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Easy e
2022-03-23, 11:25 AM
Greetings all,

I have been running a few one-shots of various systems for my formerly D&D 5e group.

This has included:
- Modiphius 2d20 systems
- Star Wars d6 from West End Games
- 5e

and I plan on doing a few for other systems as well over the next couple weeks/months. These are mostly palate cleansers for our long running Curse of Strahd campaign where I am a player. This allows the DM a chance to recharge and be a player, and me to stretch my GM muscles a bit.

I hope to run:
- A Supers game TBD
- Legend of the 5 Rings
- A Space Mecha Theatre type game TBD
- Paleomythic
- Dresden Files FATE
- Call of Cthulhu

Each one-shot is about 3 hours, with some session ) to set the rules of the game, review pre-gen characters, etc. Then, we typically start off with a bang, often In Media Res or with immediate decisions needing to be made. The world and characters are fleshed out as we go.

With that in mind, I am looking to up my One-Shot game. Therefore, what are some tips and tricks you have picked up?

Pauly
2022-03-24, 01:10 AM
For one shots pacing is the key.

- Sacrifice world detail to get more encounters.
- If the PCs are taking too long to overcome a challenge have the cavalry arrive and solve it for them.
- Make things like searching roll once and move on. Don’t let the characters spend 5 minutes tapping walls for concealed passages and looking in the draws for false compartments.

You can’t show a full system
- pick the elements you want to highlight and focus on those.
- Either have a party of specialists who each get a turn in the spotlight, or a party of generalists who can help to some degree in all situations.

Have fun. There are no consequences.
- Use all the bad puns you always wanted, but were afraid to.
- Rip off and reference as much pop culture as you dare.
- over the top Saturday morning cartoon explosions and over reactions should be the norm.
- Its OK for the party to fail and the evil villain take over the world.

Catullus64
2022-03-24, 01:30 AM
- If the PCs are taking too long to overcome a challenge have the cavalry arrive and solve it for them.


I would advise quite the opposite; if the players are taking too long to solve a problem, throw a new, scarier problem at them to light a fire under their behinds, and keep doing so until they stop puttering around and take decisive action.

Pauly
2022-03-24, 02:47 AM
I would advise quite the opposite; if the players are taking too long to solve a problem, throw a new, scarier problem at them to light a fire under their behinds, and keep doing so until they stop puttering around and take decisive action.

I was thinking more of a situation where they were flubbing a fight because of bad dice or not being able to run their characters at optimum because of unfamiliarity with the rules. I’ve played in a Toon oneshot where the DM literally dropped a piano out of a blue sky onto a guard we were taking way too long to KO.

I agree that ramping up the scare factor is a good way of dealing with dithering in a oneshot. The over-riding concern is to keep the plot moving.

Mastikator
2022-03-24, 02:55 AM
Don't make challenges that take too much time or can't be bypassed. Wooden doors rather than metal doors so the players can always break the doors if they fail the lockpicking check.

If they're spending a lot of time on pointless tasks give them a "doom clock" of some sort.

elros
2022-03-24, 03:51 AM
I was thinking more of a situation where they were flubbing a fight because of bad dice or not being able to run their characters at optimum because of unfamiliarity with the rules. I’ve played in a Toon oneshot where the DM literally dropped a piano out of a blue sky onto a guard we were taking way too long to KO.

I agree that ramping up the scare factor is a good way of dealing with dithering in a oneshot. The over-riding concern is to keep the plot moving.
So far everyone is giving great advice!
I would add that one shot adventures should give the feel for the game and the game world. In the example of Toon, dropping a piano out of the sky is consistent with the tone of the game, but that would be terrible in a Call of Cthulhu game. It’s great to be able to experience how the atmosphere and game mechanics create different experiences, even when you have the same group of players.
I suggest talking to the players so you know what they want from the session. For example, in CoC people may want to experience losing insanity and character death, or they may want to role play talking to spooky people. “Session zero” is even more important when you have one shot to get the experience right.