How to Keep One Shots from Getting Stale

[Belladonna Took]

My group has decided to switch out from having one DM to playing a game where each week a different one of the four of us plays as the DM and a character so that all of us can get more DM experience and we can also all continue to play with each other. Because this means that we can't really collaborate on a story without giving it away, we have decided to do one shots each session tied together by the fact that we are each members in an adventuring guild. And now is the part when I will ask them all to STOP READING!
Anyway, here is a very quick synopsis for my next one shot, it's a shorter and changed version from one of the missions I plan to use in my actual campaign.
The leader of another town has been kidnapped. A diplomat from that town comes to this one with some info about it and a request for the guild to look into it. So they will eventually find out that a wizard, a druid and a fighter were escorting someone who looked like the leader through the town with a bag over his head. If they visit at least two out of the fifteen taverns while gathering information they will find out that the three were seen wearing different clothes but riding horses and escorting a person with a bag over their head. If they go to the stables (following the horses hint) then they will find out that the stable master grabbed the wizards spell book which turned out to be not spells at all but blue prints for a place called "Shadow Grove" If they read through it they find out that the practice basement is the only part that's close to done, and I'm hoping these clues along with the fact that the basement had no windows will let them in on the secret that it is a ninja monastery with ninjas specializing in disguising themselves as members of other classes. If not they will be in for a big surprise when three ninjas ambush them near the monastery. The rest is pretty cut and dry, they kill the bad guys save the victim, probably get into a random encounter and go home.
The issue is I am concerned about is that missions like this are going to start to get pretty stale if I can't come up with better plot hooks and or better plot twists. So is there any advice you have to spice this mission up or general advice to spice future one shots up? I would appreciate any advice you guys have, including ideas for future one shots as well.

[GilesTheCleric]

Perhaps your group is different, but ime players are more drawn to interesting characters and environments where they're allowed to shine than complex plots and plot twists. Allowing them to overcome challenges with their unique skills, creative thinking, and teamwork are all very satisfying. Unless your players are really into puzzles and mysteries, then attempting to use too many complicated things in a plot can backfire as the players ask themselves "what are we supposed to do?"

[Lorddenorstrus]

Yeah I have to agree with Giles. you should make sure players are on board with serious puzzles before doing them. Our DM tried it recently, we basically thought for a minute.. got bored and he gave up on it. Nobody wanted to do puzzles.

Frankly if you want sessions to be more interesting. Stop doing one shots and let people develop their characters. I've never quite understood why some people want to do one shot things it's just.. extremely anti fun. Especially considering unless you're making boringly simple characters some concepts can take hours to get the character just where you want them.. to have those hours of work mean nothing after 1 session? Nobody I know could do it.

[Uncle Pine]

I use the Story Generator (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/storygen.php) whenever I feel like it's time for a one-shot, regardless of the fact that my one-shots always turn into a two to four-shots.

I remember the last one had the PCs as the inhabitants of a very small village built under the roots of a great oak in a forest. They was all given the miniature template from Advanced Bestiary, turning them into Fine version of normal characters, except for the Monk/Drunken Master badger who acted as a sort of guardian for the village (and party's mount). The village was threatened by the attacks of a group of (not miniature) blackscale lizardfolks from the near swamp, so they were sent to dispatch them.
Things like a spellwarped giant crocodile, a LG miniature blue slaad paladin as the village's major, the adoptive daughter of said slaad as clumsy healbot NPC sidekick and an insurrection of the opposing party against the major were also included.

EDIT: I also had my hands on the Tome of Adventure Design at some point, but while it looked really promising I never had a chance of using it in play because we started a long-term campaign shortly after.

[Belladonna Took]

Perhaps your group is different, but ime players are more drawn to interesting characters and environments where they're allowed to shine than complex plots and plot twists. Allowing them to overcome challenges with their unique skills, creative thinking, and teamwork are all very satisfying. Unless your players are really into puzzles and mysteries, then attempting to use too many complicated things in a plot can backfire as the players ask themselves "what are we supposed to do?"
My group loves puzzles and investigation, so that part shouldn't really be a problem, in fact the correctly finding enough clues to locate the bad guy is almost always our favorite part. I will try to keep in mind putting in situations where their skills will give them a chance to shine, and interesting and quirky characters that I can use. I was actually thinking of making it so that the leader does not want to be rescued, and so they can either decide to forfeit the reward or drag him back screaming, but I'm concerned they will choose to forfeit the reward if I come up with too good of a reason for him to not want to go back. Any thoughts? Also are there any monsters you can think of that require very cohesive teamwork in order to defeat? (Obviously all of them encourage teamwork, but right now the only way I can think of making them focus harder on working together is to give them harder and harder monsters, but dying really takes the fun out of the game for us.)


Frankly if you want sessions to be more interesting. Stop doing one shots and let people develop their characters. I've never quite understood why some people want to do one shot things it's just.. extremely anti fun. Especially considering unless you're making boringly simple characters some concepts can take hours to get the character just where you want them.. to have those hours of work mean nothing after 1 session? Nobody I know could do it.
I'm not sure if you read my original post because I laid out my reasons for doing one shots. We are not going to change from one shots any time soon, but I'm not sure I gave you enough info on how WE play one shots. We have made a character for each of the PHB classes, and ninja, and we plan to use these 12 characters interchangeably, each of them has a backstory and personalities that we think are going to work well together. We are going to be playing this as if it were a bunch of miniquests put together, and the premise for it all is that we are all members of a guild who are helping advance the frontier by keeping the town safe inside and out and scouting for dangers ahead. So it isn't boringly simple characters and the work will not mean nothing after one session, because we are going to be using these characters probably for all summer but likely for the next year at least. So other than not doing one shots do you have any real advice?


I use the Story Generator whenever I feel like it's time for a one-shot, regardless of the fact that my one-shots always turn into a two to four-shots.

I remember the last one had the PCs as the inhabitants of a very small village built under the roots of a great oak in a forest. They was all given the miniature template from Advanced Bestiary, turning them into Fine version of normal characters, except for the Monk/Drunken Master badger who acted as a sort of guardian for the village (and party's mount). The village was threatened by the attacks of a group of (not miniature) blackscale lizardfolks from the near swamp, so they were sent to dispatch them.
Things like a spellwarped giant crocodile, a LG miniature blue slaad paladin as the village's major, the adoptive daughter of said slaad as clumsy healbot NPC sidekick and an insurrection of the opposing party against the major were also included.
Finally something helpful! This isn't quite what I was looking for but it will definitely help. The last one shot you ran sounds quite fun, but a little advanced on the DMing side, so I probably won't be doing that any time soon, but I'll stick a pin in it as inspiration for one of my future one shots

[sakuuya]

I recommend mixing up the ratio of combat:social interaction:investigation from adventure to adventure--within the limits of what you and your party like, of course--as well as the order in which they occur. F'rinstance, it sounds like your current oneshot will have investigation leading to ninja combat, so maybe next time it can be the other way around. Mixing up the basic adventure building blocks will go a long way toward making each oneshot seem distinct. Assuming your setting allows for it and your group is onboard, you can also mix in different genres. Throw in a Ravenloft or Keep on the Borderlands (figuratively speaking; both of those are way too long for a oneshot) every once in a while.

As for why your leader wouldn't want to go back with the party, could his goals align in some way with the ninjas'? Maybe they have (or claim to have) some secret technique that would be particularly effective on his nemesis, and he wants to learn it? Otherwise, Stockholm syndrome is pretty classic, though that also means it's cliched.

[GilesTheCleric]

My group loves puzzles and investigation, so that part shouldn't really be a problem, in fact the correctly finding enough clues to locate the bad guy is almost always our favorite part. I will try to keep in mind putting in situations where their skills will give them a chance to shine, and interesting and quirky characters that I can use. I was actually thinking of making it so that the leader does not want to be rescued, and so they can either decide to forfeit the reward or drag him back screaming, but I'm concerned they will choose to forfeit the reward if I come up with too good of a reason for him to not want to go back. Any thoughts? Also are there any monsters you can think of that require very cohesive teamwork in order to defeat? (Obviously all of them encourage teamwork, but right now the only way I can think of making them focus harder on working together is to give them harder and harder monsters, but dying really takes the fun out of the game for us.)

I'm jealous of your puzzle-loving group, then. Consider yourself blessed (+1 to attack!). It sounds like giving them a tough decision to make regarding the leader is neat; if they have a way to check for mind control, they might see if that's in play. I've personally played a game that was similar -- a duke was being kidnapped/went missing in the middle of the night, but it turned out he was leaving willfully as a result of a split personality -- and that was a fun session despite not being able to claim a reward. Perhaps the fella not wanting to go back could be the intro to another quest to right some wrong, if that's how the plot works out.

Most creatures in dnd don't have puzzles/legend-of-zelda-boss-type mechanics built in. Things with unique resistances like lycanthropes, fey, and trolls could work; otherwise, you might have to handwave things a little bit. For example, I sent this undead manta ray thing at them (CR 3ish, I don't remember what it was called). It jumped onto the raft they were on, and started stinging them with its tail. So, the players thought it was an excellent idea to take off its tail with a called shot (re-adding those might help the puzzle mechanics of a fight).

Another way to add complexity is to make the players not want to harm the foe -- for example, a were-creature that's ordinarily good, but then forced to shapechange and loses control, or an obviously mind-controlled friendly NPC.

[Belladonna Took]

I recommend mixing up the ratio of combat:social interaction:investigation from adventure to adventure--within the limits of what you and your party like, of course--as well as the order in which they occur. F'rinstance, it sounds like your current oneshot will have investigation leading to ninja combat, so maybe next time it can be the other way around. Mixing up the basic adventure building blocks will go a long way toward making each oneshot seem distinct. Assuming your setting allows for it and your group is onboard, you can also mix in different genres. Throw in a Ravenloft or Keep on the Borderlands (figuratively speaking; both of those are way too long for a oneshot) every once in a while.

As for why your leader wouldn't want to go back with the party, could his goals align in some way with the ninjas'? Maybe they have (or claim to have) some secret technique that would be particularly effective on his nemesis, and he wants to learn it? Otherwise, Stockholm syndrome is pretty classic, though that also means it's cliched.
I need to make it interesting, but not so much that they think he really deserves to stay. I think it would be fun to throw them in an encounter where they have to keep watch on the leader as well as their enemies because he could try to run away. It's not something that our group has particularly experienced before so I think they would enjoy it. Especially if he runs away and they have to locate him again for the next mission, obviously with many changes to the mission, so that I'm not just rehashing the same quest over and over, in that case I probably would change up the mission, maybe they realize that someone tried to poison them, then they get attacked in the forest but never see their attacker. Lo and behold that's when they find out it was the leader they let escape trying to tie up loose ends.


I'm jealous of your puzzle-loving group, then. Consider yourself blessed (+1 to attack!). It sounds like giving them a tough decision to make regarding the leader is neat; if they have a way to check for mind control, they might see if that's in play. I've personally played a game that was similar -- a duke was being kidnapped/went missing in the middle of the night, but it turned out he was leaving willfully as a result of a split personality -- and that was a fun session despite not being able to claim a reward. Perhaps the fella not wanting to go back could be the intro to another quest to right some wrong, if that's how the plot works out.

Most creatures in dnd don't have puzzles/legend-of-zelda-boss-type mechanics built in. Things with unique resistances like lycanthropes, fey, and trolls could work; otherwise, you might have to handwave things a little bit. For example, I sent this undead manta ray thing at them (CR 3ish, I don't remember what it was called). It jumped onto the raft they were on, and started stinging them with its tail. So, the players thought it was an excellent idea to take off its tail with a called shot (re-adding those might help the puzzle mechanics of a fight).

Another way to add complexity is to make the players not want to harm the foe -- for example, a were-creature that's ordinarily good, but then forced to shapechange and loses control, or an obviously mind-controlled friendly NPC.
We generally try to include called shots but in the few homebrew rules we have the penalties are so hefty that in these first few fights we would not be able to do them at all, of course I could adjust that if I really wanted. We're going to start at level one, and every four one shots (because there are four DMs) we will level them up. So maybe at level five I could try to give them an encounter where if they think and are able to use teamwork they can easily survive but otherwise it will be a very difficult encounter. Also I love the were-creature idea, SO MUCH. I am definitely going to use that as one of my future encounters.