Monday, August 21, 2006
Although I've only tried it a handful of times in the past, I keep thinking about one-on-one roleplaying. While the default RPG group is at least three or four players and a GM, occasionally groups are smaller than that -- sometimes so small that it's just one player and one GM.
Of course, my good friend The Law considers such play "mutual masturbation," meaning he basically finds the premise to be unappealing. I can understand that. It just feels weird. However, when you have a very specific type of story you want to play out or you simply don't have a group with which to play, is it so bad? Also, it works wonders to introduce someone to concepts and mechanics of RPGs. I used a short one-on-one session to introduce Jacquie to D&D a couple of years back. I had intended on running multiple one-on-one sessions with her, actually, but it didn't work out that way. After one such session, she joined the Sunday night group.
Originally, I had intended to introduce her to roleplaying through a one-on-one Vampire: The Masquerade game. We even went so far as to create a Gangrel character for her. I suppose I was lazy about getting the game off the ground, though, and it never even got beyond chargen (although Jacquie and her Gangrel did find their way into my New Orleans By Night PBeM chronicle for awhile).
As I understand it, a couple of RPGs have even been designed with one-on-one play in mind. I don't own either, but I have been tempted to buy them. Ghost Dog is based on the urban samurai movie of the same name, and the folks on RPG.net keep saying that its design intention was to provide a one-on-one gameplay experience. Trollbabe is supposed to be of similar design intent, although my understanding is that it's really designed for men to introduce their girlfriends/wives to roleplaying.
Typically, my regular (ha!) gaming has been of the game group variety. I don't think I've run a game for less than three people (with the exception of Jacquie's intro to D&D) in years. When you have fewer than three people, I generally find that it becomes very difficult to push a story ahead. More often than not, the players -- and even the GM -- are not proactive enough to make it work. It requires a lot more effort on the part of everybody.
The only reason I even bring one-on-one play up is that some of the adventure/campaign ideas I've had recently would work best in a one-on-one environment rather than in a group environment. I'm not sure if I'll flesh any of the ideas out; and even if I do, I don't know if I'll run them. Still, they're interesting to think about. I'm also curious about whether one-on-one play can be a lot of fun if some time is put in by both the player and GM to make it work and to make it fun.
Of course, my good friend The Law considers such play "mutual masturbation," meaning he basically finds the premise to be unappealing. I can understand that. It just feels weird. However, when you have a very specific type of story you want to play out or you simply don't have a group with which to play, is it so bad? Also, it works wonders to introduce someone to concepts and mechanics of RPGs. I used a short one-on-one session to introduce Jacquie to D&D a couple of years back. I had intended on running multiple one-on-one sessions with her, actually, but it didn't work out that way. After one such session, she joined the Sunday night group.
Originally, I had intended to introduce her to roleplaying through a one-on-one Vampire: The Masquerade game. We even went so far as to create a Gangrel character for her. I suppose I was lazy about getting the game off the ground, though, and it never even got beyond chargen (although Jacquie and her Gangrel did find their way into my New Orleans By Night PBeM chronicle for awhile).
As I understand it, a couple of RPGs have even been designed with one-on-one play in mind. I don't own either, but I have been tempted to buy them. Ghost Dog is based on the urban samurai movie of the same name, and the folks on RPG.net keep saying that its design intention was to provide a one-on-one gameplay experience. Trollbabe is supposed to be of similar design intent, although my understanding is that it's really designed for men to introduce their girlfriends/wives to roleplaying.
Typically, my regular (ha!) gaming has been of the game group variety. I don't think I've run a game for less than three people (with the exception of Jacquie's intro to D&D) in years. When you have fewer than three people, I generally find that it becomes very difficult to push a story ahead. More often than not, the players -- and even the GM -- are not proactive enough to make it work. It requires a lot more effort on the part of everybody.
The only reason I even bring one-on-one play up is that some of the adventure/campaign ideas I've had recently would work best in a one-on-one environment rather than in a group environment. I'm not sure if I'll flesh any of the ideas out; and even if I do, I don't know if I'll run them. Still, they're interesting to think about. I'm also curious about whether one-on-one play can be a lot of fun if some time is put in by both the player and GM to make it work and to make it fun.
// posted by Chris @ 10:23 AM 
Number of visitors since Jan. 7, 2004:
