It looks like I’m about to start a game of DW with one player next week, as a way of introducing her to roleplaying games in general.
Have any of you tried DW with a party of one?
How did it work? (Or not?)
What changes did you need to make?
It looks like I’m about to start a game of DW with one player next week, as a way of introducing her to roleplaying…
It looks like I’m about to start a game of DW with one player next week, as a way of introducing her to roleplaying…
DW works great with one player!
Make bonds with NPCs. Let the player make the NPCs up. (use the tables in the appendix for inspiration).
Re-incorporate every player flag you can think of from the character sheet whenever you can into the story. Make the game about the Player’s Character.
Start in media res. Make it immediate and make it a difficult choice. Snowball the moves from there.
Not DW, but I ran AW for one player once. It worked pretty well, but you need to get them involved in creating some NPCs around them to riff off. Also, I found with so much attention on one character’s story and on the one player, we got through lots of material. I tended to run out of steam after only a few hours and had to go away to ponder developments and get inspired.
I suppose the structure of DW might be different enough not to have that problem, though. You might want to look into using Hirelings? They’ll need someone to back them up if things go south.
I’d recommend making her character central to the story. Run with anything she gives you, and don’t stand for evasive, vague, or noncommittal responses!
DW works great with one player, and the previous posters are sharing some great advice. Tailor the story to be about what your player wants, and follow them wherever they go.
Yeah; Dungeon World doesn’t have the same issues a lot of RPGs do, where if you only have one character your “party” starts to have power issues with defeating encounters, so a lot of the headaches are removed. I’ve never done it, but it should work just fine.
I haven’t tried it. Mechanically seems like it should be just fine, but I expect you’re going to have the small-group issue that comes up in any rpg: without “enough” players (for me it’s usually three plus GM), the conversation may not flow consistently, and you might have to work a little harder to maintain forward momentum. Especially if the player is at all shy.
I’ve done multiple solo and/or duo games and it works fine if you let them write bonds with NPCs.
I have run one session and played in one GM’d by a 7yo. Works great!