Duets
"Indeed! I pull my Apocalypse Cloak close and move quickly to grab the Mayor's strong box from behind the secret passage in his bedroom and get out of the building through the east window in that room," said Dave examining the map.
"Well, you can get out of the building before it collapses, with the strongbox, and you are met by Tyna who is wondering how this will help you find out who murdered her father," said Ron with annoyance.
"Hey, that's easy! I use the Mayor's Orb of Questions and I ask, 'Orb, who killed Tyna's father?' I know he stored it in his strongbox, because you told us that like five adventures back when he used it to tell us where to go to find the bandit king," said Dave.
"Oh, yeah, I did say that, didn't I," said Ron weakly.
"You can ask one question a week and the Mayor said he always asked a question on the 5th day of the week, which is tomorrow," said Dave.
"Okay, I guess that would work, but you know you just killed the Mayor, people are going to be upset," said Ron
"I made it look like an accident, more or less. Hey, the party is leaving tomorrow, the Mayor was working for the Archduke so he's a bad guy, and more importantly I now have all his stuff," said Dave with a smile. "The Orb is going to be super useful to the party and I got the Mayor's sword of obedience, ring of truth, and a chest full of gold. I bet I even got another level - this was an awesome adventure!"
"Yeah, I guess so," said Ron dismally.
"Hey about Tyna - tomorrow morning I solve her mystery so we can party tonight, right?" said Dave with a devilish smile.
"What? Ah, I guess so," said Ron.
"Best adventure ever, man! We should do side adventures like this every week!" said Dave.
Sometimes a duet is used to complement a group campaign. This happens in two ways: pre-adventures and side adventures. Pre-adventures are duets that take place before a campaign begins; side adventures take place during a campaign. Both present a number of challenges.
The first duets I ever ran was sixteen years ago, when I decided to run a campaign for our dorm floor. I had five players and decided to use duet pre-adventures to introduce everyone to the campaign. I was, and remain, a big advocate for nonlinear adventures, but this isn't the best strategy for pre-adventures. One PC died. One embarked on his own personal quest that had nothing to do with the campaign. One wouldn't leave his village, I mistakenly gave him a girlfriend and an interesting community that he saw no real reason to leave. The only two who came together began together, and the campaign collapsed before it even began. Admittedly, all the players loved the duets, but I learned a lot of lessons on what not to do. However, I must admit that I have messed up pre-adventures and side-adventures aplenty over the years, mainly when I try to ignore my own advice on how to run them.
Hopefully, some of my lessons will be useful for you.
General Advice
Here are some basic rules for both pre-adventures and side-adventures:1. Make the train arrive on time. Keep things tight. The goal of both pre- and side-adventures is to unite the PC with other PCs for a group campaign. The more open ended your adventure the less likely this is going to happen. Yes, I will come out and say it: you need to railroad these adventures. This is one of those exceptions to how you typically run duets, which often are best when they are nonlinear, but with pre- and side- adventures things need to happen on schedule.
2. Use the chain of command. A very useful technique, especially for pre-adventures is to use hierarchy to compell the PC to join the group campaign. If a PC is ordered by his master, superior, or even his parents to do something then the PC will do it. This is a heavy-handed technique, but it is a very effective one and helps ensure the PC will join the group campaign. I know you might think that a PC would always want to join a group campaign, but duets are very appealing and a lot of players would rather string out their solo time than hook up with the rest of the PCs. Avoid this and use the chain of command.
3. It's all about the PC. What distinguishes pre- and side- adventures from group campaigns is the fact that the spotlight is completely on the PC. This is the chance for the PC to be the hero of the story with no competition from the other PCs. Embrace this. The NPCs are there for the PC; give him family, friends, a love interest, whatever as long as they are there for the PC. Make the story one which appeals to the players and fits the abilities of the PC.
4. You do have to worry about balance. My nearly universal advice for duets is to toss balance from the campaign, but with pre- and side-adventures you need to keep balance in mind, especially for RPGs that are precariously balanced to promote player harmony. In these situations, if a PC enters the group campaign from a duet laden with valuable equipment, extra abilities, and the like it may cause negative feelings. However, you must keep in mind that the PC should be fairly rewarded for any efforts taken in a pre- or side-adventure, just be mindful that the rewards are fair for the situation.
5. Know what you want to accomplish. Make sure you know precisely what you want to accomplish with the pre- or side-adventure and keep this in mind when you design and run the adventure. If your goal is to introduce the PC to the setting then make sure you incorporate the main points about the setting in the pre-adventure. If your goal is to give the PC a specific magic item needed for the group campaign then make sure it will be obvious to the player how to get the item.
6. Design only what you need and can reuse. Don't waste weeks designing a small town that will be laid to waste at the end of the duet. A mistake of many GMs is to design far more than they need for an adventure, this is mainly due to fears that the players will do something unexpected. Honestly, regardless of how much you prepare this is likely to happen. The better standard is to have enough designed that you have a rough idea in your mind how things might play out and then wing it as well as you can. The one exception to this is when you are designing something that you believe will be reused many times in the campaign, such as a particular location that will play an important part in the campaign.
Pre-Adventures
Pre-adventures can serve a few purposes. First, they can teach a new player the rules of the RPG before joining a group campaign. Second, they can help a player get into character before joining a group campaign. Third, they can be used to give a PC a private perspective on the campaign, in other words a secret agenda or information. Fourth, they can allow you to create a more organic process for creating a party, because by the time the PCs meet they are more established characters in the minds of their players.A caveat is in order: pre-adventures don't fit all campaigns. Sometimes you can't schedule duets easily enough to justify using them and sometimes it is just more work than it's worth. For most of my campaigns, I begin with the party already together in the middle of some action scene. I use duets for campaigns which are high concept or really need the PCs to have strongly defined personalities before the group campaign begins, but running a number of duets is a bit of work and you need to be honest with yourself if they are even needed to make a campaign work.
To better elucidate pre-adventures I am going to give you three examples of what I consider solid pre-adventures:
1. The attack. Yes, this is an overused approach, but have the PC's community attacked and something stolen, or maybe something is destroyed or someone killed and justice must be sought. You begin the adventure before the attack and introduce the PC to his community and some NPCs and then you have the attack. If you want to make it more tragic have the PC away when the attack begins. However, in all instances keep some mystery about the attack. After the attack, the PC is sent to bring back the item or to bring about justice; if you're smart, you can point the PC in the direction of another PC to help bring about the creation of the party.
2. The legacy. The PC's mother, or father, is dying and asks the PC to serve in some cause or crusade in their place. Yes, very heavy handed, but some PCs love this sort of thing. It provides a reference for the PC and can catapult a PC into a group campaign that revolves around the cause or crusade. It is also possible that you can use this technique to get a PC to join a classic adventuring party, maybe one which was originally started by the PC's parent. You can also replace parent with a mentor, or friend, if so desired, and you can even do this long after the individual has died - through a letter that is given to the PC now that the PC is of the proper age or experience.
3. Omens and portents. The PC is being plagued by dreams or visions that point towards the PC joining the campaign for some goal. This is a chance to flaunt your GMing skills as you can actually run dream sequences involving the PC. Make sure you also ground reality and where the PC begins the campaign so that the PC can distinguish dream from reality, but this can be a useful tool, especially in a complex campaign where down the road the GM may need to use dreams to help the PCs navigate the challenges to come. Clearly this is a fairly mystical approach and it would only fit for some campaigns, but with the right player it can be a lot of fun.
All three of these pre-adventures are fairly heavy-handed, but you just have to do this to ensure that the PC comes out of the pre-adventure intent on joining the group campaign.
Side-Adventures
Side adventures are a little trickier than pre-adventures, because both beginning and end have to fit seamlessly into the group campaign. Timing is everything and it is best if some sort of deadline is imposed on the PC. For example the PC is given a certain number of days before he has to meet up with the party again or perhaps the adventure takes place during a furlough. One thing to remember about side-adventures is that there is a real possibility that the PC could call in help from the other PCs. This isn't a bad thing, in fact, it can be a lot of fun, but you shouldn't design a side-adventure with this assumed. Most players want to tackle side-adventures on their own.Once again, I'll give three side-adventures to give you an idea of how they can work with a group campaign:
1. The mission. The PC is given a mission that is important to the campaign and will be fun to run, but might drag if the entire party is involved. This could involve a diplomatic mission to convince a neighboring state, with which the PC has a connection, to join an alliance. Maybe the mission is to deliver a message or to sneak into some place and steal something, which are both missions that may be best accomplished by a solo PC. If the PC succeeds in the mission it helps further the campaign, if the PC fails then it might mean a group adventure to rescue the PC.
2. Homecoming. The PC gets a message from home. There are three messages that will bring PCs running in this situation: a sizable inheritance, a threat to their family, or something that the PC responds to emotionally - like the death of a loved one. A lot of times players draw up huge backgrounds for their PCs, which really doesn't get used in the group campaign, but with a side-adventure that background can come front and center. A lot of times, PCs will bring the party along on such a side-adventure and this is a lot of fun, but if you can run it as a duet it will increase the impact to the PC.
3. The test. The PC is summoned for a test. Many RPGs have tests and trials built in for many reasons, and these tests and trials are individual focused. Instead of having all the other players sit around and watch the PC go through the test or run through some ad hoc adventure to entertain them just do this as a duet. It allows you to focus on the test and the PC and really dive into the situation with as few distractions as possible. It is great for story purposes and it also keeps a little of the mystery of the test from the other players.
One final thought to consider: side-adventures may result in a PC not being present for a group adventure as the PC is somewhere else in the game world. In this situation, let the player of the missing PC run a NPC or better yet let the player have a shot as GM. This is a good trick. If you have a player interested in running an adventure, you can offer to run the player's PC through a side-adventure. This allows the player to focus completely on GMing, also as you don't have to run the next adventure it frees up time to design and run the side-adventure. From my experience, it's a win-win for everyone.
That is all for this installment, next time I am planning on tackling how to maintain an illusion of depth in a duet to make the setting seem more real and developed, but with as little work as possible.
