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Gaming is about, among other things, stories. Stories of heroism, stories of horror, stories of humor. . .stories of people. This is about gaming, so it is, of course, about people. Not enough people, specifically.

The scene: two people, both friends for a long time, one a tabletop gamer who'd lost their group to the various non-eldritch forces that can scatter a gaming group to the winds, one who hasn't gamed much but really wants to try. Neither have anyone in town, or even in a nearby town, they can invite over to get a game going. What is an expectant DM to do?

Game for two, of course. A game for two is a bit unwieldy at first, but after having both played in and run such two-player role playing sessions, I have some advice for those who'd like to give it a try.

If you think you're going to wind up running such a minimal game, a lengthy chronicle probably isn't the best idea. Things beyond the gaming table (school, work, familial obligations, etc.) are frequently a factor in why there's only one player character to begin with, meaning what would be a minor interruption in a multiplayer game will end a one-PC game. Keep stories short, with goals that can be achieved within a session or three if the player is up for a more goal-oriented game.

While you're working on your shorter story, try to build them around the PC, with a mind to what sort of game your player is in the mood for. A two-person gaming session can rely heavily on role playing rather than PC abilities, so have a good NPC for the PC to interact with. Yes, a good NPC rather than a few good NPCs. If there are a lot of interesting NPCs around, the DM winds up doing the bulk of the talking and the player can feel like their character isn't really a part of the goings-on.

One fun two-person story style is fish-out-of-water: where the PC is placed in a new and wholly alien environment from whatever would best suit them, like putting a more combat-oriented character into a lot of social settings. The best fish-out-of-water game I've ran was for Changeling: The Dreaming, and involved a pimp from a metropolitan area getting sent to a rather insular, out-of-the-way suburb to do some research for the tabloid he occasionally wrote for. Being the new face in town, the pimp had to go meet the local nobles before researching the strange occurrences, and the noble decided the pimp had to pass a number of trials before being let in on the town's dark secrets. The trials included, but were by no means limited to, babysitting the Kid Who Can Turn Invisible At Will and Bowling Against The Killer Bunny Knight.

The Killer Bunny Knight was my interesting NPC - a satanic head banger rabbit pooka who lived in his parents' garage and was primarily in charge of tormenting outsiders and keeping an eye on the local noble's son. Be careful if using this, though, as this approach can make players who put a lot of time and care into creating an interesting background for their characters feel like that background is getting either exploited or ignored.

Another two-person gaming style that can work well is the Scavenger Hunt, where PCs are working against the clock to solve some riddle or catch a villain before they strike again. I'm currently plotting such a game to run for someone I usually game with in which frequent monster sightings have the whole town in an uproar and it's up to the player, with the aid of the one major NPC, to figure out what's going on.
The last two-person game is also the one which, in my experience, requires the most planning, as it can go in almost any direction. I call it Freeform Gaming, in which the DM devises a detailed setting full of interesting characters and the building blocks of several possible stories and the PC is just dropped into this environment to explore and interact with the NPCs. I don't recommend this method unless the DM is very good at doing different voices for different NPCs, as it can get confusing otherwise.

The two-person gaming possibilities I've mentioned so far all assume both players are familiar with the game in question and have sufficient time to prepare a few significantly different PCs (so the player can pick the one that will be the most fun in the scenario the DM has in mind) or a number of locales and a good NPC or two to keep the player interested, so if you suspect you'll be playing such a game sometime in the near future, talk with your prospective player or gamemaster in advance so everyone will be ready to start by game-time. If you're concerned about gaming time being cut short or just weren't warned of impending two-person roleplaying far enough in advance, things might seem bleak, but there are possibilities.

First, there's HoL. Human Occupied Landfill, by Dirt Merchant games. The Warehouse 23 website currently sells the most recent edition, if you're willing to spend the money on a new game. The system requires naught but two d6's per player and charts are already in the book; and the core rulebook comes filled to the wackily-excessively-violent brim with pre-made characters (frighteningly intelligent mute mountains of muscle, cute little kids with pet monsters and giant plasma cannons, disturbing clergy people, and knife-wielding gamers, among others), NPCs, and possible settings. I've had a lot of fun running two-person HoL games entirely off the top of my head. Bear in mind that HoL is not for serious roleplayers unless they're very serious about their satirical science-fiction, as HoL makes fun of more conventional roleplaying quite a bit. The supplement, Buttery Wholesomeness, contains a massive network of cross-referenced charts used ostensibly for creating new characters if the variety of archetype-spoofs of the core rulebook just weren't enough. Character creation can take a while, but the points-and-charts system used allows players to avoid rolling on charts they don't like and, in most cases, buy a roll on a chart they like. The charts themselves are entertaining, and the end result includes a background, skills, nifty powers gained through mutations, crippling flaws from other mutations, and the possibility of having a spandex-clad sidekick to draw NPC fire. I've had a number of good two-person gaming sessions where myself and the player were just making characters using the Buttery Wholesomeness chart system and laughing quite a bit, some of which never even resulted in any actual roleplaying, but it was fun for everyone playing (okay, everyone making characters), so there's no need to nitpick.

Secondly, there's First Quest. Well, there was First Quest, an introduction to roleplaying in general and the Mystara setting devised by TSR well before it became an imprint of Wizards of the Coast. First Quest contained pre-made characters, an adventure or three, maps, plastic miniatures, dice, a CD full of music and dialogue and sound effects, and an instruction book for using all this. It was the ideal starting material for a new DM, and is probably nigh impossible to find now.

Of course, you might not want to go buy HoL and Buttery Wholesomeness: the old Black Dog Games release is probably hard to find used at a decent price and the new Cabil release, while marginally easier to find, is still more than you're willing to spend. I don't even want to guess what a full First Quest set would cost now, and you probably don't either. This is a perfectly valid position to take, as I shudder when I think of how much I spent on games over six particular years when I spent the bulk of my disposable income on gaming supplies. That's okay, though, because lastly, there are card games and board games, which, while they don't involve role-playing, do involve two people having fun. Cheapass Games provides a number of card-and-counter games which are budget-friendly and simple enough for two people to learn the rules and have fun with within the confines of a single sitting. Collectible card games can work too, if you and your potential DM/player both already play and have decks. The fun part of games like these is they can be played in-character, provided they fit within the setting of the chosen game, which can create interesting roleplaying possibilities for everyone involved. How would your character (or NPC) play the game as opposed to how you would play? Why does that Malkavian playing the Discordian Society in a game of Illuminati Deluxe Edition keep giggling and destroying his own groups? Would your chaotic neutral thief cheat? Who, even out of their right mind, would try to teach a Byakhee to play checkers? I recommend picking a DM in advance and taking turns DMing if you're going to be doing in-character gaming to resolve issues of PCs using any supernatural methods at their disposal to affect the game-within-the-game. If you're feeling particularly daring or unwholesomely foolish, I suppose you could try having a PC and NPC start a two-person roleplaying session, but that way lies madness and stains that won't ever come out of the ceiling, so its probably best to stick with whatever of the other options sound like fun and leave the rpg-within-an-rpg unplayed.