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1. One On One Adventures Compendium Free Pdf

Yesterday I started running my students who are keen on D&D their starting adventure for the year built for level 1 starting characters. I sat down with a concept and built a random dungeon utilising the material in the DMG. I then populated the tomb and came up with the story I had been working on. I am going to be releasing this as both a free adventure for D&D and Pathfinder so if you are looking for the D&D version you will need to go here.

The premise for this adventure is that the players begin as criminals. The land they are living in is run by a cruel Ghast Queen who forsook life to rule in immortality. She is a tyrant like no other in this part of the lands. The players were taken as criminals for their actions that were construed as treason and put to hard labour for several years.

Then they are offered a chance to show the Ghast Queen their rehabilitation. Once a year 20 to 30 prisoners are selected to “run the gauntlet”. They are taken to the tomb that was prepared for the Ghast Queen in life (Once Queen Esmerelda the III). Here a task is created for the prisoners to collect five (or however many players in your group their are) gems that fit together to become an art piece known as the Hand of the Lich. The five holders of the gems, once all other petitioners are dead, are then pardoned and set free from servitude.

Each participant is equipped (i.e. they get the equipment that they purchased in their basic character build) and they are each given one healing potion each. They are then lead to an elevator shaft on top of a mountain operated by two Minotaur pulling a rope and lever system. They are lowered a hundred feet down an elevator shaft of polished granite (DC 20 Athletics for climbing), lead through a room dedicated to the worship of Set (or another god of death that fits your campaign) and into a room that once was used as an embalming chamber.

The guards then read from a scroll and the group (around 20 – 30 as you see fit) fall unconscious. They wake up an hour later (though it seems much longer to them) and the other occupants of the room wake up at the same time – the Gauntlet has begun. For details on how to run the extra NPC’s look after the descriptions of all the rooms.

1. Embalming Workshop with Pool of Water: CR 0 to 8
   

   The wake-up room. Players wake up here in complete gear, others are also waking up at the same time – there are 15 – 25 other criminals in the room, all armed and armored. There may be a battle here, there may not – depends on how the players work it out. The other criminals are more inclined to try and find the gems first and then fight for their lives. Use the Bandit template from the GMG if a battle ensues.

2. Chapel dedicated to Set with collapsed floor: CR 4
   

   The floor has given way in a couple of places here where a small amount of water pooled and loosened the limestone over time. This hints at the level below this one. Through the archway to the south a permanent 10 ‘ mass of spinning whirling blades as per the Blade Barrier CL 11 DC 19 Ref save. spell protects the entrance to the elevator shaft (where the criminals were initially brought in). The room is dedicated to the Gods of the Dead and protectors of the souls which were meant to guard Queen Esmerelda, so long ago. The experience for this room should only be awarded if the characters seek to make their way through the Blade Barrier area.

3. Elevator Shaft: CR 0
   

   This shaft is where the players come in. There are no ropes or elevator here and the top side of the challenge is one hundred feet above along a polished granite surface (DC 20 Climb). However, the shaft drops a further 25 feet and opens into a set of natural caverns below the elevator that is not covered by this adventure.

4. Antechamber for preparation of meeting dead with collapsed ceiling portion: CR 1
   

   Inside this voluminous chamber there is a massive amount of debris. Hiding in this debris there is a servant of the Ghast Queen who is here to test the will of the criminals that are running the gauntlet. It is a mongrelman (Bestiary 2) that has been driven mad by a curse from the Ghast Queen to feel pain in the presence of one of the gems. The mongrelman remains largely out of sight in the rubble of the Northern corner unless and individual seeks to pass through this room in possession of one of the gems that makes up the Hand of the Lich. He is known as Dendrick and was once a much more placid individual but he found his way into the Tomb and was cursed by the Ghast Queen and used to cause trouble for those that Run the Gauntlet.
   

5. Priest Robing Room that has been used as a campsite: CR 2

   Lairing in this room at the bequest of the Lich Queen is a Bugbear (Bestiary 1) by the name of Togs. Togs has been promised the flesh of any creature it manages to kill, as long as it holds onto the gem of the Hand of the Lich it was given. Togs also holds a pouch with 17 CP and a small glass vial holding the nail clippings of a sea hag. Door to this room is wooden and unlocked. DC 15 break, 30 HP.

6. Crypt for less important burials with pool of water: CR 2
   

   Water leeching from the ceiling has caused a permanent 4’ pool of water to settle here. Jars and baskets of corpses that were once the Ghast Queen’s servants have fallen into the pit and the water is black with their contagion. Living in the pool of water is a Boggard{Tridlplop) who has one of the gems of theHand of the Lich. The pair are also carriers of disease and with any successful attack must make a Fort save DC 12 or contract the Filth Fever. They carry 28 silver pieces otherwise.

7. Tomb of the wealthiest nobles: CR 0 to 6
   

   This is where the Ghast Queen had her closest nobles interred as she had prepared for her own death. Their worldly goods are in the chests that lay with them and they are looked over by the statue of Set on the south eastern wall. Treasure in the chests of the room (all locked with DC 15 to unlock is: 3200 CP, 1000 SP, 50 GP, 3 pieces of jade worth 50 GP each, a gem of the Lich Hand and a Cube of Force. Distribute this treasure amongst the five real chests as you wish.

   In total there are five traps in this room. Experience should be awarded only to those traps that the characters interact with.

   1. In the northern most room if a character passes through this archway it triggers a Swinging Axe trap CR 1;
   2. Archway in the north east has a pressure plate just inside the door that breaks the floor and drops into a Spiked Pit Trap CR 2;
   3. On the pillar next to the entrance of the north eastern archway there is a glyph of warding present which triggers a sleep spell when read. DC 22 perception to spot and a DC 21 Disable Device (must have trapfinding ability) to disable. DC 14 Will save to resist the effects of the sleep spell CR 1;
   4. On the statue of Set (if it is touched, it has a Zircon worth a 100 GP held in an outstretched hand like a black heart) the statue breathes a fan of flames out as a Burning Hands Trap CR 2; and
   5. The middle chest of the southernmost chests is an illusion and covers a Pit Trap CR

8. Divination Room: CR 2
   

   This room has been totally destroyed in previous gauntlets. A backpack with 12 gold in it lays in the southern corner and where a brown mold has taken root in the upper corner of the room directly above the pack.

9. Gallery with the ceiling collapse:
   

   There is nothing of interest in this area. It used to house oil paintings and statues but they are all rubble now.

10. Guard Room: CR 1
    

    The furniture in this room has been smashed by the many battles it has seen and the table and chairs that once housed human guards lays as debris on the ground. Three skeletons (Bestiary 1) exist in this room and attack anyone that attempts to enter it. There is a skeleton at the entrance to the Gallery to the north, and a skeleton to the entrance to the southern gallery. The final skeleton stands in the center of the room facing the entrances to the east.

11. Gallery reduced to ashes:
    

    This room has been destroyed by a major fire that burnt away all of the paintings and sculpture. There are three bases to statues left and with a successful perception check DC 15, the characters can locate a tin container that holds one of the gems of the Hand of the Lich.

12. The Grand Crypt and camp site:
    

    This area is where the Ghast Queen would finally have rested but it now stands empty as a shrine to her stupidity. Inside the coals of the campfire is one of the gems of the Hand of the Lich which can be found with a perception check DC 15.

13. Embalming chamber with partial collapse:
    

    Inside here is the final and most dangerous of the guardians in the Gauntlet. A wight (Bestiary 1), once the lover of the Ghast Queen, guards the final piece of the gems of the Hand of the Lich.

Handling the NPC’s and Adapting the Game

First, to adapting the game. This is obviously geared toward a group of five or less players due to the number of gems that make up the Hand of the Lich. all you need to adapt to a larger group is make the number of gems greater and scatter them about. There are plenty of spaces that can be used for placing the gems and increasing the number that can be freed of the Gauntlet. The only place really not suitable is with the Mongrelman in room 4 due to his curse.

What of the other NPC’s though? They are only mentioned in room 1 but there may be heaps of them around. Do not be scared of these NPC’s. They are an invaluable resource for you as the GM. Do what you will with them but I see them being used usefully in the following ways;

• It is not envisioned that any other NPC’s will find any of the gems, but if the players miss one because of a bad roll then one of the NPC’s could have it instead.
• The NPC’s are criminals and so can be used in encounters where they attack the PC’s to obtain the gems they have on them for adding some XP into the mix.
• Most of the NPC’s will not drink the healing potion they were given (a small number should so they are not seen as a never-ending supply) and so are a good source of healing in the adventure.
• If the PC’s are coming toward a difficult encounter (e.g. the Wight) and they are all banged up you could weaken the creature as though it had already been attacked by the NPC’s. Throw some dead NPC’s around the room (all with potions of healing on them) and reduce the hit points of the creature.

So, use the NPC’s. You could also introduce some side quests that lead on from this when the players are free of the Tomb with them. They are a brilliant resource.

The end of the adventure requires the five that have the gems to congregate in the temple of Set. There must be only five living creatures left and they will find that the Blade Barrier spell has been lifted and the elevator has been lowered to lift them to their freedom or doom? That part is up to you. Award the players a CR 2 (600 XP) bonus for a story award completing the Ghast Queen’s challenge.

One On One Adventures Compendium Free Pdf

If you would like a PDF of the adventure, just click Tomb of the Ghast Queen Pathfinder!

Keep rolling!

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I'm eager to hear how other people handle this? I do quite a bit of GM-Less gaming in Mythic and some other fringe systems, but, sometimes it's just better to be playing 'other sides' even if you're still cooperating to build a story.

So, what game systems do you use when there's only you and a single player about? How do you balance DND 4E encounters and play for example? Is there any way to do so without just making the single player play more than one character? What about other games?

mxyzplkKatnissKatniss$endgroup$

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10 Answers

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I've done a lot of one-on-one GMing. I lived with a family in 8th grade, and I had a 3-4 days a week one-on-one that went on for a year, as well as a few others early on, a few in college, and then 2 relationships and finally my wife.

System is the first question for a lot of reasons. The first is you have to find out what kind of game the player wants. One-on-one has some distinct advantages over multiplayer in that the player can REALLY get stuff done and can really focus on goals. Gritty or Epic power levels? Cinematic/narrativist or realistic?

Also, as per Vreeg's first rule of Setting design, ('Make sure the ruleset you are using matches the setting and game you want to play, because the setting and game WILL eventually match the system.'), you need to know what game you want to run, and how much effort you want to put into it. Make sure the ruleset supports the type of play you are looking for. If you choose an encounter based game like 4e, don't expect the system to support heavy roleplaying or political gaming. Retroclones of 0D&D are better for games based on exploration, whereas some of the skill-based games are better when you want to add in more social interaction.

Talk to the player about lethality and setback ahead of time. These are some of the things that can end a game if there is a big disconnect between GM and Player. If the Player does not understand the stakes, they'll be upset if they lose an eye or die.

Discuss early on about how long this could last. Different games have different power growth curves. If the idea is to make this last a while, think about writing a little chapter guide for your self.

Decide the 'Sandbox' % early on. One of the tendencies that shows up in a one-on-one is the railroad. If you want to keep an open exploration, remind yourself of this often. A good sandbox game means that the Player will jump around and do different things; be prepared and patient here. Definitely have at least 2 major adventure ideas (at least) if you want to run something of a sandbox, so the player feels their choices matter from the outset.

Be ready for the player to collect a stable of NPCs!!! In a one-on-one, with a single Character, the GM's skill to create memorable, differentiated NPCs will be stretched. Get ready to act out mannerisms even more than than normal, and be ready for NPCs to be collected for a while.

A single player also means that the GM has to really take the time to create a stable yet 'World-in-Motion' style home base, especially in the earlier games. Take the time to write good notes ahead of time about the home town and every NPC therein that they meet. Know where mercenaries are found, how information is shared (town crier? Broadsheet? Bardic Network?), and where different supplies are found. Include a few places in the beginning that the player cannot afford, so that down the road the feeling of accomplishment is that much sweeter.

OK, back to work. I hope that was useful!

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I find one of the best genres for one on one RPGs is the superhero genre. Think about it, guys like Spiderman, Daredevil, Batman, Superman, Captain America, etc are always fighting the baddies on their own, so it's not a stretch to set up one player with a main superhero (and maybe a sidekick) and go on an investigation. Villains & Vigilantes (old school version) used to be our go-to game whenever only one player would show up, but I bet Champions, Mutants & Masterminds, and Gurps Supers might work just as well.

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When I played with my wife we simply used Labyrinth Lord (old school D&D), used only one player character, a lot of hirelings and henchmen, and tried to avoid combat if possible. Hirelings are somewhat different from characters in that they are basically level 0 or level 1 characters. Unfortunately for them they often ended up being used as early warning signs. I found that I didn't have to change much in my adventures.

I wouldn't want to take this party through an adventure path, however. An adventure path was probably written to give every character class something to do and to enable team moments. That would require significant changes.

1. I'd use adventures two to three levels below the character level to enable the use of higher level spells, better saves, more hit points.
2. Reduce the number of enemies if you can because the number of actions available to each side per turn is a really important measure of advantage.
3. Use a simple downgrade system for boss monsters. Reduce attacks and saves by two, hit points by ten, and remove one or two spells at the highest levels, for example. You can do this on the fly.

Back to the game itself, however. In our game we had a lot less combat than we usually have in our games because she likes exploring locales, discovering setting background, talking to people. Just because there are a lot of combat rules doesn't mean that you have to fight a lot. Focus on what the two of you like best.

Good luck! :)

Alex SchröderAlex Schröder$endgroup$$begingroup$

Burning Wheel does a great job of supporting one-on-one games. The system emphasizes the protagonist's personal goals and moral conflicts, which makes it a great fit for character-driven one-on-one. There's a section in the Adventure Burner supplement dedicated to discussing one-on-one play.

The main thing for these kinds of games is that there will be no inter-player conflict or shared party game mechanics. Any game that doesn't require those things should work one-on-one even if the game doesn't mention it.

One strategy I've used in the past is to create an ever present NPC. Fill out a complete character sheet for them, and have some reason for that character to almost always be with the PC. This way it's more like a two-player, one GM game. This way it's easier to keep the game interesting with some inter-personal conflicts. If the player is often alone, you'll mostly be hitting them with conflicts from the environment.

Alex P$endgroup$$begingroup$

I've played 1:1 games extensively and used many game systems. In many cases its more about the relationship between the two individuals than the game system. Aisi laagi lagan meera ho gai magan bhajan free download. However, the game system can support the 1:1 game better or worse.

I prefer game systems that help plumb the depth of a character or small set of characters played by the player in the session. A number of game systems do this, such as Pendragon and Sorcerer. Note that 1:1 games doesn't necessarily mean the same person is always the GM and the other person is always the player. You can bounce back and forth.

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I've played Beast Hunters with one GM and one player. It wasn't for me, but I understand it works well for others.

There are many, many personal experiences of one-on-one play in this Solo Games thread. Here are some specific threads about Primetime Adventures, Freemarket and Trollbabe:

Finally, I've heard many times that Dogs in the Vineyard works well with one player and one GM.

GrahamGraham$endgroup$$begingroup$

There's an entire line of gaming adventures designed for D&D / Pathfinder for one player called 1 on 1 adventures.

I've not personally played these, but my initial read-through of them is quite positive.

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Here's an excellent discussion of running D&D for one player. Key points of interest include:

• Story and Roleplay are Key

Using the mechanics in service of the story and roleplay, and adopting a more cinematic tone provide a PC with a strong heroic feeling.

• Combat featuring more minions, with strong ties back to the story, rather than a tactical exercise

• Tailoring the game to the player

Brian Ballsun-StantonBrian Ballsun-Stanton$endgroup$$begingroup$

What realy goes well for a 1:1 game is the Call of Cthulhu RPG. For most adventures it is not a problem to be the only inspector discovering the mysteries.

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One Player

When I was young, my gamemastering was predominantly for one player. I had a couple players, but none of them liked each other, so I ran a lot of single player games.

System didn't really matter all that much at least specifically when related to the solo aspect - we would just pad the party with enough NPCs that you could do what you needed to do. Games with a strong 'party conceit' like Basic D&D and 1e AD&D would have 4+ person parties. I ran just about every classic module (the B and X series for Basic, the T and I and A and GDQ and more for AD&D). It wasn't really hard and we didn't 'try to avoid combat.' I mean, even computer RPGs back then had you control a whole party in this way (Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, you know) and so it didn't seem particularly odd or onerous.

For games without as strong a party conceit, like Star Frontiers, it was even lighter; one NPC to watch your back or drive while you shoot was sufficient. Of course none of these games back then were super tactical like D&D 4e is; I would imagine you could do the same thing in it but it would be a lot more work from round to round.

One Character

Later on, I ran more true one-character adventures. Those were harder to balance and you had to err on the side of more RP/exploration and less combat, but using either scenarios designed for one player (the Challenge series for AD&D 2e was good) or just bumping up levels (adventure for a party of level 5? OK, let's let the level 7 barbarian loose on it). Once we had a very roleplaying-heavy group, often times multi-player campaigns would end up with solo adventures and mini-quests as people wanted to feel out their characters' plots in one direction or another. I ran solo character AD&D 2e, Feng Shui, Fading Suns, and Deadlands. It definitely required less time spent on the battlemat, but that's what we wanted out of games in the nineties. Systems that were 'quick kill' like Runequest were worse than ablative hit-point games here because they were less tolerant of figuring out you needed to run or similar.

Of course, many of the modern 'mini-storygames' are pretty forgiving in a one-on-one format as well because one branch of them eschews danger/death more in general.

mxyzplkmxyzplk$endgroup$

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