Yesterday, something wonderful happened to me. I’m just sharing it here, with no particular points beside the conclusion at the bottom of this post. I’ll have to start this story at the beginning.

My girlfriend didn’t know anything about RPGs when she met me. She was curious and interested when she heard about it, but not inclined to play with me and my friends. She was sure she’d feel very tense and uncomfortable gaming with us, because it were my friends, because she’s eight years younger than me, because me and my friends have much better education than her and come from “higher” social backgrounds. Because she thinks she’s not very creative and the stories she likes to imagine are childish.

She told me this matter-of-factly, and I didn’t challenge it, but understood and respected that she felt that way.

When my girlfriend got into role-playing, it was with some new friends of hers. It was, of all games, “Das Schwarze Auge”, though heavily altered by the GM. The details don’t matter, suffice to say that she liked it and told me everything about it. I would have found it boring and frustrating.

As she played in other games, which she didn’t like, and I explained to her why I thought that was so, she got more interested in my insights gained by theory. I also told her about the funky games I was reading and writing and playing. When a friend of hers dropped by for a visit, we had a brief game of DitV. We also agreed to put together a game of TSoY with some of her friends, which hasn’t happened yet.

Then yesterday we went to play paintball for the first time, and came back exhausted and bruised (my girlfriend also suffered a medium panic attack during one of the games, after which she quit). We had a warm shower and got into relaxing mode when my girlfriend, much to my surprise, asked me if I’d like to play one of my funky RPGs with her, just the two of us. What a question!

We went out for dinner and talked, among other things, about co-authored gaming and several Forge-style RPGs. She said something about her DSA game to the effect that she really liked to watch the GM unfold his story, as long as she didn’t start to think about what she’d like to contribute to the story, and how easy it would be to just open her mouth and say so if only it wasn’t for the rule of “play your character, period”. She also was afraid that the her contributions would be weak and not be appreciated, and I explained to her how good rules can make it a lot easier to contribute interesting stuff.

I proposed to play Breaking the Ice, she was more interested in Sorcerer, but I wasn’t finished reading that. Finally, we agreed on PtA (me being Producer). Only later did it occur to me that Fan Mail doesn’t work with one player. But well. I proposed that she just take a Fan Mail out of the Audience Pool when something cool happens, but she’d rather that I award the Fan Mail, so we did that.

I explained the game to her in no time, using examples from the shows we like, especially Ally McBeal which we are currently watching on DVD. She liked the Pitch and we tossed about a few ideas for a show featuring one Protagonist, until we came up with “Further News”, a story about a TV journalist who is struggling to live up to his father’s expectations, the father being an award-winning journalist and best seller author, while the son would rather be just another working joe at an office, and not risk his butt on the Hindukush. Some women trouble was added on top.

We did 2/3 Edges and Connections because that seemed to fit well with only one Protagonist. My girlfriend enjoyed casting all the characters in the show with real actors. She chose from a range of German and American TV and movie stars. Then we started play. I was rather tired and not in the most creative mood, but she told me that she felt comfortable to play with me right now but wasn’t sure if she’d remain that way. So we did the pilot episode there and then.

The narration we did was rather brief, and she did not want to act out any dialogue in character, but the story created was fair enough (nothing special, but solid issues and conflicts). Notably, she had absolutely no trouble adapting to the broadness of edges or the concepts of conflict resolution, scene framing and player narration.

The game didn’t rock that hard on fictional content, but it really confirmed the deepening of trust and comfort in our relationship, which is something awesome and beautiful for role-playing to do.

- Frank

Frank,

That's just awesome.  I'm so glad the two of you got to do this and that it was a success.  My girlfriend and I just played our first one-on-one game recently (Trollbabe) and plan on playing Breaking the Ice sometime soon.  We've been really looking forward to Breaking the Ice and, from time to time, come up with neat characters we'd like to try out.

Anyhow, she really likes PtA and, while I'd love to run her through a few games, I didn't really realize it could work with just two players.  Did you find it to be difficult or unwieldy?  Did your fanmail modification work well?  Did you find the game promoted or hindered two-participant play?

Do you intend on continuing to play and, if so, do you anticipate any problems running non-spotlight episodes or continuing to achieve satifsying play without contributions from other players?

Regards,
Daniel

Well, our solution to the Fan Mail problem did fix it regarding the pool dynamics and resource ballance, but took much of the social kick out of it. The rest of the game worked just fine one-on-one.

- Frank

Sorry, forgot to answer half the questions. I don't know yet if we'll continue the game. I would like to, when my girlfriend finds herself in that mood again. I don't think there will be a problem with none-spotlight episodes. They'll just be more plot-heavy, that's all. Like, our hero and his camera woman get taken hostages by Columbian rebels. That kind of thing.

- Frank

I don't know yet if we'll continue the game. I would like to, when my girlfriend finds herself in that mood again

Frank wrote:
She said something about her DSA game to the effect that she really liked to watch the GM unfold his story, as long as she didn’t start to think about what she’d like to contribute to the story, and how easy it would be to just open her mouth and say so if only it wasn’t for the rule of “play your character, period”. She also was afraid that the her contributions would be weak and not be appreciated, and I explained to her how good rules can make it a lot easier to contribute interesting stuff.