Only 1 player help please

[Xplo]

The trickiest thing when there's only one PC is not killing him.

Consider: with a standard adventuring party, if someone injures their leg, and there's no magical healing available, they can perhaps be carried, or the party could set up camp and stay alive by hunting until the injured guy can march again. With a single PC, if he's out in the wilderness, injured, and has no horse or anything to carry him to civilization, he's probably going to die.

Or, in combat: with a standard adventuring party, if one character falls, the rest of the party can fight on, possibly providing cover for the fallen PC. The party can't be defeated except by beating each member, or forcing a surrender. A single PC is easily surrounded by multiple foes, and one hit (killing him, knocking him out, or even crippling him) can spell the end to the campaign.

The player should strongly consider taking an Ally of some kind.. perhaps a faithful, plucky servant, or a combat buddy from a previous war, or something. If he doesn't, you could have a recurring NPC that tends to help out the PC when he appears; perhaps they serve the same cause, but don't always cross paths, or maybe they're friendly rivals!

The PC should probably face intelligent enemies who prefer to rob or capture him rather than kill him; if he's fighting beasts or mindless undead or something, try to set it up so that he's helping a team of NPC monster hunters or something, so that they can help him if he gets in over his head. Avoid making him fight too many enemies alone, unless you give him the chance to ambush them or use some other tactic that makes the fight more fair (to him).

And, of course, there's no reason why everything has to be a straight-up fight, even if he is a fighter. There are lots of problems that can't be solved with a sword, and if he's going to be adventuring alone, he'll need to become a jack of all trades. Make him talk his way out of trouble, or use stealth to avoid large groups of enemies. Involve him in courtly intrigue, or give him murder mysteries to solve. Put him in charge of raising a peasant army, equipping them, training them, leading them into combat, and rebuilding a ruined fortress. Remember, there's a pretty robust skill system, some of the advantages are only useful outside of combat, and character advancement doesn't depend on giving him piles of gold and tons of monsters to kill for XP.

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by Xplo

The player should strongly consider taking an Ally of some kind.. perhaps a faithful, plucky servant, or a combat buddy from a previous war, or something. If he doesn't, you could have a recurring NPC that tends to help out the PC when he appears; perhaps they serve the same cause, but don't always cross paths, or maybe they're friendly rivals!

Even a plucky animal companion (ie relatively cheap Ally) can help in thses cases. A dog might run for help, and lead someone to the injured traveller, a horse could do the same, or drag/carry him. A horse has the added advantage of allowing him to bring along more supplies when he travels.

[Xplo]

As far as monsters go, you can't judge combat ability by point value, but you can compare combat ability. How likely are they to hit each other, and how likely are they to successfully defend? How much damage do they do when they hit? You should be able to get a rough idea how much of a challenge the PC can handle. Try to give him fights that are fairly easy at first; it'll give both of you a chance to get the hang of GURPS combat, and if you make things too easy, you can always create tougher fights later on.

[Captain-Captain]

Originally Posted by Buzzardo

As for advice:

• Pitch the encounters to be lethal only if he acts stupidly or has a series of awful rolls (just one critical failure shouldn't get him killed). edit: Of course, they should be tough enough to be interesting

.

A good normal hit to the viatls can render a character unconscious even if fully healed when hit. And unconscious can equal death in a lot of situations.

Powers offers Hero points as an option to let a pc get out of situations. offer a bunch for starting characters and make it clear the number will be redcued, poosi bly to zero once they get the hang of the system.

[Kazamir]

Well so far I'm loving the advice, and yes I strongly agree that not everything involves a fight... BUT as for when he does fight, because he is a brilliant guy and loves puzzles and such.. but he also longs for combat as well. So I was more of looking for what to do about combat. When I said that I was recently introduced to the rules of GURPS... I meant it more of just introduced to rules of any RPG honestly.. when I said I winged it I really did from start to finish wing it not using any stats or anything, combat was always sketchy but it worked in a weird way. Now that i have read the full Basic Set book (part 1 and 2) for 4th ed. and also now have a bunch of other books such as dungeon fantasy books I'm learning more and more but most examples I've seen are for a party where as I only have 1 party member. Since this was the 1st game I planned on using stats and rules with I wanted to fully transfer to GURPS because it seems so much better than what I was doing lol. He was asking if he could pick up a healing spell or something like that, or a hireling that could possibly heal, but very weak so he would have to protect said hireling. Part of me wants to say sure why not because you might need it, but the rest of me says no because I'm not sure if that is ok or not, well anyways thanks for the advice on everything so far, I really love hearing from experienced GMs and would love to hear more, so keep it coming.. I appreciate all of it :D

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by Kazamir

Well so far I'm loving the advice, and yes I strongly agree that not everything involves a fight... BUT as for when he does fight, because he is a brilliant guy and loves puzzles and such.. but he also longs for combat as well. So I was more of looking for what to do about combat. When I said that I was recently introduced to the rules of GURPS... I meant it more of just introduced to rules of any RPG honestly.. when I said I winged it I really did from start to finish wing it not using any stats or anything, combat was always sketchy but it worked in a weird way. Now that i have read the full Basic Set book (part 1 and 2) for 4th ed. and also now have a bunch of other books such as dungeon fantasy books I'm learning more and more but most examples I've seen are for a party where as I only have 1 party member. Since this was the 1st game I planned on using stats and rules with I wanted to fully transfer to GURPS because it seems so much better than what I was doing lol. He was asking if he could pick up a healing spell or something like that, or a hireling that could possibly heal, but very weak so he would have to protect said hireling. Part of me wants to say sure why not because you might need it, but the rest of me says no because I'm not sure if that is ok or not, well anyways thanks for the advice on everything so far, I really love hearing from experienced GMs and would love to hear more, so keep it coming.. I appreciate all of it :D

A hireling that can heal is fine. Or him picking up a healing spell is also fine...this is GURPS and you can do mostly anything thing. The catch is that is all costs points. And you said he is a 150pt character? It is going to costs some points for him to be able to cast that healing spell. And you've only given him 150pts? Maybe give him 200pts? That could let him get some Magery and healing. Perhaps he was a priest but quit the order? Or maybe he's a Paladin type? What is his character concept and background anyway?

One of the strengths of GURPS is that it isn't a class system, that means the characters can be complex and multifaceted. They can be fighters who dabble in Magery. They can also sneak around a bit...they can be really good at dancing. The point ceiling and concept are your limits!

If you are worried about the enemies you are putting him up against, here is some more concrete advice-

Make a fighter, who has the exact same stats as the PC then subtract 1 to everything. Then have you and the player do some practice arena fights. It will let both of you get a feeling for combat before you actually get into the game, in a consequence free zone, as it were. Then you could throw a couple different combat situations in there. Try 3 really weak (compared to him) kobolds. Try 1 really tough (compared to him) monster.

Also, Dungeon Fantasy is geared towards 250pt PCs. If you are feeling a bit more 150pts...also give a look to Banestorm. That defaults to 150, is a really neat setting, and will give you more templates and monsters and what not that might fit better into your vision.

[Kazamir]

Well right now I'm allowing him to be 200 points, considering 250 though, and as for the arena advice for practice i'm going to do that it sounds like a great idea. I'm leaning more towards the hireling or like someone who is forever in debt to him or something like that, with healing spells. That way he can have a little interaction, have someone to save the day if it hits the fan or lol.... to cause him trouble at "convenient" moments lol. He can get healing spells if he wants too but I feel like I'm going to give him a hireling.

[Kazamir]

Also just to mention this, I have a program called GCM (GURPS character maker) and it is just AWFUL... (at least I find it to be) we were making characters to see and got everything we could need for only 125 points... and I mean everything we could possibly find in it. It was depressing. Sooo now I'm going by hand (pencil and paper) using the Basic Set book for all of the stats, I would love to go and buy GURPS character assistant, I've heard great things of it. As for that though I can't afford to buy it lol. So yeah just thought I'd mention that we are using everything by hand haha.

[trooper6]

Have you tried GURPS Character Sheet? It is platform independent and free.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gcs-java/files/

I quite like it.

[vicky_molokh]

Maybe this e23 thingie will be useful to you in your 1-player gaming:
http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=XRP6200