Easiest module/campaign to prepare?

[Condé]

Hello,

Simple question. In your opinion, what is the easiest / shortest / less-time consuming / etc... module or campaign you have ever prepared?

(A campaign is, by definition longer, but let's say at pro rata)

It can be DnD or any other system. Any edition/version.
Try not suggest modules that are entirely randomly generated or simple lines where you are supposed to improve everything on the fly.

[firelistener]

The "five room dungeon" format has always been the quickest for me if I'm making everything myself.

I usually do what I have named "The Crystal Ball in the Well". Party starts out at the bottom of a well that is connected to a large cave system. A wizard standing at the top dropped his crystal ball in there and a kobold snatched it before running deeper into the caves. Party fights a few kobolds, has to cross an acid pool, and then finds a black dragon wyrmling with the crystal ball and some other treasure. The wizard gives the adventurers a relatively minor magic item as a reward, like a potion. The whole thing took me about an hour to draw up the very first time, and I've run it about three times since with zero prep.

If you mean something more complete and published, then I'd suggest this 5e module:
https://winghornpress.com/adventures/a-wild-sheep-chase/
I've run it before and it's very easy to do. I see others recommend it online fairly often too.

[Quertus]

By definition, a "white room" scenario involves 0 preparation, as there is literally nothing there. /thread

"Welcome to the real world" and "Welcome to <video game / story I know by heart>" can be run by some with no prep... although most video games / stories have monsters, who will probably need stats - if they don't correspond to existing monsters in the system you have memorized, and you can't stat them on the fly, then some prep will be involved.

"Talk among yourselves" can be done with minimal prep. Or, to generalize that, "every actor in this game is a PC", and the PCs interact (talk, politic, PvP, whatever) while the GM takes a nap until they're needed to adjudicate something can involve minimal or detailed prep, depending on the scenario the GM crafts.

The trick to minimizing prep time is to minimize the number of items the GM doesn't already know by heart. Which can be done by using things the GM is intimately familiar with, or by simply not including anything, per the empty white room.

[Lacco]

My favourite campaign-starters /modules are relatively enclosed one-shots, that get the party together, put them into action into enclosed environment. Usually their first 'adventure' is about surviving a situation or getting out of one, with environment preventing them to easily escape, while setting some overall tone.

Let's see...

Shadowrun (or any modern/cyberpunk/scifi)

Non-stop
Situation:
The group members are travelling in the same compartment of a high-speed express train, that does not stop for next 6+ hours. They are on their way to a job (you can play the Johnson meeting before the game; they provide perfectly tailored SINs/false papers and tickets because it's the easiest way). This way they had to pick some equipment to take with them that fits a standard luggage.
The train contains also a VIP section, in the front.
The VIP is a target for an extremist group that will be opposed to our group in the future.
To make sure there are no trouble, the extremist group sends 2 or 3 punks into each carriage to neutralize any threats. Our protagonists are seen as threats immediately.
I make sure they immediately learn about the group's plan to blow up the rest of the train once they get the VIP.

Solution: neutralize the extremists, save the VIP, get some contacts and get to their destination.

Prep: I did it with a fictional Perth-Brisbane railway route (16h on train, non-stop).
I prepped 10 carriages, most of the time similar layouts - first few were closed compartment carriages, with 3 compartments (each had one perp inside or outside in the corridor), then open carriages (different situations with perps having all folks on one side, even one hostage standoff), restaurant carriage, two 1st class carriages and then the VIP. Most perps were in the 1st class carriage, because the bodyguards were doing a good job of holding them down so far.
Most perps were generic pistol-wielding mooks, but there were 4 lieutnants. No boss though, but the shootout in the 1st class was intense.
The matrix was blocked (jamming outwards comms), so they could only use the local nodes but once they set up a sattelite relay, they were able to contact anyone.
Briefly described the scene with the Johnson, gave them a description of the job (a simple, but violent job, they were hired as outsiders). They were told that their compartment would be their whole team.
Asked them to "pack" - tell me what luggage they take and what's inside.
They met in the last compartment of the train, so they described as they entered it, some banter and the train moved... boom, they hear some noise (gives them few seconds to prep) and in goes a guy with a pistol.
As soon as the perps in their carriage were neutralized, they took their radio, hacked it and knew what's going down. They hatched a plan to get to the front, help the bodyguards and then make them stop the train before arrival to the station to leave and get another ride. They even called the Johnson who agreed to the plan.


House Party
Situation:
The group is in a safehouse - an old apartment building in the warrens - provided by a fixer. Their job is to basically babysit a piece of equipment before someone comes to collect it. The building gets hit by Lone Star squad that is looking for a perp hiding in another part of the building - unfortunately, that sparks a three-way shootout because of a mob-triad negotiation meeting that was going down in another part. Mob, Lone Star, Triads and the perp and his bodyguards are going all out - and our characters are in the middle of this.

They are on the 15th floor and it's a long way down.

Elevators are down. Stairs are full of people trying to shoot everybody down.

If they decide to do a sitting duck, they get a call from the fixer asking them to bring the thingie elsewhere because of the heat. Also, he mentioned that the call for reinforcements went through and they had like 30 minutes until the Lone Star reinforcements get there. No info on mob or triads.

Solution: get out alive.

Prep: filled... let's say 6 of the 15 floors with various situations (mexican standoff, a hallway shootout, a maze of corridors where you have to go through different apartments to get anywhere, a barricaded hallway, booby-trapped hallway). The other floors were used as filler with non-threatening situations (old lady will allow them to go through her apartment provided they act as polite guys, local junkie will follow them asking for a fix, a guy will ask them to help him get to another floor - for money).

The matrix connection is spotty unless they fix it somehow.

Again, enemies were mostly mooks (different equipment for Triads, Mob and Lone Star mooks), 2 lieutnants and one boss for each side. They could avoid some fights if they were smart.

I used the Shadowrun Random Atmosphere Generator pdf a lot.



Riddle of Steel (low-magic fantasy)


The Broken Wheel
Situation:
The group has to travel somewhere and decides to use a carriage. In winter. The driver gets lost due to heavy snowing and the carriage breaks down - the wheel breaks - on a forest road somewhere between two towns, in a bandit-infested area. A snowstorm is approaching.

They notice a roof through trees in the forest.

The house was originally inhabited by a local forester and his family, but a local group of bandits killed them and decided to loot the house and use it as a hideout - they went back to their original hideout to get their stuff; most of the bandits are currently away and only one is still there.

They have only two hours until the snowstorm hits; it persists until the next day. At some point the bandit group arrives in full numbers.

Prep: good scenario for a small party (I ran it with 4 players, but one of them had to leave prematurely, so 3 players)
8 bandits (one boss + 7 different mooks)
Map of the house
One of the bandits was still hiding in the house; if they split the party he'd attack, if they went together, he'd plead for his life, lying about him being the forester (there were lots of clues he was not). If confronted, he'd break down promising help and informing them about the bandits. He'd betray them if left unsupervised, either running away and warning the bandits, or just attack them when the bandits arrived.
I'd build a lot of tension for the exploration part and gave them some time to banter & prepare dinner and later - when they learned about bandits - gave them resources and time to prep some traps and build defences.

A very simple starting scenario, but was a big hit with players.
Could be adapted for various factions (slavers, enemy faction scouts, cultists...) easily.


The Gray Tankard Tavern
Ran this one on this forum (see my signature).
The group is hired as guards for a wagon, because the forests are - again - infested with bandits. When leaving, they see a young man on a horse, overtaking them. As they venture deep into a forest, a storm arrives and they have to hide. First they find the body of the young man, with a strange letter in his hands.
After some time, they notice an old, dilapitated inn with a sign of a grey tankard deep in the forest, standing back to a large stone cliff.
The inn itself has some surprises (a rotten part of floor in front of the stairs - if they don't watch out and step into it, they fall into the meat room below; a pantry which still has some useful items; a room with a harmless specter that shows itself at midnight) and overall, I played with the dread of the setting as much as possible. The atmosphere is strange, and they can definitely hear some whispers around.
The truth is, that there is a big cellar, which contains several rooms and secret hideout behind a wardrobe in the cellar - a cave-like passage that leads to a grotto and outside, formerly used by the owners as smuggler hideout.
Currently, this part is occupied by a group of meat traders - people that rob the travellers and cut them up and sell their meat to a local cult. As they arrive, there are only few of the meat traders inside - three of them, to be precise. The rest ventured outside, to another site, and got caught by the rain. The strange letter in the hands of the young man was actually information to await a group sent their way and to prepare an ambush, but it never arrived, so they are unaware of it.
If they decide to check the contents of the wagon, it's mostly fake weight (e.g. a barrel containing a dozen salted fish that cover the rocks that make up the rest of the barrel).

The group has few hours to find out that there are some people in the tavern, maybe even find out about the rest and to prepare for the ensuing fight when they arrive the other morning.

Prep: the house, a barn (for a large party it originally contained a bear, but for a smaller party it can contain one of the bandits who was separated from the rest), the underground & the passage.
8-10 enemies (each with their own personality, equipment, etc...)
Some basic info on the cult.

The cultists can be bandits, slavers, or other parties that would benefit from a secret hideout like this.