I run games professionally online for kids ages 8 to 12. Say the scenario is that only one kid shows up to my class.
I can’t just quit the session, have to do something role-playing adjacent. Don’t want to continue the same adventure, because that would leave everyone else behind.
So, how about it? What would you do?
Right now, I have the idea to rip the content out of a choose-your-own-adventure book and see how that rides, but we’ll see.
Thoughts?
Maybe let him/her take the role of a monster for that session. Doing monstery stuff. Perhaps even the role of the big bad evil guy. Show the game from another angle? When the normal sessions continues, the player and the party can see the changes that have been made during the solo?
there are lots of 2 player games you could check out. Party of One podcast feature just that if you want to check out some titles.
I love this idea. You could jump on the last hook or plot thread they’ve left hanging, and spin off of it from the perspective of an antagonist or rival. Put them in a difficult situation that works in another aspect of your game, another rival or someone aligned with the PCs. Use what happens and how the kid deals with it as fertilizer for upcoming events in the game proper. At the very least you’ll blow the one kid’s mind!
Oooh yeah those situations are tricksy, keeping a stack of material on hand for such things is defiantly a good idea, maybe a mixture of one-shot single player things, collaborative world-building games seem like a good fit also (like journalling games but for two people?) Maybe like, set-peice one shots, where you brew up a quick player character or a preteen and their dumped onto a big set-peice they have to navigate (like, ‘defeat the dark ritual of the doom lord, and the map is a big complex space to navigate but all in one go’
I’ve done the above and it really has broaden up the players horizons, adding depth to the otherwise generic/2D opponents situations.
Another variant is to let the player take the role of an ally who is on a different timeline (week in the future for example). It becomes particularly funny if this character is much stronger of weaker than the players original character. Now that the kid is playing alone it would surely be better if the character would be the stronger (higher level) kind. Then when the main timeline continues there is more depth to the world as they are encountering ripples of their own actions.
Oh yeah! Going back time can work really well, you can even do it with your primary characters provided you move things into a separate enough context that there’s still fun tension and challenge even if you know a character won’t die or lose a leg or whatnot
Ah, what to do? That depends on whether the player expects to play an ongoing character previously used by the same player.
I see one-on-one sessions as a chance to give scenarios that are antisocial or psychological.
By antisocial, I mean a game centered on thievery or other bad behavior. Stealthy characters work very well solo. Thieves can really shine in solo play!
By psychological, I mean games in which players have, say, a psionic ability to read minds, or have access to information by virtue of the character that other players would not normally have. You can tailor your narration to the perspective of one player’s character, without editing or expecting other players not to act on what you reveal to the character who has access to that information.
Just ideas! I’d think a thief excursion into a market might be fun! And I’d think that’s easily ad-libbed.
That’s a clever idea! I don’t know about trusting the kids with that kind of knowledge. I doubt my kids would outright say “hey the bad guys are doing this” but they certainly might lord it over the others.
From a different angle… Hm… A day in the life of “X NPC” especially a friendly one could be quite fun. I dig it!
Checked out that list of games. HOLY COW. They’ve been around quite a long time I take it. Cool stuff, thanks for the resource.
The sneaking is a good idea. Kids REALLY enjoy stealth missions.
Some great ideas here folks. Like the idea of being an NPC that is stronger/weaker for a session. Or going back in time as their character. “So how did you become a Spy? Let’s explore that.”
I was gonna say do an arts and crafts thing with them, but then I remembered you do this online. Besides stealth or solo missions, they could also perhaps get a little troop of people under their command, being a commander of some hireling patrol or division. Besides having many characters to command and thus being more likely to survive things, there’s also an opportunity to showcase leadership and the effects of different styles of leadership. Do they lead from the back or the front? How do their decisions impact their followers? Etc.
Another option is to do a flashback scene to the characters background, but I’m not sure how good this would be for kids. The kids I teach usually would not really get this I think, but then again, they don’t search me out for these games. Yours actively signed up for it, right? So there’s more potential probably?