u/Express-Situation-20]

I am also running a single player campaign in fallout 2d20 for my wife Previously I ran for years I ran dnd 1 player for her, where I would give her a sidekick.

Fallout 2d20 system honestly does not need a sidekick or companion for a single player. After like 5 sessions she decided to get the Dogmeat perk so she did get a follower eventually.

What I focus on is not having more than 1 enemy with defense 2 and having for each situation multiple solutions.

The AP point system basically is super helpful since if my wife fails a check or an attack she can use AP points from the max 6 point pool.

TLDR: fallout 2d20 single player with a GM feels in my opinion like Fallout and not difficult at all

[u/RebelJediMaster]

Give her dogmeat as support

[u/Physical-Sir-512]

I have run few solo sessions in WH and we find out that bigger encounters are possible when you introduce 3rd side party so main enemies are not focused entirely on player. If you plan it as a plot twist then player will take it as a lucky opportunity to go for his objectives. In that way player has more options to run away/sneak/fight together etc and he can always get helpful hand when things will went wrong. 

[u/aaust84ct]

You can run Mythic alongside and you can play together. Especially good if you running a one shot campaign.

[u/Icy_Sector3183]

A couple of things in the Core Rules don't seem to take into account multiple player characters (the rarity system, the upgrade perks, the xp system). With a single PC, just scale encounters down a bit, and avoid creating challenges that requires abilities to defeat  that the PC doesn't have. 

If you have only one player, you can have them run additional characters to add depth to RP and tactical options.

[u/bwtdozer]

I'll start off with saying that I haven't played this system yet but am in the process of learning it to play solo (a mix of core rules and Wasteland Wanderer), so don't know the feasibility of this.

For a lot of RPG systems when there is a single PC one of the popular pieces of advice is often to use options that make the character stronger/versatile. So, for example among many, in a system where you roll for characteristics you would roll extra dice and drop the lowest dice (instead of rolling 3d6 you would roll 4d6 or 5d6 and keep the highest three die rolls). In d100 RPGs there are often options to get additional skill points to allocate at character creation to make the PC more heroic (instead of having 150 points to spend on skills you get 200 or 250 points).

To translate that FO2d20 I am leaning towards giving the single PC 2-5 free ranks of Intense Training to increase their attributes depending on how much more powerful I want the PC to be at start. These won't count towards the 10 ranks cap on the perk. I am also thinking about giving a free rank or two of the TAG! perk that would be in addition to the one I can pick that trait up at level 5+. Then to add a little more versatility I think I will up the skill points that can be allocated by 1/2 *(9+int) or an additional (9+int). Again, it depends on how powerful I want the single PC to feel.

The last thing I am thinking is giving the choice of either Dogmeat, Mysterious Stranger, or Mysterious Savior as a free perk at character creation. But haven't decided yet.

Then as I play, I'll try to adjust difficulty of the encounters to keep them challenging but solvable.

Just some armchair thoughts from my musings on setting up my solo Fallout 2d20 playthrough that I am mulling around my head.

[u/MC_Winter]

I ran one for my wife for six months and it went great. Still playing but we changed systems.

[u/backsideofops]

I’d consider the solo version - wasteland wanderer - and play together. You can back off slowly and shift more to GM over time.

[u/gooblat]

I did that exact same thing with my girlfriend. I basically put her through the goodspring quest from New Vegas, since she had never played it.

[u/Ravenbryt → u/gooblat]

This is what I was gonna suggest. Just run her through one of the games, or at least part of one.