The Aboleth
2017-01-25, 09:43 AM
Hello, all!
So, I've only DM'd a couple 5E one-shot adventures but they seemed to go over reasonably well with everyone involved. Now, my girlfriend (who was a player for both those adventures) is interested in doing another one-shot, but as a solo adventure with her character. Considering she had never played D&D before meeting me and now she's invested enough to want to have a little adventure on her own, I consider this a huge opportunity to really get her hooked on the game and I don't want to squander it.
I've read a bit about DMing a solo adventure, but I'd like any advice or tips from others here who have run them. My understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that it's a good idea to have an NPC along for the ride at least part of the way, particularly for combat situations (in this case, she would control both her character and the NPC during combat). The articles I've read state that this is so things won't get stale...having an NPC with her will give her someone to regularly interact with, and the ability to control both characters in combat will allow her to try out another class without having to go through the long process of building a second character only to find out she may or may not like the class. What are your thoughts on this?
Her character is a rock gnome sorceress with an affinity for shiny objects (and is not adverse to "borrowing" said objects if need be). Before I get any "Why didn't she just roll a Rogue?" questions, she wanted to primarily cast spells in combat and liked the concept of the sorcerer better. Anyway, her character's backstory is basically that her village is very poor and so she set out to earn enough money to return one day and help them. As I mentioned before, she's already done a couple adventures with her character and is at Level 4 now.
For the adventure, my thinking is that a noblewoman will hire my girlfriend's character to attempt to steal back a jeweled amulet from a rival noble. The reward will be the amulet itself--the noblewoman doesn't actually care about the amulet, she more just doesn't want her rival to have it (side note--my girlfriend's character has had dealings with nobles in this city before in one of the other one-shots I've run, so she knows them to be petty and constantly squabbling with one another. As such, the reasoning behind the noblewoman being willing to part with the amulet shouldn't raise any red flags--I hope). Of course, this heist will probably require a helping hand, so the gnome sorceress will have to find a criminal contact from the seedy south side of town in order to help her with the job--this is where the probable NPC hire will come into play who can help her with things like lockpicking and other rogue-like stuff.
If she does some more digging, she'll discover that there have been a string of robberies reported to the town guard in the last two weeks, the targets all being the houses of nobility. A lot more digging will reveal that the noble who supposedly stole the amulet from my girlfriend's employer is actually a jewel collector, and that her house was already robbed exactly two weeks ago (but a different item was stolen--the amulet she was hired to procure is still there). Long story short--the noblewoman employer is the jewel thief that had been responsible for the robberies, but the town guard was closing in on her so she hired my girlfriend's character to commit a robbery at the original robbery location in the hopes she'd be caught and thus take the fall for all the robberies that had been committed. Oh, and the jewel thief isn't a noblewoman at all, but had been assuming the identity of one (via illusion magic) who had been deceased for a couple years in order to specifically make my girlfriend's story of being "hired to steal the jewel back" seem implausible to the town guard ("Stop lying! That lady has been dead for years. You're going away for a long time, thief!"). Cue attempts by my girlfriend to then track down the noblewoman/jewel thief who had set her up so that she can deliver some fireball-themed payback!
So, any tips or advice on how to run a solo adventure like this? Does the concept I have outlined sound interesting, or should I re-think the type of adventure I'm trying to put together? Oh, and in case you missed it up top, the system is 5E and the setting is a pretty generic homebrew city. Anyway, thoughts and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
So, I've only DM'd a couple 5E one-shot adventures but they seemed to go over reasonably well with everyone involved. Now, my girlfriend (who was a player for both those adventures) is interested in doing another one-shot, but as a solo adventure with her character. Considering she had never played D&D before meeting me and now she's invested enough to want to have a little adventure on her own, I consider this a huge opportunity to really get her hooked on the game and I don't want to squander it.
I've read a bit about DMing a solo adventure, but I'd like any advice or tips from others here who have run them. My understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that it's a good idea to have an NPC along for the ride at least part of the way, particularly for combat situations (in this case, she would control both her character and the NPC during combat). The articles I've read state that this is so things won't get stale...having an NPC with her will give her someone to regularly interact with, and the ability to control both characters in combat will allow her to try out another class without having to go through the long process of building a second character only to find out she may or may not like the class. What are your thoughts on this?
Her character is a rock gnome sorceress with an affinity for shiny objects (and is not adverse to "borrowing" said objects if need be). Before I get any "Why didn't she just roll a Rogue?" questions, she wanted to primarily cast spells in combat and liked the concept of the sorcerer better. Anyway, her character's backstory is basically that her village is very poor and so she set out to earn enough money to return one day and help them. As I mentioned before, she's already done a couple adventures with her character and is at Level 4 now.
For the adventure, my thinking is that a noblewoman will hire my girlfriend's character to attempt to steal back a jeweled amulet from a rival noble. The reward will be the amulet itself--the noblewoman doesn't actually care about the amulet, she more just doesn't want her rival to have it (side note--my girlfriend's character has had dealings with nobles in this city before in one of the other one-shots I've run, so she knows them to be petty and constantly squabbling with one another. As such, the reasoning behind the noblewoman being willing to part with the amulet shouldn't raise any red flags--I hope). Of course, this heist will probably require a helping hand, so the gnome sorceress will have to find a criminal contact from the seedy south side of town in order to help her with the job--this is where the probable NPC hire will come into play who can help her with things like lockpicking and other rogue-like stuff.
If she does some more digging, she'll discover that there have been a string of robberies reported to the town guard in the last two weeks, the targets all being the houses of nobility. A lot more digging will reveal that the noble who supposedly stole the amulet from my girlfriend's employer is actually a jewel collector, and that her house was already robbed exactly two weeks ago (but a different item was stolen--the amulet she was hired to procure is still there). Long story short--the noblewoman employer is the jewel thief that had been responsible for the robberies, but the town guard was closing in on her so she hired my girlfriend's character to commit a robbery at the original robbery location in the hopes she'd be caught and thus take the fall for all the robberies that had been committed. Oh, and the jewel thief isn't a noblewoman at all, but had been assuming the identity of one (via illusion magic) who had been deceased for a couple years in order to specifically make my girlfriend's story of being "hired to steal the jewel back" seem implausible to the town guard ("Stop lying! That lady has been dead for years. You're going away for a long time, thief!"). Cue attempts by my girlfriend to then track down the noblewoman/jewel thief who had set her up so that she can deliver some fireball-themed payback!
So, any tips or advice on how to run a solo adventure like this? Does the concept I have outlined sound interesting, or should I re-think the type of adventure I'm trying to put together? Oh, and in case you missed it up top, the system is 5E and the setting is a pretty generic homebrew city. Anyway, thoughts and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!