Guys quick I need a one shot

[Kane0]

As the title implies, I'm running a one shot tomorrow afternoon, probably only a few hours long. Anybody got a good little plot or suggestion?

Edit: D&D 5e if that makes any difference, party of 3 plus me as DM. Will probably make characters at level 2 or 3 before we start.

[JNAProductions]

A dragon kidnapped the princess

A princess kidnapped the dragon

The king was assassinated

The evil chancellor was assassinated

Your home village burned down

Orcs are invading

Orcs are fleeing from a greater threat

The gods feel like messing with you

A wizard's experiments go awry and get unleashed on your hometown

Your romantic interests (all of them) are put into magical slumber

You're all hired as caravan guards

Half the town joins a magically powered mind-controlling cult

The crops are all dying mysteriously

The crops are all coming alive and attacking people

[goto124]

Everyone is blind.

[Almaseti]

Captured by crazy cult, must fight your way out.

[Maglubiyet]

A demonic pig and her hellspawned piglets are running rampant through town. What strange rites has Farmer Boknob been performing by the light of the full moon that created such an abomination? Why does his spouse, the Goodwife Panny, hide her hands beneath thick velvet gloves now?

[YossarianLives]

Any army of demonic bears is attacking the town!

[The Grue]

Can I just say how amused I am by the fact that you made a thread about suggestions for a one shot, for which the RPG system you're using was apparently an afterthought?

[Kane0]

Haha i thought id better specify since this is the general rp forums rather than the 5e one. Our regular PF kingmaker game wont have enough people this week so we were gonna do a 5e one shot.

[Anxe]

Giant Gophers attack City Hall and kidnap the Mayor! Could this be the work of the Mole People rumored to live beneath the City's Basements?

[Tvtyrant]

Big time wizard convention and you have been hired.as security. One of the panelists exes has decided to ruin the convention, starting with sending threatening letters to its participants.

[Maglubiyet]

You will let us know what you finally ended up doing, right?

[Gritmonger]

One-shot: have to skip the usual meet and greet and get to knows - all live in or are visitors to a village on market day, market is raided by group of kobolds/goblins/orcs/raiders, and small town watch is overwhelmed. Characters have to help, gather survivors, attack the raiders, steal while the getting is good, whatever. Make scenario short and concrete, keep options open.

[TheEmerged]

"You wake up on a sandy beach, already wearing your equipment. Your last memory is of going to sleep in the hull of a ship."

\dramatic pause

"Roll for initiative."

This is the way the first D&D adventure I ever played in, back in the late 70's started.

[Fri]

The Orc and The Pie (https://gist.github.com/kerrizor/4165372)

[YossarianLives]

You're guarding a royal ball and pirates/assassins attack!

[Joe the Rat]

Try to set up a social and/or exploration event, a medium encounter, and a hard encounter. Allow for a short rest in between.


Start in an inn, start a bar fight (to show off improv rules), then have someone punch a zombie. Zombie Siege!

The party is sent to find a missing scout/patrol team for the local noble. After a few days, they find the scene of battle, and their bodies. They've been dead long enough to attract scavengers, and someone has animated them. Zombies infested with their own Swarms of Insects.

These would work best with an off-screen necromancer. Have hints at where to go.


The party is escorting/taking a supply wagon through the woods to a town. Fan-something, I think. Bandits try to ambush the party. Then zombies come out of the woods, leading to a three-way battle, or a team-up with the bandits. Tracking the zombies back, you find the bandit camp, and more dead bodies. The camp was built on an ancient burial site, and someone released a pair of wights.
Alternatively, no bandits attack, and they arrive at their destination to find the town deserted, with much of the population zombified.

Hmmm, I seem to be on a zombie kick.


The local farmers and Shepherds are up in arms over ankhegs nesting in the area. The farmers appreciate the tilling and fertilizing of the soil, but the shepherds are not happy about losing livestock. Pick a side, or take a third option. The ankheg eggs ends up attracting their natural predators: Bulettes. The resulting hunt will tear up the town.

A mad wizard's experiments/menagerie has gotten loose, and you must track them down before someone gets hurt. (Not because hes' worried about death and dismemberment, but because his Arcanist Insurance premiums will go through the roof). Hunt down owlbears, spidersnakes (they're just vipers, only they have spiders for heads), hippogriffs, cockaturtles (cockatrice with swim speed and slightly better armor), and gummi bears (bear-shaped oozes).




The Orc and The Pie (https://gist.github.com/kerrizor/4165372)Heh.
2 minutes of combat, 58 minutes of arguing how to split up the pie.

[Gopher Wizard]

I'm not too familiar with 5e, so this concept might not translate to that system. Maybe you can tweak it a little.

A thriving metropolis has all of a sudden become trouble with a nasty plague of dire rats. After a few combat scenarios and hours of investigation, you learn that a druid living in the sewers has accumulated an army of dire rats to attack the population because the people don't respect nature.

You might need to adjust "druid" and "dire rat" to something else if 5e doesn't have those. Just substitute druid for "magical nature lover" and dire rat with "large vermin." Again, not too familiar with the system. Hope this helps.

[LibraryOgre]

One of my favorites, good at low level, is the party is traveling along a road when a big storm starts to come in. Seeking shelter from the storm, the find an old gnome burrow, now taken over by kobolds and their giant weasel companions. If you want to stay out of the storm/impending flash flood, you have to defend yourself from the kobolds.

(As a bonus, I put a gnome ghoul or two in the basement that the kobolds boarded up. Investigating gets you attacked by a pile of gnomish hunger for living flesh, but can get you more treasure)

[The Grue]

(As a bonus, I put a gnome ghoul or two in the basement that the kobolds boarded up. Investigating gets you attacked by a pile of gnomish hunger for living flesh, but can get you more treasure)

Has anyone ever not investigated?

I'm going to guess "no". :smallbiggrin:

[Kane0]

Thanks guys!

I ended up taking a leaf from the 'you start in a tavern...' thread to get us started and went with the storm coming in as they beat a hasty retreat from the roadside inn. There was backstory about an orc zombie horde that slipped by unneeded.

They sought shelter from said oncoming storm in a cave and had to do some delving to find a spot that would be dry enough for a fire, which of course meant defending themselves against the local critters.

Went really well, was a good first impression for 5e for them.

[Anxe]

Has anyone ever not investigated?

I'm going to guess "no". :smallbiggrin:

I've pulled this trick too often and now my group doesn't investigate anything anymore.

[Maglubiyet]

Thanks guys!

I ended up taking a leaf from the 'you start in a tavern...' thread to get us started and went with the storm coming in as they beat a hasty retreat from the roadside inn. There was backstory about an orc zombie horde that slipped by unneeded.

They sought shelter from said oncoming storm in a cave and had to do some delving to find a spot that would be dry enough for a fire, which of course meant defending themselves against the local critters.

Went really well, was a good first impression for 5e for them.

No TPK with maniacal DM laughter? I'm disappointed. :tongue:

[LibraryOgre]

Has anyone ever not investigated?

I'm going to guess "no". :smallbiggrin:

Actually, I ran it twice at a con, and NO ONE investigated. The weasels, especially, chewed on them hard enough that no one was inclined to see what the kobolds had locked beneath the kitchens.

(It may have helped that I was palying before there were established fumble rules, and so every fumble was met with an attack by a non-giant weasel).

[Kane0]

No TPK with maniacal DM laughter? I'm disappointed. :tongue:

How it went down:
Party was level 2 comprised of dwarf paladin, elf wizard, drow rogue and dragonborn goolock.

Cave entrance/1st cavern: 6 bandits trying to barricade further in with a broken cart. First taste of 5e combat. They are PF regulars so I had to break some bad habits early.

1st tunnel: Two piercers hanging out on the ceiling, which dropped and both hit but killed nobody. They were so amused that they watched them struggle to right themselves and slowly crawl back up, but this triggered.

2nd cavern: Nest of giant fire beetles, gauntlet style. Dwarf kept them at bay so the dragonborn could move in and breath weapon pretty much all of them. Meanwhile the warlock and rogue shot the piercers now that they got to the top and dropped again, still killing nobody. Poor stalactites.

2nd tunnel: Giant spider and giant wolf spider. Getting the hang of things now, but the higher damage really took its toll. At this point we had our first death saves, from the paladin. He saved and used up the last of his lay on hands and burned a spell for cure wounds. They also had a short rest.

3rd cavern: 1 shrieker, 1 gas spore and 1 grey ooze. The shieker didnt go off until the wizard with the light source approached, by which time the rogue was already in and scouting around. The shrieker died in one hit but the gas spore made everybody crap their pants, and its 20' death burst put the wizard(?) to 0. Everyone was okay after the slime got sneak attacked and the last potions of healing were used.

4th cavern: two mephits (one dust, one mud) cheekily playing ball against one another, neither of them stood a chance as the party got the suprise round and some crits. This led to the boss fight, a Spectator that floated down and in its fury double-tapped the two mephits for their ineptitude and turned on the party. The paladin used his javelins and avoided confusion but the warlock got hit by his own eldritch blast, putting him at 0. The wizard got off a good ray of sickness before being frightened, then the paladin got paralysed. The rogue was keeping back managing to get off sneak attacks and landed the kiling blow with his shortbow.

So everyone except the rogue got put to 0 at some point, and they used all their hit dice and healing abilities during the day. The wizard made good use of his slots, as did the paladin but the warlock never got a good chance to get a hex in.

I admittedly did not bring my lethal dice, but I wasn't holding back either. These guys are good players despite a new system, and they found it easy to learn and very fast and refreshing compared to PF. I call it a success!

[FocusWolf413]

"......You enter a room and see a table with a cake on it and an ogre......."

[goto124]

...a ... goolock?

[Kane0]

...a ... goolock?

Abbreviation for a subtype of warlock. They essentially pick Cthulhu as their patron and get Telepathy. Great Old One 'lock.

[Joe the Rat]

...a ... goolock?Abbreviation for a subtype of warlock. They essentially pick Cthulhu as their patron and get Telepathy. Great Old One 'lock.
With something like Azathoth or an Eldrazi for your patron, you could literally be a goolock.

Or Jubilex, but then you'd be a goo-fiendlock.

[Bad Wolf]

A bartender has paid a few rats to slay the PCs in the basement.