Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 woif Oct 09, 2014 13:07:13	I DM an ongoing 5e campaign. My players are interested in testing out some of the other classes so I am going to put together a one-shot adventure for them. Previously when I had done this with other groups we just played a meat-grinder murderfest, which was fun and all, but I think this time I'd like to try to add some story and reasons for the killing to take place. With this is mind, I pose two questions.   1) Are there any good modules which were designed to be completed in a ~6 hour session? I'm fine with converting old modules and modifying a few small things to make sure my players finish in the one night.   2) What advice would you give me in regards to designing and running a compelling one-shot session?     Thanks in advance for your help.
#2 iserith Oct 09, 2014 13:14:30	Here's one I wrote that you're free to use: Barrow of the Evensong. If you do use it, please tell me how it went.
#3 GrrHero Oct 09, 2014 14:16:09	I've ran several one-shots, and while killing has always been the focus, I've tried a few different things.   One that was not all killing was a murder mystery. I had a high ranking offical and a prostitute killed in an alley. The two victims were frequenters of a local bar, and the offical's favorite girl was the dead streetwalker. A local temple housed the offical's body for burial ceremony and inspection, while the prostitute was held in the commoners' funeral home, or just a pile of bodies to be burned each week. The murderer was a Lamia(from 4th edition, where they were a collection of bugs) shapeshifted in to the Captain of the Guard, who unbeknownst to the players died months before the adventure. He had used a magical item I created, called a Necklace of Restraint, that allows a caster to control a lycanthope. The Lamia used the necklace on a weretiger that was trying to live a normal life as the bar's owner. I had several suspects for the players to go through: the bar owner(who they ignored because the Captain of the Guard said he would handle him), a crazed old lady that lived outside the city with her mentally handicapped half-orc son(who had killed a little girl several years before the adventure), and the local temple's Head Priest(who was to take the offical's place in the city council). At the crime scene they found an tuff of orange fur; the half-orc had orange hair, the Priest's headdress had orange fur and plums, and the bar owner's hair was strawberry blonde. The players disregarded the prostitiute completely(had they looked in to her past, they would have found that the bar owner and she would see each other without any exchange of coin), and did not inspect the body of the offical until near the end where they found a large cockroach crawling under the skin. The cockroach was part of the Lamia, and was preventing necromancy(Speak with Dead) and raise spells. It also had a marking on its back that the wizard in the party identified as the sigil of the Masquerade, a sect of evil shapeshifters searching for the Staff of Seven Parts(which the offical was in possession of one piece). In the end it took the entire adventure for the party to figure it out, though they never caught the Captain of the Guard.   Another one-shot I had was a homage to Attack on Titan. I drew a map of a massive city incased in 100 foot high walls. At the beginning of the adventure the players started at level 16 and with the background the 'Champions of the Realm', which has a feature called Celebrity. Celebrity allows them to find lodging, food, and sanctuary anywhere, but they also have the chance to have stalkers and idoits that want to be like them throwing themselves into combat they cannot survive. The King of the Realm summoned the Champions to find out why the capital has lost contact with the villages on the outskirts of the territory. Once the players made it to the destroyed villages, they found Giants' footprints everywhere. Heading back to tell the King, they saw a village under attack by the Giants. The Champions saved the village, but only to find that all the villages between there and the capital were in smoldering ruins. After they told the King what happened to his realm, there was a great gala that evening for the Champions(which allowed the players to have fun RPing), then a parade the next day before the Champions set out to find the Giant horde. But, the parade was interrupted by a massive bolt of lightning just outside the walls. In the lightning's wake, a Colossus(doubled all giant stats) of 200 feet stood looking over the wall into the capital. With a mighty swing of its leg, the wall came tumbling down to allow the horde of 300 giants in.(I've ran this one a couple times now and everytime the players try to take on all of the giants at once, but they soon figure out that they cannot do it by themselves.) The Champions fell back and gathered clerics, mages, and warriors from within the capital to strategically attack. That let the players become the commanders of their own forces, which they enjoyed greatly.   That's two of my one-shots, or "Bebops" as I call them. These are the ones that do not just focus on combat, or at least straight-forward fighting. They both take about 6-8 hours to complete(sometimes less with the murder case).
#4 Ansbach Oct 09, 2014 17:48:17	1.) There are a ton of modules and other adventures that can be finished in a six-hour session.  However, running a pre-published adventure is not always as shortcut - there's a lot of reading and preperation to do, and since it's not your idea - everything is going to be foreign. I find under short time frames, they actually require more preperation than your own adventure - not less.  For a one-shot, I'd recommend running your own adventure over a pre-published one.   2.) Here's the short version, if you want me to expand on anything let me know and I'll be happy to. Think of a one shot as similar to a convention game.  Imagine the big cool finale that you want everyone to talk about after the game is over, or think of the game in terms of a movie trailer.  Design the adventure backwards from there.  Keep it simple and relatively straightforward - but that doesn't mean it has to be a no-thought meat grinder.   A simple three act structure with escalating conflict works the best.  Normally I would say get to the action right away, but if you are going to be playing for six hours you have some flexibility to build up slowly if you prefer.    Also, since there is only one session it is important to make sure each character has a moment to shine somewhere in the session.  Make sure the thief has a chance to pick locks, or the druid has a chance to speak with animals, or whatever else fits.  Assuming that your players are making their own characters, try to get them ahead of time as much as possible. Personally, I always use pregens for one shots so that I can fit them into the adventure nicely.     The last piece of advice is to make it more epic than a normal adventure and be extra creative.  There are no long-term consequences!  Since they won't be playing these characters again, it's OK if crazy stuff happens because there is no campaign to unbalance or worry about.  They could become really powerful in a short time, acquire special powers, or maybe have the adventure spans several years and they level up the characters mid-session, or maybe have one of them turn on the party at the end and become the Big Bad, or even have them all die in the final battle 300-style.  Think epic and unusual.
#5 Nevvur Oct 09, 2014 16:43:13	Great ideas above, I won't expand upon them.    An arena type scenario would be the simplest set up I can imagine, with the PCs participating for some reward essential to their motivations. Or perhaps they are captives forced to fight. Whatever the case, the essential prep needs only include the arena itself and whatever enemies they'll face. Fleshing out just a few NPCs can add a lot of flavor without much work. For example, other competitors, an entertaining fight announcer/commentator, the person responsible for organizing the arena, etc.
#6 Coredump00 Oct 09, 2014 22:29:27	You could grab one of the Expedition modules and expand on it a bit to go from 4 to 6 hours....
#7 Theros Oct 10, 2014 9:14:07	Hoard of the Dragonqueen has a great series of encounters at the beginning.
#8 woif Oct 10, 2014 16:34:36	Thanks guys, that's a lot of great advice. Unfortunately I've never gotten play or even watch a game at a convention so I can't really use that as a reference point. I don't really shy away from prep work for a campaign, so reading through a bunch of modlues and learning how they work would't really be a problem for me.   Iserith, I like the barrow write up you shared, thanks for that. I feel like my players would want some kind of epic final battle though, so I'm toying with the idea of modding your adventure to include a time limit and a few more scary monsters, or maybe just have them follow the blink dog through the gate to aid it's master in some sort of final fight scene.   Coredump00, what are the expedition modules that you mention, how would i grab one of those?   Ansbach, that is a lot of goodinformation,I would however like you to clarify a few points particularly how to design an adventure backwards from the final scene and the "three act structure with escalating conflict" you mentioned. I don't want to use pregens as I want to encourage my players to digito character creation rules a little bit, they are fairly new to RPGs so I want them to have plenty of freedom in designing a fun character that they won't have to use on a longterm basis (such as the lawful stupid paladin who is fun at first but gets dull after a few sessions). my plan right now is to give the players a brief outline of the session (attacking a mummy crypt, arctic adventure, pirate/ship combat) two weeks beforehand so they can buid an appropriate character and turn it into me the week prior to the adventure, that way as you said I can tailor certain chalenges for each member to shine.   Thanks again for your help everybody.
#9 Ansbach Oct 10, 2014 20:49:47	Sure thing.  In your described situation, having them build their own characters is better than using pregens - just try to get them ahead of time if you can so that you can tailor things a bit to them.   At it's most basic, a three act structure just means to have a beginning, middle and end.  In RPG terms think of it as the first act is the setup, the second act is the journey and the third act is the finale.  I think it will be helpful to combine that with working backwards and a sample advenutre idea too:  First you dream up the finale that is going to be the awesome, exciting climax that you want them all talking about the next day.  Let's say it's a battle with an evil wizard on a floating cloud-castle in the sky with all kinds of crazy stuff happening around them.  You flesh that out a bit and make it as cool as possible, ideally with ways for each character to contribute.  Then think about the journey to get there - the players had to make their way to the cloud castle and fight some of the wizard's minions along the way.  Take it down a notch in challenge, but think of what kind of challenges, events or opponents you want them to face as they make their way towards the big finale.  By this time, the first act will be the easiest - it is where you introduce the characters to the world and the mission - who the evil wizard is, who is minions are, why they care and what they need to do (the journey) to resolve the issue.  Once you are done, go throught it from the perspective of each character and make sure they have a couple of moments to shine.   It's a pretty straightforward process and simple process - which is the point..  Note that this is a completely different process than what  I would use to create a "normal" adventure for a campaign, and it is also not the only way to build an engaging one-shot adventure.  The main thing to keep in mind is that there are different expectations in a one shot - it works very well to have an adventure that is relatively linear and straightforward.  The players don't have the time or inclination to be heavily invested in their characters or the game world and are going to be more interested in just having fun, having a moment or two to shine  and getting straight to the action.