Solo Games

My experience with solo games is almost zero. I first encountered solo games when I was playing Vampire at a friend’s house (That was actually when I first met my current girlfriend, but that’s another story). One member of the group was constantly talking about her other character, about her stats, her adventures … yadda, yadda, yadda! Some of the things she mentioned left me wondering what GM would allow one player always to stand in the spotlight. That was until she told us that she played in a solo game with her boyfriend as GM. I don’t know what it was, but I always shunned away from solo games from that day on.

Some years later I used solo sessions after character creation to play out parts of the backstory of the newly-created character. Especially in the World of Darkness games that we played a lot in those years these preludes helped to flesh out the characters and set the mood for the upcoming campaign.

Recently I have been thinking more often about running a solo game with my girlfriend. Why? There are several reasons. At first we don’t play as often as we like, usually because it gets harder to organize gaming sessions because of work, family et cetera. Another reason is that I want to try out some of the RPGs I never played and Verena loves to create characters that never got played. So why not start doing solo games, perhaps even one-shots in order to try out something new? The last reason is that reading Chgowiz’s articles on that topic sound as if solo games are a lot of fun, so why shouldn’t we try it?

What are your thoughts on solo games? Have you ever run a solo game for your wife, friend, sibling? You can share your experiences in the comment section. Thanks!