One-on-one Ravenloft

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Kel-nage
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One-on-one Ravenloft

Post by Kel-nage »

Right, as an aside of my main group, I'm thinking about starting some one-on-one games with my girlfriend (she's enjoyed roleplaying when she's tried it, however, she doesn't like roleplaying with my group, which is somewhat understandable, but that's another point...)

What I was wondering was if anyone had run some one-on-one games in Ravenloft before? I've not been over it yet with her, but if we do go ahead, I'm thinking of starting her in Mordent and having her investigate/solve a ghost story to start with (what else for the domain that is full of them?)

I am also thinking that running a ghost adventure would be the best idea, as it would appear that ghosts can be lot less dangerous than most of the creatures that dwell in Ravenloft. Seeing as it will only be her, even CR 1 battles might be fatal...

So yeah, I was just fishing for any advice on one-on-one games in Ravenloft, or indeed, anything that I might want to keep in mind for an adventure in Mordent or ghost adventures (I was thinking about getting hold of VRG to Ghosts, but I bought VRG to Vampires recently and it seemed to be mainly rules based as opposed to any guide to using them in a campaign, which was what I really wanted, as I'm a 3rd Ed. DM only). Would Children of the Night: Ghosts be better for me?
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Post by Rotipher of the FoS »

VRGtG is pretty good, and it's got some lower-level options that would work well for a solo game. Note that it was originally intended as a grab-bag for all kinds of incorporeal undead (much like the VRGttWD became, for lesser corporeal undead critters), so there's more in there than just literal "ghosts" by MM definitions. The CotN: Ghosts book has some low-level entries too.

Aside from low-power spirits, you could confront a solo Ravenloft PC with mysteries she's got to solve, but not necessarily go bring down the culprits personally; perhaps her PC could identify the villain, but leave it to the Lamplighters to catch them? This would allow you to include some monsters that she's not up to battling on her own, in a non-combat role (e.g. she has to determine who the werewolf is, then report it to the local authorities so they can fight it).

You could also try using some perfectly human threats, such as bogus hauntings staged by criminals (a la Scooby Doo) or "ghost-hunting" charlatans (a la the Brothers Grim movie). Sherlock Holmes mysteries -- the spooky ones in particular -- might be better inspiration for those than the usual Ravenloft-buff's stockpile of horror novels and films. If your girlfriend was ever into Nancy Drew, she'd probably love this kind of thing! :wink:
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Post by Drinnik Shoehorn »

I agree with Rotipher, take a cue from CSI. She investigates and perhaps has a little action with the nasties herself, but all the dangerous stuff is handled by others, her job is to piece together what happened.
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Post by Boccaccio Barbarossa »

I've played in a one-on-one game run by Samael (J. Ambrus) which is on pause as it stands. i must say, it was one of ther best experiences I have had. We did it on MSn instant messenger, as I was living out of town at the time, which was nother strength, in this case. (It was great because you could take a few seconds to really consider your response, so we really had some fanatstic dialogue going!)

One of the great things about a 1-on-1 game is that it really lets you focus on telling the story of ONE character, so you can really explore their fears, their lives, pasts, etc. My character, a retired naval officer of the Dementlieu navy, was (he thought) the sole survivor of a shipwreck which most would consider his fault. (It's a Rhyme of the Ancient mariner style thing: I shot the albatross :oops: ). Anyways, he washes up on shore on a msall island and learns the basics of magic from the hermit who nurses him back to life. He begins to obsess over learning necromancy because he's been having these recurring dreams about the dead sailors coming back for him... after a few years, the hermit dies, so he burries him and goes "home" to his ancestral manor, Le Saint-Michel, overlooking the bay in POrt-a-Lucine.

Anyways, to make a long story short, ONE survivor comes back and curses him (he gains the host Sight feat... but is legitimately haunted by angry ghosts, so it's not that great. :twisted: ). So, he goes on a quest to try to set things right.

So, what was great, is that we get to be very personal about everything: no random investigations, conflicting party goals, etc.

having said this, we started a few levels above 1st, but agree with the given advice: have her work in a consulting capacity. Or, if you want her to actually have to fight something, have her fight animated chairs, or VERY minor ghost-like effects. Then again, you can just fuge all sorts of die rolls. . :shock: (I am assumiong that starting her out at level 2 or 3 is out of the question?... Cuz it might fix the problem...)

Another alternative: most ghosts may not actually need to be faught to be defeated. Let's say you are dealing with the ghost of a young man killed in a duel over a woman in which one of the participants cheated and the woman was "forced" to marry the winner despite her feelings towards the loser. Maybe having the treachery (poison maybe?) exposed would be enough to lay the ghost to rest, even if the woman doesn't eventually break up with her husband (it might have been too long, or she may love him now, have children with him, etc.). It would involve little combat.

If you want, you can have the ghost appear in the public square, looking to duel with certain passers-by. Maybe it still sticks to it's sense of fair play, so that it may materialise, but decide not to use any dirty undead tricks against any who would fight it in honourable combat, 1-on-1... Though cheating or declining results in a full-force attack, of course...

Just an idea. :wink:
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Post by Rotipher of the FoS »

Oh, and here's another good "brain-teaser" plot idea, for low-combat Ravenloft games: breaking curses. The PC must find out why the curse had been laid, either on a living NPC or on their ancestor (for hereditary curses), and determine whether the cursed individual really ought to be saved (some curses are deserved, after all!). If she chooses to help, she then has to find a way to avert the curse, either by placating the individual who laid it, finding a loophole that minimizes its effects, or cancelling it out by seeing that its "escape clause" is fulfilled. Lots of cool role-playing options there, even if she never picks up a sword or a pistol!
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Post by Sorti »

Having only 1 player does not mean necessarily her PC will walk alone; instead, you can add NPCs to the party. If you create them to be gothic companions your campaign can benefit a lot from character-to-character interactions often hard to come by when all of the PCs are player-controlled, like deep and/or troubled romances ending in the death of one of the two (you wouldn't kill a PC for story reasons only, but an NPC...), or even dark secrets and obscure betrayals where you do not need to take the player to another room for an hour to roleplay his solo part, since he's an NPC.

And, as many said, it allows you to have a main character in your story, and not necessarily a group of main characters; this means you can implement some of the good ol' terror techniques like having a recurrent villain who is "the dark version" of your GF's PC, or having her isolated (read: _no one_ aroud her to help or to speak with) (isolating a group is not so gothic, since they always have one another, but if you are alone with two NPCs you don't fully trust it's another thing completely...)
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Post by Gonzoron of the FoS »

I ran a solo quest from CotN:The Created (Gestalt) as an intro for a new character. Worked especially well since I added in Dr. Van Richten and young, good Emil Bollenbach as backup (also since this character was joining a higher level campaign, he wasn't level 1.) The CotN series is great for small, atmosopheric adventures. The VRGtG is one of the best, but it will only stir your imagination, not give you full adventures to use.
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Post by Boccaccio Barbarossa »

Sorti wrote:Having only 1 player does not mean necessarily her PC will walk alone; instead, you can add NPCs to the party. If you create them to be gothic companions your campaign can benefit a lot from character-to-character interactions often hard to come by when all of the PCs are player-controlled, like deep and/or troubled romances ending in the death of one of the two (you wouldn't kill a PC for story reasons only, but an NPC...), or even dark secrets and obscure betrayals where you do not need to take the player to another room for an hour to roleplay his solo part, since he's an NPC.

And, as many said, it allows you to have a main character in your story, and not necessarily a group of main characters; this means you can implement some of the good ol' terror techniques like having a recurrent villain who is "the dark version" of your GF's PC, or having her isolated (read: _no one_ aroud her to help or to speak with) (isolating a group is not so gothic, since they always have one another, but if you are alone with two NPCs you don't fully trust it's another thing completely...)
I agree with you, but to a point. SOmetimes, having too many NPCs around just gets in the way of playing them properly. (Or, at times, just remembering that they're around is hard enough!). It's great to throw one or two in the mix, though, with one of them possibly a side kick/firend to the PC. But I guess that's a matter of preference.

Still, it might not be a bad idea to give your GF a Watson... so you can have something gruesome happen to him after she's gotten used to him. :twisted:
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Post by Samael Hands of Stone »

Like BB said, we did a one-on-one instant msg campaign once that was simply off the hizzy from both the player and dm perspective. I also have some experience with running a short game for one of my past girlfriends, although she wasn't much of a role-player purist (bless her heart).

The only advice I can give you is to remember that you're DM-ing for a woman, especially one that is presumably smitten with you and either enjoys gaming herself, or has decided to try it because she wants to get her membership-pass to you treehouse club. Having said this, I recommend that you tackle the story-buliding phase of your game a bit differently from what you're used to.

Remember that the fairer sex rarely responds as brightly to violence and other high-energy testosterone type action as they do to emotional and psychological intrigue. Despite how sexist this is all sounding, believe me when I say to you that at some point, any point in the game, she's going to want some romance. Maybe not for herself, but she'll want to be immersed in it. And while we're at it, she'll probably want you to throw in some cutsie sidekick characters for good measure. My God this is sounding all so mysogynstic now that I'm re-reading it. Well I gotta tell like it is folks, sorry.

This has been my experience. let the rocks and stones fly...
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Post by Rotipher of the FoS »

If you want this PC to have a little physical protection at low levels, yet don't care for having full-fledged NPCs tagging along all the time, giving your girlfriend's character a big, faithful dog would be an excellent solution. Animal allies aren't necessarily just for druids and rangers; a dog trained to protect the PC (and perhaps sniff out trails) could act as a bodyguard if necessary (thus giving you an excuse to up the suspense a little, by presenting the threat of violence more often), yet would be a lot simpler to "role-play" than a human companion. Perhaps the dog was trained by a now-deceased friend or relative of the PC, and she inherited custody of the animal.

The handy thing about this solution is that, as the PC gains levels and has less need of the animal's protection, you can always claim that the dog is getting a bit too old to accompany the character everywhere. Then you can "retire" the animal to a nice sleeping-basket by the fireplace, to make a few sentimental cameo appearances for scenes at the PC's residence ... or, perhaps, to have its mind taken over by a villain and attack her, forcing her to choose between shooting her former protector or fleeing for her life.

The dog shouldn't be as extensively-trained as a real "animal companion" in the game-rules sense, but its capabilities should complement the PC's own. Depending on its exact breed, you could easily give it extra racial bonuses to Jump, Swim, Spot, Survival, Search and/or Intimidate, maybe even Sense Motive if you want to incorporate the "mysterious animal intuition" concept.
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Post by Boccaccio Barbarossa »

Rotipher wrote:If you want this PC to have a little physical protection at low levels, yet don't care for having full-fledged NPCs tagging along all the time, giving your girlfriend's character a big, faithful dog would be an excellent solution. Animal allies aren't necessarily just for druids and rangers; a dog trained to protect the PC (and perhaps sniff out trails) could act as a bodyguard if necessary (thus giving you an excuse to up the suspense a little, by presenting the threat of violence more often), yet would be a lot simpler to "role-play" than a human companion. Perhaps the dog was trained by a now-deceased friend or relative of the PC, and she inherited custody of the animal.

The handy thing about this solution is that, as the PC gains levels and has less need of the animal's protection, you can always claim that the dog is getting a bit too old to accompany the character everywhere. Then you can "retire" the animal to a nice sleeping-basket by the fireplace, to make a few sentimental cameo appearances for scenes at the PC's residence ... or, perhaps, to have its mind taken over by a villain and attack her, forcing her to choose between shooting her former protector or fleeing for her life.

The dog shouldn't be as extensively-trained as a real "animal companion" in the game-rules sense, but its capabilities should complement the PC's own. Depending on its exact breed, you could easily give it extra racial bonuses to Jump, Swim, Spot, Survival, Search and/or Intimidate, maybe even Sense Motive if you want to incorporate the "mysterious animal intuition" concept.
That's a great idea, actually. And the nice thing about the dog: if tyhere is no other way to save her character at some point and you don't want her t odie on a bad luck roll or whatever, you can have the dog literally take a bullet for her.
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Post by Sorti »

I drool *ehm* vote for the dog idea, it really sounds great!
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Post by Kel-nage »

Wow, thanks for all the great advice guys! I've read the entire thing though and it's really helped me cultivate lots of ideas for her adventure.

We've been thinking about her backstory and the dog idea would certainly fit. It'll give her a physical protector as well as some spiritural help (in the form of the haunted feat). I'm not so sure about the extra characters. I'm still a relative newcomer to DMing and find I tend to forget NPCs, as I'm more interested in the players! Hopefully, as I develop, I might be able to add some side characters in. For now though, I'd also like to play on the isolation factor.

I'm certainly going to let her in at the shallow end at combat, possibly giving her a friend in the lamplighters. Fear is where I'll be throwing her in at the deep end, heheheh...

Thanks to everyone who's contributed, and please, if you have anything else to add, go ahead. It's all very welcome!
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Post by HuManBing »

Another idea that would work really well with a small number of players and a starting campaign would be the Darkon Memory Campaign. Do a search on the threads for the actual post itself, but here's a starting list:

* Darkon, the domain, drains the true memories of its visitors and gives them fake ones. This is automatically done by Azalin's "Book of Names" and the character loses its memory unless it can somehow rediscover them manually.

* The PC could have a few levels in commoner, going through a routine, until it discovers its past, in which case allow the player to assign their levels of commoner to class levels.

* Possible pasts include: merchant who came to Darkon and lost their memory of their family back home. Kargat/Kargatane operative who was posted overseas (or in other domains) for a long time and then came back and lost all memory of being in the Kargat/Kargatane. Foreign spy sent in to infiltrate Darkon, and similarly lost. Wanted soldier from the Falkovnian army who escaped to Darkon, etc.

All of these allow a single PC to discover their back story, and if you and the player have a good working relationship, you can even give them choices in what their "true" stats and levels were (although you the DM probably should keep the final say in the actual history itself).

Finally, if you're up for it and you REALLY want to screw with their heads, watch the movie "Memento" and then try to recreate something similar. Translated into the Darkon setting, this could be explained by having Azalin keep on rewriting the PC's history into his Book of Names (which causes the PC to forget). This forces the PC to rediscover his past and find a suitable way of keeping records so that when the next memory lapse happens, he will be prepared.
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Post by Dominique »

Samael (Jason A.) wrote: Remember that the fairer sex rarely responds as brightly to violence and other high-energy testosterone type action as they do to emotional and psychological intrigue.
Not necessarily, actually. For some female gamers, yes, but for others, this is their chance to finally let out their inner bloodthirsty psychopath. Laugh all you want, but female gamers tend to have some of the most casually vicious characters I've ever seen. Granted, that isn't in all cases, or maybe even in most of them--I prefer intrigue, and a lot of other female players that I know do, too. But I know far more "everything can be solved with a gun and a clenched fist" female players than male players. It all depends on what you know about your gf.

You might want to primarily root the campaign in a single town--probably Mordentshire, since you're interested in Mordent. That way, instead of having one or two full-time NPCs whom you think you would forget about and who might get in the PC's way, you could just have a broad network of contacts that she becomes more and more familiar with and who can provide various services during her investigations ("I've hit a dead end in this ghost investigation. Maybe I should talk to Alistair Doyle--he's a nut for local history, so he might know exactly the clue I'm looking for!") It would give her a lot of potential sources of help without making any of them too intrusive, and you wouldn't have to think about them until she actively started seeking them out.
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