Setting Up A One-Shot
Header Art: Uncharted Book Cover by Sylvain Sarrailh
This week I am writing about how I set up games for a one-shot, as it was a topic requested by someone a few months ago. I’ve run dozens of one-shots, some for Adventurer’s League, some for Gen Con, some for just my normal table of misfits, and at least once a month for Dump Stat. Crafting, or preparing, for a one-shot requires a different way of getting the table into the story as you are very limited in time, sometimes with only have an hour for the game.
Presenting the One-Shot
The biggest thing to keep in mind for one-shots is to have a clear and concise location for all information, and that information needs to have some hooks within it. When you are trying to get your players excited for the one-shot, you can’t just tell them to make characters for next Saturday and then be mysterious about it. They need very specific information to make characters, as you don’t want to spend your limited time during the one-shot to make those characters.
What you need to provide to the players include:
A hook for the one-shot
Time & Date, including length of the session
Ground rules for character creation
System-focused information
As an example, I’ll be using a one-shot I ran in October, the Winds of Gravenmoor.
The Hook
If you tell your players you are going to run a one-shot, and then tell them nothing about what it is about, you are going to have a rough start and nonsensical characters. Players may take this time to make the most off-the-wall characters they can imagine, making Smelly Olga the Sentient Ooze who kills monsters by throwing rotten garbage at them (by reflavoring their spells). Or maybe you’ll just get Bob who has no last name, barely has picked out a class, and the player forgot to buy Bob some armor so he is just running around naked the entire session, destroying whatever atmosphere you were going for unless you were planning on your one-shot taking place in a nudist colony.
A part of the hook is the name of your one-shot, even if it is cliche or nonsensical. If you take notes on your computer, you’re going to need to have a file name for it, so it might as well have an interesting name you can tack on to it and tell your players. It should envoke something about your adventure, just like a movie title invokes something within the movie.
Once you give the players the name of your one-shot, you can then throw in the hook. This hook only needs to be one or two sentences, but those sentences should be evocative and get them excited to play. You don’t tell them that the one-shot will be them ‘an exploration of the history of the lands to the west of our normal location in the game’ as that has no pizzaz. Instead, you could say that the one-shot is ‘an odyssey to the west where the king of giants and fire rules’. By giving them a hook, they can start to get an idea about what is going to happen, as well as character ideas they’ve had that could fit such a one-shot.
This hook should include their location (if it is important), what the triggering event is, and what they are going to be doing. You don’t have to be super specific about it, but you should still provide them key information so they can be all in with the adventure and already know, in general terms, what the hook in the adventure will be so they aren’t waiting around for 4 hours waiting for the adventure to start.
For example, let’s look at my one-shot.
Title: The Winds of Gravenmoor
Hook: The Hallow's Eve festival is in full swing in the small town of Gravenmoor, but all isn't right when strange winds begin flowing through the town. Is the biting cold just a sign of early winter, or something far deadlier from the moon-lit forest?
We have a title that has some mystery tied to it, hopefully, enough intrigue to then have the players read the two-sentence hook. The hook then provides background on where they are (Gravenmoor), what they are doing (a festival), what the triggering event is (strange winds), and then provides a bit of foreshadowing as to what they will be doing (going into a moon-lit forest).
Time & Date
This one is pretty easy to remember to do because if you don’t, no one will show up for the one-shot. With that said, I try to tell my players two to three weeks before the actual one-shot so they have time to create characters, I have time to remind them a week out, and more. If I’m running a one-shot for strangers on the internet, I’ll also have the date and time written for my timezone, and then also provide the UTC timezone so that others have an easier time of converting to their own timezones. Of course, no one is perfect and people will get time mixed up, but the more you can do to help, the easier start your one-shot will have.
Here is what I typically offer, which is probably too much information for most of you who are running one-shots for just your normal group of friends:
Time: Sunday, October 24th, 2021 [20211024] 12pm EDT to about 4pm EDT [4pm UTC to about 8pm UTC]
I try to avoid using MM/DD/YYYY as many people would actually read that format as DD/MM/YYYY - which is something I do even outside of one-shots. In past jobs, random conversations with people, and other things, I avoid those formats to help avoid confusion and ensure everyone is on the same page… though I have a soft spot for YYYYMMDD…
The other part of this that you should include is how long you think the session will last. I typically shoot for 3 hours, but tell people it’ll be about 4 hours in case we are slowed down during combat or they go way off and end up coming up with ideas that take a bit longer than I had thought. If you are unsure how long a one-shot will last, we’ll go over that in a little bit too.
Character Creation
So that you aren’t spending time during the one-shot on making characters, make sure you provide enough information to the players so they can make their own. Since this will be character creation away from the table, it’s important to reduce as much input from you as possible, and that includes things like rolling for stats or OKing specific subclasses or magic items.
For this, it’s dependent on what game system you are going to play. In something like Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder, you’ll need to specify how to assign ability scores, what level everyone is, what sourcebooks are allowed to build a character, if they get magic items or starting funds to create a loadout for their character, what optional rules are allowed or being used, and if there is anything specific to the system that people need to be aware of, like how Favored Foe is only good so far as the player knows what they will be fighting or dealing with a lot of.
Another system, like Blades in the Dark or Monsterhearts, will require a lot less specific information and they can get started by just using the core rulebook and nothing else. Though, something like Blades in the Dark does require the table to agree on a uniting factor, their crew, in which case you might preselect the crew for the table (that best matches the story you wish to tell) or have the table decide on their crew before the one-shot begins so that time isn’t spent on character creation during the session.
The last thing to think of is just what type of background should the players come into the game with. If you want them to defend a village, you could include a requirement that a character has some sort of connection to the village or have a strong motivation to protect others. If you want them to go on a heist, then have a requirement that they have to be willing to steal from a local noble, maybe because a slight has been made against them, the noble never paid them, or they just like stealing things.
It is OK to restrict things or have requirements for your one-shot as you have a very limited time to run a story, and any deviations could cause you to go over time or ruin the plans you have already set out - and this isn’t assuming any ill-intentions from the players. Typically, a one-shot has a very set idea or story to tell that the players won’t know all of until the end of the adventure. If you don’t provide guidelines and a few restrictions here or there, then the players might create heroes or villains that go against the story or one-shot you are trying to run - and it won’t be anyone’s fault that that happens. It’s just people coming into the one-shot with different ideas of what is happening, which is why you should empower your players by giving them as much information as possible when creating a character.
For my one-shots, here is what I typically tell them (this is for Dungeons & Dragons):
- Characters are made using the Dungeons & Dragons 5e ruleset
- Standard Stat Array or Point Buy
- Level the character up to 3rd level
- Characters are restricted to Player's Handbook, Volo's Guide to Monsters, Xanathar's Guide to Everything, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.
- Magic items can be selected from the Dungeon Master's Guide, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, or Xanathar's Guide to Everything. You can select up to 2 common items and 1 uncommon item.
- Multiclassing and Feats are allowed
- We will be interacting with humanoids, constructs, and undead.
- No evil characters. Your characters should want to be part of the story and be interested in what happens next. They should be proactive and want to figure things out without being dragged along.Background: For the background of your character, you can be an adventurer traveling through the nation of Kingsland through the Bethnal forest - or simply a resident of Gravenmoor. This adventure takes place in my world of Talia, though it doesn't require you to know anything about this material world. If you are curious, you can find more information on our website - Neiko's Primer to Talia. If you would like to use one of the races presented in the supplement, please message me first.
As you can see, I provide answers for most basic questions players are going to ask: what level, what sourcebooks, do I get magic items, can I dip into warlock with my paladin, can I be super evil - like the most evil, can I be a tabaxi, and more. While this won’t catch every question, it at least gives you a starting point to tell the players and keeps their options a bit more limited so they aren’t reaching for a book or UA that you have never heard of and you have to judge in just a few minutes when you are trying to start the one-shot.
In addition, the background can be used to tell players where they are, and where they might find more information if they really like going all-in when creating a character. Some people use the idea of character creation as a way of making short fiction, giving them guidelines to create the novella of a character’s life. Then again, this can also help if you are wanting a bit more serious characters in the one-shot, as it provides information about where they are instead of a character just deciding they are the Johnny Appleseed of burgers, going around and planting ketchup and mustard trees and burger bushes. Though, it won’t eliminate that entirely, just cause some people like to think that the weirder you are, the more creative you are.
System-Focused Information
This section is a bit more nebulous, as some systems might not have anything extra you need to cover, while others will. Dungeons & Dragons doesn’t really have any other information you need to think about, but something like Starfinder will as it is assumed that the party has a starship. In which case, this might be something you have to pre-build for strangers (if your one-shot involves starship combat in this situation) or delegate to the table before the game or to one or two players that are really into that.
Another example would be something we already talked about, the crew in Blades in the Dark. You might ignore its presence entirely for your one-shot or simply decide for the table what crew they are going to be a part of what benefits they get from that.
This is also a good spot to place any helpful hints you might have for a fun and effective game, like offering places to help build a character, resources (like actual plays) for players to be inspired by, or what software you might be using if you are utilizing a VTT for the game.
Before the game:
- Send me your character sheet (or I'll send you a pre-gen before the game if you so wish)
- Set up an account on Roll20
- Select a character token/portrait and send it to me so I can set it up on Roll20Helpful tips:
- Due to time constraints, I'll be pacing combat quickly, I understand that this might be a new system for many and am happy to explain certain mechanics. Some things might be handwaved as I won't stick strictly to the rules for first-time players.
- If you build a character, I can recommend DnDBeyond and the Beyond20 extension for chrome and firefox.
- Ensure you have a working microphone (phone or computer mic is fine) and working speakers/headphones.
Setting Up The One-Shot
Much like prepping for an adventure, a one-shot requires similar skills and requirements. There might be combat, puzzles, exploration, social encounters, and so many other activities that the players will have to run through to complete the one-shot. Each of these events is what I simply think of as Encounters. I know that I can get about two Encounters for every hour of play, meaning that I can either have two combats and nothing else if the one-shot is one hour or have a combat and a social encounter if it will be an hour.
This can be a bit nebulous to think about, but if I’m wondering if an event will be an Encounter or just an activity, I think about how many dice rolls I’ll require and what the ultimate goal is from this event. If I just want them to accept a job from someone, I’m not going to count that as an Encounter because, while the players might want to roll persuasion checks to demand more money, I’m not planning on them to roll a lot of checks. BUT, if I need the players to change the individual’s mind, interrogate them for information, or suss out if they are a spy, then that will be an Encounter as it will require more time spent with that person, dice to be rolled, and a back and forth between the table and myself.
You can also combine multiple activities into a single Encounter. If they have to talk to 5 different people for the job, but aren’t supposed to be rolling dice, then that would be an Encounter because it will take time to set up the scene, present the information, answer questions, describe travel to the next place, and then set it all up again.
For my one-shot, I broke it out as such:
Encounter 1: each player gets 1 festival game to play
Activity: a cutscene where a dullahan calls down doom and gloom
Encounter 2: combat between players and scarecrows that try to steal children
Activity: the party is asked to head into the forest and retrieve stolen children and find out what happens
Encounter 3: while on the road, they are attacked by the dullahan
Activity: Survival checks to find a hut where the children were taken too
Optional Encounter: can attempt to evade a group of roving scarecrows/pumpkins or fight them
Encounter 4: the hut is guarded by a weak swarm of pumpkins
Encounter 5: enter through a portal into a frozen cavern, can hear chanting up ahead, attacked by a leshy (optional)
Encounter 6: fight winter hags attempting to sacrifice the babies to summon forth the evil spirit of Baba Yaga
Activity: Baba Yaga’s release either summoned from killed winter hags or the children were sacrificed
I had this one-shot planned for 3 to 4 hours (with 3 being my goal, but preparing for 4 hours in case). I had 6 planned encounters, and several activities to sprinkle between the encounter set pieces. I also had an optional encounter the party could participate about halfway through the adventure if I felt like we were moving too fast for the one-shot, which could be a skill challenge to avoid being noticed or a combat based on what the party would like.
By having your Encounters planned out, you have a general idea of where you are during the one-shot, how many more Encounters you have left, and whether you need to cut certain things out if your group is running slow (or add if your group is running fast).
Creating Characters
You may decide that you want your one-shot to include character creation, like if you are trying out a new system and want to help them so they aren’t lost or make little mistakes on their character sheet. In such a situation, you should time yourself creating a character from scratch. Once you have an idea how long it took you, you have a general idea of how long it will take them to make a character, maybe adding on another half-hour as you will be helping multiple people who may have different questions on how things work that you aren’t yet prepared for. Typically, if the game is as complex as Dungeons & Dragons, you are looking at at least an hour for a group of noobs to make characters, while something simple like Actual Cannibal Shia Labeouf will take 10 minutes at the most.
Running the One-Shot
There isn’t much I can say on this. We all have different ways of running tables, though the thing I always keep in mind is that one-shots are not permanent. If there is a moment in the story for something to happen, that the rules don’t support, I often allow such things because it give the one-shot a stronger impact. I may remind the players, if they are my normal group, that technically the rules don’t work that way, but for this one time session, I’ll make an exception. This might be something minor, like having a bear as a beast companion for rangers to something bigger, like allowing a spell to work in a way that it really shouldn’t and would be problematic during a normal game with far lasting consequences. I use one-shots to be a bit looser with the rules because the consequences of it are rather minor - but I also have a good relationship with my players who understand that one-shots can be a bit cheesed on mechanics, but they shouldn’t expect such rulings to carry over into their actual games with greater consequences for shenanigans and hand-waved mechanics.
I hope this helps you out, and if there are things you do to help you prepare for one-shots, would love to hear about it in the comments below!
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