I think a while back here I mentioned that I was going to run a one person + one DM campaign with my brother that was inspired by the Ace Attorney and Professor Layton games and focused on urban intrigue. After four months of playing online via Roll 20, we finally wrapped it up!
My bro was playing as Lester LeFoe (on the left), an Inquisitive (Rogue subclass, using the rules in Xanathar's Guide to Everything) and I was playing as Claudia Copperhoof (on the right), a Mastermind (also a Rogue subclass). Both of the characters were private detectives trying to investigate an assassination attempt on their king and I intentionally patterned them after Phoenix Wright and Maya Fey, though they quickly developed their own personalities over the course of the adventure. The city they explored was a setting that my brother had created for a self-published fantasy novel entitled The Thirteenth Hour, and the reason that I chose to set the campaign in a world of his own creation is because my bro's relatively new at D&D and we had a limited amount of time each week to play - only about one to two hours. When you're working with a single player whose time is valuable, IMO it's a good idea to give them a campaign set in a universe that they already understand in order to quickly create familiarity. Keeping that in mind, I also started the adventure at level 3 to give my bro instant access to the detective abilities that the Inquisitive gets at that level, as well as to avoid some of the high potential for death that fills levels 1-2. Overall, the campaign was heavy on role-playing and perfect for just one person.
I wrote up some more thoughts on how I planned out the whole thing and some strategies I formulated for DMing for one person
on my blog if anyone's interested. I also filmed all of our Roll 20 sessions and
stuck 'em on YouTube!
Here's some more materials I made to supplement the adventure and some screenshots... The little character figurines were created via
HeroForge.
Investigating a crime scene...
Battling a teleporting crocodile in the sewers (I was somewhat inspired by the teleporting crocs in Divinity: Original Sin II, haha)
Befriending a secret society of thieves lurking under the city...
The final battle of the campaign, which took place in the town square! A poison gas bomb was released into a crowd of nobles, paralyzing them, and our characters had to dodge in and out of their ranks and shoot crossbow bolts at the enemy. The grey squiggles represent smoke from a smokescreen bolt. It got chaotic but in a fun way - as you can see on the left I simplified Initiative by having all the "enemies" and "allies" go at once.
Anyway, I've got a sequel in mind that I'm going to start planning soon!
