hey all - my regular Star Wars gaming group can't meet as often as we'd like due to real life and there's me and one of the players that would like to play more regularly and I've been wondering about using Genesys to create a series of one-shots (I have mini-James Bond and Mad Max adventures mapped out) or possibly a recurring campaign and was just curious what settings or suggestions you guys might have for how to make that work and be fun. Full disclosure, have never run a game with less than 2 players and a GM.

thanks!

This (the Narrative Dice System) is a great system for one-on-one play, IMO. I've not done it with Genesys (just Star Wars), but there's no reason for it to be any different.

My recommendations are (sorry if this is obvious):

1. Start the PC off with some extra XP and money or specific gear (in Star Wars I just did Knight Level, in Genesys I'd probably do something more like +100 XP, and bonus money/gear would vary depending on your setting).

2. Give them a low-stat sidekick, to both give them a small Skill-set supplement AND it makes great narrative/plot fodder. You RP it, player rolls for it. In Star Wars I did a (obvious) droid, with Computers and Mechanics. Don't make it a "fully-statted", PC-style NPC though (it's too much). But instead something closer to a Minion or Rival. Enough skills and abilities to expand the range of the narrative some, but not so much that it could ever carry a scene.

3. Use non-combat challenges, and target Strain in them - like you would Wounds in combat - to create drama and urgency. With Social Encounters it's easy, but in other types of challenges (investigative, mechanical, exploration, etc.), this can mean you end up using Threat in a rather boring fashion a lot, but it prevents the glass cannon-iness of the system from taking your control of the pacing away from you... But also, it can mean framing Skill checks so that failure doesn't mean they fail to do whatever they're trying to do, but rather failure = "you take some Strain", or Wounds, or even a Crit, depending on what they're doing (freeing up Threats for complicating the narrative). Strain and the other health tracks kind of becomes this every fluctuating tug-of-war/countdown clock. Pretty effective in my experience...

Regarding settings... I mean there's a million. Basically think of any single player action/rpg videogame you've ever played and enjoyed, right? Grand Theft Auto, Shadow of the Colossus, Assassin's Creed, Last of Us, the Witcher, Deus Ex, Uncharted, Fallout/Elder Scrolls... like, you could do them all and more.

37 minutes ago, emsquared said:

This (the Narrative Dice System) is a great system for one-on-one play, IMO. I've not done it with Genesys (just Star Wars), but there's no reason for it to be any different.

My recommendations are (sorry if this is obvious):

1. Start the PC off with some extra XP and money or specific gear (in Star Wars I just did Knight Level, in Genesys I'd probably do something more like +100 XP, and bonus money/gear would vary depending on your setting).

2. Give them a low-stat sidekick, to both give them a small Skill-set supplement AND it makes great narrative/plot fodder. You RP it, player rolls for it. In Star Wars I did a (obvious) droid, with Computers and Mechanics. Don't make it a "fully-statted", PC-style NPC though (it's too much). But instead something closer to a Minion or Rival. Enough skills and abilities to expand the range of the narrative some, but not so much that it could ever carry a scene.

3. Use non-combat challenges, and target Strain in them - like you would Wounds in combat - to create drama and urgency. With Social Encounters it's easy, but in other types of challenges (investigative, mechanical, exploration, etc.), this can mean you end up using Threat in a rather boring fashion a lot, but it prevents the glass cannon-iness of the system from taking your control of the pacing away from you... But also, it can mean framing Skill checks so that failure doesn't mean they fail to do whatever they're trying to do, but rather failure = "you take some Strain", or Wounds, or even a Crit, depending on what they're doing (freeing up Threats for complicating the narrative). Strain and the other health tracks kind of becomes this every fluctuating tug-of-war/countdown clock. Pretty effective in my experience...

Regarding settings... I mean there's a million. Basically think of any single player action/rpg videogame you've ever played and enjoyed, right? Grand Theft Auto, Shadow of the Colossus, Assassin's Creed, Last of Us, the Witcher, Deus Ex, Uncharted, Fallout/Elder Scrolls... like, you could do them all and more.

thanks for the feedback, very much like suggestion #2.

I wrote up an Indiana Jones Settings Book for Genesys that might be perfect for what you're looking for. It's on the Master List, or if you want, I'll give you the link.

Oh, if you're looking for something else, I also did a Ghostbuster Setting book for Genesys.

4 hours ago, Jareddw said:

I wrote up an Indiana Jones Settings Book for Genesys that might be perfect for what you're looking for. It's on the Master List, or if you want, I'll give you the link.

If this is yours, I just downloaded it (thanks!)

4 hours ago, Jareddw said:

Oh, if you're looking for something else, I also did a Ghostbuster Setting book for Genesys.

I don't see that on the list, would you mind sharing the link with me?

Ghostbusters-Genesys RPG (with Character Sheet)

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jSpBUnDNpnpxqTe85bF02K3sswT2be7I?usp=sharing

Again, if you run either one of these, let me know how it went. I'd be curious on other's experiences.

Any sort of Detective or Investigation focused campaign would work well with 1 PC, and the themes fit into almost any setting.

7 hours ago, Jareddw said:

Ghostbusters-Genesys RPG (with Character Sheet)

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jSpBUnDNpnpxqTe85bF02K3sswT2be7I?usp=sharing

Again, if you run either one of these, let me know how it went. I'd be curious on other's experiences.

will do! thank you again!

3 hours ago, Rationalinsanity said:

Any sort of Detective or Investigation focused campaign would work well with 1 PC, and the themes fit into almost any setting.

Totally agree, thank you!