Solo player game.

[Guardian_A]

This week, my real-life gaming group had a bit of a falling out. Because of that, two of our three regulars wont be playing with us any more. This leaves one regular player, and four people who are able to join us about half of the time.

Does anyone have any ideas for a campaign that involves one regular player with a few others who would come and go?

So far, I've had two ideas:

1. A thief style character. While he could do a lot of his jobs solo, other characters who could help him on some jobs could come and go without too much trouble.

2. A Secret Agent style character. Much like the theif, he could be able to operate as a solo agent on a lot of missions, but having other agents join him on missions wouldnt seem too out of place.

I'd love to hear any other ideas.

[Raven Redstar]

My wife runs a D6 adventures game for me, solo, where I play a police officer that does battle with supernatural creatures and beings. It takes place in modern day Chicago; we've had numerous "guest stars," various citizens of the area with different areas of expertise: a college student, a nightclub owner, a ballerina, etc...

Anyway, if you have a story taking place in a singular location, it's very easy to have your guest stars come and go as needed. In Star Wars, you could do a local bounty hunter who operates specifically in one city, geographic region, or planet. Their residence is there as is their clientele/marks. Guest players could be folks who know something about the mark, or perhaps the person hiring the hunter under the stipulation that he take them along to make sure the mark gets theirs. Or, perhaps the guest stars are specialists in one area or another: Local Law Enforcement, Local Black Marketeer, Technical specialist or Demolitions specialist (if the target specializes in blowing things up, he may need someone to come in and handle defusing or disposing of a large amount of ordinance.), local businessman, bureaucrat, or really anything that the hunter may have need of the person's skills or connections to fully pursue his mark.

The two ideas you have could work, but if you're running an intergalactic style game, having just who the thief needs available on just the right planet at just the right time could get messy.

Secret agents are easier since they generally report to some sort of authority hierarchy.
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RR
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[Guardian_A]

As for the theif. It would likely be that the other players characters would be individuals who the character knew, therefore he would be able to comm them to assist whenever their players were able to play.

The police officer idea is a good one, as a matter of fact, I'm currently running a Werewolf the Appocalypse game with a friend where he is a Sherriff/Werewolf who is currently involved in a murder/mystery story in the small town he works in. Its obvious that whoever/whatever killed the victum was not human, so now he is in a race against the clock to run down the killer (He knows of about half a dozen other supernatural creatures in the town.) and bring that individual to justice before the FBI arrives to take over the investigation, . . .

There is a chance that the player will be creating a small group of characters for the game (Depends on what we decide to do with the game) where he will create 2-3 primary characters along with a hand full of support character (Something along the lines of a starfighter squadron.) then allow the other players to create one player each. On the weeks that only the one player arrives, he would be able to run most of the squadron himself, on the weeks that one or more of the other players can come, he would run one character, the others would each run one character, and anything left over would become an NPC for that session. It might seem a little confusing, but I've done similar things in the past with good results.

[DB 2.0]

What era are you going for?

Bounty Hunter works for Solos, if s/he's a Rebel Agent on the side (original trilogy era). Guest characters can be Transport (Smugglers, Tramp Freighter Captains ect) other Agents or Bounty Hunters, Meal tickets (Protect this person, who has their own job to do) and such.

A Force Adept, start with 1D in Control or Sense and no lightsaber skills, have him quest for their other Force abilities, Lightsaber training and such, make it like a Old Western where the itinarate gunfighter wanders the west facing down Vuilians and protecting the town folk, homesteaders and natives or a Musha Shugyo (Samurai Warrior Pilgrimage).

[Guardian_A]

The game would most likely be starting in the rebel era.

To be honest, we arent even shure what game system we will be playing for sure. We were within a few sessions of finishing a Pathfinder campaign that had been running about two years when everything hit the fan yesterday. While I'm personally leaning pretty hard towards Star Wars D6, there is a possibility that we will be playing one of several games (All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Alternety, Battletech, Exodus, Pathfinder/D&D 3.5, Star Wars, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, or World of Darkness.) What's left of our gaming group will be getting together at my place later this morning to discuss what happened and decide what to play from this point forward.

[Guardian_A]

Well, I got to talk with the remainder of our gaming group today. It looks like we are going to be playing Star Wars and that we are going to be using at least one character from an earlier campaign. The player who is always able to join will be making use of a force sensitive character that he had played some time back (The game took place right around Episode I on the timeline.) He will be boosting that character fairly significantly since the character has aged a bit since that time (The new game will take place right about Episode IV on the timeline.)

When the game picks up, the former Jedi will be coming out of hiding to help the Rebel Alliance as an opperative. The other players will create characters of a similar skill level who will also work as operatives. All of the characters will be traveling together. On weekends that everyone is able to join, they will be taking on missions as a unit. On the weekends that we are short one or more players, it will be assumed that each character is operating independantly.