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Jorgo
2017-04-19, 10:34 PM
Anyone know any good one-player (player vs. DM) RPGs? Preferably ones that are setting specific (fantasy, science-fiction, etc.) as well as free.

EDIT: The game does not have to be one-player only, but rather work optimally or equally well with one player.

Knaight
2017-04-19, 11:50 PM
There's plenty of games that work okay with one player - I'd avoid anything that builds heavily around a party (no D&D, and certainly no Shadowrun), but other than that options are pretty open. With that said, most of them also work with a larger party, so I'm recommending ERA: Epic Storytelling Game (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/118877/ERA-Epic-Storytelling-Game), a game specifically built for one player that can extend all the way to two players. It's free, it's setting specific (it will work for all sorts of stuff, but it comes with a built in setting that is essentially mythic iron age north Germany), and even if you don't like it there's cool stuff on both the mechanical and setting side worth borrowing.

Martin Greywolf
2017-04-20, 01:46 AM
FATE Core works well, as I can tell from personal experience, FATE Accelerated would likely also work pretty well, provided you're more into RP than combat. They aren't setting specific, but it's dead easy to modify them to work for most of the settings out there reasonably well - I made Core, at least, work with both Naruto and One Piece.

Doorhandle
2017-04-20, 02:26 AM
I've dabbled in this a little: I still prefer multiple players but it's more entertaining than you'd think.

Mythic Game Master Emulator is useful for solo adventures. You just roll on the various tables instead of relying on a gamemaster: it works well with prewritten modules.

The Lone Crusader (http://thelonecrusader.com/) is a blog with a lot of advice on this topic in general, and hence is probably helpful for you as well.

I'd recommend their "one man army" rules, but I can't find them at this minute.

Grod_The_Giant
2017-04-20, 07:48 AM
I've had a lot of success running one-on-one sessions using Mutants and Masterminds 3e.

Kadzar
2017-04-20, 10:47 AM
Scarlett Heroes (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/127180/Scarlet-Heroes) was made to be played with a single player or very small groups and to work with old school D&D rules. If you want to know what it's like before buying there's also a free quickstart (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/127458/Scarlet-Heroes-Quickstart?manufacturers_id=3482) for it.

Mr Blobby
2017-04-21, 10:38 AM
Classic World of Darkness has a few: some of the shapechangers [Fera] are generally solo operators [Corax, Bastet] - which might be the reason I've *never* seen them played as PC's. Having a ghoul/reverent chronicle where the PC thinks they're the 'only one of their kind' could work too.

New World of Darkness has the book 'Wicked Dead' [I think] where the critters outlined could be a solo chronicle may work too.

Psyren
2017-04-21, 11:17 AM
In D&D/PF, Gestalt can work well with 1 player; particularly if you start higher than 1st level (say, 3rd) so that they have a decent cushion of HP to fall back on, and use T3 or higher classes. Then just run them through a campaign designed for non-gestalt. Finally add in Hero Points to account for the occasional bad roll. Such a character would end up with a decent amount of plot armor without being completely invincible.

The_Jette
2017-04-21, 01:19 PM
Anyone know any good one-player (player vs. DM) RPGs? Preferably ones that are setting specific (fantasy, science-fiction, etc.) as well as free.

EDIT: The game does not have to be one-player only, but rather work optimally or equally well with one player.

BESM is a really good one, since it's so flexible. I managed to run a "Magical Girl" campaign, and a X-Men universe campaign. The X-Men game was interesting, since the character was a teleporter who set up his abilities to the point that he could teleport between star systems... it was a modern day game, so obviously he didn't have any destinations to jump to, but being able to port anywhere on the planet with a thought was still pretty fun. Had a very "Jumper" feel to it.