Duets
My experience at GenCon, both in asking around about duets and in seeing the many different types of roleplaying that were present, made me think about how preconceived notions are more than anything else what limit our hobby and ourselves. It's hard enough to get someone to try tabletop roleplaying. Getting them to push a little farther and try a duet, LARP, or whatever is just as difficult, if not harder. I'll admit I've never done LARP and the idea of abandoning a GM screen, copious rules books, and the safety of the gaming table is daunting. Preconceived notions are dangerous things because they often limit the risks we are willing to take, even just in trying something new. It's also true that our preferences are shaped by what we have done. My wife got into roleplaying through duets that I've run and at a point she really tuned out of group roleplaying as she found it very frustrating, even when I was the GM. A few months ago we did our first group adventure in years and she had a great time. It was admittedly one of the best group of players we've had at the table over the years but she was also willing to table her duet preconceptions and try a group adventure with a fresh perspective.
The same thing applies within a duet you may be running. Just because things aren't going as you'd expected, or following some model of success that you've had in the past, doesn't mean they aren't working, or, more likely, can't be adjusted to work. You simply need to take some time to think about where your discomfort is coming from, communicate with your player, and give a good faith effort to moving forward. A lot of times the trick with a campaign to make it work is to wrestle with preconceived notions. GMs want things, players want things, and even with good communications these different expectations might not click. Successful duet campaigns often require that both the GM and the player bend a little to make things fall together. And sometimes the GM needs to be prepared to radically adapt a campaign in the face of player (or GM) reactions. For example, my wife and I are currently running two different duet fantasy campaigns for each other using the Pathfinder rules. Both campaigns hit a point where each of us as GMs had doubts about whether things were working. A lot of times in the past when we've reached this point we'd just scrap the campaigns and try something new, but we were both hesitant to take the easy way out this time. We've had a string of mediocre campaigns with a number of false starts and neither of us, as GM or player, really wanted to start over when we'd already invested a lot of time and energy into the existing campaign. We realized that it was worth taking risks to shake things up. We talked about why we were feeling dissatisfied and did some brainstorming about how we could make the campaigns work.
In a situation in which you feel uncomfortable about how a campaign is going, the first step is to analyze the source of your discomfort. Is this simply a different style of campaign than you usually run? In that case, your discomfort may be related to fear that you can't pull it off. Or perhaps the player is running a different type of character than you're used to DMing, in which case you may be struggling to figure out how to design adventures that will motivate this PC. Shaking up a failing duet campaign will likely require both the GM and the PC to be on board. The GM may need to make significant campaign changes - perhaps the war you've been building up slowly in the background needs to come to a head much sooner because really the player is simply bored with doing lots of vignettes and needs a bigger challenge. Maybe certain NPCs who just aren't clicking with the PC need to go off on their way and be replaced with new NPCs, who can be tailored to fill gaps you've seen develop in the campaign. Perhaps something that seemed like a good idea when you were originally designing the campaign hasn't worked out the way you'd anticipated and needs to be dramatically changed. For instance, the complicated succession crisis you've set up for the kingdom isn't as engaging as you'd hoped. Perhaps it's time for a greater evil to threaten the kingdom, forcing the contenders for the throne to unite to face the invaders.
While the GM should focus on trying to jumpstart things, the PC also needs to get into gear. Typically, it's the wayward/unfocused PC who drives GMs insane more than anything else. The GM may need to talk frankly with the player about what the player thinks would motivate his character; even what sort of adventures the player would really be interested in doing. Sometimes players say that they are interested in an intrigue campaign but as they start playing their character, the PC turns out to be much more of a hack-n-slash personality. Maybe the campaign story arc you'd jointly developed was for the player to prove himself to the king with the goal of being named lord of some dominion, but the player has realized that he really doesn't want to rule. In the interests of saving the campaign, which includes all of the work you've put into the setting as GM, it's not worth arguing over preconceived notions and failed expectations. Instead, talk about where the PC is now and how you can find a path forward that is agreeable and exciting to both of you.
In the long run, open communication and dropping preconceived notions will save time and energy for everyone and hopefully save your campaign. Obviously, not every campaign is worth saving, but since no campaign is perfect, it's often worth trying to reboot things before scrapping them entirely. In the case of the campaigns my wife and I are running, we've salvaged the campaigns and they look good to go for another few months. While these may not be the trouble-free campaigns that everyone dreams of, we're both having fun as GMs and players, which is definitely worth a little effort to save.
