I have a lot of siblings, and when we were younger we had to visit a horse ranch to scoop poop for a few hours every other day. At one point I was paired with my youngest sister, and I had an idea about playing a "game" where I told her a story and then gave her the choice of what the main character did after something happened. We spun a tale about a space ranger that crash landed on an alien planet and had to survive using her ship's resources and the lush environment around her, avoiding alien creatures and repairing her ship along the way. When we finished cleaning the pens, we'd abruptly pause our game, and have to wait days at a time to catch back up and play again, but it was very fun and helped to pass the time while we worked. My other siblings were not very interested in playing the "game", so it was usually just me and my sister out of breathe, smelling of horse turds, and yapping about how a raygun should be able to melt through solid metal or not. We never actually finished the story due to outside circumstances, but it was nice while it lasted. Years later, I finally realized that we were basically playing an RPG together the whole time and had no idea until after watching this video.
I don't know how I never found your channel until now, but your mascot and concise script paired with your soft and fuzzy voice really makes for an enjoyable experience. Instantly subbed.
My D&D group started as me and two friends, a dm and two players. One of my most dramatic sessions I have EVER had occurred during that period, it was a trial that pit me and the other player against each other, with one character gaining favor with the judge only to have it taken back by the other, all the time the threat of execution loomed, and it felt absolutely Shakespearean. Btw you have a nice voice.
My newest session inly has 2 players. For the last 3 months. And its fun. Really working out well. And honestly i dknt have to talk much. Theyre taking over 😂
OK, this video is cool as hell. I'd like to think that I'm familiar with a _lot_ of TTRPGs but I wasn't aware of any duet-specific games. And like you said, I think duets are wonderful. It takes a pretty close relationship for it to not be awkward but when it works, it works. (I've actually been thinking lately, y'know Everyone is John? That joke game where everyone is this one dude trying to get to work? What if we did that in a more complete, "serious" way? What if instead of everyone being a character they came up with, we collaboratively dove into _one person_ and made them significantly more interesting than most RPG characters could ever be? It'd be really helpful for, say, pulp fiction genres where most of the time you've got "the protagonist" who's good at all sorts of things, rather than the protagonist getting split into four or more semi-competent people.)
I think it'd be cool if every player represented a different aspect of a character and acted/negotiated from their angles and views and values. Avoiding self destructive aspects (Although certain positives can succumb to their temptations and flaws by advocating too hard) you can have people like logic, empathy, pride, passion. Logic tries to play the intelligence role, investigations, making things make sense, coming up with solutions Empathy tries to interface with and interact with others and understand them so you can be a functioning person in social situations Pride advocates for the self, and is the sense of authority that lets you assert and stand up for others as well, you won't stand for mistreatment of yourself or those you care about. Passion has the drive, the desire, the will to move forward, and to be warm to the world, to have interest. Each person makes their case (Or if a person has a resource can exert a "Take over" to get an action done without debate, "Impulse points") and if a consensus can't be reached, roll against each other. If you try and make it purely cooperative it'll probably feel like a lot of stepping on toes, but if you make it both competitive and cooperative, trying to have your aspect be the "Champion" with some scoring system (IE, you make a decision, you get 3 points, you agree with a decision and rationalize why your aspect would agree with the other aspect, you get 1 point, you don't agree, 0 points. Your course of action brings harm, lose a point, impulse is 2X reward and 4X penalty) Cooperating and creating a rational reason to cooperate can offer bonuses to your decisions because you're more "In harmony" with it and if you're both equally on board it can be a clean 2 for each contributor.
In one of my Ironsworn: Starforged games, when we didn't have a full player setup, to not waste a meeting time we did a little side quest. We took our questgiver, and did a side-story about what her life was like. We had one character, not even defined by a sheet, and we just spun a journal about her own investigation parallel to the one she send our characters on. We started with telling what her day is like, had to come up with more details of the starting city and planet, had to roll her employer, her co-workers and her personal mission to root out corruption on a highly corporate world. We came back to her every time we didn't feel like tackling our characters, usually when one player couldn't make it to session.
Thank you so much for this video. I am so excited to try these out with my partner! I feel like I've been waiting for a video like this forever. I'll be sure to check out that sponsor!
I would love to see one where the focus is You are the demon lord or some other villain. It could even help with other games where one player can't make the main group session
Though the game isn't specifically intended for "duet" play, I think Call of Cthulhu can really sing in that style. It also does a better job of capturing the mood of the inspirational fiction, which was rarely about a group of people facing off against tentacled monsters, and more about one person experiencing things beyond their ability to understand and losing their grip on reality. In recent years, there have been more published scenarios intended for duet play.
I'm actually the other way around. I struggle to find groups for my campaign, but my brother and I have played half a dozen games one-on-one, including one that had lasted us over five years (mostly because we only played one 8-hour session every 2-3 months or so), once and a whole year between some sessions. And we're planning more. 😁 (Though I do crave a proper party...😅)
I run a game for my wife. While not specifically a duet style game, I find Legend of the Five Rings works really well for a single player. She picked a school (class) that was a matchmaker, and the whole campaign is themed around that. Something that would be a hard sell to a full table. I also think it works well with two players(+GM). Like a courtier and bodyguard, or two wandering ronin.
Thank you for this video! Me and my dad (we are both nerds lol) bought badger and coyote without knowing much about it and we kind of had a hard time trying to play it. :D
That is honestly my preference. Either loads of people playing by writing, or duet. I started a Conan 2d20 campaign with my wife using Mythic 2e (a supplement to make other systems GMless), and wow, it worked surprisingly well, one need to see it to believe it. We, as a community, should invest less into the wargamish kinds of ttrpgs and more into these creative alternatives, they are amazing
i asked my bf if he wanted to try this with me... but... we could not decide which system to play... what he wanted to play, i did not (and did not think they would work well for a duet) and the other way around. I was open to try new things but he wanted to play either shadowrun or the dark eye (his favorite systems) which I dont know really well, believe are too mechanic focused and loaded with mechanics on mechnics. he argued that it is really cool to have individual story arcs in the setting both systems come with, which may be true, but I dont want to feel bound by an official setting anyway. I wanted to tell a story and sometimes do a few rolls and with both systems he wanted, you need to roll for everything. I am still a bit sad that he would not want to try something different
I hear "duet" RPG and presume one GM with one Player, like Pelgrane Press' "Gumshoe One-2-One" line or Grove Guardian Press' "Duet D&D" series. Traditional TTRPG systems tweaked for just one adventurer/investigator. Two players with no GM is a new idea to me.
Yeah, I was hoping for coverage of BEOWULF: Age of Heroes and other more trad Duets as well as the two-players, no-gamemaster model, but it takes all kinds and I'm glad to see Duet play get coverage of any kind.
![[2 PLAYERS] How to run a 2-player RPG game](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/fejYIjyBYko/mqdefault.jpg)
I have a lot of siblings, and when we were younger we had to visit a horse ranch to scoop poop for a few hours every other day.
At one point I was paired with my youngest sister, and I had an idea about playing a "game" where I told her a story and then gave her the choice of what the main character did after something happened. We spun a tale about a space ranger that crash landed on an alien planet and had to survive using her ship's resources and the lush environment around her, avoiding alien creatures and repairing her ship along the way. When we finished cleaning the pens, we'd abruptly pause our game, and have to wait days at a time to catch back up and play again, but it was very fun and helped to pass the time while we worked. My other siblings were not very interested in playing the "game", so it was usually just me and my sister out of breathe, smelling of horse turds, and yapping about how a raygun should be able to melt through solid metal or not. We never actually finished the story due to outside circumstances, but it was nice while it lasted.
Years later, I finally realized that we were basically playing an RPG together the whole time and had no idea until after watching this video.
I don't know how I never found your channel until now, but your mascot and concise script paired with your soft and fuzzy voice really makes for an enjoyable experience. Instantly subbed.
Thank you for the compliments! 🙏
My D&D group started as me and two friends, a dm and two players. One of my most dramatic sessions I have EVER had occurred during that period, it was a trial that pit me and the other player against each other, with one character gaining favor with the judge only to have it taken back by the other, all the time the threat of execution loomed, and it felt absolutely Shakespearean. Btw you have a nice voice.
Welcome back! Oooh, the animations are smooooth!
My newest session inly has 2 players. For the last 3 months. And its fun. Really working out well. And honestly i dknt have to talk much. Theyre taking over 😂
Love your music choice for this vid. Its very cozy.
have missed shorter vids from you as i never can catch the livestreams.
OK, this video is cool as hell. I'd like to think that I'm familiar with a _lot_ of TTRPGs but I wasn't aware of any duet-specific games. And like you said, I think duets are wonderful. It takes a pretty close relationship for it to not be awkward but when it works, it works.
(I've actually been thinking lately, y'know Everyone is John? That joke game where everyone is this one dude trying to get to work? What if we did that in a more complete, "serious" way? What if instead of everyone being a character they came up with, we collaboratively dove into _one person_ and made them significantly more interesting than most RPG characters could ever be? It'd be really helpful for, say, pulp fiction genres where most of the time you've got "the protagonist" who's good at all sorts of things, rather than the protagonist getting split into four or more semi-competent people.)
Everyone is John just showed up on my feed! More games in that genre pocket would be really cool :D
I think it'd be cool if every player represented a different aspect of a character and acted/negotiated from their angles and views and values.
Avoiding self destructive aspects (Although certain positives can succumb to their temptations and flaws by advocating too hard) you can have people like logic, empathy, pride, passion.
Logic tries to play the intelligence role, investigations, making things make sense, coming up with solutions
Empathy tries to interface with and interact with others and understand them so you can be a functioning person in social situations
Pride advocates for the self, and is the sense of authority that lets you assert and stand up for others as well, you won't stand for mistreatment of yourself or those you care about.
Passion has the drive, the desire, the will to move forward, and to be warm to the world, to have interest.
Each person makes their case (Or if a person has a resource can exert a "Take over" to get an action done without debate, "Impulse points") and if a consensus can't be reached, roll against each other. If you try and make it purely cooperative it'll probably feel like a lot of stepping on toes, but if you make it both competitive and cooperative, trying to have your aspect be the "Champion" with some scoring system (IE, you make a decision, you get 3 points, you agree with a decision and rationalize why your aspect would agree with the other aspect, you get 1 point, you don't agree, 0 points. Your course of action brings harm, lose a point, impulse is 2X reward and 4X penalty)
Cooperating and creating a rational reason to cooperate can offer bonuses to your decisions because you're more "In harmony" with it and if you're both equally on board it can be a clean 2 for each contributor.
@@katlicks Disco Elysium as a TTRPG, pretty much
@@colbyboucher6391 Certainly where I gleaned the idea from.
In one of my Ironsworn: Starforged games, when we didn't have a full player setup, to not waste a meeting time we did a little side quest. We took our questgiver, and did a side-story about what her life was like. We had one character, not even defined by a sheet, and we just spun a journal about her own investigation parallel to the one she send our characters on. We started with telling what her day is like, had to come up with more details of the starting city and planet, had to roll her employer, her co-workers and her personal mission to root out corruption on a highly corporate world. We came back to her every time we didn't feel like tackling our characters, usually when one player couldn't make it to session.
Thank you so much for this video. I am so excited to try these out with my partner! I feel like I've been waiting for a video like this forever. I'll be sure to check out that sponsor!
I would love to see one where the focus is You are the demon lord or some other villain.
It could even help with other games where one player can't make the main group session
There are also some solo rpg's that can be played co-op with a second player.
yeah! a lot of solo journaling games can be played with two :D
Always love getting introduced to new play styles! Some of these games sound great
So nice to see a new video from you! Hope you also go back live soon!
I should be able to stream a bit at the end of the year :D
Though the game isn't specifically intended for "duet" play, I think Call of Cthulhu can really sing in that style. It also does a better job of capturing the mood of the inspirational fiction, which was rarely about a group of people facing off against tentacled monsters, and more about one person experiencing things beyond their ability to understand and losing their grip on reality. In recent years, there have been more published scenarios intended for duet play.
Great video! Really happy to discover you channel :3
I'm actually the other way around.
I struggle to find groups for my campaign, but my brother and I have played half a dozen games one-on-one, including one that had lasted us over five years (mostly because we only played one 8-hour session every 2-3 months or so), once and a whole year between some sessions.
And we're planning more. 😁
(Though I do crave a proper party...😅)
I run a game for my wife. While not specifically a duet style game, I find Legend of the Five Rings works really well for a single player. She picked a school (class) that was a matchmaker, and the whole campaign is themed around that. Something that would be a hard sell to a full table. I also think it works well with two players(+GM). Like a courtier and bodyguard, or two wandering ronin.
i now will call duet ttrpgs tables-for-two because I LOVE THAT SO
Edit: also hold on Czepeku sponsored you??? I love them so much, amazing!!
Thank you for this video! Me and my dad (we are both nerds lol) bought badger and coyote without knowing much about it and we kind of had a hard time trying to play it. :D
Wow, never heard of these games. Thanks
That is honestly my preference. Either loads of people playing by writing, or duet. I started a Conan 2d20 campaign with my wife using Mythic 2e (a supplement to make other systems GMless), and wow, it worked surprisingly well, one need to see it to believe it. We, as a community, should invest less into the wargamish kinds of ttrpgs and more into these creative alternatives, they are amazing
4 players are the perfect sized group
Which Solo RPG did Merle mean in the latest YRAW podcast? The one about the tea shop.
Merle says it's probably Fox Curio's Floating Bookshop! You can find it in a great bundle on itch.io this month :D
@@WintryRPG thank you and Merle!
i asked my bf if he wanted to try this with me... but... we could not decide which system to play... what he wanted to play, i did not (and did not think they would work well for a duet) and the other way around. I was open to try new things but he wanted to play either shadowrun or the dark eye (his favorite systems) which I dont know really well, believe are too mechanic focused and loaded with mechanics on mechnics. he argued that it is really cool to have individual story arcs in the setting both systems come with, which may be true, but I dont want to feel bound by an official setting anyway. I wanted to tell a story and sometimes do a few rolls and with both systems he wanted, you need to roll for everything.
I am still a bit sad that he would not want to try something different
@@shiniya I think what you're experiencing is very common! I hope you both find an opportunity to try each other's games in time c:
Oh thank god my friend wants to play D&D and we're lonely things.
how about Last gasp? have you tested that yet?
I haven't yet, no! I will say it looks a lot more like a board game than the usual ttrpg, but i am curious :D
Gonna do a new video on the monk?
probably not! Not covering OneD&D for the near future - it changes too much to have a consistent opinion
me watching this as if i have friends
I hear "duet" RPG and presume one GM with one Player, like Pelgrane Press' "Gumshoe One-2-One" line or Grove Guardian Press' "Duet D&D" series. Traditional TTRPG systems tweaked for just one adventurer/investigator. Two players with no GM is a new idea to me.
GM-less duets are quite fun! The players have equal authority :D
Yeah, I was hoping for coverage of BEOWULF: Age of Heroes and other more trad Duets as well as the two-players, no-gamemaster model, but it takes all kinds and I'm glad to see Duet play get coverage of any kind.
😢sorry 🎉😂❤😮