rpg for two people total?

[Myth27]

Do you we have rpgs that can be payed by two people? I assume one master and one player, but maybe some masterless system? have you evere played one?

[Libertad]

The Sine Nomine game line has various rulesets for 1-on-1 gameplay. Scarlet Heroes is a self-contained RPG for OSR/Basic D&D compatability. Stellar Heroes for Stars Without Number can accomplish much the same thing. Solo Heroes is free and served as the earlier draft for Scarlet Heroes.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/3482/Sine-Nomine-Publishing

I haven't read it, but there's a product on the DM's Guild called Table For Two which is a collection of 5e adventures optimized for 1 on 1 gameplay.

https://www.dmsguild.com/product/324666/Table-For-Two

Finally, there's Beowulf: Age of Heroes, that I reviewed here: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?630271-Let-s-Read-Beowulf-Age-of-Heroes-(5e)

[False God]

I run D&D this way all the time, as well as a number of other "group" systems. 2 players can work perfectly fine most of the time, you're unlikely to cover the full ground of a full party without any adjustments to skills or stats, but if you're not playing a combat-heavy game, or you seriously tune down the encounters, it works just fine.

I quite enjoy it, you can do a very personal game, you can tell a single-hero story where the one player gets to be the MC, you can play "Master and Padawan" quite well too(one I'll add, does not work well with a group). You can play Hero vs Villain quite well too in a way that just doesn't quite feel the same as "Villain vs Hero Team" or "Villain Team vs Hero Team".

[InvisibleBison]

I suspect that most systems can be made to work with only a single player fairly easily. As for my personal experience, I ran D&D 3.5 for a single player for a while and it worked just fine. I had to make a couple custom monsters, but only because I chose to make the plot involve fiends.

[Batcathat]

I quite enjoy it, you can do a very personal game, you can tell a single-hero story where the one player gets to be the MC, you can play "Master and Padawan" quite well too(one I'll add, does not work well with a group). You can play Hero vs Villain quite well too in a way that just doesn't quite feel the same as "Villain vs Hero Team" or "Villain Team vs Hero Team".

I was about to say this before noticing it had already been said, so I'll settle for agreeing. While I prefer playing with (or GMing) a group, playing one on one definitely has its upsides. I got most of my early GM experience with one of my friends as the only player.

[wizarddog]

It can be very useful when I play test adventures to have only another player and DM controlled characters to see how it goes rather than a whole group. That keeps the play test quick and straight to the point to check encounter mechanics.

[Saintheart]

Ironsworn allows for singles or doubles :)

[Witty Username]

D&D can work decent, if your familiar with the game Dungeon Hack (don't worry if you're not I think it may have been pre-windows) It had one player vs a RNG populated dungeon. Which is a pretty close experience to how 2 person table works.

World of Darkness and Call of Chultuhu are pretty solo friendly, since characters can be pretty generalized in those games.

Some of the warhammer 40k games can do good:
Black Crusade - a little bit of everything
Dark Heresy - detective story stuff
Deathwatch - action hero
Just know that Rogue Trader is more of group game and Only War is not really made for solo possible fighting.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Murderous Ghosts (one person plays the ghosts haunting a location, the other person plays the hapless protagonist trying to escape the location)
Star-Crossed (two people playing the characters in an unlikely romance)
I know Beast Hunters was an older game that got a lot of acclaim, but I don't know much about it other than it's designed specifically for one-on-one play

Of those, I've only played Star-Crossed, and it was a really cool, engaging experience. Really got to feel the tension and the awkwardness and the catharsis when everything finally resolved.

[Alcore]

Mutants and Masterminds. Technically meant for four people but is a classless system and thus with careful construction each and every archetype is able to function as a lone hero. Even better is that villains can be tailor made to oppose the hero (which is why Joker isn't pitted against Superman or Doomsday vs Batman). If you are familiar with D&D 3.5 I would recommend 2e but MnM 3e works too and has an online srd.

O.V.A. much for the same reasons as above. It is a much lighter system and easier to just pick up and go.

Mongoose Traveller. A bit of a stretch but you could play 'a ship' instead of a character and humorously red shirt the poor crew. You don't have to kill the crew off each game but losing a few heads here and there keeps things interesting.


Any system that is classless and any GM that doesn't feel compelled to plan for a four party specialist team can be run one on one. Gurps, Warrior rouge and mage, even HarnMaster to name a few...

[Grod_The_Giant]

Exalted 3e might actually function better as a solo game than a group one, though that was definitely not the intent. But the combat engine works best with very small numbers of combatants, and being superhuman in some areas but very human in others makes for good storytelling.