Duets
I'll be blunt: some players handle a serious failure better than others. There are some players who thrive on challenge and a major setback will actually cause them to redouble their efforts, while other players simply crumple at a major setback and may want to jettison the whole campaign. From my experience, most players are between these extremes and actually slide back and forth depending upon the situation. Obviously, the emotional state of the player is indicative and stress from work, life, and so forth can sap the reserve of a player, but it's also the PC that matters. Once you've run a number of campaigns with the same player you will see that the player's responses and abilities vary by the PC. Thus you might not be able to really accurately determine a player's resolve towards a failure, which may cause some GMs to just avoid failure altogether in a duet. This isn't necessarily a bad idea. For instance, if your spouse finds the duet a needed break from the stresses of life, then adding a lot of stress through the campaign is probably not a good idea, but at the least there needs to be the illusion of failure to keep things as engaged as possible.
The illusion of failure is sort of an unspoken contract between the GM and player. The GM hints at the grave consequences for failure even though he has little intention of forcing the consequences on the player, and the player acts with caution and concern for those consequences even though she suspects the GM would give her a bye in a crisis. If everyone is acting like failure is real even when it's not, then the campaign is on sound footing, but when a PC begins acting as though she knows there is no chance for failure then there's a problem. The GM is always striving for some degree of realism, well, not actually realism, a more accurate term is consistency. When the PC goes against this consistency through a metagame strategy ("The GM can't have me fail because this is a duet!") then the GM will rightly feel betrayed. When this happens, my advice is to not get upset and instead take the PC's action as a request for the end of the illusion of failure and the introduction of genuine failure in the campaign. Usually, when a player starts doing crazy things it's a poor way of communicating unhappiness with the campaign, often specifically a sense of a lack of power. Ultimately, if failure is impossible and the player realizes this, it is the opposite of empowering. So failure is important but it can be excised from a campaign if both GM and player buy into the illusion of failure, otherwise there needs to be a chance of real failure.
Needless to say failure can have unintended consequences for a campaign. Failure can even ruin a duet campaign depending on how the player handles it. So it's necessary to address in more detail how to handle PC failures.
There are three types of failures in a campaign.
The first is a failure in luck. It's a save-or-die situation and the PC fails the save. It's a critical battle and the PC keeps rolling fumbles. Ideally, the GM should avoid setting up any situation where a few unlucky rolls will spell the end of a duet campaign. Remember that in a duet campaign you have only one player so things can go poorly very quickly when luck is a major factor, which is why I recommend that save-or-die situations be avoided. Still it happens and when it does the GM should carry through the logical outcome. The PC dies. The battle is lost. Evil wins this day. If you ask for dice rolls, then you have to live with the results. I believe "do overs" are poor form for a GM, because it sends a message that the PC isn't supposed to fail, which undermines the whole process. However, the GM may need an out to salvage the campaign. Think of most fantasy and science-fiction, death and defeat is rarely final if there is a need for a character to survive such a failure. So use your imagination and come up with a good trick. However, there should be a cost for such GM fiat. Maybe the PC's equipment is lost, maybe the PC has lost her memories, maybe the PC is charged with a quest, maybe the PC is believed dead by everyone. The player knows that GM fiat is being used to save the campaign and will accept whatever the price is to keep the campaign going. Sometimes if you come up with an appropriate idea and cost it might be a boon for roleplaying.
The second type of failure is a failure in decisionmaking. These are trickier than failures in luck, because the fault is with a decision of the PC. The PC decides to lead his squad on a charge against a heavily fortified compound and loses his command. The PC ignores the warnings about some evil in the mines and that evil finally escapes and threatens the world. The PC is fooled by a villain and takes action that threatens the safety of the kingdom. Now the fault here might have to be shared. If the GM didn't communicate a situation properly or maybe didn't give the PC the benefit of the doubt, then often some fault lies with the GM. Still failures in PC decisionmaking can and do happen; they can also really hurt a campaign. A bad luck break is easy to write off but making a bad decision can really be catastrophic to the morale of the player, depending on the player. Sometimes the GM may need to have a NPC counsel and reassure the PC that the mistake isn't the end of the world, well, unless it actually is! Yet, sometimes it's best to just get out all the negative consequences of a bad decision out at once and then move on from there.
A key problem with mistakes of decisionmaking is that sometimes the player will reject the GM's assessment of the situation and the consequences. This is understandable and the GM should be prepared to rationally explain the consequences and be patient. Duets are a cooperative effort, but while the GM is the final arbiter of the rules and setting, the thoughts of the player have to be taken into account. Related to this, is that it is often best that when big decisions are being made by the PC, the player explains the reasoning behind such decisions. This is a great opportunity for the GM to figure out the player's thought process and also maybe to consider some different ideas on the situation.
One final thought on failures in decisionmaking -- sometimes they are a request for a campaign to end. Players often have a hard time communicating when they are unhappy with a campaign or want to try something different, this is understandable, but there is a small percentage of players who actually will sabotage a campaign instead of talking to the GM about issues. If a player has her PC make a horrific decision and seems quite content as the consequences come pouring in then maybe the player is trying to send a message. This is something to keep in mind.
The final type of failure is GM dictated failure. This is a situation where the GM decides that something goes wrong in the campaign irrespective of the actions of the PC, something that sets back the goals and efforts of the PC. If this event was out of the reach of the PC, then it's usually not a big deal, because it is really a campaign event and often players like when something unexpected shakes the world up. The problem is when a dictated failure is close to home. While the PC is off questing her husband is assassinated. This is a sucker punch to the player. She will feel like she made a mistake and should have done something else. Now sometimes the difference between a dictated failure and a failure in decisionmaking is subtle, maybe the PC really angered a rival noble and didn't follow up on this threat which led to the assassination of her husband. It can be tricky to distinguish between a true mistake and the GM forcing the plot along. However, this is a tricky area and the best approach is to have an out where the PC can take some action to reverse a dictated failure that hits close to home.
There is a sort of failure that falls outside of the three described above and that is failure due to roleplaying considerations. A PC may intentionally make a serious mistake knowing it's a mistake but doing it for genuine roleplaying reasons. These situations are great, because the PC expects negative consequences and is embracing failure as a catalyst to push the campaign in a new direction. It might be confusing on when this is the situation as opposed to when the player is trying to sabotage the campaign, but from my experience you'll know it when you see a PC embracing failure for roleplaying reasons.
Alright, this is enough on failure and some thoughts on how to handle it.
