Need help coming up with scenarios for a "You restart when you die" one-shot.

[Stille_Nacht]

Background

Essentially, I'm running 2 or so sessions with 1 experienced and 3 semi-new players of DnD over the course of 2 or so days, and I'm toying around with the idea of trying a more interesting mechanic instead of a standard "save the town" type deal.

I always felt that the most fun parts of DnD were when players were engaged and thinking about off the wall possibilities. I'd like to introduce a setting during the oneshot which is conducive to that.

The first idea is just to make it a normal mystery. However, it feels difficult to organically get some people to get really "into" the DnD mystery mind set given only a few hours. Also, I want the format to be a bit more forgiving then compelling mystery settings can typically be made to be.

Framework

I have a basic idea:

The party is presented with a clear goal, which is very difficult to achieve.

Whenever the party dies, they wake up at the beginning of the scenario.

They get a little foreshadowing as to what's going on in the background every time they die.
- there is some ill-defined entity which is causing their souls to try this scenario over and over
- the result of this oneshot changes the course of history through some butterfly effect
- they may experience the results of their actions in fleeting dreams between "tries"

They will have a limited amount of tries, which they will figure out.
- I will probably make the total tries some multiple of the total scenarios they must solve.

Scenarios

Alright, so here's the hard part. Coming up with scenarios which are interesting in this environment, work with each other, and are easy to solve or sidestep after being solved. I feel that I should prepare quite a few, and I can pull them out depending on how the pacing is going. As of now, I'm still at the drawing board:

Wake up chained to the hull of a slaver ship. The ship is inevitably going to crash on the rocks. Goal is to escape

At some point get ambushed by bandits who are desperate for money for food. Vague idea that gathering money will be important for a later scenario.

Problems

It could easily get really confusing if there are too many scenarios, so I'm trying to not introduce too much.

The end goal has to have facets that relate to all the scenarios or they seem pointless.

If there are too many repetitions I can see this getting kind of redundant and boring.


Thoughts? Comments? Ideas for scenarios?

[PiperThePaladin]

My dad did something like this for our group to teach us some idea of tactics years and years ago. The only way we knew how to fight stuff was "run in and stab them!" So my dad built an abandoned city dungeon with traps, resident kobolds and a dragon.

There were a couple of "straightforward" ways through the dungeon, such as a hallway that opened right into the dragon's lair. These all murdered us, and every time we died we woke up at the beginning of the dungeon again. It was a big dungeon and the rooms and halls moved around a bit each time, so we would take different routes and try different things and it never felt repetitive.

I think it was the third time we figured out how to ambush the kobolds and sneaked our way to the balconies overlooking the dragon's lair, where we had 3/4 cover from its breath weapon and could attack at range. After that dungeon, we got a lot better at fighting smarter rather than harder.

[Pleh]

Dark Souls.

You are an undead prisoner who escapes and begins hack n slashing other undead for souls.

Groundhog Day.

You are caught in a time loop which you cannot escape until you figure out the path that releases you from the loop (traditionally, whatever resolution that leads to the only actual change in the loop's final outcome).

Wizard's Experiment.

You are mice trapped in a maze. The mad wizard won't let you escape, so you will keep running through the same maze forever until you outsmart the wizard.

Ender's Game/Live. Die. Repeat.

To prepare you for the hell of war, you are going through endless repetitions of battle simulations until you find a way to win the war. When the "real thing" gets here, will you even know that you won't wake up from this one?

[Kaptin Keen]

I had one of these.

Players wake up in the science bay of a space station taken over by a rogue AI. There are regen tubes, and a doctor informing them that he's had to seal off these few rooms from the rest of the station, because ... rogue AI. So they venture out through the first door, and are immediately gunned down.

Regen, start over. Now they know that sentryguns cover the only obvious way forward. Either find a way to defeat or circumvent the obstacle.

Makes for a fun game, but you need to come up with a lot of ideas, and they all need to be kinda-sorta fair.

Also, the doctor needs to have some sort of plot of his own. Like maybe he's really an android controlled by the AI, and it's all a test for the AI to improve it's defences.

[Stille_Nacht]

See, groundhog day type scenarios, where they have to run through the same thing over and over and over until they find a solution are interesting in theory, but I don't think they'll be too fun in real life. The whole appeal of that sort of thing is you get to see how a person faces a bleak and repetitive world. You get to skip the boring part, which you don't in dnd.

Things like mazes just aren't fun in the first place for new players. They're just busywork without real interest.

Turrets and complex battles might be fun though.

[Coretex]

I really like the groundhog day idea, but as previously mentioned that movie was about tedium (in addition to other things).

That doesn't stop you from making a game around the concept, it just means you have to design the area they are playing in to have many, various, and deep interactions.

In a groundhog day situation you can let the PCs die and fail in all sorts of interesting ways. The world has to be knowable, but unknown. Eventually, as they learn more and more through multiple playthroughs they become more knowledgeable until they are like gods, even if you don't level them up (I wouldn't).

Down this alley is a shady deal going on between a mobster and a noble. Both plan to betray the other and the item being sold is important to learn more about the Loop.
If the PCs interfere they get soundly trounced, but with enough clues that next time can win (or get closer to doing so). They could manipulate one of the parties before hand, assassinate all of the backup, steal the item, etc.

Across town a mansion is burning. Treasures are hidden and will be destroyed by the fire.

In this tavern a respected figure is drowning their sorrows, and someone else is recording the events to ruin their good name. He knows something important. The PCs can try to talk to him, but they don't get far unless they investigate the cause for his grief. They might be able to stop that event entirely, or comfort him with unnerving accuracy, or keep him from embarrassing himself so that he will be grateful.

These are just the big things (with ramifications) that you need to keep track of. Lots of little things can be happening at the same time and many of them can be more than the PCs can handle (the first time around). You just have to make sure that the difficulty comes from unexpected surprises (like enemies who plan for contingencies) instead of overwhelming force.

... Although... a way to in-debt a military body like the city guards would be a neat way to overcome an overwhelming force.

Basically, its a metroidvania with knowledge as the gate to more knowledge. A playground where each ride has secret better levels.

[Hawkstar]

An Adventure I've been meaning to create and run at some point is a "Temple of Time" thing, on behest of a Gynosphinx. In the present, it's dilapidated ruins in a frozen wasteland. In the past, it's a hot, sandy desert temple.

The players have a goal: Ring two bells the same interval apart at two different points in time (So, they have to ring one bell, then the other, then go to the other point in time, and ring the first bell, and then the next within the same minute afterward.) The time tracking would probably be too much of a hassle, so it would probably just be best to have it be "Ring the two bells in the same order", with a third bell at the main entrance that serves as a complete "Reset" when you go to the other time-era (So, if someone dies or something seriously screws up, you can return to the entrance, ring the bell, and travel to the other time point, resetting any progress the party's made in that time zone). A TPK is still a defeat, though. Possibly add a third bell that needs to be rung in order to break the curse and win the adventure to make up for the lack of a time challenge.

There are 'sand portals' scattered throughout the temple that can be used to either Short Rest and stay in the current time zone (Each one can only be used for this purpose once per 'reset'), or Travel between time zones.

In the run-down 'present', the temple is dilapidated, half-collapsed run down, and infested with scavengers and random monsters that have moved in, with the Sphinx's servants, guards, and attendants encased in a magical ice. The sphinx herself pleads with the adventurers from her own frozen encasement at the gate and 'reset bell'.

In the Past, the players are turned into Sand Wraiths, which the sphinx and her guards perceive as hostile monsters (And, in their forms, while they retain all their stats, they cannot speak with the inhabitants - only each other), and will attempt to destroy them on sight. After the first bell is rung, the past-Sphinx herself will try to stop them, believing them to be agents of some malevolent force.

Anyone killed in the past is dead in the present (Unless they reset) - including the quest-giving sphinx (And with it, the reward). If the players manage to ring the bells and break the curse on the temple (banishing the unnatural ice from the area) without killing anyone, the Sphinx will be extraordinarily grateful and overjoyed and give a magnificent reward (Including an Epic Boon, and a vast amount of treasure). if the players kill only a few of the Sphinx's retainers or guards, she's saddened by their loss, but still rewards them with a more 'standard' reward of some treasure, basic divination services, and a minor magical boon. If a fair number of the sphinx' retainers are killed, the Sphinx grieves for their deaths and is angry at the PCs for their negligence toward the lives of her followers, and answers only a single divination question, and gives only a chest of coins as wealth (no magical or high-quality items, or high-value art). If almost all but the sphinx are killed, the Sphinx is overcome with grief and rage, offers them a mockery of a reward (Throwing the mangled bodies at them as 'payment', and pretty much telling them to go **** themselves as their divination), and will attack if they linger.

If the Sphinx is killed in the past, the surviving retainers would have no idea what actually happened, but offer the party access to some of the temple's treasury (Which is sealed away in time, with no method for the party to access on their own) in thanks for restoring the temple, while keeping an amount inversely proportionate to the amount of survivors (So, the more living retainers/guards/etc. the greater the reward to the players) to cover the costs of recovery.

[Pleh]

So many people warning that groundhog day is tedious that I want to put in another vote for Dark Souls.

That game allowed players to be as methodical or reckless as they wanted. The respawn mechanic was an excuse for the difficulty to be brutal and every portion of the map was carefully constructed to surprise players occasionally. Most of the surprise deaths just warned players not to run in guns blazing everywhere, but some were designed to warn them not to spend too much time picking carefully around the hazards. As much as rushing in can be a bad idea, they wanted to keep players forced to do it from time to time.

It also minimizes the social element, which is the portion most likely to get boring and tedious.

[Zurvan]

1) They are undead and come back to life after killed.

2) They are cursed by the god of death to come back to life after being killed.

3) Their patron is the god of time who reewinds time when they die.

[LeMooseImperium]

Have the characters trapped in a time loop that keeps getting shorter every time they die or it ends, so that they have a finite amount of tries.

[Dragonkingofth]

I think the only suggestion I can give that has no been done yet are the following.

1) each time they die a friendly cleric or something casts reincarnation so aside from comeback from teh dead they spin the lottery wheel on there race.

2) I don't have an issue with sci-fi in my D&D, so make them robots. Each time they die, upload them into a new body.

[LeMooseImperium]

Another way is have them be disembodied souls. At the start, they inhabit random corpses you choose. After each death, they go to a different body, and thus have a different starting point. That way, you can make sure they don't have a knowledge of every trap and monster in their way from last run.