New DM Wanting To Do Battle Royale "One Shot"

[muichimotsu]

Been wanting to DM since I started playing mid 2015 and instead of starting with a big world sprawling adventure with various branches, I thought it'd be easier to pose a challenge that's less about dungeon crawling and more about strategy along with fighting against NPCs rather than monsters, though monsters will probably pop up on a rare occasion depending on how I roll. Also traps

The short premise is a battle royale between roughly 12 participants in an appropriately sized arena (definitely one of the tricky parts in my estimation, don't want too small but don't want too big either). Last one standing wins, though killing is not the only way, subdual damage to unconsciousness is also valid, though less effective long term.

Time frame would probably be about 12 hours, though I wonder if that's too short unless I employ time dilation in some relative sense of where the fight is taking place.

Wondering about some amount of constraint on players, though it's a fine line to walk between too much freedom and too little.

Any other bullet points you think should be included, feel free to let me know. As said, new DM and such

• Time limit (12 hours, 1 day, 3 days?)
• Managing time in the battle royale progressing
• Managing separate fights and NPC movements
• Size of arena
• # of Participants (6-12 max)
• Limit on participant magic (healing and damage)
• Limit to not teleport out
• Cursed by special object touched to initiate battle royale (Greater Curse)
• Fight to survive
• Player can bring character back after death with penalty to class features or level depending on starting level
• Starting Level range from 15-17 initially, possibly lower to start? 6-8 for lower level oneshot
• Follow up with last 4 survivors in interplanar tournament?

[Incorrect]

An issue with this format is that every player gets an average of 5 minutes of playtime every 1 hour, the rest of the time the player is off-screen and maybe even in another room.
In addition there is no opportunity for roleplaying.

I think you should consider how to make this fun for the players :)

A twist on the same basis might be that there are 6-12 four man groups in a battle royale style scenario. The players are one of these groups and must work together against the npc groups to survive and win.

[Eldariel]

This sort of a setup works much better in play-by-post or in general, online than face-to-face simply due to time allocation. The group should be kept relatively concise and you could team up players or whatever to make it work; but combat with even 6+ players tends to bog down in D&D. One of the (many) reasons I prefer simultaneous resolution systems in the vein of Diplomacy. But yeah, you could just pick some plane like Ysgard with a premade arena for this (it's basically Walhalla, where all the participants fight by day and the dead are revived and then feast by night - the heaven of a warrior, unsurprisingly seen over by Kord). Just make it a demiplane with a lock on extradimensional movement and remember to include varying terrain features; they make combat about infinitely more interesting when things like line of sight, vision range, terrain, winds, weather, etc. are accounted for (it's all there in the DMG). Since magic, it could vary with some frequency and why not include some random traps or such as well.

[Rebel7284]

May the odds be always in your favor.

[zlefin]

how do you prevent a standoff between two people focused on spending the entire time hiding? (invis, hide in plains sight, earth glide).

If you're looking to first time DM, it'd be far easier to just run a premade module.

[muichimotsu]

how do you prevent a standoff between two people focused on spending the entire time hiding? (invis, hide in plains sight, earth glide).

If you're looking to first time DM, it'd be far easier to just run a premade module.

Never precluded that the game master for the battle royale couldn't snap their fingers and add a new element to things like an invisible stalker or the like to see right through invisibility, etc. The challenge is primarily between the PCs, but the environment is also malleable in a sense with regards to adding new challenges should a player try to out think the game master.

The opportunity for roleplaying and such is still there and it's not as if I don't know my group already in some respects, so the goal here is planning appropriately with challenges within a more constrained area.

But if I wanted to do a module, what would you suggest, especially around level 5-8? There's likely a great deal in 3.5 even if we're just considering official, unless Wizards didn't do as much of that as they're doing with 5E?

[Mars Ultor]

Never precluded that the game master for the battle royale couldn't snap their fingers and add a new element to things like an invisible stalker or the like to see right through invisibility, etc. The challenge is primarily between the PCs, but the environment is also malleable in a sense with regards to adding new challenges should a player try to out think the game master.

This is something players might dislike for exactly that reason, it's inherently unfair. If two guys go straight at it with swords then it's one-on-one, but if someone tries to think it through or try something unusual, the DM starts playing against them as well. Players notice when conditions change for the sole purpose of making things more difficult for them.



But if I wanted to do a module, what would you suggest, especially around level 5-8? There's likely a great deal in 3.5 even if we're just considering official, unless Wizards didn't do as much of that as they're doing with 5E?

How are you going to handle spell-casters? Is it always caster vs. caster? Is there going to be a Rogue with a short future going up against a Wizard? The classes are inherently unbalanced and it begins to show just about the levels you plan on playing. These fights are going to depend a lot not on tactics or planning, but on who gets initiative.


Also, you said, "The challenge is primarily between the PCs." Does this mean that the PCs are fighting each other? That's even worse as everyone is already aware of the power structure of the group, but now you're rubbing their faces in it. Does the Druid get his Animal Companion? If you take it away you're punishing that player in a which the others aren't affected. If you let him keep it, the non-magic PCs don't stand a chance.

[JW86]

My suggestions, for what they are worth;

I'd suggest instead of each player for themselves, have the battle royale set up in groups, with the PCs forming one such group.

I'd suggest having the other groups statted out, at least roughly, in advance; to avoid the oh-so-annoying situation of the DM changing things last-second to try and beat the PCs.

I'd also suggest having an idea what areas there are with an outline of the types of monster - teleporting in specific creatures just to beat the PCs also sounds annoying.

[Quertus]

So, I'm kinda known for saying that power imbalance doesn't matter, but I say this in the context of team game.

I've run a couple of games like this in earlier editions (and other systems), and it's fine when the players know what they're getting into. When they lacked the concept of balance, and one player thought "Conan, but an idiot" would be unbeatable, as they did in one group where I discussed this idea, I scraped the idea.

In this kind of scenario, in 3e, a surprise round sneak attack dark whisper gnome with property gear should successfully hide from and assassinate the entire rest of the competition.

All that having been said, I'm really liking the idea of X parties instead of X individuals, and having the PCs be one party.

[muichimotsu]

In terms of teleporting monsters, it's not as if I'm going to be intentionally spiteful rather than just adding a new element into things.

The idea of a party vs. party situation could work well, especially if we're wanting the party to be invested in everyone's survival rather than being purely egoistic and play at collaboration with backstabbing in mind (which is already happening 3 episodes into Juuni Taisen).

Ultimately I'd want it to be comparable to a one shot in preparation without it having to necessarily involve a grandiose story, though I can understand how that can be far more engaging. I can branch things out from there to the party being rewarded for survival and tasked with a larger quest to become stronger for the next tournament. The tournament could short and sweet, just an establishing point for this mysterious being of godlike power (or actual god depending on story direction) to have the players go somewhere else.