For players, this post aims to help you think of alternatives to changing your character’s subclass. For DMs, this post suggests ways of incorporating the subclass more often and some benefits to doing so. Ideally, the two of you can collaborate on ways to accentuate the subclass during RP, combat, and in the larger story.
Mechanics
When a D&D Session Ends Poorly…
This post covers some ideas and strategies for what to do when a one-on-one D&D session ends poorly. We’ll look into what might have happened, who feels off and why, and what to do to fix it.
Be the Hero?
In this post, I question the common advice to DMs of one-on-one games that the PC should “feel like a hero.” What if that doesn’t suit the character’s or the player’s personality? I turn to the fertile world of internal conflict to uncover some alternatives to this heroic approach.
Sidekicks Best Practices: DM Interventions vs PC Immersion
As a GM, it can be difficult at times to determine the balance between guiding a player and railroading them. This becomes particularly complicated while playing in a duet game because it’s just the two of you. If the player misses something important, they don’t have backup, besides their DM, to help them figure it out. This post walks through some possible solutions to this issue with DMPCs in one-on-one play.
How to Use a Sidekick in D&D
This post cover how to incorporate a sidekick in your one-on-one D&D game and the mechanics surrounding their inclusion. I talk about why you might want to use a sidekick, when to add them, who runs them, and general best practices to make it easier for you to increase the number of adventurers in your party without increasing the number of people at your table.
Ideas for Scaling a D&D Encounter
Scaling an encounter is much more art than science, but there are a number of concrete tools you can use to get the job done.
Two Tips for the Player in 1-on-1 D&D
Being the player in a one-on-one campaign comes with its own set of challenges. But, there are two tips to keep in mind in your duet game to make your collaborative worldbuilding and play fun and vibrant: be active, and know your character.
Designing Character-Driven Campaign Arcs
A short while ago, Jonathan explained his process for designing a campaign arc, so definitely check that out if you haven’t! However, in that post, we also talk about how our processes for designing a larger arc (something that would be a TV season rather than a singular episode) are quite different. So in this […]
