Wacky one shot ideas

[Kane0]

Hey all,

I've been volunteered to DM an impromptu session, anyone got some cool 3-5 hour one shot ideas? Crazy is good!

[Jerrykhor]

I ran a heavily modified Wild Sheep Chase not long ago, had good feedback. I can give you the details if you want.

[Mortis_Elrod]

30 minute dungeons. Find a bunch of dungeons and put a shock clock on them. Let the games begin.

[The_Hansard]

I ran a heavily modified Wild Sheep Chase not long ago, had good feedback. I can give you the details if you want.

I second this. I ran wild sheep chase for just 1 player and he thought it was awesome

[Laserlight]

We had a one shot wherein the characters were a minstrel troupe in urgent need of funds; we ended up writing and and putting on a play: "The Tragickal Comedie of Gnomeo and Juliette".

[Spiritchaser]

We had a one shot wherein the characters were a minstrel troupe in urgent need of funds; we ended up writing and and putting on a play: "The Tragickal Comedie of Gnomeo and Juliette".

And did you go so far as to demand
That everyone should talk iambically?

[Catullus64]

If you know your players well enough, I highly recommend this little number:

The adventurers are in search of some sort of lost treasure or mystical artifact, located in some kind of dungeon. The twist is that they are in a race for the treasure with a rival adventuring group, each member of which is specifically designed by you to annoy one of the players. Circumstances lead the two groups to have to work together to bypass the dungeon, while constantly looking for opportunities to stab each other in the back. Bonus comedy points if you manage to make the rival party more sympathetic than the PCs.

One-shots are also ideal for Clue-like murder mystery scenarios - just ask each member of the party to come up with a legitimate reason why their character would want the victim dead, and confer in secret with one of the players to make them the murderer.

[Spiritchaser]

Have your players prepare new characters, each character must have multiple prepared mechanically identical backgrounds, at least one of which must be evil enough to kill innocents for personal gain. The understanding must be that you will select which backstory.

All characters wake on an island.
Everyone has lost their memory (it's D&D, you'll think of an explanation. I used poison)
There is a dead body on the floor.

I also put pirates, giant crabs and a fey gate on the island, plus a few things they never found... just to keep things interesting

I did this to see how it worked, and it ended up as an ongoing campaign... albeit a sporadic one.

[Mjolnirbear]

Saw one on reddit recently:

Your players stay at an inn. It's comfortable and serves good food. The innkeeper is a bit odd, though, she always has her hood up.

If the players go exploring, they'll find in a secret basement extremely realistic stone statues of different people. Obviously they conclude the innkeeper is a Medusa.

But plot twist! All those people *asked* to be petrified. They are laying low to avoid the law, or waiting for the current king to die, or protecting the MacGuffin by hiding it in their statue, or simply tired of the world and resting for a couple centuries. The Medusa in fact has a file about when to revive each and every one of them.

[bluthunda]

If they aren't particularly interested in social interaction I had an idea of have a bunch of level 1 characters thrown into a prison that forces you to fight in death matches each week to earn your freedom. Just plan a bunch of 1 on 1 encounters for each player maybe 2 each depending on how fast you guys combat. Also feel free to maybe the battle field change depending on the encounter with pit falls/flooded arena or anything else you can think of.

[Chugger]

If the party is blamed for a crime they didn't commit and has to chase down badguys until they can find evidence to prove their innocence - while being chased by good guys (like town guards) whom they can't kill (because the guards think they're doing their job) - that causes the players to feel very personally involved - there's more emotion felt in such a game because you're fighting to clear your name, to stop an injustice - against the players. So it's very "personal".

[Yagyujubei]

I did a modified version of the old scooby doo cartoon episode where they go to the circus with the evil clown a few halloweens ago. It was a pretty big hit.

[Spiritchaser]

If the party is blamed for a crime they didn't commit and has to chase down badguys until they can find evidence to prove their innocence - while being chased by good guys (like town guards) whom they can't kill (because the guards think they're doing their job) - that causes the players to feel very personally involved - there's more emotion felt in such a game because you're fighting to clear your name, to stop an injustice - against the players. So it's very "personal".

I know what our warlock would do with that one, lol

[Pichu]

-Party goes to rescue princess from a dragon, but the Princess is an evil sorceress and the dragon is a prince of a dragon nation, which now wants to go to war with the princess's kingdom
-Party goes to rescue a princess from a spectator (a mini beholder), but they can't find her. She is actually trapped in a game in the Spectator's main eye (Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
-Everyone plays a commoner (do 6 hp). They can get proficiencies based of their backgrounds. Send them to clear out some rats >:)

[Zman]

The life of a hero....

Each player comped prepared with five versions of the same character, one at 1st level, then 5th, 10th, 11th, 15th, and 20th. Each is built off the former, so it's an entire characters progression.

You tell the story in snapshot, the level one characters have an initial become a hero moment. Then the 5th encounters the plot hook. And each higher level character progresses the storyline with a bit of a story tell between. And it culminates with the level 20 characters facing he BBEG and finishing the campaign.

Then, once they beat the BBEG, or die, you have them wake up as their first level characters and tell them everything was naught but a dream.

[Chugger]

I know what our warlock would do with that one, lol

Heh, I can imagine! Warlocks are as warlocks do!

[DastardlyDM]

I ran a heavily modified Wild Sheep Chase not long ago, had good feedback. I can give you the details if you want.

Hi Jerrykhor, this sounds really good :) please can you share the details?

[thoroughlyS]

I'm about to run a session later today in which the party arrives in a large town just as a satyr (accompanied by a blink dog) is causing a ruckus. It turns out he's actually taken a trip through a fey crossing he knows of and is hunting a displacer beast. If the party decide to aid him, it turns out there are actually two displacer beasts (a sizable challenge for the party.

TL;DR Party accompanies a Wild Hunt.

[iTreeby]

Adventurers agree to help a high level wizard for "a few hours". The party finds themselves in a room filling with water, the wizard is dead and has a sack of mostly used wands of modify memory. Now they have to figure out what is going on and how to survive in... Whatever you want really.

[DerficusRex]

I ran a heavily modified Wild Sheep Chase not long ago, had good feedback. I can give you the details if you want.

I second this. I ran wild sheep chase for just 1 player and he thought it was awesome

Nice. I have it queued up to run after our current adventure finishes, and it does look like it'll be a blast.


Hi Jerrykhor, this sounds really good :) please can you share the details?

"Wild Sheep Chase" by Richard Jansen-Parkes. It's free on dmsguild: http://www.dmsguild.com/product/170937/The-Wild-Sheep-Chase--A-SingleSession-Adventure

[Kaliayev]

Third tier level one-shot:

There's a fanatic, fallen aasimar or shadar-kai terrorist cell of evocation wizards. They want to see the world burn and with overchannel, necrotic resistance, and a ton of aoe, they're the D&D equivalent of suicide bombers. Your players are either the cell or a factions-backed task force sent to deal with said cell. If the latter, try to have each PC represent a different faction. See what means and ends your players push in either position. Incorporate the aftermath into your group's setting for future campaigns.

P.S. I've played a lot of cyberpunk.