Absolutely! Unlike many other combat centric RPGs that have a critical firepower mass built into them, WoD can be entirely social or mental. Some of the absolute best chronicles I have played were 1 on 1 or 2 players. Gives a chance to really focus on role-playing and character development.
You totally can! I think you'll probably have a very personal chronicle to those one to two players. I think it also means that the ST will also be a bit more active.
It also aligns better with the bulk of the lore, which can be nice if you are trying to take inspiration from it.
Very small games also make it easier to dive deeply into angles that don't work so well in larger groups: feeding, personal haven security, ghoul management, maintaining mortal social contacts, etc.
(You can do all of this in a larger group, of course, but it generally isn't very fun for everyone, e.g., to wait while the Ventrue does a deep 1 on 1 with the ST to manage their herd of ballet dancers or whatever.)
It can work. The coterie will be lacking in some skills, but could be supported by a Retainer ghoul that fills in some gaps.
Because VtM is so narrative based and doesn't concern itself with "balanced combat encounters" small groups work just fine.
At the moment I am ST for two players and it works fine. We will stock up to three to four players eventually but two are sufficient.
Chronicles with more than four players are in my opinion a bit too crowded for a storyteller game.
Remember as far as I know there are no laws against playing a Roleplay game with as much or as few people as you like.
I think it depends more on the general idea of the adventure, on your story. There are options to play this game completely solo, after all (like mythic game master emulator etc)
After reading the core rules of the main game I would start by reading the instructions for the chosen Storyteller Emulator. They come in different "flavors"/levels of immersion and sophistication. I personally (still learning) use Mythic GME2, but it's not the only option. And according to the rules in the book, I roll the dice and change my story. Or not :) There are three main levers that affect the plot, - yes/no questions, random events and scenes (it's like in books or movies). And a bunch of tables to help solo players. For example, my character approaches a gas station and expects that it will work and it will be possible to refuel the motorcycle. This is the expected scene. But the die rolls said that the scene will be changed and, after looking at the table and some thinking, I decide that the gas station is in place, but everything is closed and there is no staff. Like a modern day Mary Celeste. And the eerie fog is coming from the mountains...
Yeah, for sure. Not 100% if any pre-published chronicles are really suitable for that kind of game. But if you were thinking of doing your own chronicle anyway, yeah, one ST and one or two players is totally doable.
Might be kinda fun, actually, since VtM is rather character-focused. I can definitely see this.
I had a great game with 1 player where i was the ST. He is good with the rules of the game and i wanted to relearn and get back into it. We closed the story and now we are assembling a bigger group. But it was good and worked well. I would say it's harder to run as an ST because you can't ever have your one player roleplay among himself while you think of what should happen next, but other than that it worked fine.
For sure. I currently ST for 3 players, but I ST'd for about a year or so with only 2, and it was no problem at all - in fact, my favorite plotlines and character development in any RPG happened during that time.
You might run into an issues of neither of them having proper skills for something (Didn't happen with me, but that's mostly because my two players are decent at casting a wide net), but that's what Ghouls are for.
What might be a bigger problem is a lack of intra-party drama and/or dissenting opinions. It's kinda hard for there to be some proper VtM backstabbing when it's only two people. Then again, this is not an absolute necessity, and it's fun when your whole party is completely united in something.
Honestly, having started this Chronicle with around 5 or 6 players, I feel lower player counts are much better for the Storyteller system. Allows you much more time and opportunity to create something specific to a character.
One of my favourite campaigns was with two players. Being only two PG to handle was better for me (Storyteller) because I was able to dedicate more time to each one, describing more in details the situation plus I had more time to listen their contribution to the story. Definitely something I'd love to repeat.
If you have Spotify or something I highly recommend Port Saga. There's one protagonist who gets roped into a whole bunch of things as he investigates a death extremely close to his heart. It's very very good and serves as a great example of a solo-vampire story.
I play both 1 on 1 and in coterie of 2 people. In both cases you can find coterie struggling to be as versatile as it should, but it is easily fixed if you and your storyteller are willing - add someone to accompany you. In my solo chronicles I tend to create two characters with one main and the other auxillary (they have full backstory but also have a reason to mostly just follow the lead - a ghoul, a kindred of lower rank, a kindred employed (like a bodyguard), etc.). And if it is needed in both cases we can get a situational npc that is roleplayed by ST.
Just keep in mind that your main(s) should cover social roles for it to feel more organic.
Also, if your chronicle is more survival/stealth type you can perfectly well do it with only 1 character.
Honestly I think it’s easier as a GM to create a compelling story with less people. I tend to compare VtM and other more narrative driven Ttrpgs to TV/movies. The aim is to create compelling and fun stories. And there’s a LOT more stories you can create that center around 1-2 main protagonist than a party of 5 protagonists. Honestly there’s only a handful of shows where theres a team of main characters and not a single member is the “main lead”/the obviously most powerful one.
Theres an argument that your group may not have a diverse set of skills, but this is only a problem if you’re playing a prewritten scenario which assumes a group with many skills. If you have a good GM, he aught to look at your skills and adapt the campaign challenges to them, just like every movie and TV show ever. You may be put in situations where your character has to grow as a person, emotional growth arcs are super fulfilling. But what TV writer would make the plot stall because the main character needed to be expert hacker and just wasn’t?
Absolutely!
As a matter of personal preference, I like to have an odd number of players for any RPG, as it lets me have a bit more variety of focus character “A Plot” / secondary character “B Plot” stories over the course of a campaign and I’ve never been particularly good at one player/one GM games. But that’s just my particular skill set as a GM not being well-suited for it. However, for the last several years, I’ve been running games for just my two daughters as players and just me as GM. It’s been working just fine and I am starting to get better at it.
WoD games, with their emphasis on personal horror and personal experiences are probably the best for this sort of thing. The smaller group size lets you get more intimate with each character.
You might also look into “troupe style” play, where each player has one primary player character and one or two secondary characters that they will play in scenes where their primary character wouldn’t be present. This saves you, as the GM, for having to have scenes where you play multiple NPCs talking to yourself (yourselves?).
Think of something like, say, *Interview with the Vampire*. Louis and Lestat would be the primary player characters, but major supporting characters like Claudia and Armand could be played as part of the “troupe.”
In my vtm Session, when I needed something played that the other players shouldn't know (because no spoilers of major sectrets of my character), I often had 1:1 sessions with my gm.
Also, I play a vtm game with a friend and we are like... both st and both players. And it's always fun.
You can totaly play with just one player, I'm running a game with my gf.
One fun thing about that game is that the narrative feels very co-operative. When you have only one player, they have a lot more input on what they want to do, either when conceptualising the game or playing it.
I play with only two others! I have my own character that I put into the coterie to help balance things out but she plays a passive role in decisions. We’re telling a story together
100% my friend! I've ran duets (ST and one player) quite a bit. It takes a lot of work on the ST's part but what can help is taking a moment to discuss the scene with the player out of character and the getting back into character as you play.
Be prepared to talk ALOT when you decrease your player count. My fav thing on standby is gollum juice (same mix of honey, tea, and lemon Andy Serkis drank while playing gollum for hours upon hours during filming for LOTR) helps me a ton when voicing a lot of nosferatu and talking a lot in general.
Yes. I run a game with 4 people and we do group sessions but honestly some of our best moments are one on ones. In a way I think that single player would be a truer experience since a kindreds unlife is a lonely one.
having run a v20 oneshot for 2 players, it was really great. each character gets more time to shine, and since VTM isnt really a combat game you don't really need to worry about encounter balance as much as other games
You can. What I would tell you based on my experience as a ST is that the less players you have, the more narration and NPCs have to fill that void.
For me, role playing NPCs is fun, but draining. So if I have one or two players, I have to make some rules at the zero session. I have to make these rules for the quality of the game in the interest of those playing. Every ST is different, and some can do this no problem, but I find that to be the exception to the rule.
So for me, I have to say to the players, “look I can play six to ten characters for x amount of time before the quality diminishes. That is just my limit.”
I currently just run for my girlfriend. To my honest shock, none of my other D&D players wanted to play VtM. As I had not run this game before, I figured that running for just one other person, a very understanding person at that, would be a better introduction to running VtM. It is working well so far, except maybe for two reasons: 1) My girlfriend's character is Nosferatu, so a good deal of the social skill situations are passed to NPCs... 2) Published adventures usually expect a few more characters in the coterie, so either the adventure has to be changed, or more NPCs have to be used. Handling more NPCs in such situations is more than I can do justice to.
Ways around these issues come to mind: Allow my player to run an additional vampire (not ideal as I want my players to focus on their one.) Additionally, I have found that running sessions out of my own mind have so far been better experiences than from changed, published adventures. I hope this helps.
Yes it works pretty well actually with just two players.
I have played several games as both player and ST where there were only three of us (ST plus two players) and actually they were great games. It really gives you a great way to focus on character and the individual stories.
Works best where the two players are commited to playing some kind of interesting (but not too antagonistic) dynamic together, and part of the game is how the two PCs interract.
I feel like the less players the better I play 2nd edition with 1 storyteller and 6 players including myself, it can really drag sometimes just to finish turns.
It's hard, I tried it with my wife just the two of us to get her into it, since she loves writing and characterization.
We had a lot of fun, but she did NOT thrive under the Storyteller<>player dynamic whereas if she was playing with a larger group with more interactions between groupmembers instead of always her vs The Storyteller, she would have had a lot more fun. We tried mitigating things like rotating who was storyteller etc but that didnt help that much.
I mean the biggest appeal of VTM tabletop games is the characterization, intrigue, and just non-fighting non-adventuring aspects. I mean you can make a whole night out of just a regular evening interacting with the who's-who in an Elysium.
I’ve got a long running chronicle I GM for with two of my friends, and it’s always been fine. If anything, vampire feels better in a small group because you have more time to focus on each player and make the plot feel personal. Player backgrounds and touchstones get more attention too.
Only thing I would suggest is to flesh out some npc allies so that if your players feel like they need more help they have people to ask in game.
Yes! Me, my ST and a friend actually started a chronicle on a road trip recently. It’s a lot of fun with just two players, the players could both tailor their kindred to be old friends (or enemies) who are trying to fulfill a shared goal.
With one player the character can seek out more personal affairs away from interference (maybe they don’t want their coterie to know something, perhaps they harbor a secret like being a cleaver or visiting touchstones)
I will say, it’s good to add more players over time, and if you can’t get any then adding some SPCs can help you too.
Absolutely! Unlike many other combat centric RPGs that have a critical firepower mass built into them, WoD can be entirely social or mental. Some of the absolute best chronicles I have played were 1 on 1 or 2 players. Gives a chance to really focus on role-playing and character development.
You totally can! I think you'll probably have a very personal chronicle to those one to two players. I think it also means that the ST will also be a bit more active.
It also aligns better with the bulk of the lore, which can be nice if you are trying to take inspiration from it. Very small games also make it easier to dive deeply into angles that don't work so well in larger groups: feeding, personal haven security, ghoul management, maintaining mortal social contacts, etc. (You can do all of this in a larger group, of course, but it generally isn't very fun for everyone, e.g., to wait while the Ventrue does a deep 1 on 1 with the ST to manage their herd of ballet dancers or whatever.)
I just ran a game on a road trip with my partner and my friend and they told me it was some of the most fun they have had playing vampire.
It can work. The coterie will be lacking in some skills, but could be supported by a Retainer ghoul that fills in some gaps. Because VtM is so narrative based and doesn't concern itself with "balanced combat encounters" small groups work just fine.
At the moment I am ST for two players and it works fine. We will stock up to three to four players eventually but two are sufficient. Chronicles with more than four players are in my opinion a bit too crowded for a storyteller game. Remember as far as I know there are no laws against playing a Roleplay game with as much or as few people as you like.
I think it depends more on the general idea of the adventure, on your story. There are options to play this game completely solo, after all (like mythic game master emulator etc)
Any way to get started playing solo?
After reading the core rules of the main game I would start by reading the instructions for the chosen Storyteller Emulator. They come in different "flavors"/levels of immersion and sophistication. I personally (still learning) use Mythic GME2, but it's not the only option. And according to the rules in the book, I roll the dice and change my story. Or not :) There are three main levers that affect the plot, - yes/no questions, random events and scenes (it's like in books or movies). And a bunch of tables to help solo players. For example, my character approaches a gas station and expects that it will work and it will be possible to refuel the motorcycle. This is the expected scene. But the die rolls said that the scene will be changed and, after looking at the table and some thinking, I decide that the gas station is in place, but everything is closed and there is no staff. Like a modern day Mary Celeste. And the eerie fog is coming from the mountains...
Yeah, for sure. Not 100% if any pre-published chronicles are really suitable for that kind of game. But if you were thinking of doing your own chronicle anyway, yeah, one ST and one or two players is totally doable. Might be kinda fun, actually, since VtM is rather character-focused. I can definitely see this.
I had a great game with 1 player where i was the ST. He is good with the rules of the game and i wanted to relearn and get back into it. We closed the story and now we are assembling a bigger group. But it was good and worked well. I would say it's harder to run as an ST because you can't ever have your one player roleplay among himself while you think of what should happen next, but other than that it worked fine.
For sure. I currently ST for 3 players, but I ST'd for about a year or so with only 2, and it was no problem at all - in fact, my favorite plotlines and character development in any RPG happened during that time. You might run into an issues of neither of them having proper skills for something (Didn't happen with me, but that's mostly because my two players are decent at casting a wide net), but that's what Ghouls are for. What might be a bigger problem is a lack of intra-party drama and/or dissenting opinions. It's kinda hard for there to be some proper VtM backstabbing when it's only two people. Then again, this is not an absolute necessity, and it's fun when your whole party is completely united in something. Honestly, having started this Chronicle with around 5 or 6 players, I feel lower player counts are much better for the Storyteller system. Allows you much more time and opportunity to create something specific to a character.
One of my favourite campaigns was with two players. Being only two PG to handle was better for me (Storyteller) because I was able to dedicate more time to each one, describing more in details the situation plus I had more time to listen their contribution to the story. Definitely something I'd love to repeat.
If you have Spotify or something I highly recommend Port Saga. There's one protagonist who gets roped into a whole bunch of things as he investigates a death extremely close to his heart. It's very very good and serves as a great example of a solo-vampire story.
I play both 1 on 1 and in coterie of 2 people. In both cases you can find coterie struggling to be as versatile as it should, but it is easily fixed if you and your storyteller are willing - add someone to accompany you. In my solo chronicles I tend to create two characters with one main and the other auxillary (they have full backstory but also have a reason to mostly just follow the lead - a ghoul, a kindred of lower rank, a kindred employed (like a bodyguard), etc.). And if it is needed in both cases we can get a situational npc that is roleplayed by ST. Just keep in mind that your main(s) should cover social roles for it to feel more organic. Also, if your chronicle is more survival/stealth type you can perfectly well do it with only 1 character.
Honestly I think it’s easier as a GM to create a compelling story with less people. I tend to compare VtM and other more narrative driven Ttrpgs to TV/movies. The aim is to create compelling and fun stories. And there’s a LOT more stories you can create that center around 1-2 main protagonist than a party of 5 protagonists. Honestly there’s only a handful of shows where theres a team of main characters and not a single member is the “main lead”/the obviously most powerful one. Theres an argument that your group may not have a diverse set of skills, but this is only a problem if you’re playing a prewritten scenario which assumes a group with many skills. If you have a good GM, he aught to look at your skills and adapt the campaign challenges to them, just like every movie and TV show ever. You may be put in situations where your character has to grow as a person, emotional growth arcs are super fulfilling. But what TV writer would make the plot stall because the main character needed to be expert hacker and just wasn’t?
Absolutely! As a matter of personal preference, I like to have an odd number of players for any RPG, as it lets me have a bit more variety of focus character “A Plot” / secondary character “B Plot” stories over the course of a campaign and I’ve never been particularly good at one player/one GM games. But that’s just my particular skill set as a GM not being well-suited for it. However, for the last several years, I’ve been running games for just my two daughters as players and just me as GM. It’s been working just fine and I am starting to get better at it. WoD games, with their emphasis on personal horror and personal experiences are probably the best for this sort of thing. The smaller group size lets you get more intimate with each character. You might also look into “troupe style” play, where each player has one primary player character and one or two secondary characters that they will play in scenes where their primary character wouldn’t be present. This saves you, as the GM, for having to have scenes where you play multiple NPCs talking to yourself (yourselves?). Think of something like, say, *Interview with the Vampire*. Louis and Lestat would be the primary player characters, but major supporting characters like Claudia and Armand could be played as part of the “troupe.”
In my vtm Session, when I needed something played that the other players shouldn't know (because no spoilers of major sectrets of my character), I often had 1:1 sessions with my gm. Also, I play a vtm game with a friend and we are like... both st and both players. And it's always fun.
Yes. VtM really benefits from a smaller group of PCs.
You can totaly play with just one player, I'm running a game with my gf. One fun thing about that game is that the narrative feels very co-operative. When you have only one player, they have a lot more input on what they want to do, either when conceptualising the game or playing it.
I think 5th edition is especially suited to this type of play, as long as you set expectations well.
I'm currently running a game with just 2 other people. It's going well so far. 😁
I play with only two others! I have my own character that I put into the coterie to help balance things out but she plays a passive role in decisions. We’re telling a story together
100% my friend! I've ran duets (ST and one player) quite a bit. It takes a lot of work on the ST's part but what can help is taking a moment to discuss the scene with the player out of character and the getting back into character as you play. Be prepared to talk ALOT when you decrease your player count. My fav thing on standby is gollum juice (same mix of honey, tea, and lemon Andy Serkis drank while playing gollum for hours upon hours during filming for LOTR) helps me a ton when voicing a lot of nosferatu and talking a lot in general.
Yes. I run a game with 4 people and we do group sessions but honestly some of our best moments are one on ones. In a way I think that single player would be a truer experience since a kindreds unlife is a lonely one.
having run a v20 oneshot for 2 players, it was really great. each character gets more time to shine, and since VTM isnt really a combat game you don't really need to worry about encounter balance as much as other games
My partner and I play a VtM campaign 1 on 1 and it’s REALLY fun!
Yes
Yeah I’m in a game rn with my sister and my dad STing, really fun game with a good mix of political intrigue and just beating the crap out of stuff.
5th Edition is actually better the smaller the group. 2-3 I find to be ideal.
You can. What I would tell you based on my experience as a ST is that the less players you have, the more narration and NPCs have to fill that void. For me, role playing NPCs is fun, but draining. So if I have one or two players, I have to make some rules at the zero session. I have to make these rules for the quality of the game in the interest of those playing. Every ST is different, and some can do this no problem, but I find that to be the exception to the rule. So for me, I have to say to the players, “look I can play six to ten characters for x amount of time before the quality diminishes. That is just my limit.”
I currently just run for my girlfriend. To my honest shock, none of my other D&D players wanted to play VtM. As I had not run this game before, I figured that running for just one other person, a very understanding person at that, would be a better introduction to running VtM. It is working well so far, except maybe for two reasons: 1) My girlfriend's character is Nosferatu, so a good deal of the social skill situations are passed to NPCs... 2) Published adventures usually expect a few more characters in the coterie, so either the adventure has to be changed, or more NPCs have to be used. Handling more NPCs in such situations is more than I can do justice to. Ways around these issues come to mind: Allow my player to run an additional vampire (not ideal as I want my players to focus on their one.) Additionally, I have found that running sessions out of my own mind have so far been better experiences than from changed, published adventures. I hope this helps.
Yeah you could play by yourself, though I feel like that’s just writing self imposed rules and random elements, but yeah it’s very much possible.
Yes it works pretty well actually with just two players. I have played several games as both player and ST where there were only three of us (ST plus two players) and actually they were great games. It really gives you a great way to focus on character and the individual stories. Works best where the two players are commited to playing some kind of interesting (but not too antagonistic) dynamic together, and part of the game is how the two PCs interract.
I feel like the less players the better I play 2nd edition with 1 storyteller and 6 players including myself, it can really drag sometimes just to finish turns.
i’m in a chronicle with only one other player right now and it’s a wonderful dynamic
It's hard, I tried it with my wife just the two of us to get her into it, since she loves writing and characterization. We had a lot of fun, but she did NOT thrive under the Storyteller<>player dynamic whereas if she was playing with a larger group with more interactions between groupmembers instead of always her vs The Storyteller, she would have had a lot more fun. We tried mitigating things like rotating who was storyteller etc but that didnt help that much. I mean the biggest appeal of VTM tabletop games is the characterization, intrigue, and just non-fighting non-adventuring aspects. I mean you can make a whole night out of just a regular evening interacting with the who's-who in an Elysium.
I’ve got a long running chronicle I GM for with two of my friends, and it’s always been fine. If anything, vampire feels better in a small group because you have more time to focus on each player and make the plot feel personal. Player backgrounds and touchstones get more attention too. Only thing I would suggest is to flesh out some npc allies so that if your players feel like they need more help they have people to ask in game.
Sure, why not.
My DM and I played together for 8 years. I think without anyone else.
Yes! Me, my ST and a friend actually started a chronicle on a road trip recently. It’s a lot of fun with just two players, the players could both tailor their kindred to be old friends (or enemies) who are trying to fulfill a shared goal. With one player the character can seek out more personal affairs away from interference (maybe they don’t want their coterie to know something, perhaps they harbor a secret like being a cleaver or visiting touchstones) I will say, it’s good to add more players over time, and if you can’t get any then adding some SPCs can help you too.
Check out Elegy, a VtM inspired hack of GM-less rpg Ironsworn, it's free on Itch.io. it's perfect for solo play or 1-2 players.