THE GAUNTLET

The Gauntlet Blog

  • Home
  • Blog
    • Blog Table of Contents
  • Podcasts
    • The Gauntlet Podcast
    • Fear of a Black Dragon
    • The Darkened Threshold
    • Trophy Podcast
    • Discern Realities
    • +1 Forward >
      • Belonging Outside Belonging Series
      • Forged in the Dark Series
      • Firebrands Series
    • The Farrier's Bellows
    • Pocket-Sized Play
    • We Hunt the Keepers!
    • Comic Strip AP
    • Podcast Indexes >
      • Gauntlet Podcast Index
      • Fear of a Black Dragon Index
      • +1 Forward Index
      • Discern Realities Index
      • Trophy Podcast Index
      • The Farrier's Bellows Index
      • Pocket-Sized Play Index
      • Comic Strip AP Index
      • We Hunt the Keepers! Index
  • Publications
    • Public Access
    • The Between
    • Brindlewood Bay
    • Codex Magazine >
      • Codex Index
    • Hearts of Wulin
    • Trophy RPG
    • Codex Volume 1 Book
  • Online Gaming
    • Playing Online with The Gauntlet
    • Gauntlet Calendar
    • Online Gaming Resources
    • Actual Play
    • Sign Up Best Practices
  • Community Resources
    • Community Code of Conduct
    • Gauntlet Gameway
    • Play Issues and Contact
  • Social and Stores
    • Gauntlet Forums
    • Gauntlet Twitter
    • Gauntlet Facebook Group
    • Gauntlet Videos
    • Merch Store
    • DriveThruRPG Store
  • Brindlewood Bay Writing Contest
  • Public Access Writing Contest

5/2/2019

Find a Partner and Duet

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Coauthored by Barry Cook, Sarah Jacobson, and Ryan McNeil

Lots of role-playing games with a traditional GM role can be scaled down to a GM and just one player. In most cases, these maintain the asymmetry of a solo player character in a world conducted by the GM. But a handful are outright designed for just two people, and most of these games make each participant both soloist and conductor, each accompanying and directing the other.

“Duet” RPGs are creative, frequently collaborative affairs that thrive in the emotionally crowded spaces of worry, regret, love, and understanding—and sometimes even aggression and violence. To support the players taking on these creative and emotional challenges, duet games will often take a very structured approach, the rules themselves almost functioning as a GM. But within this structure is a surprising amount of freedom. Many duet games provide scene prompts—ranging from abstract and suggestive to highly prescriptive—and then pretty much step back until an end timer or narrative trigger kicks in. Lucian Kahn’s Dead Friend: A Game of Necromancy uses tarot card–connected prompts to direct the narrative. The setting of your game can be anywhere and the variety and intentional open-endedness of the prompts mean you’ll end up telling a wildly different story each time.

Even when the game takes on a GM-like role, however, you’re still “on” all the time. You don’t have the kind of breathing room you would in 3+ player games. If you aren't actively participating, then you're participating reactively: listening, making suggestions, and asking questions. All this means you're more invested, you care more, and you feel it more, too. That can get rough, emotionally, and rather bleedy. A specific game that comes to mind is Caroline Hobbs’s One Missed Call, a game about a long-distance relationship played out over a series of phone calls between the two characters. Players secretly decide whether they hope for the characters to come together or to drift apart, but don’t reveal their choice until after the game has ended, leaving one player to guess why their partner has stopped taking their calls. Pre-game conversations about tone and subject matter can help get you on the same page, but it’s also important to use your chosen safety tools to bend, break, or throw out some of the rules, or shift the narrative away from something you don't like. It often feels easier to speak up, too, when your opinion is half the table’s opinion.

Because a duet really is just you and one other person for a couple (or six) hours, they’re more intimate than standard RPGs. Although playing a duet doesn’t require you know your playing partner well, it means by the end of the game, you’re probably going to. In most duets getting to know the other player is a fairly organic process, and happens pretty much the way it does in any other game. But some explore this more intentionally. The character creation process of Emily Care Boss’s Breaking the Ice (part of The Romance Trilogy), for example, includes a “getting to know you” discussion, where you discover a way in which you and the other player differ, and then swap it for your characters. Since the game explicitly asks this of you, it requires some vulnerability, but in return lets you play a character different from yourself while also providing an accountability buddy for that role.

Even with a trusted partner, however, duets are intense, intimate, high-creativity games by design. It’s important to build in breaks, check in with one another and yourself, and take the time to de-role and debrief afterward—because the people playing are more important than the game, the story, or the characters. Duets may require more intentionality than 3+ player RPGs, but you’ll pick up some valuable skills along the way—creating side characters, connecting action to theme, and asking sharp, interesting questions. And you’ll grow as a player, too.

Now go get a partner, find a game that works for you, and duet!​

Share

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

Details

    Categories

    All
    Actual Play
    Adventure Starters
    Age Of Ravens
    Community Hacks
    Design Diaries
    Dungeon World
    Events
    FitD
    G+ Archives
    GMing Advice
    Monsterhearts
    PbtA
    Photo Galleries
    Podcast Transcripts
    Session Report
    Signal Boost
    Slack Chats
    Slack Spotlights
    Urban Shadows
    Video Roundup
    WoDu

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Blog
    • Blog Table of Contents
  • Podcasts
    • The Gauntlet Podcast
    • Fear of a Black Dragon
    • The Darkened Threshold
    • Trophy Podcast
    • Discern Realities
    • +1 Forward >
      • Belonging Outside Belonging Series
      • Forged in the Dark Series
      • Firebrands Series
    • The Farrier's Bellows
    • Pocket-Sized Play
    • We Hunt the Keepers!
    • Comic Strip AP
    • Podcast Indexes >
      • Gauntlet Podcast Index
      • Fear of a Black Dragon Index
      • +1 Forward Index
      • Discern Realities Index
      • Trophy Podcast Index
      • The Farrier's Bellows Index
      • Pocket-Sized Play Index
      • Comic Strip AP Index
      • We Hunt the Keepers! Index
  • Publications
    • Public Access
    • The Between
    • Brindlewood Bay
    • Codex Magazine >
      • Codex Index
    • Hearts of Wulin
    • Trophy RPG
    • Codex Volume 1 Book
  • Online Gaming
    • Playing Online with The Gauntlet
    • Gauntlet Calendar
    • Online Gaming Resources
    • Actual Play
    • Sign Up Best Practices
  • Community Resources
    • Community Code of Conduct
    • Gauntlet Gameway
    • Play Issues and Contact
  • Social and Stores
    • Gauntlet Forums
    • Gauntlet Twitter
    • Gauntlet Facebook Group
    • Gauntlet Videos
    • Merch Store
    • DriveThruRPG Store
  • Brindlewood Bay Writing Contest
  • Public Access Writing Contest