Comments on: Nine Steps to Help You Run a Great One-Shot Adventure

By: What a Killer One-Shot Looks Like as a Player - Treasure Tables

What a Killer One-Shot Looks Like as a Player - Treasure Tables — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 15:29:00 +0000

[...] In lieu of one of our regular Saturday night campaigns, one my group’s GMs ran a Star Trek one-shot for myself and one other player this past weekend. After the game, I looked back at Nine Steps to Help You Run a Great One-Shot Adventure and noticed that some of those steps were more obvious from a player’s perspective than others. [...]

By: Martin

Martin — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 19:38:28 +0000

Damned fine suggestions — thank you!

For convention one-shots, pregens are absolutely essential. One of the events my group walked out of at last year’s GenCon is a perfect example of why this is so important.

It was a WEG Star Wars event, and we started by customizing semi-pregen characters. I picked the pilot, and most of my customization went to picking skills. I forgot how many SW vehicles were repulsorlift craft, and didn’t put any points into that piloting skill. And what do we spend the whole adventure riding around in? Repulsorlift craft, of course! It was fucking weak.

By: WeaveWarden

WeaveWarden — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 02:53:33 +0000

Solid advice! I’m definitely keeping this stuff in mind for the one-shot I’m running tomorrow.

By: Gospog

Gospog — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 01:55:25 +0000

I have 3 more tips:

1. Playtest
2. Playtest
3. Playtest

I know that it’s not always feasible but if you can manage it, it can make a world of difference.

By: Telas

Telas — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 20:06:11 +0000

Share the load: If you have a player who knows the rules, use them to answer rules questions while you worry about the virtual world.

Prepare in advance: If you can, get the background and mechanics info out there before the session. This isn’t so easy in a convention environment, but it’s good for at-home games.

By: Carolina aka Troy Taylor

Carolina aka Troy Taylor — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 18:18:29 +0000

Never wait for the last player. Guess what … he ain’t comin’.

And if he does show up late, it’s because …

a) There was a legitimate, excuseable real-life reason that is understandable by everyone at the table, and it’s easy enough to get him into the game at that point. And if you can’t get him in, he’ll understand, cuz he’s a gamer too.
.
b) He’s just plain inconsiderate of everyone else, and he wasn’t worth waiting for anyway.

By: Walt C

Walt C — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 16:30:14 +0000

I agree with Roger on the pregens, with a caveat: some players are really anal about designing their own characters. In this case, tell the player what you need and give him a timeframe to generate a character (preferably prior to the session, so you have time to digest and make necessary changes).

Other things that have worked for me:

1. Evaluate the appropriateness of the scenario. If you can’t summarize the key plot points in a sentence or two, chances are it’ll take longer than a single evening to finish. Combat eats up time. If there are a lot of combat encounters, it’ll be more difficult to finish.

2.Figure out what’s filler. If you’re running short on time, being able to skip or handwave an encounter or two should help speed things up.

3. Make sure the players are willing to see it to the end. If your one-shot takes less time than your usual session, that’s perfect. If it’s going to run a little long, make sure everyone’s okay with that (especially if you’re playing on a weeknight).

4. Ask yourself “what if?” questions while reading the adventure. This will enable you to prep when players do something unexpected.

5. Take shortcuts when appropriate. If the PCs are encountering mooks, let the mooks fall with a single hit. If the players have to piece a puzzle together, don’t let them spin wheels for too long.

6. Start on time. If you need four hours to complete the adventure and it’s a four hour session, don’t waste 45 minutes chatting or waiting for the last player to arrive.

7. Draw up a cheat sheet of the most-used mechanics.

By: Roger

Roger — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 16:07:01 +0000

10. If the adventure doesn’t provide them already, seriously consider creating pre-generated characters for your players. There’s a good chance that your one-shot players will not be familiar with the system, and even if they are, time is usually too precious while running a one-shot to spend it on a lot of character generation. Other benefits are left as an exercise to the reader.