Due to some rather unique circumstances, my wife and I find ourselves in the middle of a four-day weekend, where – other than that one thing we had to do yesterday – we have nothing else going on. Nothing planned, nothing we have to do, and no place we have to go.
Normally we’d take this excuse to take a roadtrip with the dogs, or just relax at home and play video games or watch all manner of movies. But I have a better idea for this particular break:
I’m thinking we might try some duo roleplaying.
Now I’m an old hand at Solo TTRPGs, and my wife and I have done a little duo roleplaying years and years ago when she wanted to play some “Vampire: The Masquerade”, but we didn’t have anyone else to play with, but frankly that was roughly 30+ years ago. Nevertheless, we have the idea down, it’s just a matter of picking a game we both enjoy, and breaking out the dice, books, and characters!
If I had to guess, we’ll be playing something that is easy to play, but has a familiar feel to it. Probably a fantasy game, since it is probably the easiest genre to jump into for most roleplayers (thanks, D&D), but I’d like to try a game that is built with simple rules and engaging play. That points directly at one game:
“EZD6“.
If you aren’t familiar with this fine little TTRPG, rectify that situation post-haste! Seriously, it is one of the best tabletop roleplaying games on the market, and it is painfully overlooked by most people.
Now then, it is entirely possible that my sweetie may want to jump into a game she’s more familiar with, but will be a bit of a pain to play with just the two of us. Examples would be “Vampire”, “Shadowrun”, “Pathfinder”, and so forth. So, what should I do if she’s in the hankerin’ for one of those games?
Well, first I’ll suggest we play something else, that is perhaps a bit more modern in design, and easier for a couple to play. Maybe “Urban Shadows 1st Edition” (focusing on individuals rather than the city itself), “The Sprawl” (with the excellent supplement “Sprawl in the Shadows” to give it that SR flair), or, well… “EZD6”, to replace “Pathfinder”. We can get the same overall feel, with simpler, and frankly better games.
But My Lovely Bride™ has been known to be a bit set in her ways from time to time, so if it means we have to break out the old “World of Darkness”, “Shadowrun”, or even my “Feng Shui” books (she has excellent taste in TTRPGs), then so be it. Sure, the mechanics aren’t exactly up to more modern standards, but they are still fun games. Especially if we’re talking about short one-shots, which is likely what we’d be doing.
So how will we be handling the game adjudication? Will one of us be the Game Master, with the other playing? That could work, but I think we’d have more fun being players as a team. This is where my experience with Solo Roleplaying comes in…
My plan is to break out the Oracles I have, especially my “GameMaster’s Apprentice” storytelling cards which match whatever genre we’re playing in. I have every GMA deck on the market so far, so unless she wants to play some ‘Wild West’ game (which I currently don’t have, at least not in print), we’ll be covered.
Anyway, I hope we get in at least a short adventure this weekend. We’ve been talking about getting back into roleplaying together for a while, but like with writing my TTRPGs, something always comes up to distract us. I’m hoping that this weekend we can make the time, even if it is just a quick dungeon crawl.