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View Full Version : One Shots: Increasing the Difficulty



Totally Guy
2012-09-04, 03:08 PM
I was talking with a friend about our games, both one shots and campaign type play. We concluded that for a game that's about challenging the players the one shot format allows you to go all out and make things really tough. He compared it to the 100m sprint vs. a marathon. In the 100m you've got to go all out from start to finish. The marathon is more about endurance, the character must consider how much further there is still to go before digging deep.

Some of the best one shots I've played have been the ones that have ended up a tragedy. They were cool because I wasn't staking the long term enjoyment of a character on the results of the session.

What I appreciate most about the one shot format is that you've got so little time to manifest the character you've got bring it all to the table right now as you'll never have an opportunity to bring it again. That sort of constraint is great for really getting the agendas into play and the stakes high!

How do you treat difficulty in both one-shot play? I'm trying to think of a cruel situation for a Mouse Guard one shot...

Roguenewb
2012-09-04, 03:30 PM
My one shots tend to be either time killing published adventures, or strange little homebrew that aren't worth spending an entire campaign on.

Drynwyn
2012-09-04, 04:20 PM
My one shots are almost always extraordinarily dangerous. They are usually designed to kill off at least one character prior to the "boss." One actually required that a character die to complete the adventure.

Glimbur
2012-09-04, 05:08 PM
One time I ran a one shot that was too easy. So I added about three Levite Priests inside the Tabernacle and ran it for a new group. The second party had only one survivor. The first party won, and then three of them died. In my defense, 100% of the deaths were due to opening the Ark of the Covenant. Testament is kind of a weird system, and an interesting setting.

Remmirath
2012-09-04, 05:31 PM
Any time I run a one shot game, I assume that the end result will be that everyone is dead. It doesn't always turn out that way, of course, but that's the sort of difficulty level I tend to go with. I figure, if you're never going to be playing that game again, why not kill off everyone at the end? As a player, I tend to make the same assumption and pull out the most outlandish character concepts that I have kicking around, the ones that aren't all that sustainable in the long run.

I don't usually pull any punches in normal campaigns either, but I certainly don't specifically set out to kill people in them.

some guy
2012-09-04, 06:38 PM
With D&D I can manage 3 fights a night mostly (with one session taking 4 hours and with enough exploration talking business inbetween). In a one shot I want those fights to count. In a campaign a lot of my encounters are random, players could either stomp their way through an encounter or should run away to survive. In a one shot I usually plan the fights beforehand and I try to make every fight quite challenging.

So;
one shot=constant challenge
campaign= variation between very easy and very hard

But, also;
I usually run DnD campaigns and Call of Cthulhu one shots,
and with that in mind;
DnD campaigns=few deaths
CoC one shots=few survivals