Ok here's my problem: I only have 1 player in my group so far. I would love to start GMing right away, and we have Final Sanction ready to go while the DW core book is on order. My player agrees that she would like to get a jump on the gaming to learn the mechanics, but she doesn't want to settle for "training scenarios" and the like.

So... how would you adapt Final Sanction to be played by 1 player? Would you break the proverbial GM/Player barrier, taking one of the pregen characters to be your NPC represenative, or would you just adapt the strength level so that a single player would be able to handle it? I am worried that losing the solo/squad dynamic would unbalance it. Or should she control 2 separate characters? Would that be too much for a relatively new RPG player?

No replies? And can we move this to the GM section, please?

they will die horribly unless you tone down the fights, and doing so would then question the need for an SM as the fights could easily be done by the local pdf or indeed the assasin agent at the start.

If you are going with 1 I recomend they choose a primary "Leader" character, and have 3 additional in the squad for support.

honestly, my suggestion would be to track down more players. Deathwatch is a a game about teamwork. As a rules system it doesn't lend itself to solo roleplaying.

I gathered a lot of experience in running RPG-campaigns with only one player. The most important advice I can give is to invest much more time in the creation of remarkable NPCs. As your player won't interact with other players, the whole interaction will take place between him/her and your NPCs – so your NPCs should be well prepared and highly elaborated with authentic backgrounds – especially the NPCs that accompany your player.

If you decide to give your player a team of NPC-companions, you should give those team-members really strong characters. Everyone of them should be unique in his behaviour and advice and they should all highly interfere in the happenings – don't let them be just puppets that just silently walk aside the player.

If you decide NOT to give a NPC-team to your player, you could create some adventures about spying and infiltration. But that won't be Deathwatch anymore as it is thought to be played (and squad mode wouldn't be possible any more).