[3.5] Budgeting time for a one shot

[Rejusu]

After lamenting the lack of D&D that's been going on it's been decided that we should just do a day long (which probably means 6-8 hours tops) one shot session with me as the DM. Now while I have little experience DMing I think I have the general idea down and enough system mastery to make it work well.

But I'm not so sure about the planning part. Since this is a one shot it has to be something we can finish in this session as we can't just follow it up next week. So I need to figure out how many encounters I want to squeeze in. I plan on keeping the environment relatively contained (start them off in a dungeon) so there's no excessive wandering about. I think I can be forgiven a little railroading for a one shot.

Also worth noting that I'll be making all the PCs too, there'll be between 4 and 5 PCs, maybe 6. I might just create 6 characters and that gives them options to choose from and backups in case anyone dies. The backups will likely be found in closets Left4Dead style. :smalltongue:

I'm undecided on level but I'm tempted to make it fairly highish (6 and up) and I might give it a theme, maybe something to do with psionics or undead.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

[unseenmage]

This is relevant to my interests as I too am planning a one-shot.

I suggest gratuitous application of the random tables from the DMG.

[Rejusu]

I'm tempted to throw a really hard BBEG at them at the end that will at least kill some, if not all, their characters. I want to make it beatable of course, but the beauty of a one shot is that there's no problem with being more brutal with the difficulty.

[sideswipe]

well. the funny thing with D&D is that most campaigns are open world. moving from place to place as not to get bored.

as a one shot. plan a huge dungeon. multiple routes through it. and they have been sent there to find out why disappearances are happening (or other random vague start). give them no choice on the direction they have to go as they wont follow plot with choice. and start them at the entrance.

hide clues to the BBEG in the dungeon, a bit of investigation and mystery, as well as the normal, traps, gribblies and dungeon stuff. have possibly a trap that when activated completely changes the direction and path through the dungeon.

build up to not knowing what they will face if they ignore the clues. or knowing if they investigate properly.

also have a couple of rooms that they can barricade themselves in and rest.

dungeons are in my experience the least used setting in Dungeons and Dragons.