How would you change the game and it’s assumptions to run a campaign with a Judge and one player?
Me, I’d increase the number of available henchmen per month and leave everything else alone. That way you’re more likely to hit your henchmen hiring limit, in which case you’re basically as survivable as a full party. In fact, anecdotal evidence from Dragonsfoot ( http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?633165-So&p=15583462#post15583462 ) suggests that solo adventuring was not uncommon Back In The Day, and was why people recruited large groups of henchmen.
But, I am not an Autarch.
Great advice from Jedavis.
The only thing I'd add is that you might want to start at a higher level - see the section on Advanced Characters at the end of the book. Part of the fun of dying in an RPG is having your friends witness your gory death, the issues raised by them getting your body back, etc. In 1-1 play, death is truly just "game over" and so the high mortality rates of 1st level characters can preclude the game from being much fun.
In the 1-1 campaign I ran for my wife, I started her at 4th level.
Ah, yep. Higher level would be helpful too; we’ve been starting at 4k XP, and I kind of forgot that it was not default.
That’s what this is (a game for me and my wife)
So, you started her at 4th level. Was that for any class or did you grant a number of experience points like in the advanced characters section? Also, what starting wealth? I like the Advanced characters guidelines but what if you wantt to tweak them up or down versus the tiers as given? Like how you started your wife’s character at 4th level instead of the official “Adventurer Tier” of 5th Level?
What starting wealth do you give them?
Would you do this by increasing the market class rating or just hand wave it or some other way?
Well, since normally 80% of XP comes from wealth rather than monsters, I’m supposed to be giving them 3200 GP at start. But, we reached an agreement as a group that new players should come in with 4k XP, 3600 reserve XP, and 3d6*10 GP worth of actual gear (basically, all of your normal gold was put into reserve at a bonus because it was forced). Since new players are most likely to lose characters rapidly, having the extra reserve helps, and it also eliminates the decision paralysis typically associated with starting with a large pile of gold.
Hmm… well, so far in my campaign I’ve increased the effective market level of a couple of places for certain purposes based on the nature of that location. For example, we have large town (market class IV) known as the town of thieves; I’ve been treating it as a class III market for the purposes of finding ruffians, spies, and so forth. The same is true of Dirk Hill, home of the mercenary’s guild, for finding men at arms.
So what I would probably do in your position is increase the market class by 1 or 2 for the purposes of finding henchmen (and maybe war dogs). Also, let your player recruit from NPC parties that she might happen to meet; they’re another good source of henches.
This was before I wrote the Advanced Character rules... Heh. She was a 4th level Elven Spellsword. In the campaign I ran, I knew my wife was a "go solo" type, so I equipped her with +1 sword, elven cloak and boots, and rope of climbing, and made sure she had the Knock spell. That let her explore dungeons by herself. She was basically a fantasy Batman.
It worked pretty well. So, for your solo game, I'd give a standard set of adventuring equipment (pick from the class templates, for instance), the best armor she can wear, a horse with sack and taddle, 1-3 magic items, and some starting cash to hire NPCs, about 250gp or so.