Champions for One Player and One GM

[Arcanuum]

Does it work? Has anyone done it? How did it go if you did it?

[zslane]

It works just fine. It's really no different than any other one-on-one RPG experience. The mechanics work the same; it's the feel of the adventures that changes because it is all about the solo character. If you can both get into the spirit of that, then it works great!

[Armory]

That's how I started with Champions, me and my best friend back in '82.  We played like that for a couple of years.  At one point we pulled my then-wife into it but she wasn't a comic book fan nor a gamer so she was terrible.

 

It works pretty well, we had a ton o' fun.  I actually miss it sometimes, I haven't run a group with fewer than four players since the early '90s.

[Tech]

It works well actually. Nowadays though, I have 3 to 6 players at a game.

[Shadow7]

Just curious along the same lines, when you guys played with only two, was it purely a solo adventure campaign or did you add GMPC heroes to aid the player?

 

Shadow7

[dsatow]

I've done it for my wife but usually, in other instances, more players will show up.  Its a very different feel I think.  More role playing goes on in a solo run as I can concentrate solely on a player and not worry the others aren't having fun.  Personally, I think its the same as the difference between a team comic and a solo comic.  Take Captain America or Batman as a solo comic versus him in a team comic.  You get more story telling about the character in the solo comic than you do in the team comic.

[zslane]

I gave the hero an NPC sidekick.

[Armory]

13 hours ago, Shadow7 said:

Just curious along the same lines, when you guys played with only two, was it purely a solo adventure campaign or did you add GMPC heroes to aid the player?

 

Shadow7

 

We each started with one hero and we took turns GMing, but it wasn't very long before we each had several PCs.  It was up to whichever one of us GMed as to which PCs the other would run, depending on which one(s) the GM cooked up a scenario for.  So the GM's PCs would serve as that game's NPC heroes.

 

Quote

 Personally, I think its the same as the difference between a team comic and a solo comic.  Take Captain America or Batman as a solo comic versus him in a team comic.  You get more story telling about the character in the solo comic than you do in the team comic.

 

dsatow

 

It's certainly more challenging with more players.  With just me and my friend, we grew up reading comics together so it was rare when one of us as GM could surprise the other with plot twists.  When I would plan the session it was pretty easy to predict how he would react to things.  With more players, the chances of somebody doing something completely out of left field increases exponentially, and as a GM I like that. 

 

[Tech]

20 hours ago, Shadow7 said:

Just curious along the same lines, when you guys played with only two, was it purely a solo adventure campaign or did you add GMPC heroes to aid the player?

 

Shadow7

In the cases where it was only 2 people, we played the game various ways: solo adventure, with NPCs, with GMPC, player played more than one hero at same time.

[dsatow]

22 hours ago, Shadow7 said:

Just curious along the same lines, when you guys played with only two, was it purely a solo adventure campaign or did you add GMPC heroes to aid the player?

 

Shadow7

 

It was purely a solo adventure but instead of just stopping the dastardly villain's plans, we delved into her background/disads a lot more.  DNPCs, secret IDs, etc. became much more integrated into the nights game.  And as Armory noted, it was pretty easy to plan how she would react, but I'd also like to add, I know what she has more fun with.  So the game was more tailored to her having fun.

[Nothere]

A few times, but they were very short. Worked fine. No other heroes were involved.