Duets: Going the Distance

"Elixir Zaan awakes to discover he is a vampire!" said Ron gleefully.

"What?" said Dave with a stunned look.

"Bella, the girl you have been dating, is a vampire and she has turned you into a vampire," said Ron.

"I don't want to be a vampire!" said Dave. ìHow come I didn't notice? You know - the biting, the blood, and you know -- dying!"

"She ensorcelled you, but you have all sorts of cool powers now and I have the new Undead Rogues sourcebook." "I don't want to be a vampire!"

"I get that, but look at the new powers you have," said Ron handing over the new character sheet for Elixir Zaan.

"I guess that's cool, but I was going to break up with Bella; I mean, she is one clingy girl," said Dave. "Ah ... well ... she's your sire now," said Ron.

"Dude, this is so wrong," said Dave.

"You still want to play right?" asked Ron.

"I don't know. I need to think this over."

So you want to run a duet campaign that lasts a while ... but for some reason it just isn't happening. Don't worry. I've been there many times and have a whole host of suggestions for how to go the distance with a duet campaign.

Duet PCs are Exceptional

The most important thing to remember with a duet is that the PC is exceptional, even more so than PCs in a group campaign. I almost always let my duet PCs have better attributes and abilities. Remember: balance is not an issue with duets, and as the PC is navigating the world alone, a little help never hurts. Even without the boost in abilities, it is important to remember that with a duet the story is about the PC and that means the PC is destined for great things. Many of the great figures of history ended up in the history books by happenstance and so will PCs in a duet campaign.

Your target is the player, not the PC.

Let's be honest with one another: players aren't as exceptional as their PCs. It can be hard for players to run their exceptional PCs and this fact is critical to remember. Duet campaigns don't fail because of the PCs; they fail due to the player failures and frustrations. It falls to the GM to challenge the player through the PC, but in ways that are within the reach of the player's abilities. Players usually really step up their abilities in duets, but you still need to be wary about the player just getting stumped or overwhelmed in some situations. Here are some tricks to consider:

1. Moral challenges over mental challenges.

If you look at most published adventures - and this goes all the way back to 1st Edition D&D - the focus of most challenges is either tactical or logical. You either need to figure out how to beat the beast with the sword found in Room E or you need to figure out that if you pull the red, green, and purple levers in the right order you can open the door to the treasure chamber. This is tolerable stuff in a group campaign, but in a duet these sorts of situations can overwhelm a PC, and if you have NPCs providing answers you undermine the importance of the PC. So instead focus on moral challenges. Moral decisions are judgment calls and there usually isn't a right or wrong answer, but the decision can be agonizing and also far more potent to a player than figuring out in what order to push the colored tiles to open a door.

Moral challenges encompass a wide range of situations. I consider it a moral challenge as to who the PC will appoint as the steward of his castle -- does he reward his best friend, does he keep the steward who served the previous lord of the castle, and so forth. If the GM gives just enough information and possibly some advice from NPCs to genuinely muddle the issue, then it is a real challenge. A lot of time I put PCs in positions of power where they have to advise rulers or perhaps they themselves are rulers -- in these situations just go to the news and you will have inspiration to come up with a ton of hard decisions, with no effective right or wrong answers. Sure, there may be negative consequences from a decision, but that doesn't necessarily mean the decision was a bad one. Sometimes negative consequences are the price for doing the right thing.

2. Go to the player's strengths.

All players have strengths and weaknesses. You don't want to heap a lot of tactical challenges upon a player who is not tactically gifted, but that doesn't mean that player can't run a PC through a war campaign. You just have to move the goal posts. So you have a player who is playing an officer in an interstellar army battling alien invaders, but this player really can't come up with clever tactical plans. So you change the focus. The officer has an unruly bunch of soldiers that have to be whipped into shape; the player is a manager in real life, so this is something he can do. In reality what the PC is doing with managing his unit is as important, if not more so, than the tactics he will use in the field. You then make most engagements pretty straightforward with clear objectives, but the challenge is the interpersonal dynamics of the unit. There you go: a very rewarding, and exciting, war campaign for a player who can't think tactically.

3. When all else fails fall back on stats and NPCs.

Yes, it's a crutch and it's not ideal, but sometimes you just need to let a player solve his problems with a die roll or some advice from a trusted NPC. The absolute worse thing you can do in a duet campaign is to have a frustrated, depressed player because he can't be as smart or as clever as the stats of his incredibly awesome PC. In these cases, just give an answer and move on.

Avoid High Concept Campaigns

Yes, the PCs are exceptional, but most often players want a traditional story for their PC. This is one of those bits of advice that I give that is almost universally ignored, but if you want a long-lasting duet campaign avoid high concept campaigns. So what do I mean by a high concept campaign? High concept to me is a campaign that is either very removed from normal reality or is a campaign that the GM already has scripted out in his mind. For example, a campaign where the PC is an intelligent squirrel who opposes a developer who is going to level her forest is high concept. As is a campaign where the GM is aiming the campaign for the climax where the PC is the reincarnation of an ancient hero who is going to defeat an evil deity with the Sword of Destiny right before the apocalypse. These may be decent concepts for a movie or video game, but horrid for a duet campaign you actually want to last more than a few sessions.

There is an assumption among GMs, both experienced and inexperienced, that high concept is a necessity for a good campaign, as you can see, I disagree. My advice for GMs is always the same: aim for solid not brilliant.

All a player wants is three things: to be a hero (or villain), to make meaningful choices, and to have fun (i.e. to have a campaign that fits their play style). High concept runs counter to all of these things, because the GM is severely restricting choice. Sure, some GMs can make high concept work for an adventure or two, but if you are looking for a long-term duet campaign then avoid high concept.

All you need for a campaign is a little complexity in the setting so it can support a host of adventures, plenty of conflicts to create compelling stories, and for the setting/campaign to be different enough to not remind people of their mundane life but be relatable enough that a player can easily immerse in it. Just use that list as a checklist and you are good to go.

The Power of Choice

I can not stress this enough: the player has to have real choices about the fate of their PC. Yes, you have this cool idea about the PC becoming the Supreme Executor of the Interstellar Imperium, but maybe the player just wants the PC to be the head of a Trader's Collective. The choice has to be the player's. If the player is in control of the campaign, then the player will be more committed and dedicated to the campaign. Take the intro story -- this is a situation where the GM has made a decision for the PC and even though this might be something the PC would want to do, the approach turns the situation into an antagonistic one that probably ends the campaign.

GMs should only be concerned about creating interesting problems, not the solutions to the problems. GMs set up the situation and PCs either solve them or not and the GM adjudicates the outcome. This is how I design adventures and scenes -- I come up with an interesting problem and then step back and see how the PC handles it. Then I merely adjudicate in response to what the PC does. I don't think about how the problem could be solved or even if it can be solved, the focus is just on creating a problem that engages the player. This is a very freeing process for both GM and player, but it does run counter to traditional assumptions about how adventures are usually designed and how even movies and video games work. However, this is the best method for running duets, because it empowers the PC and makes it more exciting for the GM.

Free will is a necessity for a duet campaign. The PC must have genuine choices. If your campaign involves a civil war, then give the PC honest choices about which side she can support or when the PC decides to not become involved with the civil war you allow that choice as well. You may be worried that this is too much choice for a GM to handle, but all big choices lock down the campaign for a period of time. So if the PC decides to join one side of the civil war then the story is fixed until the PC reevaluates her decision or the campaign reaches another key moment where a decision is needed. It is like real life if a person is allowed to make a genuine choice, he will be more committed to that choice than if a choice is made for him.

A duet campaign is a cooperative process and when a GM can give up on a lot of the techniques needed to make group campaigns work and embrace a new approach that is cooperative and flexible then the GM can run duets that last forever.

Evolving Campaigns

It is possible to run a group campaign for years that gets together every few weeks for some old-fashioned adventuring. With duets, things are more compressed. For example, my wife and I have been running a Mechwarrior duet campaign the last month and we have been gaming almost every night for 3 hours a night, and 3 hours with a duet is like 6 hours in a group campaign. We have run more adventures in a month than most groups will run in a year. Duets can be intense and demanding affairs for both GM and player for their pace and scope. Because of this, whereas with a group campaign you only every few months have to shake things up, with duets you need to keep the campaign constantly evolving. We have run our Mechwarrior duet at a very fast clip and it has been an utter blast, but only because I have used all of the following tricks to keep it moving and fresh: 1. Real Responsibility.

Nothing engages a player more in a campaign than when the PC has real responsibilities. Players love responsibilities as long as they don't overwhelm the PC or the campaign. For example, giving a PC an apprentice or ward is a fantastic opportunity for roleplaying, but make the apprentice a decent enough kid. The last thing a PC wants to deal with is some ADHD, oppositional defiant child with reactive attachment disorder.

Responsibility ALWAYS deals with people. A PC is named lord of a dominion, but it's not the land that matters, it's the people. This is important to remember as a GM. It's not the mansion, it's the servants. It's not the tanks, it's the crews in the tanks. That is where responsibility flows and that is where you need to aim your roleplaying and problems. For what is responsibility without challenges to prove you can handle the responsibility?

2. Romantic Entanglements.

Everyone loves romance. Yes, everyone. Toss in a little romance in a duet campaign and you have added a new level to the campaign. Now romance is tricky to do right and romance can also scuttle a campaign quicker than anything, but it is a necessity for long running duets. This is a complex issue and I have written on it before in other venues so I'm not going to go into much detail here as it is really an entire column or two on its own.

3. Family & Friends.

Players want to connect to NPCs through the PCs and you have to use friends and family to make a campaign real. It is NPCs that make duet campaigns what they are and this means you need to build connections between the PC and NPCs. You do this by making real, but engaging, NPCs and having them respond well to the PC. If a NPC is kind or shows respect to a PC then the PC will respond the same back to the NPC.

4. Dizzying Heights of Power.

Everyone wants things to be a little epic. Tantalize a PC with glimpses of true power, epic events, and grand wars. Involve the PC in these events, but when possible come at things from an angle. For example, don't introduce the PC to the king right off the bat in a campaign. First start with an important lord, then a key advisor to the king, then maybe the king himself, but leave mystery and questions about the king. Tantalize the PC with power as well. Build it into the campaign at stages until there comes a point when the PC might well be a key advisor to the king or the king himself. I have learned that if you begin a PC at the top then the campaign has nowhere to go, but if you build up, then when the PC gets to the top there will be a host of problems and issues that gives the campaign more depth and a lot more for the PC to do at the top. 5. Keep it Tight.

Once again a bit of advice that seems to conflict with earlier advice, but it helps to keep things tight in their focus. Give the PC a cadre of loyal NPCs and perhaps a small community that is a hub for the campaign. PCs like the safety and security of solid NPC allies and territory that is familiar, yes, a lot of times they will travel far and wide and interact with hundreds of other NPCs, but having something solid and dependable that is a foundation for the PCs is a very good thing. What does this have to do with evolving the campaign? Well, you can evolve by going back to this core and changing things. Maybe two NPCs get married, maybe someone is knocking down the sacred forest back home to build a mall, whatever -- but when the foundation evolves then the whole campaign feels more dynamic and alive.

Final Thought: Endings

Everyone dreams of campaigns that go on forever, but the truth is that sometimes it is best to end a campaign. A duet campaign is a story about a PC and that story has a beginning and an end. You'll know the beginning, but the end is always a surprise and that is what makes the process, or the journey, so rewarding. However, there will be an end. Maybe it's the death of the PC, but often stories end long before death. The story ends when there is nothing new to explore and all has been done. Maybe the PC has brought peace to the land, gotten married, and has children. Certainly, there is more left to the PC's story, but sometimes it is best to walk away and leave those last years to the PC, NPCs, and your imagination. The ending you don't want with a duet is boredom or frustration. The ending you want is closure. It might be sad as you don't want to give up the campaign, but sometimes both GM and player will look at each other and say -- this is a good place to stop. That's how it should be. And you know what: your next duet campaign can be just as good as the last one.