I ran a D&D game for ONE player 

🪚 Where did you get that incredible DM SCREEN? 📖 Where can I get the ADVENTURE you ran? 🔮 Why does my cat sometimes utter DARK PROPHECIES in a human voice? Check the video description! ⬆ (And let me know if you find the answer to that last one...)

omg PLEASE get Josh to follow through on DMing for you instead, I would LOVE to see a flyover of how that goes

I've been running a campaign for about 3 - 4 years for my wife. Just me and her. I love that. There are some NPCs that join the group, others eventually leave because they have already achieved their objectives. Not every party needs to stay together forever and this becomes easier when we only have one player. The only thing I recommend keeping in mind is: your player is the protagonist of this story, make him feel that way.

“My biggest concern is definitely that I will accidentally kill him” Dam, Ginny gettin serious with the special effects 😂

I had a zero session "duet" with each of my players before our first group session. It was meant to give each player a separate scenario on how they got aboard a ship that was heading from my Southern Continent to my Northern Continent. Each player boarded the ship at a separate town. We started the group session as the ship left the final Southern Port and headed across the sea... 😁

I'm liking this as a vehicle for first-time DM's to practise the basics. It's ALSO a potent reminder to all of us to remember to engage in those short inter-party RP sessions to take some of the pressure off our DM's and give them some breathing space. (I'm glad you didn't need to make a roll for Husbandly Tolerance!)

I saw this video right before my fiance came home from a real bad day at work. He nearly cried when he saw everything I managed to set up, and we had a total blast! It turned around his night and now he's going to bed happy again, and I am too. Thank you for the suggestion, one idea made a huge difference :)

my friend and i have been playing “duet” dnd for three years now. It’s very homebrew with our own world, storyline, etc. I play my own character as well as Dming, so i get to play along, plus be a gentle guiding hand for the story, plus we get to play off each other and we have hilarious moments. It works well with my friend playing a half-orc barbarian while I play a high-charisma homebrew-race warlock

Definitely going to try a duet campaign with my partner. She's always been the most engaged at the table, and she gets frustrated that others at the table aren't taking things as serious. Seems like a no brainer. (also everyone... We need to watch this video as much as possible so Ginny has to include Josh in more videos to please the algorithm)

My first time DM'ing was one on one. The boy I was babysitting (who was 8 at that time) heared I would be playing D&D that night and asked what that was. So did at bit of improv D&D with him, starting with a small guided meditation (close your eyes, your camping in a forest, etc), then I told him a wolf was about to attack and asked what he would like to do, helping him to improvise a weapon etc. No dice that first time, but he loved it! Next time I was babysitting he wanted to play again, so I introduced dice and some statts. Now, 3 years later, his little sister and some of his friends are involved to. We only do group D&D now, but that one on one beginning really helped him learn because all my attention was on helping him.

I shout from the rooftops about one-on-one D&D as much as possible! I ran Dragon of Icespire Peak for my sister and it was THE MOST FUN! I gave her a permanent sidekick and a suite of hirelings in town that she could draw on when she anticipated needing a particular skill set. It's also so satisfying to tailor the game to one character's goals and interests. They get to be the main character! And I can reward tons of magic items because that just lets me take the threat level up a notch. I hope more people try playing one-on-one!

I DID know that you could DM a single person in D&D! Matt Mercer's one shot with Stephen Colbert was so wholesome!

WE'RE BACK! The first duet campaign I ever watched was the one Matt Mercer did with Colbert. There is definitely a different vibe when you have just one player. The adventure can be so much more... "cozy" if that makes sense. Almost D&D on Lo-Fi mode. Not that it can't be intense, it can. But it's certainly an opportunity for a more subtle form of play, if that's what you want.

Aw I did this for my grandma when she told me she wished she could do magic irl and I explained what D&D was. It was great since I could gently guide her through the rules one on one (it took her a while to realise that the only thing she controlled was her character 😂) Plus it was my first time DMing so it was a gentle entry for me too! She loved it! We ended up playing 2 more sessions; one with my brother and then one with my whole family during covid 😂

My wife and I have played duet D&D for years now and we love it. It is super intimidating at first, but I found your improv skills will skyrocket after just a few sessions. I found playing in your own homebrew world a lot faster because you can always make stuff up on the fly. But duet sessions can bring so many benefits. Want to test a new spell? Slip it into a duet session. New class or subclass? Duet session. Weird story idea? Duet session! Great stuff, Ginny! And here is hoping Josh enjoys duet-DMing as much as he did playing!

I really like the idea of doing a session 0.5 with new players for a campaign. Especially if you do so with a player you haven't run a game with before, to get a feeling for how they play. Also that GM screen?! What an absolute unit! I want one

Thank you for giving me a name for this. My daughter is already far older than I was when I first picked up my dice, and she wants to give it a shot. I had found some one shots, and was going to try to adapt them for "duet" play. now though, I know its called that, and have found troves of internet information on it, and can accurately create an adventure for her. Thanks Ginny!

3:55 IT'S A MINI GINNY!!! 🤏

I did a Duet with my then roommate while we both had Covid, some things you need to know. A Healer sidekick and/or healing potions is a must. An encounter with a Ratfolk Shroud left the PC with 5 strength and 3 hps. Overpowering the PC is a good thing at the start, an uncommon magic item at 2nd lvl is a help. Good luck Josh

Husband and wife duet DnD. This is simply delightful!

I love 1x1 sessions! When my party made it to a really big city, I had them "decide" to split up to explore it. They all focused on what was relevant for them, and really got in touch with their characters in both a RP and mechanical sense. They were so excited to reconvene and tell each other what they found in the city, and what adventures they got up to. Would HIGHLY recommend.

1 on 1 D&D was a thing during 1st ed. My first exposure to D&D was the module Blade of Vengeance for the Expert D&D. The player played a level 7 'elf' (which was a class back then).

I have been playing duet style games with my girlfriend 3-5 times a week, for years. Here is a few things I have learned: - Use sidekicks like Ginny suggests, but also make sure the PC is the one with the best charisma, otherwise the DM will be RPing with themselves when the guard needs persuading, and that is awkward. - Give the player higher stats. That will allow them to do more of the stuff. Give out rewards like extra skill profiences and stat increases. Suddenly they will be the one to kick the door down, and to charm the guard. (and they actually won't be that more powerful in combat, high charisma fighters just have slightly better saves than low charisma fighters.) - Make the story about the PC. Built the world and story around their character. eg. If they are a cleric, their god's nemesis is the big bad. If they are a fighter who wants to be the best there ever was, the world is full of tournaments where they can prove themself. Etc. When DMing for a group, I ask them to built characters that fit my world. When DMing for one player, I ask what is the story you want to tell, who is your character, and then I construct the plot and world. - Know your player, and then give them what they want. Power players get to use all the broken stuff they normally don't get to use so they don't outshine the others. Someone who likes managing a small army gets to do that etc. There is often things you want to try, but can't in a group game because it takes time/spotlight from the other players. Now is the Time!

The timing is INSANE, i just played my first one on one game last night with a friend that I usually DM for. It was a one shot and he started the whole thing off with a pack of loansharks kidnapping me and telling me to pull from the deck of many or lose a hand (some sick game they played with gamblers that owe money). I pulled a card that instantly made me 9th level... they let me go after.

Having done a LOT of one on one roleplaying, there's more points for me to add; A) Pokemon - Just because there is one player doesn't mean there has to be only one character. The player can maintain a party of however big they are comfortable with, giving a similar feeling to playing something like old Dragon Quest games in combat, then controlling the character that is "them" outside of combat. B) Main Character - With only one PC, they are the main character, unlike having a party that is an ensemble cast. You're not tying their backstory into the story, the backstory IS the story. Ginny remarked about how much more the DM is the direct interaction, but it's even more than that. C) Drive - Repeating the above, the PC is the one directing things. There isn't a party for you to bounce ideas off of, there aren't other people who can pick up the slack on what choices to make when you're struggling with choices. The PC has to also put in a lot more work, they also don't get times to sit back and breathe while someone else takes the limelight. D) Relationship - When you do this with someone you are close with and comfortable with, you'll know a lot more about what you can and can't do, but also what you both want and both want to avoid.

I recall seeing at my local game shop a father DMing for his young son in a duet session. Even without knowing any of the details, it was plain to see and hear the kid's unfettered enthusiasm. I imagine the dad had to put in a little extra work to make it happen, but i have zero doubts that many precious memories were forged that day. Serious family goals for sure, and mad respect to DM Dad. A real inspiration.

I've been running a duet campaign with my best friend/roommate now for the past...3 to 4 years now I think? Its been an absolute blast and I feel like I've learned so much about the things I enjoy doing as a DM, and learning how to balance encounters and adjusting as needed. Even my friend has been enjoying looking into homebrew, fleshing out their character, and really getting into the world and character creation. Like you had mentioned, we started with the Essentials Kit. *Dragon of Icespire Peak.* What a good adventure to run, truly. Even after we where done they kept asking "What's next..?!" So we kept on going! Along with her character, we brought over 4 of the sidekicks from DoIP, and an NPCs from their character's backstory. Even now at the later levels they've taken on a second PC character who will go on to be their Baldur's Gate 3 character! Here's the order of adventures/modules I've ran for our adventure thus far, and where we are now! Dragon of Icespire Peak (1-6) Storm Lord's Wrath (7-9) Sleeping Dragon's Wake (9-11) Divine Contention (11-12) Kryptgarden Ascendant (13-15) Giants of the Star Forge (16) Those That Came Before (17-18) Trust and Understanding (19-20) CURRENT! I hope more people try this out. It's a great way to spend time with someone you love hanging out with, and easy to pick up whenever the two of you don't have much going on (or if a friend cancels their campaign last minute that day lol).

The best DMing i ever did was a duet one shot. We made her character together, and i didnt write a thing other than to decide the setting until after her character was made with a backstory and a goal. Then the entire adventure was written around her. Of course, i completely subverted what she was expecting in the first hour, turning the antagonist from her backstory into her companion. We played for eight hours. The conclusion was epic and im quite proud she cried at the end as she decided to sacrifice the character. Ill never forget it, it was like a work of art i made for an audience of one and no one will ever know it but us. I also later did exactly what Ginny suggested at the end- I started a campaign of four characters with each of them having a one on one session leading to the party's meeting. This was a cool idea, and while I was pleased with some of it, I'm not sure I would recommend it. The biggest issue is that they essentially each needed to be railroaded so that I could in fact get the party together on that 5th session. The other issue was that while it created some awesome hooks and development of the characters backstories, once the party was together, they could not all pursue all those hooks at once. What I found as the campaign went on was that the separate plot lines were being forced to converge or be put on pause, which was not tonally consistent with the weight they were each given in the opening. It was a great challenge and very interesting though

I DM all of my games to a single player for years now, because everything is so much more personal and connected to the player. Also makes it easy for schedules. More people should give a try.

Running one shots with all the individual characters is a great way to get to know them and introduce backstory in a way they'll want to pursue. Once I ran something similar, where the intro one-shots all led to the characters escaping into a casino airship. There, by chance, they all independently wanted to gamble...so they all started the group campaign at the same table, telling each other how they bested the authorities. Made everyone get really into character during interactions because they already had experience as them!

Love duet D&D! I’ve had some great sessions with only 1 player 🤘🏼 Thank you for bringing more attention to this Ginny!

Ran several duet games with my late first wife; most sessions were played out on long road trips. We carried dice in the car, but only for skill checks--these games were 100% role play, no combat or XP awards, and leveling up was more of an abstract. When I DMed, I used these sessions to help develop the setting and NPCs that could be of use in the future.

blue hair is back. i am glad to hear your take. I have a small group (two players) and while i like it, i feel exhausted at two hours with no breaks.

I’ve been running something recently with “split sessions” Basically I take a small group of my main dnd for a character specific event or challenge. Also since my people are pretty broken, I don’t worry about as much as combat It’s a good way to get more into a character

I remember when I first got into Role Play games. I'd gone from Magic the Gathering when it first came out to a friend inviting me to play in a Vampire Larp, but one of the guys in the barracks offered to play a game of completely made up homebrew game that started off being roughly based on Independence Day, but ran into a bunch of gaming tropes that I had never experienced before. Later on I learned of other systems with book formats and D&D, but I'll never forget being in that one on one scenario, drinking Surge and eating Mini Tacos. The good times. :)

This is actually my main way to play! I've played more duet DnD than traditional party DnD, and I love the fast pace and the sidekick mechanics😁

@GinnyDi I currently play a duet with my wife. We are playing the Phandelver and Below mod and we both find it very fun! I completely agree that being the DM for this, my brain does need catch up time, but that is also part of the fun, because I get to test her and see what reactions and decisions she makes. I appreciate you covering this topic as it is very relatable to us. Thank you so much Ginny!

Random question, can you recommend some virtual tabletops to use to play DnD? I am a new player and I am desperately looking for a website for me and my friends to use

One of my most rewarding roleplaying experiences was a one on one star wars campaign using the savage worlds framework. We frequently switched the DMing role. And we generally have a fairly collaborative playstyle anyway. Considering we were both playing a jedi knight and her padawan, making it a duet felt like a natural choice. It generally fostered a very close relationship between the two and enabled us to do plots that would have been hard to include other characters with more diverse classes in. We both levelled our chraracters up as usual, using our own as a quasi-npc while DMing. Playing it as a one on one just requires holding back your character with the problem solving a little while you're Dming. But on the other hand, they become the natural vessel for hints when your player gets stuck on something.

It's very cool to see you make a video spotlighting this! I've been very interested in duet-style roleplaying for a while, I think it's great for significant others, but also it's a chance for shy or reserved people who are intimidated by big groups to experiment with roleplaying in a place they feel safe and unjudged. A lot of that anxiety of "oh i hope people don't think I'm weird" goes away when it's just one person you trust. I think becoming skilled at duet roleplaying is a great way to help get more people into the hobby and I'm always excited to find more resources to help me get better at it!

One of the characters in my home game just jumped through a portal right before it closed, might acually run a one on one session!

YES more stuff from GinnyDi! I've actually been wondering about this for quite a while thanks for making a video about it!

This video was so good! I am looking forward to seeing Josh's attempt at DMing. I would love to have you do a flip through of your DM notes, your binder looks so well organized!!

Ginny, we love all of your DM tips videos and it would be a bliss if one day you showed us how you prep - I don't mind heavy detail. Taking a specific session as an example and showing how you use these papers would be awesome! ❤

Oh I love duet dnd!!! I ran a festival/Christmas (called Maker-Mas lol) for a friend’s birthday that lasted pretty much allll day-except for when we took food and cake breaks for her birthday. It was honestly exhausting to DM but her joy throughout it all was totally worth it. It was a little bit of everything: puzzles, a treasure hunt, a bit of combat. Her side kick through the session was her wizard love interest npc so it was a perfect team up :)

I’m so glad you took time off and it’s great to have you back!

I love the set up of the confessional angle - and the immediate tear down of the fourth wall.

I normally play like this and I find this is better because you can have main characters

I never thought of one on one sessions as duets, but they've always been as side quest to a main game... but for restarting my main game that has been on hiatus since COVID started, I was already planning on running one shots with both old and new characters, so I guess I'm ahead of the curve! 😂

I love the idea of doing a "backstory duet" with each player before the campaign proper. I recently read up on Exalted (haven't gotten to play it yet, though), and apparently it's already something people do there, running specifically through the parts of the backstory that lead up to the point where the character Exalts in the first place.

playing 1 on 1 with each of your players, and roleplaying a point in their backstory was what I did before I started my big campaign that is still going on today. It really helped my players get into their characters head and helped when we actually decided to play all together.

I have actually played duet-style D&D before and I love it! Definitely takes way more prep on my end, but I think some of my favorite roleplay moments have occurred when it was just me and one player at the table. It'a really refreshing when two people can set the tone and the pace of a session all by themselves. I'd love to see Josh take a crack at it, if he was willing to for content of course!

practicing with the players in your campaign before it starts and using significant parts of their backstory is a fantastic idea. I'm absolutely doing this at the start of my next campaign. Love it.

I've DM'ing for nearly 30 years, and I find that session zeros with individual characters allows me to learn that particular player/characters style and flow better. It allows me to craft the early story points and encounters around how each player wants to play their character, creating a more immersive environment before the major plot begins.

Fun fact, that idea of beginning a campaign with duet sessions for each player? In the games i often run/play, that's kinda what session zeroes ended up as, we actually go out of our way to specify if a session 0 is going to be what the dnd community as a whole thinks of it as. We got the idea from various tv shows that do a trailer for each major character.

Games from the World of Darkness have this initial "duet" experience to explore the character's backstory ingrained into their very core. The "prelude", as it is called, is a fundamental part of Character Creation, and one that lets each player explore their character individually before committing to a group effort.

I’ve done a few 1-on-1 D&D sessions for players when their characters get split up from the party, or for supplemental lore material. It’s always very fun and any “awkwardness” usually disappears pretty quickly.

Solo D&D is my favorite way of introducing people to playing the game. There is less pressure of looking silly in front of your friends and the DM has his fully attention on you.

I actually did your before session 1 duet D&D session idea! It was super fun and I loved the ability to have everyone get started with their characters

The concept of a duet before the group actually gets together is something WoD actually has! It calls those character preludes, they exist to ground the character in the setting and story, as well set the tone for that character.

My wife and I started playing one-on-one D&D during 2020 lockdown. We also used modules from D&D Duet. (Highly recommended them!) It grew into a 3+ year long campaign that we just finished in December.

That last bit is brilliant! I think i will start to do that, it would be a great ice breaker, you as the DM can learn a bit about the new characters, and it kind of gets everyone engaged to the new person they are portraying. Gives them a chance to have an environment where they can flush out the character of their character.

I have been doing duet dnd sessions with players, going thru backstory moments on the weeks multiple people can't show up for whatever reason. It really helps flesh out their character as well as rewarding them for showing up

I remember a game (quite) a few years back where our DM did basically one shot duet sessions with each of the players to introduce their characters to the setting and the initial threads of the storyline. It was a lovely experience, and I remember how it helped me get more of a feel for my character before the first session with all the players present. I definitely recommend giving it a shot when you get the chance, if the time can be made for that sort of approach.

best part of DMing is letting the players interact with each other

My husband ran a duet with everyone before our largest campaign and it worked GREAT! We started at level 3 and it was a lot of players' first games, so he used those one on one sessions to get everyone from level one to level three, introduce them to the basics of the game, and make sure that everyone had a firm grasp of who their characters were and what their goals were when meeting the rest of the party.

I loved the most when you can make a really personalized story, because only one hero is the protagonist. Played 5 years in 1-1 with a character and at the end on lvl many, went into multiverse.

Great points throughout, super helpful! My mind immediately jumped to challenges like action economy and character weak spots, but I’d totally be blindsided by not having enough content for just one player vs. a full party, or not having those moments of inter-player RP to collect my thoughts. Love the idea individual duet sessions as prep for a bigger group campaign, will have to try this next time!

Thanks for sharing your experience with duet play! Love your content!

Absolutely loved this video! I'm currently running the Out of the Abyss Module for 5e in this fashion. It feels like it fits, since the prisoners immediately fill the sidekick role. I would love to see more on this in the future!

8:45 that's actually exactly what i did the first time me and my friends played. i have a bad anxiety and it was my first time playing with them, so i suggested that we could do their background stories first individually, just so they could become more familiar with the concept of dnd (they were new), roleplay and their own character and then, eventually, in their background story they reached a certain city where all of them met up, continuing their journey! :)

I absolutely love doing solo sessions, as a player or a DM. There is just something about the amount of focus you can give someone and their character. We use them as intro sessions as mentioned, but also when somebody missed some sessions or went on a sidequest or whatever.

Literally my only game of D&D so far was DMing a duet, so it's great to know that the feeling of not having time to think straight is less in a group game. It actually was basically a prequel to the group campaign, I'm now seriously considering doing it for all my players!

I've played in a campaign that started out exactly the way you describe at the end! The DM had one on one sessions with each of us after session zero (each about one and a half hours) and also, when scheduling problems (and an irl Taifun) lead to only me being available, he had a THREE hour one on one session ready. In the latter I missed the other players dearly but it was still such a blast. The introductory sessions all brought our characters to the same place through different happenstances, it was really well done.

I had one session of one on one where the scheduling and the character choices worked out that way and we ended up having a moment where my character got thrown into a void in direct contact with the arcane makings of the world. It felt like we’re were building an understanding together of how the world works in this lil back and forth poke and prod. I loved it so much.

Thank you so much for this, Ginny Di! My husband and I have played duet D&D for many years, and we really love this mode! During the COVID lockdown we played the Dungeons of the Mad Mage (5e version). We took turns being the DM - he ran the odd-numbered levels and I ran the even-numbered ones. We each played the other person's PC as a sidekick when it was our turn to be playing. It's one of the funnest things we've ever done together. He played a ranger (Gloomstalker) and I played a bard (College of Lore). We slowed down for the last few levels, spreading them out over time so we could adequately prepare. We have two more levels left to play now, and it's extremely scary-good! Keeping secrets from each other about the levels we were running was the hardest part.

I just ran 5 of these duet sessions for my group of 5 players and we all had a blast! I had them play through 2 months of their downtime after having completed their first major arc in the campaign.

One-on-one D&D seems like a great date night idea. It also enables you to use a lot of tropes, like Chosen One, that you couldn't use in a group game. The one player *is* the main character.

Yeah, I ran a duet game a few years ago and I totally agree. I burned through material so fast and I constantly had to pause and think about things that I didn't need to do DMing a normal game. Great advice and good insights!

I was just running a PF2 game with my SO. Hearing that you also had full "hang on brain needs to catch up" moments made me feel a whole lot better about the need I felt for breaks (it was my first experience GMing)

my group has had a couple solo sessions and its usually like a way to 1. have just a fun side mission where your character can shine and 2. helps strengthen aspects of your characters personality. I got a solo session with my dm in about an hour and i haven't had one yet so im exited

Duet D&D can be a very fun, but you live and you learn when you try it. I have had duet sessions where we ran actual PCs (2 & 2). While that makes balacing encounters easier, RP suffers a bit, and I must confess that worked better because I was playing with a veteran friend. New players sometimes have a hard time finding their stuff in their only character sheet! So if you want combat, I'd say PC + sidekicks, kinda like the companions from D3. What I would recommend for duet D&D are adventures or situations heavily reliant on Skill Challenges. It can be so much fun to see what your player comes up and how they can explain using a particular skill instead of what you as a DM would normally choose for an ability check. It also opens up more improvisational ways - my duet episodes often go into directions I wasn't expecting and that makes them just as magical as the sessions where everything is planned. As a final advice, duet D&D works great to make up a session for when a player wanted to be present, but couldn't. Scheduling is one of the challenges of a D&D session, but it might also create the opportunity for great one-on-one moments to explain why that PC couldn't participate of a quest in the last "official" episode.

The one shot turned five shot is too real. I had a friend write a homebrew one shot once and he emphasised that this is meant to be a one shot. 4 hours later we had this conversation between us: "... Omg you didn't even get through 1/3" "Probably because of that funeral player 2 caused" "Why did you bury the shards again? And why do you blame player 2" "HE RUINED A PERFECTLY GOOD WHISKEY" 5 sessions later i told the player 2's pc to go fu-k himself because i was still grieving after that bottle of DWARVEN whiskey, DWARVEN! YOU DON'T CAST FIREBALL ON DWARVEN WHISKEY YOU SELF IMPORTANT IM*ECILE ... this happened like 2 years ago btw

Playing a one-on-one with each of my players before they come together as a group is my favourite thing to do, my players get a better understanding and stronger connection with their characters as we explore a major part of their backstory. What's really funny is this video went live when I was right in the middle of a one-on-one with one of my players for a new long running campaign coming to Roll Together RPG

This is really interesting and the whole "3 sessions of material for 3 hours of play" thing sent me on a kind of theorizing tangent. The idea of the "Thread Pull Trigger", and what it means for play. A thread pull trigger is some detail that sparks a player to interrogate or investigate this detail, pulling the thread. And not just your basic follow up questions or clarifications, but REALLY pull on that thread. The meme version would be the random NPC you just made up on the spot as just an "extra" to fill out a scene who immediately becomes the sole fascination of some or all the players. But part of the phenomenon is that even if others jump in, it's usually one or two players that get the ball rolling. And these moments are great! This is not a bad thing! Some of the best RPG stories are based on them. But they are TIME important. And as you add more players, the odds that ONE of them will hit a thread pull trigger gets higher and higher, while with a duet game it's only ever one player. In my younger days, my game group would often have 7+ players in the game and we'd routinely make it to 3 scenes MAX with an 8 hour play session. And with a duet I could easily see not having one of these 20 minute diversions/tangents for multiple scenes and just have to hit your beats and move on to the next scene. Oh, and the reason these are different than just RP moments is that they tend to be more like "footnote" material than "narrative" material. It's not the "searching the murder scene for clues" or "interrogating the bandit leader" type stuff, planned moments of the story. It's taking a wiki-walk IN GAME. And these specific kinds of diversions are great for GMs because they tend to be lower importance. Either it's pre-made world building that you can infodump or it's entirely inconsequential so you can just MAKE SHIT UP. Doing the narrative scenes means you are deploying and concealing specific, game central data. With these, you either have the answer or the answer doesn't ultimately matter.

You can learn a lot about solo DnD by watching people soloing BG3. Lots of events are made so they can solved in different ways, and retreating or taking another route when one is blocked is always an option. Pen&Paper roleplayers tend to forget that.

While I was unfamiliar with the 'duet' term, my wife and I have been playing duet games together for a bit over 10 years. We started when our usual group was unable to meet as regularly as we liked, so I started running a second game just for her. Since then, it's only gotten harder to run consistent group games, but my wife and I play regularly, often twice a week. It is incredibly fulfilling to play together and in many ways feels better than group games because we can focus on a story centered on the player character and craft adventures that cater to and challenge the abilities of that single character. Edit: Oh, and the pause thing - that never goes away. Sometimes you need a few minutes to look up something or think through the ramifications of an unexpected action. Once your player gets used to it, it's no trouble. One trick I've learned to speed up pauses is my 'yes, maybe, no' roll. I typically use percentiles and do a basic roll - 1-35 is yes, 36-65 is maybe or be more specific, while 66-100 is no. It's good for quick decision making or helping to manage the actions of lots of NPCs without bogging the game down.

Ginny I love this idea! For me going off the concept you had mentioned of running a duet with each player before a new game starts, I ran something I called 0.5 sessions. These were sessions where I grabbed 1-3 of my players for a short game before actual session 1 as a way for players to figure out, voice, play style, role, personality while interacting with other players and NPCs, and so much more! On top of it all, my players understood how their character got from their backstory to the rest of the party then, whether they start in a tavern, on a battle field, or anywhere else.

DMs hosting for other DMs can be super fun duet, I've done that a few times. My best buddy and I have *very* different playstyles and I'm not in his main game for that reason, but we had a blast doing... basically a live-action writer's room one time where we acted out the prison break of one of his Important NPCs using D&D as the medium. I had a blast adding my own personal touch to this oc, and that character stuck around and stayed connected to the plot all the way until the end of the campaign at Level 20.

I absolutely love the idea of using duet D&D session with each individual player. That sounds like an incredible idea before a session 0 with the whole group!

I've had several DM's who do one-on-one session zeros and they work so well! I got to roleplay the lead up to and moment my warlock made her pact and it resulted in a really personal connection to my patron that got both me and my DM excited. My backstory felt so much more relevant because I got to play in it directly.

I love the idea of running duets with your players before they get together. My regular group aren't great at backstory, which makes it hard to slide personal stories in, so this would be a great way of coaxing them to develop more.

I love the idea of using this as pre-campaign for players. helps the player get used to their character and helps the dm learn about the player's character as well.

This was a refreshing topic to see covered. It was especially good to see that the advice is essentially universal. You could use this advice for any game system.

This is how I was introduced into D&D back in the 90s. AD&D. Went through several sessions one on one. Then the amazing DM did similar things with other players as he found some and wove motivations for each of our characters into a campaign we would do together. The DM and I were good buds and played well together. So we did a lot of one on one. Made for heart felt and epic character stories.

I had a DM back in the day who used these as forms of character development independent of a party. He used them to seed trust and distrust as each player was given information and some withheld to others. And he kept from having to have 'helpers' by tailoring the one off to the character it was for with class and race, or even the background if they were written well enough. Assassin approached by the assassin's guild to fulfill a contract. Fighter in the colloseum to help a friend pay off debts. Things like that. And it was super fun going back to party play after. Trying to figure out in character what other people did, learned, or was trying to hide...

We played a lot …A LOT of D&D like this on the playground and the school bus back in the 80’s. It’s good to see one on one play come full circle.

I’m so glad I was turned onto this video, and your channel. I’ve been role-playing for nearly 40 years, in fact I think it’s more like 42 years now… But I’ve not played much DND. But in that time, the vast majority of my role-playing has been one on one. My friend and I played star frontiers, Marvel superheroes, James Bond 007, And Ghostbusters for years as one on one. I’m so thankful to you for putting the comment in your video about being brought to a standstill, because in those one on one games, I rarely ran them for that very reason. I thought it meant I just sucked at being a game master, because my friend would throw things at me and I would have no idea how to Respond and I would get overwhelmed and make drastic decisions that weren’t fun for either of us. Since 2008, I’ve been gaming online with a group, and I’ve gotten over that and realized that it was more a lack of confidence on my part than anything else, but now you’ve added a whole new dimension to my thinking of that time in my life. It makes so much more sense now. It’s true. In a group, you have a chance to take stock of things while the other players are discussing the situation and what-not. I’m still a big proponent for one on one games. I’ve learned a lot since those stressful experiences as a kid. I’ve never tried running D&D that way… but I’ve never tried running D&D at all. My friend and I did play D&D once or twice one on one, with him running it, back in the day when “old-school” wasn’t. I must say, we had a blast. In order to finish the module, though, my character wound up being down to half a hit point. Yes, we knew we were stretching Things… But we were having so much fun, we didn’t care. And that kind of fun’s the whole point! Please excuse any type of graphical errors. I’ve been dictating, and I was editing, but I finally decided it was more important to send this comment and move on with my day then spend too much time editing. So I hope if there are any mistakes, the ideas shine through anyway.

I love that idea of running a duet with each person before going into the multiplayer campaign. Absolutely wonderful way to lead up to it for both you and the players.

I've actually done that thing where you run a duet with each player before starting the campaign! It's super fun! It allows you and that player to flesh out the character a little more and also really helps the players to work on things like accents, quirks, ticks, catch phrases, or just their general way of thinking /existing in the world. As the GM you also get to really dial in some backstory for the character and dig deeper into those normal GM questions like what do you fear, what are your goals, where do you come from, where are you going, why are you a part of the group. The way I like to kind of play it is doing mini duet games with each player and just staging that as "let's tell the story of the few days, weeks, or years, that brought you to be in the party" Super fun! Highly recommended!