12 thoughts on “Hey y’all!”

  2. Think of every choice on the character sheet as the player choosing something interesting in the game, and then focus on that. Who is the best friend and rival? See how soon you can insert them into the story, use them as hooks for a heist. Did the player consider nationality and pick one because it was preferred? Bring that flavor out in the NPCs and heist to follow. Consider the special ability chosen and have a heist perfect for someone who can do that.

    Even the choice of the playbook is telegraphing to you the KIND of story the player wants.

  4. Adam Minnie Has a good Idea of how to run it. An alternative is have the single player run as the “Head of an (X) Crew” With their character being full fleged and have NPC scoundrels or guests that he directs and sets up. They can be a bit more focused and a bit more like cohorts, but so long as you figure out a way that the mission can continue (with difficulties) even if the NPC screws up, it could work.

  5. I concur with giving them a cohort; you could even provided it as a free upgrade. I wouldn’t have them play multiple PCs; it would make the game more mechanical. You may also want to look at the advice listed in Cthulhu Confidential. it is the first Gumshoe One2One game, which is designed for a single player. Besides playing a lone assassin or thief would be epic.

  6. With the game having so many cooperative rules and having such an emphasis on interaction, I feel like it’d be a shame to have the player lone-wolfing. The above ideas are good, but I also want to throw out the possibility of having the GM run a colorful sidekick character alongside the player, who isn’t there to make decisions but to act as a point of interaction and to complement the PC with some different skills and cooperative mechanics.

    It’s always a bit of a narrow path, running a character in the party, but if you make a point of not using the character to give direction or steer the plot, it’s not so bad.

  7. I try to always GM at minimum 2 players, I just find 1:1 is less effective. That said, GMing 1:1 has two options, one is the player controls multiple characters, I dont have experience with that so I’m not sure how you would proceed. The other is the player still controls just one character. My that my advice you run it like a noir or possibly hard boiled style movie. In those the protagonist is a single voice involved in a vast complicated plot far greater than they are. The gun slinger is another genre you could refer to. Actually the biggest risk of 1 player and why I dont like running single player sessions is the chances of going murder hobo are much higher. The strength of blades in the dark is the strong drive towards roleplay and rewarding characters for doing things that are definitely not in their best interests. Conflicts arising from these actions between the different players problematize the situation and make it much more engaging.

    Thus the key much more than multiplayer experiences in GMing a single player is to make the player actions and rolls much more meaningful. As GM you are going to have to manage a much richer stable of NPC’s to provide that feedback and push back.

    This is why I dont like running games like that, it’s just exhausting.

    My advice is reach out to people you know, you’ll be surprised who’ll give something like this a go, you’ll all have much more fun if you include some new people and run it for a group of people.

    Which given your question was how to run it for 1 person and my advice is dont, is pretty crappy, this game is a social event, think of it as a chance to make new friends.

  8. We plan on allowing a solo scoundrel to recover Stress on 6+ rolls. One idea is 1 stress for a 6 and 2 for a crit. That may seem too powerful but a single thief needs all the help they can get! Plus, the fictional position of a lone protagonist ususually has them hold an edge. 🙂 The specifics haven’t been tested out but we feel it’s worth trying.

  9. I wouldn’t bother with rule tweaks like this until you need them. I dont think that a solo hero would need this stress rule anymore than others. I think the contacts will make downtime be fine for downtime. Notice that there is even a solo faction called Ulf Ironborn. Perhaps John Harper would have better advice for solo play, but I don’t think the game would have too many issues because of the way it works.

  10. Solo PC games are a bit out of scope for the Blades design, but that doesn’t mean they don’t work.

    You’ll probably find that you end up hacking a bit or shifting the game one way or another, but that’s fine. I don’t foresee any really troublesome issues that you won’t be able to solve.

  12. Aaron Friesen, I wouldn’t stress (see what I did there?) about possibly breaking the game. It’s a fantastic set of tools that allow you to build amazing things but it won’t make you build anything you don’t want to. That’s how I see it at least.

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