Can I play Star Wars Edge of the empire with only 2 players?

By kendless, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

Hi there guys,

I'm a fan of this game and the world behind it. It looks amazing, but I have one big, probably the biggest problem that stops me from buying it. I dont have players to play with. I only have one friend who is willing to play, the rest arent interested in this kind of entertainment.

Can we experience the full game and its world by playing with only two players(GM and PC)?

thanks

Sure, it's doable. It's more fun with more players, but it can be played with one player and GM.

Someone else on this forum was running with one player and a GM! So two must be ok, too.

We played with two when a couple of players were not available just last week. I certainly had fun. We joked about telling the missing players that they were fired because we had fun without them, they were holding us back, just baggage, etc.

I've run some oddball games with only one player in the past, and it CAN work. You may need to have a counterpart NPC from time to time, or they may want to run a second player, but it is entirely doable.

In a D&D game I ran many years ago, we had one full party (8 players) of mostly-good characters, and a side game with only ONE player: an anti-paladin. Every so often, one of our friends would ask to hop in an play a character for an adventure/mission/"episode," and we'd hand them an NPC and tell them to enjoy. It worked out rather well and helped us expand the overall gaming table.

Just remember that one player means they are literally a one-trick pony (at least early on); they have their own capabilities and nothing else. In a Star Wars game, I'd be ready to have them be geared with a droid or two to help around the ship and be ready to play up on NPCs a whole lot more than you'd need in a larger group game.

I can tell you from first hand experience that yes indeed you can. I have been the GM for several sessions with only one player. The way I handle this is I let the one player play 2 PC's and I include two NPC characters in the group. For experienced GM's this isn't too hard to handle but might be a bit daunting if your just learning to GM. In addition the single player needs to have a good bit of knowledge in roleplaying as it can also be a bit of a task to run two PC's instead of just one.

All that being said we have and continue to have a great gaming experience with just the two of us. So the answer is absolutely you can.

I'll add to the chorus, yes absolutely. I play with my son, he runs two characters. Well, more like one character plus a sidekick droid. He's an Explorer/Scout with the Assassin specialty, so fairly well rounded. As long as you tailor the opposition accordingly, you shouldn't have a problem.

Thanks for your help :) , that great. I will purchase it right away ;)

Take a look at the Mythic Game Master Emulator. It is basically a system - neutral emulator for random events. Allows you to be a player character, and then the two of you can create the story together, with a random generator bein in the GMs seat. I've not used it for EOTE, but it handles other systems pretty well (i.e. FATE Core and FATE Accelerated).

It's not optimal, but you could do it.

My wife and I play every now and then. I GM, and play a character partner to her character. I let her make all the decisions and come up with ideas, and my character is there to just provide skill checks. If I feel like she's stuck, I'll use my knowledge as GM to nudge her gently in a direction via my character.

Sure you can! Go for it! 1 player is better than none. Of course, it will have a different form than games with more players, the GM in such a ... group? Such a due, would have to, perhaps, participate more as a player in some cases. I used to do this when I was a kid and only had one friend that I could coerce into playing with me. We had great fun, but of course we were kids and I was basically ruling in our favour when I could. :ph34r: and that was when I actually understood the rules. We had great adventures though, both in Mystara and Middle Earth.

I did it alot back in my DnD days. I would play a super basic NPC with the player playing two characters. I like the above comment that the "2nd" PC is a "sidekick."

It would probably also help to tailor the sessions and story arcs to the skills the PC(s) have. I'm sure there are tons of options that work better with 1-3 "operatives" than a whole gang of folks (e.g., cat burglary, recon/spying/intel gathering, bar bouncer, "delivery boy").

For a little over a year now my 8 year old son and I have been playing D&D 2nd edition and Star Wars Saga.

He plays one PC and I play one or two

We played Edge of the Empire for the first time today. We played 1 PC each (brothers) .

I let him take the lead most of the time and if he made bad decisions or was missing the obvious my character would give his a slap and say "What's wrong with you?". It would help steer him towards the right path and he wouldn't hold a grudge against my character because hey , they're brothers .

I also found EotE ran much more smoothly for us than D&D or Saga.

I run this for my 11yo son. He plays one PC, but I populate his group with other NPCs who he has to react to and react to him. It works great. Here's one session on my blog.

But I've been running the rare one-player session since Star Wars D6. Over 20 years I've learned the hard way that you'd need the player to interact with NPCs that changes the game's status quo in a narrative sense to make it enjoyable. If it's a one-man dungeon crawl, then it'd get old pretty fast.

I've ran one player campaigns before. And they usually work out. It makes the game more intimate and whatnot. Last one PC campaign I ran, I almost made the guy cry, from the storytelling. Plus its a great way to get to learn the game system.

The lesser the number of PCs, the more roleplaying time for GM NPCs.

- We really enjoy 3 PCs and 1 GM.

- 2 PCs and 1 GM is great also because it feels like a "buddy movie" adventure :)

- 1 PC and 1 GM allow you to make a great live adventure, a biopic of the PC, and to incorporate long time NPCs... Think about Indiana Jones... it's always about him and a lady, a fun companion, etc... GM has a lot of time to roleplay.

Good gaming !

Edited by willmanx