Are you able to play Dungeons and Dragons with two players? One as a DM!
- By John
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D&D is best played with at least three people. However, it can be great fun to play with just two. It’s a lot more fun to play with two players than three. This creates a more intimate atmosphere between the players and allows for a great time.
This article will help you play D&D with only two players. Here are some great tips and tricks to help you make D&D fun with only two players.
Do You Have to Play D&D With Two People?
You can play D&D even with two players. Two people can play D&D together. One person will be the Dungeon Master, and the other will play as a single-player party. You can play one-on-one right away with the Essentials Kit.

How to play D&D with only two people
There are many options for playing a D&D Duet Game together with two people
- Play 1-on-1. That’s one player against one dungeon master.
- As a two-player, play without a DM.
Playing D&D one-on-one is the most popular option. Wizards of the Coast supports this method. In future articles, we will also cover how to play D&D without a DM.
Are two players good for D&D?
Yes, the short answer is yes. We wrote a whole article about the best number of players to play D & D. While we believe 4-5 people is ideal, two people are still enough.
Playing D&D with just two people has many advantages, as well as some disadvantages.
- This essential kit contains simple guidelines
- It’s an intimate experience
- To be able to play, you can meet a few people.
Some of the downsides are:
- Handcrafting the game is necessary to match the preferences of the players
- To avoid a player being eliminated, you must manage the combat carefully
- There is less pressure on the DM or player to narrate or play role plays if there is no interaction between them.
2 Player D&D with 1 DM and 1 Party Member
One person can be the Dungeon Master, while the other can be the party. This is the most common way to play D&D 2. This means that the DM is the one who tells the story while the player guides their character through the adventure.
You will need to know the rules to play a balanced game with a single-player party.
This means that the player has to be active in telling good stories. In a giant game, there’s more room for interaction, and quieter players can sit back and listen to the others, but in a minor game, everyone needs to be involved and active.
If you’re a novice or nervous DM, doing this might not be a good idea. Although it’s not difficult by itself, it requires a lot of storytelling and narration from you, which is much more than if you have a larger group.
The D&D Essentials kit includes rules for a single-player party.
The dungeons and dragons essentials kit has been a favorite way to get started in D&D. It even comes with rules that allow you to play with just two players.
The rule changes are simple: one player is the party leader, and they receive a sidekick to act as a companion character. The DM can control the sidekick or the player. If you’re playing with a less experienced or younger player, I recommend that the DM controls the sidekick. However, if they are more experienced, you might want them to take control of the sidekick.
You can download the sidekick rules for free. Sidekicks are like mini-characters. They have stats that can be leveled up and personality traits (such as ideals and flaws) that allow you to run them as additional characters in your party.
Do you have the ability to play two characters in D&D?
It’s hard enough to play one character! It’s hard enough to play one character!
If that bothers you, and you believe you can roleplay and remember the stats of 2 characters, then you don’t have to worry. However, you may find yourself talking to your character for player interaction.
D&D Adventures & Campaigns for One Player & One DM
You can adapt any D&D campaign or adventure to make it suitable for play as a duo campaign. However, these one-on-one adventures were created with just one player and a DM in mind. This will make your life more manageable as interactions and encounters are designed to work with one character.
- The Crystalline Curse Trilogy consists of 3 short adventures that will help you get started in one-on-one D&D. You can also continue playing this into your homebrew campaign after you’re done. This bundle includes several pre-generated sidekicks and characters to get you started.
- The Dragon at Icespire Peak and the three other supplement adventures that go with it – The adventures in the Essentials Kit take you from levels 1 to 6. In contrast, the three supplementary activities can take you up to level 12.
- Land of Vampires – A 2-player campaign adventure that takes players from levels 1-10.
For a one-on-one player party, balance D&D combat
It can be hard to balance the difficulty of encounters with monsters in a one-on-1 game. I recommend that you fake it. You could alter or reduce the power of monster stats, hide your dice results so you can manipulate dice results, make monsters die faster, or pretend that there was no party wipeout.
You will eventually learn how many monsters your player can face and how powerful they are. You can always give your player more health potions or magical weapons to make them more powerful.
Sly Flourish (author of Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master) has an extensive write-up about balancing D&D combat for one person.
Here are some more tips and tricks for running a one-on-one D&D party
It would be best to consider a few other things to improve your game when running a one-on-1 match with a single character.
- You are not playing against the player – this is not a competition game.
- It would be best if you considered what your player prefers. One of the best things about D&D is the ability to tailor it to their needs. You can make D&D work for your player if they prefer combat, roleplaying or social interaction.
- The player can do some of it – In a D&D group with only the DM, the DM should not be the one narrating the story. Instead, it would be best if you played it as a team game of storytelling. The player should be encouraged to participate in roleplaying and narration.
- You can play the part of a sidekick, NPC, or bad guy. It’s fun and allows you to roleplay with the player character.
Conclusion
You can play D&D with up to two players. However, it will require adjustments to the rules and your experience level. For those who love roleplaying and enjoy spending time with others, it’s still an enjoyable experience. Wizards of the Coast has included rules for this in their essentials kit. Even if there are two of you, it is worth it.