Greetings, all!

So I got my copy of Deathwatch last week and it's a glorious beast of a book. I'm keen to run it, but have a problem: Players are rather thin on the ground about my way. A lot of the hobbyists I've met already have regular groups, and though they'd like to game more, the rest of life occupies most of their schedules.

I'm working on making links with local gamers, including a Facebook group and hanging out a little more regularly at the local Games Workshop (which opened around eighteen months ago), but the former is fairly quiet and the latter I don't feel quite comfortable with, as I don't have the cash / time / inclination for the miniatures games (and I always get this slightly uncomfortable feeling when the staff keep talking up the store's products).

In the meantime, I have an old mate of mine who's agreed to take Deathwatch out for a spin with me; as we're a couple of thousand kilometres away from each other, we'll be using the Roll20 online gaming platform for die rolls and maps.

Of course, this means our game will be based around a single Deathwatch Marine.

Have you tried a one-player-one-GM game of Deathwatch yet? If so, what challenges did you encounter?

Roll20 is fantastic. As you're already playing online, have you considered recruiting more players from here or Giant in the Playground, RPG.net, or other sites?

Honestly 1 SM might be fun but you would have to be very careful with balance. The game is already quite lethal, and having 1 person drawing all the fire would make it even more so. That would be the biggest problem I would see…allowing him to survive to shine, without too much obvious hand-holding or roll-fudging.

I would give your player the Kill-Marine advanced specialty for free, regardless of Specialty, and you might need to flesh out a couple permanent Kill-Team NPCs to round it out. Hell, I might give him Web of Peers for free too! Focus a bit more on tactics than actual combat, or make him a crusade liaison. Might also help to start at a bit of a higher Rank.

The Dark Reign site has a fairly active Actual Play section for forum games and there is an unofficial skype group from which players can also be recruited.

darkreign40k.com/drjoomla/forum/index.php

I haven't run any solo player games myself but some thoughts:

1. If the character is going solo as a killmarine, feel free to give him boosts. Generous stat rolling tactics like 3D10, drop the lowest for each attribute. In a great crusade era game I was in, the marines all received the killmarine speciality for free and later received a relevant speciality for free to keep them on some sort of keel with the rogue trader characters.

2. If the character is likely to be with a killteam, then make a killteam whether of PCs, NPCs or both! Or alliances with mortals. Passage on a rogue trader vessel or working with the Ecclesiarchy.

3. Be prepared for a lot of conversations with yourself. The NPCs will logically have to talk with each other, unless the PC only ever speaks to one at a time.

4. Scale encounters down, and then up. Don't overwhelm the PC and don't forget that one marine is *not* the equal of a killteam in killing or staying power.

Thank you both for replying, Decessor and Kshatriya!

I hadn't thought of recruiting anyone else; it depends on how my mate feels. The general idea was partly getting used to Roll20 and partly just to have something to do together.

That said, it's worth a thought… I think my mate's beenhanging around on RPGnet longer than me!

Anyway, thanks for the recommendation of Dark Reign, Decessor; I'll go check it out. I might even wind up playing in someone else's game! I'm looking forward to being able to play a Storm Warden…

Good points also on the power levels and the Kill-Marine feat. I wanna do some brainstorming with him before anything else, get an idea of what cool toys he'd like to play with, the sorts of villains I could make that he'd love to hate. Soon as I suggested Deathwatch, he talked about getting the Rites of Battle supplement so he could create a Marine from the Iron Hands Chapter (he doesn't even have the core rulebook).

Iron Hands are in First Founding, not Rites of Battle. Imperial Fists are in Rites of Battle.

Captain Ventris said:

And their rules are hoooooooorible.

Question: What stops you from rolling a character? My group plays several RPGs and the main GM always has a character of his/her own and it is never sort of an NPC its a full-fledged PC.

The advanced specialties are mostly in Rites of Battle (those more tied into the Deathwatch structure) and First Founding (those more tied to their home chapters). There are no especial specialities for Iron Hands or Imperial Fists but the Deathwatch ones cover a lot of bases. First Founding adds on extra oaths and solo and squad mode abilities for five of the first founding chapters (including Imperial Fists) but oddly enough no extra ones for Iron Hands or the other three covered in FF. What I've allowed in my own campaign is that any player with a character who hasn't gotten extra abilities from FF can suggest an extra solo. squad attack and squad defense mode from those in Rites of Battle and I'll give those to them *if* they are appropriate. One big advantage of a solo game is that you don't have to worry about balancing between PCs because you can simply allow the one PC to become as superb as plot allows and makes for fun.

Jaaniv's suggestion of GMPCs is a double edged sword. Some people have very good experiences with GMPCs (a GM playing in the same manner as a PC while still running the game). I am very dubious about the idea myself for a few reasons:

1. Running a GMPC involves a lot more work and effort to do properly than even a complex NPC. There will be a tradeoff between time spent on running the game and running a GMPC and one or both will likely suffer for it.

2. The division between player and character knowledge is one thing, but if the GM is playing then there are no surprises. The GM knows what's around the corner and it is going to be very difficult not to have that knowledge colouring decisions, even subconciously. If nothing else, the utter lack of surprise may well reduce how much you enjoy playing a GMPC.

3. Favouritism. I've seen GMs get *very* attached to their GMPCs. To the point where it reduced the fun for the other players.

Anyway, I'm sure there are solid arguments for GMPCs as well, I'm just giving a heads up on potential issues if you go down that route.

Another thought. Custom relics. I'm writing up a few that will only be available to my players if they earn certain honours or enter certain advanced specialities. Unique sniper weapons for those with the marksman honour, that sort of thing. It might be worth considering.

Jaaniv said:

Hi, Jaaniv,

Partly the reasons Decessor mentions, but mostly because I want my PC's character to be the star, an I want to concentrate on creating NPCs and situations he will enjoy playing with / in. If I'm GM, I wanna concentrate on being what some call the Fifth Business.

Okay! Just throwing it out there. Originally we started having GMPCs because our games, over the years, shifted from combat heavy to roleplay heavy and most interesting roleplaying moments happened between PCs and things got rather boring for the GM on the long run.

I've read about games like that! The players get so good at inventing trouble for each other the GM gets to sit back and be the audience!

We'll see what happens, I guess!

Anyway, it turns out my player actually roped in another player, rendering this thread kind of moot.

Except to ask: Which book is the Kill-Marine Talent in? I couldn't find it in the core book.

Rites of Battle

I've had mixed luck doing one-on-one games I don't really like it but I know what it's like to have trouble finding a group. It depends on the player, but I've had luck in the past giving the player multiple characters, usually a main PC and a few lackies. If you have it, you might want to paw through the rules for followers in First Founding and give him one or two for free. It might not be to unreasonable for a Space Marine to bring along a couple of serfs from his home chapter.

If you scale down encounters and give him adequate minions, you should be ok with just one space marine. You may need to be prepared to have a specialist on hand to help him on missions now and then. It depends on what he makes but you might want to prepare an Apothecary NPC and a Tech-Marine NPC, even if he gets some chapter serfs with medicae/tech-use just because having access to some of those specialist abilities can be crucial depending on the mission. These don't necessarily have to be Deathwatch NPCs either. They could be "weaker" marines from some Chapter that is involved in the area you set your campaign in.

edit: wrote this nice long post and then reread your post haha, oh well. Parts of the game might be rough with just two PCs, so it might still be good to be extra generous with followers for them.