🪚 Where did you get that incredible DM SCREEN? 📖 Where can I get the ADVENTURE you ran? 🔮 Why does my cat sometimes utter DARK PROPHECIES in a human voice? Check the video description! ⬆ (And let me know if you find the answer to that last one...)
I think you might have an accidental warlock pact with your cat and he's your demonic patron whispering cryptic advice to your deep subconscious 😂 "gib me treats human and you shall have luck in your future"
I have ran these types of games on multiple occasions. They can be just as fun as a full party. I prefer a full party obviously, but if all but one of my players is gone that gives me the out to flesh out one characters' backstory. One occasion was in a world of mine featuring branching timelines. This caused a branching in the timeline that ended up saving the party Endgame style.
In answer to your third question, Ginny; H.P. Lovecraft in his essay on "cats vs dogs" observed that cats are aristocrats by nature. In magic-filled settings, most aristocrats dabble in the arcane arts because it's practical to have multiple forms of hard and soft powerful at your disposal. If I were you, though, I'd check your missing belongings for crystal balls and other fortune-telling apparatus before your precious kitten sees something that breaks her tiny, curious mind and she starts turning to darker arts. Maybe ask Nimwyn for help?
When you live in small town. You role up few characters have a party. If you ran one on one you became very serious to what you can attack or enter act with npc.
I've been running a campaign for about 3 - 4 years for my wife. Just me and her. I love that. There are some NPCs that join the group, others eventually leave because they have already achieved their objectives. Not every party needs to stay together forever and this becomes easier when we only have one player. The only thing I recommend keeping in mind is: your player is the protagonist of this story, make him feel that way.
My wife is one of my players in a larger group, but we’ll often have little spin-off duet sessions, too. We really enjoy them. She’s now writing a book based on her character, and whenever she’s unsure about how a scene should play out (especially battle scenes) we’ll run it and improv it together.
We recently lost an NPC in our own campaign...He was the estranged son of a dwarf woman in a village and we were able to reunite mother & son plus a new step-dad who isn't able to have his own children and is excited at taking him under his wing to teach him some top tier smithing.
I had a zero session "duet" with each of my players before our first group session. It was meant to give each player a separate scenario on how they got aboard a ship that was heading from my Southern Continent to my Northern Continent. Each player boarded the ship at a separate town. We started the group session as the ship left the final Southern Port and headed across the sea... 😁
I've played in two campaigns that did this, and I loved it! I may have had the basic concept of my personality from Session Zero, but getting a little moment of narrative spotlight as my first actions really helps me find my voice, my desires, my own personal quest that connects together with the larger narrative. Plus then, I get to watch every other character's solo scene. Regardless if my character is supposed to have canonically known them for years, or if we're all meeting for the first time after this, the vignette gives me a ton to brainstorm upon! It does require the right type of player, though -- the type who will be engaged with watching for most of Session One, and who understand the narrative value in watching the other players' scenes. But any time I find myself in a game where Session Zero only gave me a few top-level tropes on each character, and then the GM hits us with "okay you leave the tavern, where does the party go", it does make me miss this style of Session One opening. Having to improv my character for the first time, AND improv being IC well familiar with characters who OOC I know barely anything about, always feels awkward no matter how many times I've done it!
I saw this video right before my fiance came home from a real bad day at work. He nearly cried when he saw everything I managed to set up, and we had a total blast! It turned around his night and now he's going to bed happy again, and I am too. Thank you for the suggestion, one idea made a huge difference :)
My first time DM'ing was one on one. The boy I was babysitting (who was 8 at that time) heared I would be playing D&D that night and asked what that was. So did at bit of improv D&D with him, starting with a small guided meditation (close your eyes, your camping in a forest, etc), then I told him a wolf was about to attack and asked what he would like to do, helping him to improvise a weapon etc. No dice that first time, but he loved it! Next time I was babysitting he wanted to play again, so I introduced dice and some statts. Now, 3 years later, his little sister and some of his friends are involved to. We only do group D&D now, but that one on one beginning really helped him learn because all my attention was on helping him.
WE'RE BACK! The first duet campaign I ever watched was the one Matt Mercer did with Colbert. There is definitely a different vibe when you have just one player. The adventure can be so much more... "cozy" if that makes sense. Almost D&D on Lo-Fi mode. Not that it can't be intense, it can. But it's certainly an opportunity for a more subtle form of play, if that's what you want.
my friend and i have been playing “duet” dnd for three years now. It’s very homebrew with our own world, storyline, etc. I play my own character as well as Dming, so i get to play along, plus be a gentle guiding hand for the story, plus we get to play off each other and we have hilarious moments. It works well with my friend playing a half-orc barbarian while I play a high-charisma homebrew-race warlock
I think letting the player be able to suggest ideas for the story is actually a great way to do duet campaigns. It harkens back to just doing role-play (co-op) writing.
@@cub-square Unfortunately i’m not the best with remembering companion characters. Whenever I’m narrating/playing important NPCS my character takes a back seat. In our game my friend had a pet mini-dragon that we often forget about as well 😅 my best advice might just be to write reminder notes to help you remember your important companion characters
@@NerdyZanoth yeah i’m also a big time writing roleplayer, i have a longtime rping buddy and we’ve been going for years. One difference I see between the two is with the writing rp you are co-authoring a story, so both parties normally know what’s coming and any twists aren’t big surprises (but still fun). With my dnd game we’re exploring this land and uncovering the true history, as well as making our own journey with the story. My player can lead it however she wants (and has… we burned down a town once) and i roll with her choices too. I do think she enjoys having a greater story to uncover along the way, though.
My friend and I recently started, but we have basically the same set up. My character is a half-orc artificer, and hers is a tabaxi bard. We make a lot of Shrek jokes.
I'm liking this as a vehicle for first-time DM's to practise the basics. It's ALSO a potent reminder to all of us to remember to engage in those short inter-party RP sessions to take some of the pressure off our DM's and give them some breathing space. (I'm glad you didn't need to make a roll for Husbandly Tolerance!)
Not as a first time DM, but I did start a duet campaign with my wife as a way to learn a game system I was interested in without the pressure of learning it and teaching it to a whole group.
I feel like while in some ways this could be a good intro for a new dm, but as someone that's ran both group games and duet games, i can say the pressure Ginny was talking about is no joke. I'd often find myself procrastinating running duet games because of how rough that pressure can be, so it'd probably depend on who the new dm is.
Agreed! My first time DMing was by playing a duet one shot with my sister-in-law. It was her first time playing d&d too, so it felt like a nice way for us both to learn. Now I'm running a two player campaign of Dragon of Icespire Peak for her and my partner. It is quite intense but I just assumed that was because I'm an anxious person! Still, I'm tempted to try my first homebrew campaign by playing a duet game with my mum. I feel like improvising off one person's crazy antics would be easier than dealing with a whole group of chaotic minds!
I shout from the rooftops about one-on-one D&D as much as possible! I ran Dragon of Icespire Peak for my sister and it was THE MOST FUN! I gave her a permanent sidekick and a suite of hirelings in town that she could draw on when she anticipated needing a particular skill set. It's also so satisfying to tailor the game to one character's goals and interests. They get to be the main character! And I can reward tons of magic items because that just lets me take the threat level up a notch. I hope more people try playing one-on-one!
Definitely going to try a duet campaign with my partner. She's always been the most engaged at the table, and she gets frustrated that others at the table aren't taking things as serious. Seems like a no brainer. (also everyone... We need to watch this video as much as possible so Ginny has to include Josh in more videos to please the algorithm)
That's one of the things I enjoy most about one-on-one play: I can focus on a single player and run the game to cater to their playstyle instead of having to bounce among different players with different needs. So no reaching the climax of an intense, emotional arc just to have the group goofball kill the mood with a dumb joke. (No hate on the group goofballs! They're awesome! They just ... sometimes ... have a poor sense of timing :-)
Aw I did this for my grandma when she told me she wished she could do magic irl and I explained what D&D was. It was great since I could gently guide her through the rules one on one (it took her a while to realise that the only thing she controlled was her character 😂) Plus it was my first time DMing so it was a gentle entry for me too! She loved it! We ended up playing 2 more sessions; one with my brother and then one with my whole family during covid 😂
My wife and I have played duet D&D for years now and we love it. It is super intimidating at first, but I found your improv skills will skyrocket after just a few sessions. I found playing in your own homebrew world a lot faster because you can always make stuff up on the fly. But duet sessions can bring so many benefits. Want to test a new spell? Slip it into a duet session. New class or subclass? Duet session. Weird story idea? Duet session! Great stuff, Ginny! And here is hoping Josh enjoys duet-DMing as much as he did playing!
I have been playing duet style games with my girlfriend 3-5 times a week, for years. Here is a few things I have learned: - Use sidekicks like Ginny suggests, but also make sure the PC is the one with the best charisma, otherwise the DM will be RPing with themselves when the guard needs persuading, and that is awkward. - Give the player higher stats. That will allow them to do more of the stuff. Give out rewards like extra skill profiences and stat increases. Suddenly they will be the one to kick the door down, and to charm the guard. (and they actually won't be that more powerful in combat, high charisma fighters just have slightly better saves than low charisma fighters.) - Make the story about the PC. Built the world and story around their character. eg. If they are a cleric, their god's nemesis is the big bad. If they are a fighter who wants to be the best there ever was, the world is full of tournaments where they can prove themself. Etc. When DMing for a group, I ask them to built characters that fit my world. When DMing for one player, I ask what is the story you want to tell, who is your character, and then I construct the plot and world. - Know your player, and then give them what they want. Power players get to use all the broken stuff they normally don't get to use so they don't outshine the others. Someone who likes managing a small army gets to do that etc. There is often things you want to try, but can't in a group game because it takes time/spotlight from the other players. Now is the Time!
I really like the idea of doing a session 0.5 with new players for a campaign. Especially if you do so with a player you haven't run a game with before, to get a feeling for how they play. Also that GM screen?! What an absolute unit! I want one
Isn't it gorgeous?! It's a custom screen from Talon & Claw (with several contributions from other crafters - all detailed and linked in the video description!)
I did a Duet with my then roommate while we both had Covid, some things you need to know. A Healer sidekick and/or healing potions is a must. An encounter with a Ratfolk Shroud left the PC with 5 strength and 3 hps. Overpowering the PC is a good thing at the start, an uncommon magic item at 2nd lvl is a help. Good luck Josh
I recall seeing at my local game shop a father DMing for his young son in a duet session. Even without knowing any of the details, it was plain to see and hear the kid's unfettered enthusiasm. I imagine the dad had to put in a little extra work to make it happen, but i have zero doubts that many precious memories were forged that day. Serious family goals for sure, and mad respect to DM Dad. A real inspiration.
I love 1x1 sessions! When my party made it to a really big city, I had them "decide" to split up to explore it. They all focused on what was relevant for them, and really got in touch with their characters in both a RP and mechanical sense. They were so excited to reconvene and tell each other what they found in the city, and what adventures they got up to. Would HIGHLY recommend.
Thank you for giving me a name for this. My daughter is already far older than I was when I first picked up my dice, and she wants to give it a shot. I had found some one shots, and was going to try to adapt them for "duet" play. now though, I know its called that, and have found troves of internet information on it, and can accurately create an adventure for her. Thanks Ginny!
Ran several duet games with my late first wife; most sessions were played out on long road trips. We carried dice in the car, but only for skill checks--these games were 100% role play, no combat or XP awards, and leveling up was more of an abstract. When I DMed, I used these sessions to help develop the setting and NPCs that could be of use in the future.
Having done a LOT of one on one roleplaying, there's more points for me to add; A) Pokemon - Just because there is one player doesn't mean there has to be only one character. The player can maintain a party of however big they are comfortable with, giving a similar feeling to playing something like old Dragon Quest games in combat, then controlling the character that is "them" outside of combat. B) Main Character - With only one PC, they are the main character, unlike having a party that is an ensemble cast. You're not tying their backstory into the story, the backstory IS the story. Ginny remarked about how much more the DM is the direct interaction, but it's even more than that. C) Drive - Repeating the above, the PC is the one directing things. There isn't a party for you to bounce ideas off of, there aren't other people who can pick up the slack on what choices to make when you're struggling with choices. The PC has to also put in a lot more work, they also don't get times to sit back and breathe while someone else takes the limelight. D) Relationship - When you do this with someone you are close with and comfortable with, you'll know a lot more about what you can and can't do, but also what you both want and both want to avoid.
I've been running a duet campaign with my best friend/roommate now for the past...3 to 4 years now I think? Its been an absolute blast and I feel like I've learned so much about the things I enjoy doing as a DM, and learning how to balance encounters and adjusting as needed. Even my friend has been enjoying looking into homebrew, fleshing out their character, and really getting into the world and character creation. Like you had mentioned, we started with the Essentials Kit. *Dragon of Icespire Peak.* What a good adventure to run, truly. Even after we where done they kept asking "What's next..?!" So we kept on going! Along with her character, we brought over 4 of the sidekicks from DoIP, and an NPCs from their character's backstory. Even now at the later levels they've taken on a second PC character who will go on to be their Baldur's Gate 3 character! Here's the order of adventures/modules I've ran for our adventure thus far, and where we are now! Dragon of Icespire Peak (1-6) Storm Lord's Wrath (7-9) Sleeping Dragon's Wake (9-11) Divine Contention (11-12) Kryptgarden Ascendant (13-15) Giants of the Star Forge (16) Those That Came Before (17-18) Trust and Understanding (19-20) CURRENT! I hope more people try this out. It's a great way to spend time with someone you love hanging out with, and easy to pick up whenever the two of you don't have much going on (or if a friend cancels their campaign last minute that day lol).
The best DMing i ever did was a duet one shot. We made her character together, and i didnt write a thing other than to decide the setting until after her character was made with a backstory and a goal. Then the entire adventure was written around her. Of course, i completely subverted what she was expecting in the first hour, turning the antagonist from her backstory into her companion. We played for eight hours. The conclusion was epic and im quite proud she cried at the end as she decided to sacrifice the character. Ill never forget it, it was like a work of art i made for an audience of one and no one will ever know it but us. I also later did exactly what Ginny suggested at the end- I started a campaign of four characters with each of them having a one on one session leading to the party's meeting. This was a cool idea, and while I was pleased with some of it, I'm not sure I would recommend it. The biggest issue is that they essentially each needed to be railroaded so that I could in fact get the party together on that 5th session. The other issue was that while it created some awesome hooks and development of the characters backstories, once the party was together, they could not all pursue all those hooks at once. What I found as the campaign went on was that the separate plot lines were being forced to converge or be put on pause, which was not tonally consistent with the weight they were each given in the opening. It was a great challenge and very interesting though
1 on 1 D&D was a thing during 1st ed. My first exposure to D&D was the module Blade of Vengeance for the Expert D&D. The player played a level 7 'elf' (which was a class back then).
Agreed. In the first few editions "Solo Sessions" as they were called were super common. Especially since you brought the same character to different tables, people would level up between actual campaigns through solo sessions.
The timing is INSANE, i just played my first one on one game last night with a friend that I usually DM for. It was a one shot and he started the whole thing off with a pack of loansharks kidnapping me and telling me to pull from the deck of many or lose a hand (some sick game they played with gamblers that owe money). I pulled a card that instantly made me 9th level... they let me go after.
I've been playing duet TTRPGs with my wife for a few years now, but we don't DM for each other; we use Mythic and randomize everything, and we've gotten some really fun, complex plots out of thin air! Mythic is awesome as a GM tool as well. You can secretly ask Mythic about something you haven't thought of and then you end up surprising yourself along with the players.
I DM all of my games to a single player for years now, because everything is so much more personal and connected to the player. Also makes it easy for schedules. More people should give a try.
8:45 that's actually exactly what i did the first time me and my friends played. i have a bad anxiety and it was my first time playing with them, so i suggested that we could do their background stories first individually, just so they could become more familiar with the concept of dnd (they were new), roleplay and their own character and then, eventually, in their background story they reached a certain city where all of them met up, continuing their journey! :)
I’ve been running something recently with “split sessions” Basically I take a small group of my main dnd for a character specific event or challenge. Also since my people are pretty broken, I don’t worry about as much as combat It’s a good way to get more into a character
The concept of a duet before the group actually gets together is something WoD actually has! It calls those character preludes, they exist to ground the character in the setting and story, as well set the tone for that character.
Fun fact, that idea of beginning a campaign with duet sessions for each player? In the games i often run/play, that's kinda what session zeroes ended up as, we actually go out of our way to specify if a session 0 is going to be what the dnd community as a whole thinks of it as. We got the idea from various tv shows that do a trailer for each major character.
Running one shots with all the individual characters is a great way to get to know them and introduce backstory in a way they'll want to pursue. Once I ran something similar, where the intro one-shots all led to the characters escaping into a casino airship. There, by chance, they all independently wanted to gamble...so they all started the group campaign at the same table, telling each other how they bested the authorities. Made everyone get really into character during interactions because they already had experience as them!
I love the idea of using duet dnd for session 0 games. You're right that it lets people get more comfortable as their characters and actually have some fun experiences to talk about!
@GinnyDi I currently play a duet with my wife. We are playing the Phandelver and Below mod and we both find it very fun! I completely agree that being the DM for this, my brain does need catch up time, but that is also part of the fun, because I get to test her and see what reactions and decisions she makes. I appreciate you covering this topic as it is very relatable to us. Thank you so much Ginny!
I remember when I first got into Role Play games. I'd gone from Magic the Gathering when it first came out to a friend inviting me to play in a Vampire Larp, but one of the guys in the barracks offered to play a game of completely made up homebrew game that started off being roughly based on Independence Day, but ran into a bunch of gaming tropes that I had never experienced before. Later on I learned of other systems with book formats and D&D, but I'll never forget being in that one on one scenario, drinking Surge and eating Mini Tacos. The good times. :)
I recently started a homebrew campaign as my first ever long term campaign, (ran a few 3-5 shots before) and ran a "prologue session" with each individual player. CANNOT RECCOMMEND THIS ENOUGH!! It was a lot of their first times playing, so it gave them a chance to be introduced to the basic rules of D&D, combat and RP. It gave me as the DM the insight into what their character is like, what abilities they have, and what their goals are. One thing in common with all of them, was that none of them came prepared with a voice they wanted their character to have. This was a great opportunity. Each session we played through a significant moment in the character's backstory, that occurred, and left off with the character heading towards the tavern that session 1 started in. Each character had a really good idea of what they were doing before they entered session one, because they actually played it out. Tips for running your own: -Have both a significant RP encounter and a combat encounter -Ask thought provoking questions. Ex. "How is [PC] feeling in this moment?" "What is [PC] thinking about right now?" The more you can flesh out the character in RP in the prologue sessions, the better session 1 is! Skips the awkward tavern start where everyone isn't quite comfortable with their characters yet, so not much RP happens. My players jumped right into RP for the first hour, with myself not having to do much at all! Happy DM'ing!
My wife and I have played a bit of duet DND and also have started a little bit of duet Cairn (the more narrative focus of the latter allows us to sidestep some of the issues with action economy in DND). With the increased pressure, it cuts both ways - the player is also making ALL the party decisions and doesn’t get a chance to sit back. Our duet games are usually more like 1.5 hours because it’s so much more taxing on both player and DM and the game moves a lot faster. When the player is stuck and is having brain fade, it can be a good idea to lean on skill checks to move the narrative forward (ensuring that a pass gives them the information they need, and even a fail will have the story “fail forward”) and cut the player some slack. Also, if there is a sidekick NPC, allowing them skill checks to know important narrative info so the player isn’t the only one doing all the lifting
My friend is developing a brand new RPG system and while testing he started with a “duet” session with each player before we played our first game together and it was very helpful to set up ways to connect all our characters so the “team up” didn’t feel forced. He got to take events from each duet and set them up for the next player so they involved a location or NPC or whatever from someone else’s.
One of my most rewarding roleplaying experiences was a one on one star wars campaign using the savage worlds framework. We frequently switched the DMing role. And we generally have a fairly collaborative playstyle anyway. Considering we were both playing a jedi knight and her padawan, making it a duet felt like a natural choice. It generally fostered a very close relationship between the two and enabled us to do plots that would have been hard to include other characters with more diverse classes in. We both levelled our chraracters up as usual, using our own as a quasi-npc while DMing. Playing it as a one on one just requires holding back your character with the problem solving a little while you're Dming. But on the other hand, they become the natural vessel for hints when your player gets stuck on something.
Random question, can you recommend some virtual tabletops to use to play DnD? I am a new player and I am desperately looking for a website for me and my friends to use
D&D Beyond can really help with building characters and managing your abilities. If you're playing online you might want to check out roll20 for battle maps. Otherwise I'm pretty analogue!
I’m so glad I was turned onto this video, and your channel. I’ve been role-playing for nearly 40 years, in fact I think it’s more like 42 years now… But I’ve not played much DND. But in that time, the vast majority of my role-playing has been one on one. My friend and I played star frontiers, Marvel superheroes, James Bond 007, And Ghostbusters for years as one on one. I’m so thankful to you for putting the comment in your video about being brought to a standstill, because in those one on one games, I rarely ran them for that very reason. I thought it meant I just sucked at being a game master, because my friend would throw things at me and I would have no idea how to Respond and I would get overwhelmed and make drastic decisions that weren’t fun for either of us. Since 2008, I’ve been gaming online with a group, and I’ve gotten over that and realized that it was more a lack of confidence on my part than anything else, but now you’ve added a whole new dimension to my thinking of that time in my life. It makes so much more sense now. It’s true. In a group, you have a chance to take stock of things while the other players are discussing the situation and what-not. I’m still a big proponent for one on one games. I’ve learned a lot since those stressful experiences as a kid. I’ve never tried running D&D that way… but I’ve never tried running D&D at all. My friend and I did play D&D once or twice one on one, with him running it, back in the day when “old-school” wasn’t. I must say, we had a blast. In order to finish the module, though, my character wound up being down to half a hit point. Yes, we knew we were stretching Things… But we were having so much fun, we didn’t care. And that kind of fun’s the whole point! Please excuse any type of graphical errors. I’ve been dictating, and I was editing, but I finally decided it was more important to send this comment and move on with my day then spend too much time editing. So I hope if there are any mistakes, the ideas shine through anyway.
Oh I love duet dnd!!! I ran a festival/Christmas (called Maker-Mas lol) for a friend’s birthday that lasted pretty much allll day-except for when we took food and cake breaks for her birthday. It was honestly exhausting to DM but her joy throughout it all was totally worth it. It was a little bit of everything: puzzles, a treasure hunt, a bit of combat. Her side kick through the session was her wizard love interest npc so it was a perfect team up :)
Yesterday I was DMing for the first time for my friend who wanted to get into D&D. I had a general idea of what we're doing that afternoon and when we will end. I did not watch this video, I saved it for after the game, just to have zero expectations and go with it with nothing but God's blessing. I don't know when was the last time I had this much fun. My friend's character just by saying what he wants to do, created with me improvised segments that took tens of minutes of hilarious situations, and he basically befriended every NPC I created for him and had a round of Fireball (which makes you spit actual dragon fire) with the elders of the town and became the best buddy of the town's chief priest gnome, who was supposed to be just a healing bot that can offer a place to sleep, and now they're homies. I love that I had little time to prepare, because NPCs that I was ready for to make up some more story on the go were mostly ignored, while those less important are almost my plot points right now. Everything turns 180 degrees when you play and it couldn't be better than like this. My friend has no idea how much of this adventure he improvised WITH me, how much he contributed to the experience. Honestly, one of the best days ever. And what I thought would take us only max 4 hours, turned into TWO sessions in a row, in the same evening, because I decided to screw the bus home, and return later, so we played for ~7hours, and nobody knows when all that time went, will definitely do this again very soon
I’ve done a few 1-on-1 D&D sessions for players when their characters get split up from the party, or for supplemental lore material. It’s always very fun and any “awkwardness” usually disappears pretty quickly.
This is actually how we played out zeros in our current campaign. We each did 1:1 zeros for the catalyst moment of starting the adventure. Then we met up in game gradually. So for a bit played 2 groups of 2:1 until the whole group joined. It was actually really amazing bc we had all this real world time in our characters and we'd all learned little pieces of information so it generated all these rp conversations organically as we explained the lore to each other. Or shared stories that each small group experienced. It was so lived in. I loved it. We've had one person join who had their own private zero and another waiting to join for a small, temp arc waiting to do her duet zero. Can't recommend it enough tbh.
I've DM'ing for nearly 30 years, and I find that session zeros with individual characters allows me to learn that particular player/characters style and flow better. It allows me to craft the early story points and encounters around how each player wants to play their character, creating a more immersive environment before the major plot begins.
My wife and I started playing one-on-one D&D during 2020 lockdown. We also used modules from D&D Duet. (Highly recommended them!) It grew into a 3+ year long campaign that we just finished in December.
Literally my only game of D&D so far was DMing a duet, so it's great to know that the feeling of not having time to think straight is less in a group game. It actually was basically a prequel to the group campaign, I'm now seriously considering doing it for all my players!
I DM’d my first session with my immediate family around Christmas time, it was a fun first experience for my sisters and parents! Though I am guilty of having my brain shut down a dozen times during the handful of hours, since most of them haven’t done any sort of RPGs before (as far as I know). But despite that, they said they’d like to do it again sometime. Seeing this video made me wonder if I should try a duet style with everyone at separate occasions. I don’t know if my brain is up to the challenge, but that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna try my hardest!
I've run a duet campaign for several years now, and the best advice I can add to what's already in the video is: give your player a party. If you can run an entire world and all the NPCs in it, then your player can run 3-5 characters. Then you can actually have normal combat balance without worrying about action economy and stuff. Even if the DM is roleplaying those characters, let the player control their actions in combat. You can even have one of those characters be the "main character" of the story, and give that character higher than normal stats and a clear chain of command. This is actually something very tricky with multiple players, as assigning one player to be the leader can create resentment among the group. But with one player, making them the official commander of a unit is very natural.
My monday group actually does this ! So we are playing in a mini campaign together where we do one session a month as a group, and since the plot of the main sessions tend to be a lot more tight and planned out beforehand, there isn't always a lot of time for each of us to get to everything we wanted to do in character. So our DM made the decision to start running what he calls "intermissions" between every main session, which are shorter one-on-one (though occasionally there'll be two of us if our characters are in the same place at the same time) where we talk with him ahead of time to make a list of everything our character wants to do/what we as players want to happen, and then we get 2-3 hours to just run through and do all of that. Even cooler is that if there is a secret in our character's backstories that we don't want the rest of the party to learn about yet, we can deal with it in intermission. Might not necessarily work for a typical campaign where you are part of a whole party, but for our game that's based more in the Good Society ttrpg system where we're all just people at court who each have their own things to deal with privately, it works perfectly!
For my party of 5, I frequently have mini duet sessions in between our regular game sessions. Does one of the characters have a personal errand to run? Does one of them get kidnapped? Does something peculiar happen during their watch? Perfect times for a small duet session. Also, I already do a brief backstory-based duet session as part of each player’s individual session 0. I like it, and it’s a lot of fun.
My husband ran a duet with everyone before our largest campaign and it worked GREAT! We started at level 3 and it was a lot of players' first games, so he used those one on one sessions to get everyone from level one to level three, introduce them to the basics of the game, and make sure that everyone had a firm grasp of who their characters were and what their goals were when meeting the rest of the party.
I love the idea of using this as pre-campaign for players. helps the player get used to their character and helps the dm learn about the player's character as well.
Your last point of a solo session with a player is something I've been doing for a while. I called it session zero. It allows the player to practice their character and briefly edit something they don't feel it works. The idea behind it was to give them immediate understanding of local geography of the area and a beginning to an independent quest. For some characters I've even given them oppotunity to gain additional basic items. Rolling with it, it's been a massive success and my players seem to love it. Glad to know I'm not the only one implementing this concept
Couple of things: I've actually done the idea about running duets with players before a campaign starts to play out their backstories! Started a campaign recently and I made it a point to do "backstory oneshots" with all the players. It's a great way to give players time to work out some of the kinks with their characters and it gives me time to better understand how they want to proceed with some things. It also makes backstories a lot more dynamic and involved, and more emotionally gripping since you are playing out the events that helped formulate your character. As for another use of the duet format, in one of the dnd campaigns I'm in, we've actually done something similar to this a few times. We call them "sideshots," and usually we will schedule a time with the DM to do one if we want to be able to roleplay or play out specific moments with NPCs and stuff in depth without taking away a lot of playtime from other players (especially if we don't believe any PC on PC interaction will happen). It's a great way to allow us to not have to shorten roleplay moments just to be courteous to the playtime of other players and allow everyone their fair share of playtime when we have regular session times. Especially since our group is extremely roleplay heavy, it's really helped us to develop our characters and the relationships our characters have with the NPCs. The biggest note is that this has been done as supplemental to a regular group campaign. Obviously, the pure duet format is definitely different. That said, when I started dipping my toes into dming I ended up running a duet oneshot for my then boyfriend to get a feel for what it would be like, so it's also great as a learning tool for newer dms.
Can confirm, the one-on-one games before a group game are really fun. I had a DM do that for us and it was really helpful for figuring out how my Tabaxi Storm Sorcerer circus performer [more Cirque du Solei than traditional circus with animals] interacted with important people in his backstory. His mother was retiring from the road and it was his first performance alone. He gave a beautiful tribute to wish her well using magic. It was really emotional.
I love running solo campaigns for my husband and my bestie. They are exhausting but so much more flexible. And you can tailor it SO much to what that player loves and enjoys most without worrying about other players' experiences suffering or balancing "screentime"
Hell yeah, duet d&d sounds cute. I tend to call it origin sessions where the player goes through events that are from their backstory, so when they gather with others they can share it as we players would when telling others about their last session. It's great for immersion and helping a player find their characters "voice" and values.
I love the idea of doing a "backstory duet" with each player before the campaign proper. I recently read up on Exalted (haven't gotten to play it yet, though), and apparently it's already something people do there, running specifically through the parts of the backstory that lead up to the point where the character Exalts in the first place.
I loved the most when you can make a really personalized story, because only one hero is the protagonist. Played 5 years in 1-1 with a character and at the end on lvl many, went into multiverse.
I had a DM back in the day who used these as forms of character development independent of a party. He used them to seed trust and distrust as each player was given information and some withheld to others. And he kept from having to have 'helpers' by tailoring the one off to the character it was for with class and race, or even the background if they were written well enough. Assassin approached by the assassin's guild to fulfill a contract. Fighter in the colloseum to help a friend pay off debts. Things like that. And it was super fun going back to party play after. Trying to figure out in character what other people did, learned, or was trying to hide...
I have been doing duet dnd sessions with players, going thru backstory moments on the weeks multiple people can't show up for whatever reason. It really helps flesh out their character as well as rewarding them for showing up
Duet D&D can be a very fun, but you live and you learn when you try it. I have had duet sessions where we ran actual PCs (2 & 2). While that makes balacing encounters easier, RP suffers a bit, and I must confess that worked better because I was playing with a veteran friend. New players sometimes have a hard time finding their stuff in their only character sheet! So if you want combat, I'd say PC + sidekicks, kinda like the companions from D3. What I would recommend for duet D&D are adventures or situations heavily reliant on Skill Challenges. It can be so much fun to see what your player comes up and how they can explain using a particular skill instead of what you as a DM would normally choose for an ability check. It also opens up more improvisational ways - my duet episodes often go into directions I wasn't expecting and that makes them just as magical as the sessions where everything is planned. As a final advice, duet D&D works great to make up a session for when a player wanted to be present, but couldn't. Scheduling is one of the challenges of a D&D session, but it might also create the opportunity for great one-on-one moments to explain why that PC couldn't participate of a quest in the last "official" episode.
I absolutely love doing solo sessions, as a player or a DM. There is just something about the amount of focus you can give someone and their character. We use them as intro sessions as mentioned, but also when somebody missed some sessions or went on a sidequest or whatever.
Another great thing about D&D duets, and this is especially interesting when playing with, like it was said in the video, close friends, family or your significant other, is the fact that, humanly, can you name another activity you do with someone else and for 4 hours straight, YOU are their exclusive point of focus, and THEY are your exclusive point of focus? I do feel like this is really a great opportunity for some shared quality time over a common passion. Also, the fact that you have only one player means EVERYTHING that happens at the table relates to their character, everything is interesting, and you can take more time describing stuff that you feel will interest your player. I mean, if you spend 30% of the time doing descriptions or giving away information about the world (like through knowledge skills) with a group of 6 players, each player gets about 11% of your time one average to answer his questions or resolve his actions. In a duet, you spend 50% of the time doing the same and your only player still gets more time to resolve its actions etc... It is also easier to develop characters relationships with NPCs they like (AND NPCs they hate by the way!). As a heavy homebrew DM, you can also use duets sessions to test new rules, mechanics, feats, spells etc... And their balance. The merits are legions. In my experience, one of the most important flaw is that players that are used to being part of an active group might struggle with the fact that they are now the sole responsible person for the decisions, and it can with some players actually slow them down in decision making, because when you are part of a group of 6 and your group makes a mistake, you can dilute some of the responsability of the mistake, but not when you are the sole player, and it can sometimes paralyse the player, even more so if the player is usually undecisive as a general rule in his life. Even with "sidekicks" the game can sometimes feel lonely to some people, because brainstorming with people over what we should do next is something that some players actually love. In the end, this is just another tool in a DMs toolkit!
This is the only way I have played D&D for about 8 years now. Our group fell apart (people got too busy) and so I just started DMing 1on1 stuff for people who were free, and I have literally never looked back. The stories get way more involved, you get so much more done and the player is basically always invested. It's far and away my favourite way to play D&D.
When I jumped in to an ongoing campaign this year, we actually had a 1 on 1 session with the DM on accident beforehand (wasn't planned, other things just happened). Having that session to intro my character into the dungeon the others were just entering was SO COOL and made the initial introduction RP so much more fluent, since I knew EXACTLY why I'm there and what state of mind my character was in after having just barely escaped an encounter alive. It was amazing, totally recommend doing that with your players!
i have a friend who plays d&d with me rather often and one year we just had a 1 on one campaign because we couldn't find other players i dm'd it and it was honestly really fun she got to make a fairly in depth backstory and i got to make a handful of companions for her out of npcs she picked up along the way it was fun enough to the point where she started dming herself and returned the favor allowing me to create my favorite character to this day
DMs hosting for other DMs can be super fun duet, I've done that a few times. My best buddy and I have *very* different playstyles and I'm not in his main game for that reason, but we had a blast doing... basically a live-action writer's room one time where we acted out the prison break of one of his Important NPCs using D&D as the medium. I had a blast adding my own personal touch to this oc, and that character stuck around and stayed connected to the plot all the way until the end of the campaign at Level 20.
I've been heading a campaign for 1 for a while now as a newer DM. It's been great because they've been able to sit down and explore what's going on around, without input from other characters or not wanting to persue something in favor of letting the group do something else. It's been harrowing because it's very easy to kill a 1 person party. They must be resourceful and thoughtful about their actions in the wild. The campaign style we're in suits this perfectly - you are a person, not a hero. The world is dangerous, and esp since I started this at level 1, it's been pretty challenging to provide a significant challenge that's winnable without being overly aggressive. I see this campaign as a great way to try new things too, I've got a custom alchemy system that doesn't interfere with traditional gameplay, an AC damage mitigation system, and a few wildcard things I've homebrewed to provide a little spice to the boring aspects of DND (like AC being used for something other than a "yes or no" question).
We've spent the last year (in game and IRL) doing solo sessions during downtime. It let us as players explore things our characters wanted to take care of without it feeling like we're rushing or taking up too much time from other peoples interests. We wove the stories together, sometimes appeared in each others downtime sessions, and communicated IC on discord via sending stones. We just finished, rejoining properly as a group again, after a PC and NPC got married and their wedding got ambushed by the next arcs BBEG. It's been great fun, amazing for character development and world building.
I actually just got done running a string of duet sessions with all of my players as a first time dm! It was super fun working together on how they wanted their backstory to go, and feeling the trials and tribulations they built for themselves. It also helped a lot to help everyone feel out their character long before they even sat down for session 1. Session 1 just happened literally today and I am so thrilled to continue dming for the following weeks.
playing 1 on 1 with each of your players, and roleplaying a point in their backstory was what I did before I started my big campaign that is still going on today. It really helped my players get into their characters head and helped when we actually decided to play all together.
One-on-one D&D seems like a great date night idea. It also enables you to use a lot of tropes, like Chosen One, that you couldn't use in a group game. The one player *is* the main character.
I personally found that having a duet session with every player before session 1 has been incredibly helpful; especially if you're trying out a new system and you're not yet familiar with the mechanics. The players get to do a test run of their character and you as a Dm get to have a pretty good idea of who your party's member are and what they can do before the game even start
the part about a “rounded team” being needed reminds me of when me, a friend(dm), and three of his other friends were planning a oneshot for dnd. the two he asked before me chose characters, one being an angel, and one being a half-demon, and the characters hated eachother. i heard this and so i made my character a warlock whose patron is an overly territorial eldritch-esque horror who hates all other divine creatures. he said if the other friend was connected to the divine, he’d make the campaign set in literal hell. the party needed a cleric. also i had two backup characters, both connected to the divine
I once played in a campaign that incorporated duo play, as you suggested at the end. In the week before the first group session, the DM had a one-on-one game with each of the players. He used those sessions to introduce various plot threads that would play out in the main game. I thought it was pretty clever, and it gave our characters plenty to talk about once we were finally all together. Of course, this was back in high school when we had no other obligations, and it was feasible for the DM to run a mini-session every night for a week...
Solo D&D is my favorite way of introducing people to playing the game. There is less pressure of looking silly in front of your friends and the DM has his fully attention on you.
You can learn a lot about solo DnD by watching people soloing BG3. Lots of events are made so they can solved in different ways, and retreating or taking another route when one is blocked is always an option. Pen&Paper roleplayers tend to forget that.
I am doing a duet D&D campaign with my husband. He is a necromancer who inherited an insanely powerful amulet, which gives him permanent control over 8 undead minions. (one of them is his grandma). I RP the minions when needed (some can talk, including grandma who is constantly commenting on how he doesn't eat enough) but he gets to control them in combat. It works really well!
For my last adventure I did a duet session with each player to establish their own motivation going into the adventure and allowed each of them to find a custom magic item that really fit their vibe. It was great to get a sense for how each character played and acted. I plan on doing it more in future, maybe even having duet sessions with each character between big narrative arcs in longer campaigns.
Games from the World of Darkness have this initial "duet" experience to explore the character's backstory ingrained into their very core. The "prelude", as it is called, is a fundamental part of Character Creation, and one that lets each player explore their character individually before committing to a group effort.
8:37 - this is exactly what I’ve been doing to prepare my players for our new campaign and integrate their characters into my homebrew world, and I wish this video had been available to me before I started. It’s been going great so far, but you’re right - duet D&D is a lot of pressure!
My first ever D&D experience was exactly that. A friend of mine ran a campaign back in the 90's with a bunch of people who hadn't played D&D before. He started us all of with a duet session, and after all that, we came together as a group. It gave him a chance to develop "secret" backstory and motivations to NPC's in the campaign and was actually super-fun. Prob. due to such a positive experience that I kept into D&D to this day.
There's a website literally called D&D Duet that's been SO so helpful for me!! I'm a therapist running therapeutic campaigns with clients so it's often duet play, and that's been absolutely invaluable. I agree with all of Ginny's observations, and there's truly no such thing as overpreparing for duet D&D; I've also been forced to get better at improv because you can blow through material so fast! Not everyone will be this way, but I am, I also noticed that I did a lot more extraneous descriptions than normal, I think just because I knew it would be dead air if I didn't, so I gotta keep an eye on that in my next duet campaigns and DMing in general. Thanks for linking that adventure too! I want to read more duet campaigns so I can pick up anything helpful from them.
Once, when scheduling got in the way of an ongoing campaign, I separated all the party members and then did individual duet sessions with each player, in which their ultimate objective was to find and reunite the party - it was great, and the players had a fun time recounting all of their individual adventures in character together afterward. I also had a DM who once had us play out individual adventures from each character's backstory. We each took turns playing our character, but the other players piloted NPCs or enemy combatants in the session. It was so much fun, and definitely something I want to run for my own players in the future. And welcome back, mermaid hair! You've been missed!
I actually started out playing 1 on 1. I had played a little back in the day and never reallly got an idea for what edition but because I was the one most familiar with the game, my now-spouse asked that I run the game so they could learn it. I essentially built out a party of fun, fully built PC style characters to let them choose from and learn about, like Dragon Age. It worked super well, and since then that player has requested fully built NPCs in other games with small groups to round out a party and have someone they can build relationships with even if they're on the road for really long periods of time, since the NPCs travel with them. The thing that made this work was making these NPCs require less active interaction, so the party can interact with them whenever they want to, but without taking time away from the players' interactions with one another. Your suggestion on running duet games before campaigns is actually how I start EVERY campaign. It is SUPER fun and really helps hook players in via their backstories. I can accomplish a lot of what session 0 is for while also making a fun solo adventure to lead the player into the first session.
I just ran 5 of these duet sessions for my group of 5 players and we all had a blast! I had them play through 2 months of their downtime after having completed their first major arc in the campaign.
Playing a one-on-one with each of my players before they come together as a group is my favourite thing to do, my players get a better understanding and stronger connection with their characters as we explore a major part of their backstory. What's really funny is this video went live when I was right in the middle of a one-on-one with one of my players for a new long running campaign coming to Roll Together RPG
I've actually done that thing where you run a duet with each player before starting the campaign! It's super fun! It allows you and that player to flesh out the character a little more and also really helps the players to work on things like accents, quirks, ticks, catch phrases, or just their general way of thinking /existing in the world. As the GM you also get to really dial in some backstory for the character and dig deeper into those normal GM questions like what do you fear, what are your goals, where do you come from, where are you going, why are you a part of the group. The way I like to kind of play it is doing mini duet games with each player and just staging that as "let's tell the story of the few days, weeks, or years, that brought you to be in the party" Super fun! Highly recommended!
I run a lot of duet D&D with my girlfriend as both a player and a dm. I find a few things can be quite useful when playing in this style. The first one is to have npcs be willing to join your player's party. I have a cap at 3 additional party members. This allows your player to easily get that bonding experience with who they actually care about. They get to choose the npc's class when they join, meaning they can be as strategic as they want with party composition. You as a dm will always roleplay the party members, but the player gets to control them in combat. The second thing is to make sure you have your content very fleshed out. When you can read an npc's traits and write a few lines on how they would talk and what they know about, you can easily get into their headspace for roleplay. Be open with your player about what's not fleshed out yet. It's no fun to improvise 15 things in a session and feeling like you want to retcon it. And lastly, try chatting online through text. It gives you plenty to time to check notes and make sure things are correct. I know most people like talking to other people around a table when they play, but this opens up an avenue to play a slower and more roleplay heavy game. It's much easier to describe your character's actions and dialogue over text than it is to act it out in person. This is of course useful if the player you are playing with can't meet up with you. It feels liberating to not be rushed while playing, and even if you're interrupted, it's not nearly as disruptive as in person.
🪚 Where did you get that incredible DM SCREEN?
📖 Where can I get the ADVENTURE you ran?
🔮 Why does my cat sometimes utter DARK PROPHECIES in a human voice?
Check the video description! ⬆ (And let me know if you find the answer to that last one...)
I think you might have an accidental warlock pact with your cat and he's your demonic patron whispering cryptic advice to your deep subconscious 😂 "gib me treats human and you shall have luck in your future"
I have ran these types of games on multiple occasions. They can be just as fun as a full party. I prefer a full party obviously, but if all but one of my players is gone that gives me the out to flesh out one characters' backstory. One occasion was in a world of mine featuring branching timelines. This caused a branching in the timeline that ended up saving the party Endgame style.
In answer to your third question, Ginny; H.P. Lovecraft in his essay on "cats vs dogs" observed that cats are aristocrats by nature. In magic-filled settings, most aristocrats dabble in the arcane arts because it's practical to have multiple forms of hard and soft powerful at your disposal.
If I were you, though, I'd check your missing belongings for crystal balls and other fortune-telling apparatus before your precious kitten sees something that breaks her tiny, curious mind and she starts turning to darker arts. Maybe ask Nimwyn for help?
When you live in small town. You role up few characters have a party. If you ran one on one you became very serious to what you can attack or enter act with npc.
I've been running a campaign for about 3 - 4 years for my wife. Just me and her. I love that. There are some NPCs that join the group, others eventually leave because they have already achieved their objectives. Not every party needs to stay together forever and this becomes easier when we only have one player. The only thing I recommend keeping in mind is: your player is the protagonist of this story, make him feel that way.
This is exactly how I started DMing over the last two years.
My wife is one of my players in a larger group, but we’ll often have little spin-off duet sessions, too. We really enjoy them. She’s now writing a book based on her character, and whenever she’s unsure about how a scene should play out (especially battle scenes) we’ll run it and improv it together.
fair play to you, seems like a very fun way to spend time with your wife actually.
We recently lost an NPC in our own campaign...He was the estranged son of a dwarf woman in a village and we were able to reunite mother & son plus a new step-dad who isn't able to have his own children and is excited at taking him under his wing to teach him some top tier smithing.
@@mathmusicandlooks GRRRRRRRR Martin could use this advice. He might actually get something done.
omg PLEASE get Josh to follow through on DMing for you instead, I would LOVE to see a flyover of how that goes
I'll do my best! He's only DMed one game before, but he did a great job - he's a real natural!
Already waiting hopefully for the video about it 🤩
@@GinnyDi i would love to see a "what can go wrong" with a untalented one
Leaving a comment to hopefully get him to DM 😂
He's probably really great, but maybe it's just anxiety over not measuring up to the uber-DM @GinnyDi
I had a zero session "duet" with each of my players before our first group session.
It was meant to give each player a separate scenario on how they got aboard a ship that was heading from my Southern Continent to my Northern Continent.
Each player boarded the ship at a separate town.
We started the group session as the ship left the final Southern Port and headed across the sea... 😁
That's so cool - I love that it gave everybody a little context leading up to that first session!
Really cool
Very ‘Mike Lee’ method acting
I've played in two campaigns that did this, and I loved it! I may have had the basic concept of my personality from Session Zero, but getting a little moment of narrative spotlight as my first actions really helps me find my voice, my desires, my own personal quest that connects together with the larger narrative.
Plus then, I get to watch every other character's solo scene. Regardless if my character is supposed to have canonically known them for years, or if we're all meeting for the first time after this, the vignette gives me a ton to brainstorm upon! It does require the right type of player, though -- the type who will be engaged with watching for most of Session One, and who understand the narrative value in watching the other players' scenes.
But any time I find myself in a game where Session Zero only gave me a few top-level tropes on each character, and then the GM hits us with "okay you leave the tavern, where does the party go", it does make me miss this style of Session One opening. Having to improv my character for the first time, AND improv being IC well familiar with characters who OOC I know barely anything about, always feels awkward no matter how many times I've done it!
One-on-one prologues like this are one of my favorite ways to begin a new campaign
I saw this video right before my fiance came home from a real bad day at work. He nearly cried when he saw everything I managed to set up, and we had a total blast! It turned around his night and now he's going to bed happy again, and I am too. Thank you for the suggestion, one idea made a huge difference :)
My first time DM'ing was one on one. The boy I was babysitting (who was 8 at that time) heared I would be playing D&D that night and asked what that was. So did at bit of improv D&D with him, starting with a small guided meditation (close your eyes, your camping in a forest, etc), then I told him a wolf was about to attack and asked what he would like to do, helping him to improvise a weapon etc. No dice that first time, but he loved it! Next time I was babysitting he wanted to play again, so I introduced dice and some statts. Now, 3 years later, his little sister and some of his friends are involved to. We only do group D&D now, but that one on one beginning really helped him learn because all my attention was on helping him.
The player can play more than one character, the game originally started with the idea that you'd be playing multiple characters.
WE'RE BACK!
The first duet campaign I ever watched was the one Matt Mercer did with Colbert. There is definitely a different vibe when you have just one player. The adventure can be so much more... "cozy" if that makes sense. Almost D&D on Lo-Fi mode. Not that it can't be intense, it can. But it's certainly an opportunity for a more subtle form of play, if that's what you want.
yeah it February glad Ginny's back
my friend and i have been playing “duet” dnd for three years now. It’s very homebrew with our own world, storyline, etc. I play my own character as well as Dming, so i get to play along, plus be a gentle guiding hand for the story, plus we get to play off each other and we have hilarious moments. It works well with my friend playing a half-orc barbarian while I play a high-charisma homebrew-race warlock
I did same with my friend. She's a natural roleplayer and we had a lot of fun. Any tip how to manage two players and two important companyon npcs?
I think letting the player be able to suggest ideas for the story is actually a great way to do duet campaigns. It harkens back to just doing role-play (co-op) writing.
@@cub-square Unfortunately i’m not the best with remembering companion characters. Whenever I’m narrating/playing important NPCS my character takes a back seat. In our game my friend had a pet mini-dragon that we often forget about as well 😅 my best advice might just be to write reminder notes to help you remember your important companion characters
@@NerdyZanoth yeah i’m also a big time writing roleplayer, i have a longtime rping buddy and we’ve been going for years. One difference I see between the two is with the writing rp you are co-authoring a story, so both parties normally know what’s coming and any twists aren’t big surprises (but still fun). With my dnd game we’re exploring this land and uncovering the true history, as well as making our own journey with the story. My player can lead it however she wants (and has… we burned down a town once) and i roll with her choices too. I do think she enjoys having a greater story to uncover along the way, though.
My friend and I recently started, but we have basically the same set up. My character is a half-orc artificer, and hers is a tabaxi bard.
We make a lot of Shrek jokes.
I'm liking this as a vehicle for first-time DM's to practise the basics. It's ALSO a potent reminder to all of us to remember to engage in those short inter-party RP sessions to take some of the pressure off our DM's and give them some breathing space.
(I'm glad you didn't need to make a roll for Husbandly Tolerance!)
thankfully Josh has high Constitution 😂
Not as a first time DM, but I did start a duet campaign with my wife as a way to learn a game system I was interested in without the pressure of learning it and teaching it to a whole group.
I feel like while in some ways this could be a good intro for a new dm, but as someone that's ran both group games and duet games, i can say the pressure Ginny was talking about is no joke. I'd often find myself procrastinating running duet games because of how rough that pressure can be, so it'd probably depend on who the new dm is.
Agreed! My first time DMing was by playing a duet one shot with my sister-in-law. It was her first time playing d&d too, so it felt like a nice way for us both to learn. Now I'm running a two player campaign of Dragon of Icespire Peak for her and my partner. It is quite intense but I just assumed that was because I'm an anxious person! Still, I'm tempted to try my first homebrew campaign by playing a duet game with my mum. I feel like improvising off one person's crazy antics would be easier than dealing with a whole group of chaotic minds!
“My biggest concern is definitely that I will accidentally kill him” Dam, Ginny gettin serious with the special effects 😂
When my DM solo DMed for me he would give me respawn points Video game style lol.
I shout from the rooftops about one-on-one D&D as much as possible! I ran Dragon of Icespire Peak for my sister and it was THE MOST FUN! I gave her a permanent sidekick and a suite of hirelings in town that she could draw on when she anticipated needing a particular skill set. It's also so satisfying to tailor the game to one character's goals and interests. They get to be the main character! And I can reward tons of magic items because that just lets me take the threat level up a notch. I hope more people try playing one-on-one!
I ran this for my nephew one on one and he loved it.
Definitely going to try a duet campaign with my partner. She's always been the most engaged at the table, and she gets frustrated that others at the table aren't taking things as serious. Seems like a no brainer. (also everyone... We need to watch this video as much as possible so Ginny has to include Josh in more videos to please the algorithm)
shh, you wouldn't want me to find out about your secret campaign to turn this into the Josh channel! 😂
That's one of the things I enjoy most about one-on-one play: I can focus on a single player and run the game to cater to their playstyle instead of having to bounce among different players with different needs. So no reaching the climax of an intense, emotional arc just to have the group goofball kill the mood with a dumb joke. (No hate on the group goofballs! They're awesome! They just ... sometimes ... have a poor sense of timing :-)
I DID know that you could DM a single person in D&D! Matt Mercer's one shot with Stephen Colbert was so wholesome!
!?! I did not know that was a thing!
@@theactorsdungeon3898 check it out! I believe it wad in 2019? There was a sequel of sorts in 2022
Aw I did this for my grandma when she told me she wished she could do magic irl and I explained what D&D was.
It was great since I could gently guide her through the rules one on one (it took her a while to realise that the only thing she controlled was her character 😂) Plus it was my first time DMing so it was a gentle entry for me too!
She loved it! We ended up playing 2 more sessions; one with my brother and then one with my whole family during covid 😂
My wife and I have played duet D&D for years now and we love it. It is super intimidating at first, but I found your improv skills will skyrocket after just a few sessions. I found playing in your own homebrew world a lot faster because you can always make stuff up on the fly. But duet sessions can bring so many benefits. Want to test a new spell? Slip it into a duet session. New class or subclass? Duet session. Weird story idea? Duet session!
Great stuff, Ginny! And here is hoping Josh enjoys duet-DMing as much as he did playing!
I have been playing duet style games with my girlfriend 3-5 times a week, for years. Here is a few things I have learned:
- Use sidekicks like Ginny suggests, but also make sure the PC is the one with the best charisma, otherwise the DM will be RPing with themselves when the guard needs persuading, and that is awkward.
- Give the player higher stats. That will allow them to do more of the stuff. Give out rewards like extra skill profiences and stat increases. Suddenly they will be the one to kick the door down, and to charm the guard. (and they actually won't be that more powerful in combat, high charisma fighters just have slightly better saves than low charisma fighters.)
- Make the story about the PC. Built the world and story around their character. eg. If they are a cleric, their god's nemesis is the big bad. If they are a fighter who wants to be the best there ever was, the world is full of tournaments where they can prove themself. Etc. When DMing for a group, I ask them to built characters that fit my world. When DMing for one player, I ask what is the story you want to tell, who is your character, and then I construct the plot and world.
- Know your player, and then give them what they want. Power players get to use all the broken stuff they normally don't get to use so they don't outshine the others. Someone who likes managing a small army gets to do that etc. There is often things you want to try, but can't in a group game because it takes time/spotlight from the other players. Now is the Time!
I really like the idea of doing a session 0.5 with new players for a campaign. Especially if you do so with a player you haven't run a game with before, to get a feeling for how they play.
Also that GM screen?! What an absolute unit! I want one
Isn't it gorgeous?! It's a custom screen from Talon & Claw (with several contributions from other crafters - all detailed and linked in the video description!)
It works great for this purpose. Well tested.
I did a Duet with my then roommate while we both had Covid, some things you need to know.
A Healer sidekick and/or healing potions is a must. An encounter with a Ratfolk Shroud left the PC with 5 strength and 3 hps.
Overpowering the PC is a good thing at the start, an uncommon magic item at 2nd lvl is a help.
Good luck Josh
I recall seeing at my local game shop a father DMing for his young son in a duet session. Even without knowing any of the details, it was plain to see and hear the kid's unfettered enthusiasm. I imagine the dad had to put in a little extra work to make it happen, but i have zero doubts that many precious memories were forged that day. Serious family goals for sure, and mad respect to DM Dad. A real inspiration.
I love 1x1 sessions! When my party made it to a really big city, I had them "decide" to split up to explore it. They all focused on what was relevant for them, and really got in touch with their characters in both a RP and mechanical sense. They were so excited to reconvene and tell each other what they found in the city, and what adventures they got up to. Would HIGHLY recommend.
Thank you for giving me a name for this. My daughter is already far older than I was when I first picked up my dice, and she wants to give it a shot. I had found some one shots, and was going to try to adapt them for "duet" play. now though, I know its called that, and have found troves of internet information on it, and can accurately create an adventure for her. Thanks Ginny!
I usually call them "Solo Sessions", they were fairly common in earlier editions. ^^ Duet does sound a lot more social and fun though.
Ran several duet games with my late first wife; most sessions were played out on long road trips. We carried dice in the car, but only for skill checks--these games were 100% role play, no combat or XP awards, and leveling up was more of an abstract. When I DMed, I used these sessions to help develop the setting and NPCs that could be of use in the future.
Having done a LOT of one on one roleplaying, there's more points for me to add;
A) Pokemon - Just because there is one player doesn't mean there has to be only one character. The player can maintain a party of however big they are comfortable with, giving a similar feeling to playing something like old Dragon Quest games in combat, then controlling the character that is "them" outside of combat.
B) Main Character - With only one PC, they are the main character, unlike having a party that is an ensemble cast. You're not tying their backstory into the story, the backstory IS the story. Ginny remarked about how much more the DM is the direct interaction, but it's even more than that.
C) Drive - Repeating the above, the PC is the one directing things. There isn't a party for you to bounce ideas off of, there aren't other people who can pick up the slack on what choices to make when you're struggling with choices. The PC has to also put in a lot more work, they also don't get times to sit back and breathe while someone else takes the limelight.
D) Relationship - When you do this with someone you are close with and comfortable with, you'll know a lot more about what you can and can't do, but also what you both want and both want to avoid.
I've been running a duet campaign with my best friend/roommate now for the past...3 to 4 years now I think? Its been an absolute blast and I feel like I've learned so much about the things I enjoy doing as a DM, and learning how to balance encounters and adjusting as needed. Even my friend has been enjoying looking into homebrew, fleshing out their character, and really getting into the world and character creation.
Like you had mentioned, we started with the Essentials Kit. *Dragon of Icespire Peak.* What a good adventure to run, truly. Even after we where done they kept asking "What's next..?!" So we kept on going!
Along with her character, we brought over 4 of the sidekicks from DoIP, and an NPCs from their character's backstory. Even now at the later levels they've taken on a second PC character who will go on to be their Baldur's Gate 3 character!
Here's the order of adventures/modules I've ran for our adventure thus far, and where we are now!
Dragon of Icespire Peak (1-6)
Storm Lord's Wrath (7-9)
Sleeping Dragon's Wake (9-11)
Divine Contention (11-12)
Kryptgarden Ascendant (13-15)
Giants of the Star Forge (16)
Those That Came Before (17-18)
Trust and Understanding (19-20) CURRENT!
I hope more people try this out. It's a great way to spend time with someone you love hanging out with, and easy to pick up whenever the two of you don't have much going on (or if a friend cancels their campaign last minute that day lol).
Husband and wife duet DnD. This is simply delightful!
The best DMing i ever did was a duet one shot. We made her character together, and i didnt write a thing other than to decide the setting until after her character was made with a backstory and a goal. Then the entire adventure was written around her. Of course, i completely subverted what she was expecting in the first hour, turning the antagonist from her backstory into her companion. We played for eight hours. The conclusion was epic and im quite proud she cried at the end as she decided to sacrifice the character. Ill never forget it, it was like a work of art i made for an audience of one and no one will ever know it but us. I also later did exactly what Ginny suggested at the end- I started a campaign of four characters with each of them having a one on one session leading to the party's meeting. This was a cool idea, and while I was pleased with some of it, I'm not sure I would recommend it. The biggest issue is that they essentially each needed to be railroaded so that I could in fact get the party together on that 5th session. The other issue was that while it created some awesome hooks and development of the characters backstories, once the party was together, they could not all pursue all those hooks at once. What I found as the campaign went on was that the separate plot lines were being forced to converge or be put on pause, which was not tonally consistent with the weight they were each given in the opening. It was a great challenge and very interesting though
1 on 1 D&D was a thing during 1st ed. My first exposure to D&D was the module Blade of Vengeance for the Expert D&D. The player played a level 7 'elf' (which was a class back then).
Agreed. In the first few editions "Solo Sessions" as they were called were super common. Especially since you brought the same character to different tables, people would level up between actual campaigns through solo sessions.
The timing is INSANE, i just played my first one on one game last night with a friend that I usually DM for.
It was a one shot and he started the whole thing off with a pack of loansharks kidnapping me and telling me to pull from the deck of many or lose a hand (some sick game they played with gamblers that owe money). I pulled a card that instantly made me 9th level... they let me go after.
Nice! 😂
I've been playing duet TTRPGs with my wife for a few years now, but we don't DM for each other; we use Mythic and randomize everything, and we've gotten some really fun, complex plots out of thin air! Mythic is awesome as a GM tool as well. You can secretly ask Mythic about something you haven't thought of and then you end up surprising yourself along with the players.
What is this "mythic" you speak of?
0:13 I love a good completely unnecessary explanation for something we swear makes perfect sense in context.
I DM all of my games to a single player for years now, because everything is so much more personal and connected to the player. Also makes it easy for schedules. More people should give a try.
8:45
that's actually exactly what i did the first time me and my friends played. i have a bad anxiety and it was my first time playing with them, so i suggested that we could do their background stories first individually, just so they could become more familiar with the concept of dnd (they were new), roleplay and their own character
and then, eventually, in their background story they reached a certain city where all of them met up, continuing their journey! :)
I’ve been running something recently with “split sessions”
Basically I take a small group of my main dnd for a character specific event or challenge.
Also since my people are pretty broken, I don’t worry about as much as combat
It’s a good way to get more into a character
The concept of a duet before the group actually gets together is something WoD actually has! It calls those character preludes, they exist to ground the character in the setting and story, as well set the tone for that character.
Love duet D&D! I’ve had some great sessions with only 1 player 🤘🏼 Thank you for bringing more attention to this Ginny!
Fun fact, that idea of beginning a campaign with duet sessions for each player? In the games i often run/play, that's kinda what session zeroes ended up as, we actually go out of our way to specify if a session 0 is going to be what the dnd community as a whole thinks of it as. We got the idea from various tv shows that do a trailer for each major character.
Running one shots with all the individual characters is a great way to get to know them and introduce backstory in a way they'll want to pursue. Once I ran something similar, where the intro one-shots all led to the characters escaping into a casino airship. There, by chance, they all independently wanted to gamble...so they all started the group campaign at the same table, telling each other how they bested the authorities. Made everyone get really into character during interactions because they already had experience as them!
I love the idea of using duet dnd for session 0 games. You're right that it lets people get more comfortable as their characters and actually have some fun experiences to talk about!
@GinnyDi I currently play a duet with my wife. We are playing the Phandelver and Below mod and we both find it very fun! I completely agree that being the DM for this, my brain does need catch up time, but that is also part of the fun, because I get to test her and see what reactions and decisions she makes. I appreciate you covering this topic as it is very relatable to us. Thank you so much Ginny!
I remember when I first got into Role Play games. I'd gone from Magic the Gathering when it first came out to a friend inviting me to play in a Vampire Larp, but one of the guys in the barracks offered to play a game of completely made up homebrew game that started off being roughly based on Independence Day, but ran into a bunch of gaming tropes that I had never experienced before. Later on I learned of other systems with book formats and D&D, but I'll never forget being in that one on one scenario, drinking Surge and eating Mini Tacos. The good times. :)
I recently started a homebrew campaign as my first ever long term campaign, (ran a few 3-5 shots before) and ran a "prologue session" with each individual player. CANNOT RECCOMMEND THIS ENOUGH!! It was a lot of their first times playing, so it gave them a chance to be introduced to the basic rules of D&D, combat and RP. It gave me as the DM the insight into what their character is like, what abilities they have, and what their goals are. One thing in common with all of them, was that none of them came prepared with a voice they wanted their character to have. This was a great opportunity. Each session we played through a significant moment in the character's backstory, that occurred, and left off with the character heading towards the tavern that session 1 started in. Each character had a really good idea of what they were doing before they entered session one, because they actually played it out.
Tips for running your own:
-Have both a significant RP encounter and a combat encounter
-Ask thought provoking questions. Ex. "How is [PC] feeling in this moment?" "What is [PC] thinking about right now?"
The more you can flesh out the character in RP in the prologue sessions, the better session 1 is! Skips the awkward tavern start where everyone isn't quite comfortable with their characters yet, so not much RP happens. My players jumped right into RP for the first hour, with myself not having to do much at all!
Happy DM'ing!
3:55 IT'S A MINI GINNY!!! 🤏
Mini Di
My wife and I have played a bit of duet DND and also have started a little bit of duet Cairn (the more narrative focus of the latter allows us to sidestep some of the issues with action economy in DND).
With the increased pressure, it cuts both ways - the player is also making ALL the party decisions and doesn’t get a chance to sit back. Our duet games are usually more like 1.5 hours because it’s so much more taxing on both player and DM and the game moves a lot faster.
When the player is stuck and is having brain fade, it can be a good idea to lean on skill checks to move the narrative forward (ensuring that a pass gives them the information they need, and even a fail will have the story “fail forward”) and cut the player some slack. Also, if there is a sidekick NPC, allowing them skill checks to know important narrative info so the player isn’t the only one doing all the lifting
This is actually my main way to play! I've played more duet DnD than traditional party DnD, and I love the fast pace and the sidekick mechanics😁
My friend is developing a brand new RPG system and while testing he started with a “duet” session with each player before we played our first game together and it was very helpful to set up ways to connect all our characters so the “team up” didn’t feel forced. He got to take events from each duet and set them up for the next player so they involved a location or NPC or whatever from someone else’s.
blue hair is back.
i am glad to hear your take. I have a small group (two players) and while i like it, i feel exhausted at two hours with no breaks.
One of my most rewarding roleplaying experiences was a one on one star wars campaign using the savage worlds framework. We frequently switched the DMing role. And we generally have a fairly collaborative playstyle anyway.
Considering we were both playing a jedi knight and her padawan, making it a duet felt like a natural choice. It generally fostered a very close relationship between the two and enabled us to do plots that would have been hard to include other characters with more diverse classes in.
We both levelled our chraracters up as usual, using our own as a quasi-npc while DMing. Playing it as a one on one just requires holding back your character with the problem solving a little while you're Dming. But on the other hand, they become the natural vessel for hints when your player gets stuck on something.
Random question, can you recommend some virtual tabletops to use to play DnD? I am a new player and I am desperately looking for a website for me and my friends to use
D&D Beyond can really help with building characters and managing your abilities.
If you're playing online you might want to check out roll20 for battle maps. Otherwise I'm pretty analogue!
@@GinnyDi thank you so much! Your dnd video help a lot 👏
I’m so glad I was turned onto this video, and your channel. I’ve been role-playing for nearly 40 years, in fact I think it’s more like 42 years now… But I’ve not played much DND. But in that time, the vast majority of my role-playing has been one on one. My friend and I played star frontiers, Marvel superheroes, James Bond 007, And Ghostbusters for years as one on one. I’m so thankful to you for putting the comment in your video about being brought to a standstill, because in those one on one games, I rarely ran them for that very reason. I thought it meant I just sucked at being a game master, because my friend would throw things at me and I would have no idea how to Respond and I would get overwhelmed and make drastic decisions that weren’t fun for either of us. Since 2008, I’ve been gaming online with a group, and I’ve gotten over that and realized that it was more a lack of confidence on my part than anything else, but now you’ve added a whole new dimension to my thinking of that time in my life. It makes so much more sense now. It’s true. In a group, you have a chance to take stock of things while the other players are discussing the situation and what-not. I’m still a big proponent for one on one games. I’ve learned a lot since those stressful experiences as a kid. I’ve never tried running D&D that way… but I’ve never tried running D&D at all. My friend and I did play D&D once or twice one on one, with him running it, back in the day when “old-school” wasn’t. I must say, we had a blast. In order to finish the module, though, my character wound up being down to half a hit point. Yes, we knew we were stretching Things… But we were having so much fun, we didn’t care. And that kind of fun’s the whole point!
Please excuse any type of graphical errors. I’ve been dictating, and I was editing, but I finally decided it was more important to send this comment and move on with my day then spend too much time editing. So I hope if there are any mistakes, the ideas shine through anyway.
Oh I love duet dnd!!! I ran a festival/Christmas (called Maker-Mas lol) for a friend’s birthday that lasted pretty much allll day-except for when we took food and cake breaks for her birthday. It was honestly exhausting to DM but her joy throughout it all was totally worth it. It was a little bit of everything: puzzles, a treasure hunt, a bit of combat. Her side kick through the session was her wizard love interest npc so it was a perfect team up :)
Yesterday I was DMing for the first time for my friend who wanted to get into D&D. I had a general idea of what we're doing that afternoon and when we will end. I did not watch this video, I saved it for after the game, just to have zero expectations and go with it with nothing but God's blessing. I don't know when was the last time I had this much fun.
My friend's character just by saying what he wants to do, created with me improvised segments that took tens of minutes of hilarious situations, and he basically befriended every NPC I created for him and had a round of Fireball (which makes you spit actual dragon fire) with the elders of the town and became the best buddy of the town's chief priest gnome, who was supposed to be just a healing bot that can offer a place to sleep, and now they're homies. I love that I had little time to prepare, because NPCs that I was ready for to make up some more story on the go were mostly ignored, while those less important are almost my plot points right now. Everything turns 180 degrees when you play and it couldn't be better than like this. My friend has no idea how much of this adventure he improvised WITH me, how much he contributed to the experience.
Honestly, one of the best days ever. And what I thought would take us only max 4 hours, turned into TWO sessions in a row, in the same evening, because I decided to screw the bus home, and return later, so we played for ~7hours, and nobody knows when all that time went, will definitely do this again very soon
I’ve done a few 1-on-1 D&D sessions for players when their characters get split up from the party, or for supplemental lore material. It’s always very fun and any “awkwardness” usually disappears pretty quickly.
This is actually how we played out zeros in our current campaign. We each did 1:1 zeros for the catalyst moment of starting the adventure. Then we met up in game gradually. So for a bit played 2 groups of 2:1 until the whole group joined. It was actually really amazing bc we had all this real world time in our characters and we'd all learned little pieces of information so it generated all these rp conversations organically as we explained the lore to each other. Or shared stories that each small group experienced. It was so lived in. I loved it. We've had one person join who had their own private zero and another waiting to join for a small, temp arc waiting to do her duet zero. Can't recommend it enough tbh.
I've DM'ing for nearly 30 years, and I find that session zeros with individual characters allows me to learn that particular player/characters style and flow better. It allows me to craft the early story points and encounters around how each player wants to play their character, creating a more immersive environment before the major plot begins.
My wife and I started playing one-on-one D&D during 2020 lockdown. We also used modules from D&D Duet. (Highly recommended them!) It grew into a 3+ year long campaign that we just finished in December.
Literally my only game of D&D so far was DMing a duet, so it's great to know that the feeling of not having time to think straight is less in a group game.
It actually was basically a prequel to the group campaign, I'm now seriously considering doing it for all my players!
I DM’d my first session with my immediate family around Christmas time, it was a fun first experience for my sisters and parents! Though I am guilty of having my brain shut down a dozen times during the handful of hours, since most of them haven’t done any sort of RPGs before (as far as I know). But despite that, they said they’d like to do it again sometime. Seeing this video made me wonder if I should try a duet style with everyone at separate occasions. I don’t know if my brain is up to the challenge, but that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna try my hardest!
I've run a duet campaign for several years now, and the best advice I can add to what's already in the video is: give your player a party. If you can run an entire world and all the NPCs in it, then your player can run 3-5 characters. Then you can actually have normal combat balance without worrying about action economy and stuff. Even if the DM is roleplaying those characters, let the player control their actions in combat.
You can even have one of those characters be the "main character" of the story, and give that character higher than normal stats and a clear chain of command. This is actually something very tricky with multiple players, as assigning one player to be the leader can create resentment among the group. But with one player, making them the official commander of a unit is very natural.
My monday group actually does this ! So we are playing in a mini campaign together where we do one session a month as a group, and since the plot of the main sessions tend to be a lot more tight and planned out beforehand, there isn't always a lot of time for each of us to get to everything we wanted to do in character. So our DM made the decision to start running what he calls "intermissions" between every main session, which are shorter one-on-one (though occasionally there'll be two of us if our characters are in the same place at the same time) where we talk with him ahead of time to make a list of everything our character wants to do/what we as players want to happen, and then we get 2-3 hours to just run through and do all of that. Even cooler is that if there is a secret in our character's backstories that we don't want the rest of the party to learn about yet, we can deal with it in intermission. Might not necessarily work for a typical campaign where you are part of a whole party, but for our game that's based more in the Good Society ttrpg system where we're all just people at court who each have their own things to deal with privately, it works perfectly!
For my party of 5, I frequently have mini duet sessions in between our regular game sessions. Does one of the characters have a personal errand to run? Does one of them get kidnapped? Does something peculiar happen during their watch? Perfect times for a small duet session.
Also, I already do a brief backstory-based duet session as part of each player’s individual session 0. I like it, and it’s a lot of fun.
My husband ran a duet with everyone before our largest campaign and it worked GREAT! We started at level 3 and it was a lot of players' first games, so he used those one on one sessions to get everyone from level one to level three, introduce them to the basics of the game, and make sure that everyone had a firm grasp of who their characters were and what their goals were when meeting the rest of the party.
I love the idea of using this as pre-campaign for players. helps the player get used to their character and helps the dm learn about the player's character as well.
Your last point of a solo session with a player is something I've been doing for a while. I called it session zero. It allows the player to practice their character and briefly edit something they don't feel it works. The idea behind it was to give them immediate understanding of local geography of the area and a beginning to an independent quest. For some characters I've even given them oppotunity to gain additional basic items. Rolling with it, it's been a massive success and my players seem to love it. Glad to know I'm not the only one implementing this concept
Couple of things:
I've actually done the idea about running duets with players before a campaign starts to play out their backstories! Started a campaign recently and I made it a point to do "backstory oneshots" with all the players. It's a great way to give players time to work out some of the kinks with their characters and it gives me time to better understand how they want to proceed with some things. It also makes backstories a lot more dynamic and involved, and more emotionally gripping since you are playing out the events that helped formulate your character.
As for another use of the duet format, in one of the dnd campaigns I'm in, we've actually done something similar to this a few times. We call them "sideshots," and usually we will schedule a time with the DM to do one if we want to be able to roleplay or play out specific moments with NPCs and stuff in depth without taking away a lot of playtime from other players (especially if we don't believe any PC on PC interaction will happen).
It's a great way to allow us to not have to shorten roleplay moments just to be courteous to the playtime of other players and allow everyone their fair share of playtime when we have regular session times. Especially since our group is extremely roleplay heavy, it's really helped us to develop our characters and the relationships our characters have with the NPCs.
The biggest note is that this has been done as supplemental to a regular group campaign. Obviously, the pure duet format is definitely different. That said, when I started dipping my toes into dming I ended up running a duet oneshot for my then boyfriend to get a feel for what it would be like, so it's also great as a learning tool for newer dms.
Can confirm, the one-on-one games before a group game are really fun. I had a DM do that for us and it was really helpful for figuring out how my Tabaxi Storm Sorcerer circus performer [more Cirque du Solei than traditional circus with animals] interacted with important people in his backstory. His mother was retiring from the road and it was his first performance alone. He gave a beautiful tribute to wish her well using magic. It was really emotional.
I love running solo campaigns for my husband and my bestie. They are exhausting but so much more flexible. And you can tailor it SO much to what that player loves and enjoys most without worrying about other players' experiences suffering or balancing "screentime"
Hell yeah, duet d&d sounds cute.
I tend to call it origin sessions where the player goes through events that are from their backstory, so when they gather with others they can share it as we players would when telling others about their last session. It's great for immersion and helping a player find their characters "voice" and values.
I love the idea of doing a "backstory duet" with each player before the campaign proper. I recently read up on Exalted (haven't gotten to play it yet, though), and apparently it's already something people do there, running specifically through the parts of the backstory that lead up to the point where the character Exalts in the first place.
I loved the most when you can make a really personalized story, because only one hero is the protagonist. Played 5 years in 1-1 with a character and at the end on lvl many, went into multiverse.
I had a DM back in the day who used these as forms of character development independent of a party. He used them to seed trust and distrust as each player was given information and some withheld to others. And he kept from having to have 'helpers' by tailoring the one off to the character it was for with class and race, or even the background if they were written well enough. Assassin approached by the assassin's guild to fulfill a contract. Fighter in the colloseum to help a friend pay off debts. Things like that. And it was super fun going back to party play after. Trying to figure out in character what other people did, learned, or was trying to hide...
I have been doing duet dnd sessions with players, going thru backstory moments on the weeks multiple people can't show up for whatever reason. It really helps flesh out their character as well as rewarding them for showing up
Duet D&D can be a very fun, but you live and you learn when you try it.
I have had duet sessions where we ran actual PCs (2 & 2). While that makes balacing encounters easier, RP suffers a bit, and I must confess that worked better because I was playing with a veteran friend. New players sometimes have a hard time finding their stuff in their only character sheet! So if you want combat, I'd say PC + sidekicks, kinda like the companions from D3.
What I would recommend for duet D&D are adventures or situations heavily reliant on Skill Challenges. It can be so much fun to see what your player comes up and how they can explain using a particular skill instead of what you as a DM would normally choose for an ability check. It also opens up more improvisational ways - my duet episodes often go into directions I wasn't expecting and that makes them just as magical as the sessions where everything is planned.
As a final advice, duet D&D works great to make up a session for when a player wanted to be present, but couldn't. Scheduling is one of the challenges of a D&D session, but it might also create the opportunity for great one-on-one moments to explain why that PC couldn't participate of a quest in the last "official" episode.
I absolutely love doing solo sessions, as a player or a DM. There is just something about the amount of focus you can give someone and their character.
We use them as intro sessions as mentioned, but also when somebody missed some sessions or went on a sidequest or whatever.
Another great thing about D&D duets, and this is especially interesting when playing with, like it was said in the video, close friends, family or your significant other, is the fact that, humanly, can you name another activity you do with someone else and for 4 hours straight, YOU are their exclusive point of focus, and THEY are your exclusive point of focus? I do feel like this is really a great opportunity for some shared quality time over a common passion.
Also, the fact that you have only one player means EVERYTHING that happens at the table relates to their character, everything is interesting, and you can take more time describing stuff that you feel will interest your player. I mean, if you spend 30% of the time doing descriptions or giving away information about the world (like through knowledge skills) with a group of 6 players, each player gets about 11% of your time one average to answer his questions or resolve his actions. In a duet, you spend 50% of the time doing the same and your only player still gets more time to resolve its actions etc... It is also easier to develop characters relationships with NPCs they like (AND NPCs they hate by the way!). As a heavy homebrew DM, you can also use duets sessions to test new rules, mechanics, feats, spells etc... And their balance. The merits are legions.
In my experience, one of the most important flaw is that players that are used to being part of an active group might struggle with the fact that they are now the sole responsible person for the decisions, and it can with some players actually slow them down in decision making, because when you are part of a group of 6 and your group makes a mistake, you can dilute some of the responsability of the mistake, but not when you are the sole player, and it can sometimes paralyse the player, even more so if the player is usually undecisive as a general rule in his life. Even with "sidekicks" the game can sometimes feel lonely to some people, because brainstorming with people over what we should do next is something that some players actually love.
In the end, this is just another tool in a DMs toolkit!
This is the only way I have played D&D for about 8 years now. Our group fell apart (people got too busy) and so I just started DMing 1on1 stuff for people who were free, and I have literally never looked back. The stories get way more involved, you get so much more done and the player is basically always invested. It's far and away my favourite way to play D&D.
When I jumped in to an ongoing campaign this year, we actually had a 1 on 1 session with the DM on accident beforehand (wasn't planned, other things just happened). Having that session to intro my character into the dungeon the others were just entering was SO COOL and made the initial introduction RP so much more fluent, since I knew EXACTLY why I'm there and what state of mind my character was in after having just barely escaped an encounter alive.
It was amazing, totally recommend doing that with your players!
i have a friend who plays d&d with me rather often and one year we just had a 1 on one campaign because we couldn't find other players i dm'd it and it was honestly really fun she got to make a fairly in depth backstory and i got to make a handful of companions for her out of npcs she picked up along the way it was fun enough to the point where she started dming herself and returned the favor allowing me to create my favorite character to this day
DMs hosting for other DMs can be super fun duet, I've done that a few times. My best buddy and I have *very* different playstyles and I'm not in his main game for that reason, but we had a blast doing... basically a live-action writer's room one time where we acted out the prison break of one of his Important NPCs using D&D as the medium. I had a blast adding my own personal touch to this oc, and that character stuck around and stayed connected to the plot all the way until the end of the campaign at Level 20.
I've been heading a campaign for 1 for a while now as a newer DM.
It's been great because they've been able to sit down and explore what's going on around, without input from other characters or not wanting to persue something in favor of letting the group do something else.
It's been harrowing because it's very easy to kill a 1 person party. They must be resourceful and thoughtful about their actions in the wild. The campaign style we're in suits this perfectly - you are a person, not a hero. The world is dangerous, and esp since I started this at level 1, it's been pretty challenging to provide a significant challenge that's winnable without being overly aggressive.
I see this campaign as a great way to try new things too, I've got a custom alchemy system that doesn't interfere with traditional gameplay, an AC damage mitigation system, and a few wildcard things I've homebrewed to provide a little spice to the boring aspects of DND (like AC being used for something other than a "yes or no" question).
We've spent the last year (in game and IRL) doing solo sessions during downtime. It let us as players explore things our characters wanted to take care of without it feeling like we're rushing or taking up too much time from other peoples interests. We wove the stories together, sometimes appeared in each others downtime sessions, and communicated IC on discord via sending stones.
We just finished, rejoining properly as a group again, after a PC and NPC got married and their wedding got ambushed by the next arcs BBEG. It's been great fun, amazing for character development and world building.
I actually just got done running a string of duet sessions with all of my players as a first time dm! It was super fun working together on how they wanted their backstory to go, and feeling the trials and tribulations they built for themselves. It also helped a lot to help everyone feel out their character long before they even sat down for session 1. Session 1 just happened literally today and I am so thrilled to continue dming for the following weeks.
playing 1 on 1 with each of your players, and roleplaying a point in their backstory was what I did before I started my big campaign that is still going on today. It really helped my players get into their characters head and helped when we actually decided to play all together.
One-on-one D&D seems like a great date night idea. It also enables you to use a lot of tropes, like Chosen One, that you couldn't use in a group game. The one player *is* the main character.
I personally found that having a duet session with every player before session 1 has been incredibly helpful; especially if you're trying out a new system and you're not yet familiar with the mechanics.
The players get to do a test run of their character and you as a Dm get to have a pretty good idea of who your party's member are and what they can do before the game even start
the part about a “rounded team” being needed reminds me of when me, a friend(dm), and three of his other friends were planning a oneshot for dnd. the two he asked before me chose characters, one being an angel, and one being a half-demon, and the characters hated eachother. i heard this and so i made my character a warlock whose patron is an overly territorial eldritch-esque horror who hates all other divine creatures. he said if the other friend was connected to the divine, he’d make the campaign set in literal hell. the party needed a cleric.
also i had two backup characters, both connected to the divine
I once played in a campaign that incorporated duo play, as you suggested at the end. In the week before the first group session, the DM had a one-on-one game with each of the players. He used those sessions to introduce various plot threads that would play out in the main game. I thought it was pretty clever, and it gave our characters plenty to talk about once we were finally all together. Of course, this was back in high school when we had no other obligations, and it was feasible for the DM to run a mini-session every night for a week...
Solo D&D is my favorite way of introducing people to playing the game. There is less pressure of looking silly in front of your friends and the DM has his fully attention on you.
You can learn a lot about solo DnD by watching people soloing BG3. Lots of events are made so they can solved in different ways, and retreating or taking another route when one is blocked is always an option. Pen&Paper roleplayers tend to forget that.
I am doing a duet D&D campaign with my husband. He is a necromancer who inherited an insanely powerful amulet, which gives him permanent control over 8 undead minions. (one of them is his grandma). I RP the minions when needed (some can talk, including grandma who is constantly commenting on how he doesn't eat enough) but he gets to control them in combat. It works really well!
For my last adventure I did a duet session with each player to establish their own motivation going into the adventure and allowed each of them to find a custom magic item that really fit their vibe. It was great to get a sense for how each character played and acted. I plan on doing it more in future, maybe even having duet sessions with each character between big narrative arcs in longer campaigns.
Games from the World of Darkness have this initial "duet" experience to explore the character's backstory ingrained into their very core. The "prelude", as it is called, is a fundamental part of Character Creation, and one that lets each player explore their character individually before committing to a group effort.
8:37 - this is exactly what I’ve been doing to prepare my players for our new campaign and integrate their characters into my homebrew world, and I wish this video had been available to me before I started. It’s been going great so far, but you’re right - duet D&D is a lot of pressure!
My first ever D&D experience was exactly that. A friend of mine ran a campaign back in the 90's with a bunch of people who hadn't played D&D before. He started us all of with a duet session, and after all that, we came together as a group.
It gave him a chance to develop "secret" backstory and motivations to NPC's in the campaign and was actually super-fun.
Prob. due to such a positive experience that I kept into D&D to this day.
There's a website literally called D&D Duet that's been SO so helpful for me!! I'm a therapist running therapeutic campaigns with clients so it's often duet play, and that's been absolutely invaluable. I agree with all of Ginny's observations, and there's truly no such thing as overpreparing for duet D&D; I've also been forced to get better at improv because you can blow through material so fast! Not everyone will be this way, but I am, I also noticed that I did a lot more extraneous descriptions than normal, I think just because I knew it would be dead air if I didn't, so I gotta keep an eye on that in my next duet campaigns and DMing in general. Thanks for linking that adventure too! I want to read more duet campaigns so I can pick up anything helpful from them.
Once, when scheduling got in the way of an ongoing campaign, I separated all the party members and then did individual duet sessions with each player, in which their ultimate objective was to find and reunite the party - it was great, and the players had a fun time recounting all of their individual adventures in character together afterward.
I also had a DM who once had us play out individual adventures from each character's backstory. We each took turns playing our character, but the other players piloted NPCs or enemy combatants in the session. It was so much fun, and definitely something I want to run for my own players in the future.
And welcome back, mermaid hair! You've been missed!
I actually started out playing 1 on 1. I had played a little back in the day and never reallly got an idea for what edition but because I was the one most familiar with the game, my now-spouse asked that I run the game so they could learn it. I essentially built out a party of fun, fully built PC style characters to let them choose from and learn about, like Dragon Age. It worked super well, and since then that player has requested fully built NPCs in other games with small groups to round out a party and have someone they can build relationships with even if they're on the road for really long periods of time, since the NPCs travel with them. The thing that made this work was making these NPCs require less active interaction, so the party can interact with them whenever they want to, but without taking time away from the players' interactions with one another. Your suggestion on running duet games before campaigns is actually how I start EVERY campaign. It is SUPER fun and really helps hook players in via their backstories. I can accomplish a lot of what session 0 is for while also making a fun solo adventure to lead the player into the first session.
I just ran 5 of these duet sessions for my group of 5 players and we all had a blast! I had them play through 2 months of their downtime after having completed their first major arc in the campaign.
Playing a one-on-one with each of my players before they come together as a group is my favourite thing to do, my players get a better understanding and stronger connection with their characters as we explore a major part of their backstory.
What's really funny is this video went live when I was right in the middle of a one-on-one with one of my players for a new long running campaign coming to Roll Together RPG
I've actually done that thing where you run a duet with each player before starting the campaign! It's super fun!
It allows you and that player to flesh out the character a little more and also really helps the players to work on things like accents, quirks, ticks, catch phrases, or just their general way of thinking /existing in the world.
As the GM you also get to really dial in some backstory for the character and dig deeper into those normal GM questions like what do you fear, what are your goals, where do you come from, where are you going, why are you a part of the group.
The way I like to kind of play it is doing mini duet games with each player and just staging that as "let's tell the story of the few days, weeks, or years, that brought you to be in the party"
Super fun! Highly recommended!
I run a lot of duet D&D with my girlfriend as both a player and a dm. I find a few things can be quite useful when playing in this style.
The first one is to have npcs be willing to join your player's party. I have a cap at 3 additional party members. This allows your player to easily get that bonding experience with who they actually care about. They get to choose the npc's class when they join, meaning they can be as strategic as they want with party composition. You as a dm will always roleplay the party members, but the player gets to control them in combat.
The second thing is to make sure you have your content very fleshed out. When you can read an npc's traits and write a few lines on how they would talk and what they know about, you can easily get into their headspace for roleplay. Be open with your player about what's not fleshed out yet. It's no fun to improvise 15 things in a session and feeling like you want to retcon it.
And lastly, try chatting online through text. It gives you plenty to time to check notes and make sure things are correct. I know most people like talking to other people around a table when they play, but this opens up an avenue to play a slower and more roleplay heavy game. It's much easier to describe your character's actions and dialogue over text than it is to act it out in person. This is of course useful if the player you are playing with can't meet up with you. It feels liberating to not be rushed while playing, and even if you're interrupted, it's not nearly as disruptive as in person.