Can You Play D&D with 2 Players

Welcome back to the 23rd episode How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and I’m here to help you craft more immersive stories for yourself and your players as you DM a session of D&D 5e.

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So, you are wondering, can you play D&D with 2 players?

Simple answer: Yes.

But how do you make it incredibly fun?

Here’s how.

1. Make sure you create a character as the DM

Playing with just one player is a great opportunity to make your own character as the DM. You’ll have fun being a player and it will give you a great chance to focus on your role-playing skills as well. You just need to make sure that your player is the star and has just as much fun as you do.

1. Make the sessions much looser.

Having one player makes it much easier to follow every single side quest of your player. This means that you can follow every rabbit hole and improvise without worrying about making sure each player gets fair time.

1. Dive deep into the back story

With one player you can work deeply on their backstory. You can spend much more time working with your player on hashing out their character’s quirks and really generating a backstory with twists and turns that your player will enjoy.

1. Don’t focus on long sessions

With just one other player you won’t want to expect extremely long sessions. If you do your job and make the sessions really fun then you’ll have no problem doing long sessions but with two people it might get stale. Be prepared to be flexible with how long you and your player play.

1. Make sure you and your player get along

Because there will be just one other person at the table, you have to make sure that you and that person can get along for hours and hours and hours. Because theoretically, that’s how long you and your player will be playing. So take some time and get to know your player. If it’s an acquaintance, don’t give the expectation of a long campaign. You should also hang out with that individual for some period of time, just to make sure you get along.

1. Spend extra time learning lore

As a DM of only one player, you have the opportunity to delve deeper into the lore of your campaign. This allows you to offer more immersive experiences whenever your player asks you interesting questions about the lore. When you give your player a deeper answer to a question about the lore it will help immerse the player and give them an experience they won’t forget.

1. Make every NPC A Real Character

Because there are only a few real people sitting at the table, every NPC will have to feel like a real person. You’ll have to spend extra effort and energy in making each NPC a true character with quirks, traits, and funny characteristics that are memorable. Spend time giving the NPC’s layers. Doing so will help you and your player feel like you are surrounded by more people.

There you have it. You can play with just two players and here’s how you do it.

Thanks for listening to today’s show. I really appreciate your support and would like to invite you to reach out to me with any ideas you have for the show or just to tell me how your DMing is going. Reach out to me @geronimolevis on Instagram and let’s get the conversation started.

We’ll be back next week for another great episode. Until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

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