Yo. I literally just ran a One-Shot for my friends that I've been preparing for months and I colossally underestimated how long it would run. So needless to say I'm eager for your advice
I constantly have this problem. I've started just budgeting 150-200% of the time I think it'll actually require, and I'm trying to get better at being brief with unimportant things like potion buying as suggested in the video.
My suggestions for new DMs are as follows: 1. Plan one encounter per hour of game time you need to cover. "Encounter" does not mean "combat" - it is just an event that the players need to work through in some way, so it can be a puzzle that requires some investigation or other problem solving to overcome, a social encounter of some kind where a lot of talking and a few social skill checks might be needed, or your run-of-the-mill battle with some baddies. The planned encounters should be constructed such that you can drop it into the party's path regardless of the direction they choose to go. For example, if you plan for an urban encounter with some thugs trying to mug the party when they go down a dark alleyway, you can move that encounter to an ambush by bandits on the road if the party decides to just leave town. This allows your encounters to be flexible enough that your efforts aren't wasted if the party decides to go off the rails. 2. Apply the "rule of three" when planning your encounters. The rule of three means that every challenge the party faces can be overcome in at least 3 different ways that the party can actually achieve. As an example, there is a locked door - the party can bash the door down, pick the lock, or cast the "knock" spell to unlock it. Another, more abstract example - there is a puzzle that needs to be solved to advance to the next area - the players might figure out how to solve the puzzle on their own, but if not, a high passive investigation, arcana or religion score might find a clue that will help them solve the puzzle, or the party can just smash some particular thing if all else fails. 3. Have fun and let the players drive the story. Take notes on the things they say and do (or record the session and make notes afterwards). Don't try to force things in any particular direction, but present them with options if they don't come up with any goals or motivations on their own. For a one-shot in particular, you really shouldn't be investing too much time into preparing it. I personally LOVE writing in-depth and creative stories, but I have found that I often spent a lot of time for very little pay-off when I go all in like that. I now force myself to be more conservative with the time I invest in a single session. So here are my time-management suggestions for preparing a session, regardless of whether it is a one-shot or a long term campaign: 1. Create a villain the same way you would create a player character - give it a backstory, allies and rivals, etc. Build the rest up around the villain. The villain doesn't even need to be a character, it can be an ancient ruin or dungeon or other environment, but giving it a backstory can inform your decisions on what kind of creatures now populate it, what kind of treasures might be in it, how the party learns of its existence and why they would go there. 2. Once you have your villain, find some maps that are suitable for the adventure from what others have already created, write out some bullet-points of how each area looks and smells, the sounds the party can hear, the temperature and "feel" of the air, etc. as applicable. And boom, you have a one-shot adventure that only takes a couple hours to prepare at most. 3. Now that you have what you NEED to run the session, you can add some extra details (verbatim room descriptions to read, villain monologues, etc.), brainstorm ideas for later adventures that stem from this one and the like.
They cover this in the video, but I also meant to mention in my previous response that for a one-shot, the very start of the session should be a brief narrative of how well the party knows each other, what adventure they are embarking on and why, and a brief description of the party embarking on the journey to the destination or their arrival at the destination which immediately drops into an easy but aggressive combat encounter - something they can't just talk/bribe their way out of, such as an ambush or some non-intelligent creatures (undead, beasts, oozes, etc.) often works best. This gets the ball rolling on the adventure right away so you aren't losing time trying to get the PCs to cooperate with each other or agree to do the thing in the first place, as that has all been established in the narrative, and they are already invested in the adventure after that first combat.
I too made this mistake. Didn't even get to finish it. Put in over 1000 hours on roll20 preparing. It was supposed to be just a few sessions but it ended up being at least 12 sessions. It was going to wrap up in 1 or 2 more sessions. There was a falling out in the group though so that sucks.
I’m by no means a veteran DM. probably have 30 or so sessions on my tally. But I don’t spend more than 2 hours or so on a one shot. The more you prep, the more you have to cram into one session. Draft yourself up a loose outline and let the players take the wheel. I’ll have the statblocks set up I want to use and they show up whenever it feels appropriate. Only a handful of things are ever written in stone.
"simple ingredients can still produce complex flavors." such a good quote. rehashing well done ideas and giving good opportunities to be creative are key.
In one shots, I like to create a sense of urgency so the characters are immediately thrown into campaign. Have them roll in first couple minutes and keep their attention so their focus is on game and not other things.
My favorite one-shot that I've built/run was a murder mystery. I asked my players before the session to come up with some reason that they knew each other. They decided that they were junior officers in the local thieves' guild. The setup was that 4 major noble houses all had estates more-or-less adjacent to each other with a road intersection between them. One of them was holding a ball, and the guild was well-connected enough to get them all invited. Their official mission was to engage with the nobles and other high-society types and ensure that the guild wasn't a concern. However, as soon as dinner was finished, a servant went to fetch some wine from the cellar and discovered a dead body. I had put a battle map out on the table that showed the entire mansion, with rooms labeled, and also had spaces for the neighbors' houses, the back yard/stable and so on. They were set free to investigate each room as they chose. There were two sets of clues - The first set leading to the killer (Who was the Lady of the house, who conveniently was also not present at the Ball - oh, and she and her husband were both vampires) and the second set being a bunch of red herrings. I know it is often considered poor form to put red herring clues into RPG mysteries, as they can get players going down the wrong path, but these went off without a hitch. The trick/joke to them was that they were all of the murder weapons from the board game Clue. Knife, lead pipe, rope, wrench, and candlestick. It was very good luck from my perspective that the last one of them they found was the candlestick, which is when the joke became obvious to them and everyone had a good laugh. So they followed the real clues to the correct end, and I had planned at that point that the Lady of the house would come home and there would be a final showdown with Her and her husband. My players, on the other hand, decided on an alternate plan. They would help cover up the crime and pin it on someone else - the leader of the Thieves' guild. With him out of the way, they would be able to consolidate power within the guild. So they struck a deal with the Lord and Lady, and instead the final showdown ended up being basically an execution of the guild leader by the PCs and vampires.
Matt Mercer’s Red Nose Day one shot with Steven Colbert is an awesome blueprint for a one-shot. Provide the players with a strong narrative and direction (stronger parameters is better in one-shots). Then start off with an easy foreshadowing encounter/combat. Follow up with the discovery of the main location and an intellectual/social challenge, which directly propels them toward a benign encounter that empowers the players and enables them to beat the final boss. This structure is concise and offers a diverse selection of encounters with a great pay-off.
I ran Phandalin when I first got my current group together and nearly TPKd the whole party with those four or five goblins that where meant to be the "simple introduction fight". Later I learned from that how devastating an ambush with a big map and spread out ranged enemies can be :D
Goblin short bow attack with a nat20 turn one took down the party wizard and everyone was immediately in panic mode. They are sandwiched between two small groups of goblins with bows and there is nowhere to hide. Used their shock and horror as a reason for the goblins to pull out their swords and charge giving the melee guys something to do rather than get peppered with arrows.
My best 1 shot started with a group of adventurers I pre-made based on some minis I had. They started in a town and I described the adventure they just finished. That night while they were relaxing the town was invaded by Orcs. They spent that night defending the town and trying to rescue towns people. During the fight they captured some of the enemy and found out an evil pair of Dryders started the whole thing as a way to have the Orcs capture as many townspeople as possible for their dark sacrifice in an attempt to change them back into Drow. The group battled through he forest and finally defeated the Dryder sisters in their lair. It was great!
Dudes, this could not have come at a more appropriate time - I'm going to be running a one-shot for 2 or 3 new players in 2 days. The tips & advice you guys provide is so helpful and greatly appreciated - ALWAYS! Thank you so much for the time & effort you put into making these videos!!!
I agree to be able to run regularly i homebrew small session of Three to four hours and have a pool of players who are all of the same guild the partys are never the same
@@cybernetique4 another thing I love about em is players tend to let their inner demons out for fresh air. LOL. Like a full campaign is almost always good players vs BBEG, but there are tons of one shots with heists or assassinations, and they can be an absolute blast
I ran my first one shot on Halloween, I'm definitely glad to see this guide as I think we'll keep doing them occasionally. It was a The Mummy inspired one shot where they all had to show up with Champion Fighters who were down to scrap (no other restrictions). Cultists trying to resurrect an undead warlock king. :)
My brain, listening to the Dungeon Dudes: - 21% new understandings, insights - the direct explanations - 37% new possibilities, adventure and character ideas for my current campaign and the future - 42% Are they going to say "We are the Dungeon Dudes" together this time?
I’m considering trying out dming for the first time, and I wanted to just try out a shorter campaign first that I could maybe turn into a longer one if need be and these tips really helped me a lot, thanks dudes.
Being a new DM is like running your own business. You can't begin as a megacorp. Start small and grow. As your confidence and abilities grow, you can scale up *gradually* until you're ready for the big time. And once you learn the "keep it simple" lesson, it will serve you well thruout your career.
My one-shots are more episodic than anything. They all tie into each other with reused NPCs and locations just different encounters and challenges, that way if I choose to do something other than “monster of the week” I already have the setup.
Oh, man... Monty just created my new favorite made-up word: "Exabberate." 3:34 - best new word ever. "Exabberate - verb - to increase aberrant behavior."
Getting characters ready prior to the oneshot, and simplifying the start is great advice. Get into the adventure as quickly and simply as possible to maximize time in the one-shot.
During our Waterdeep DH campaign the PC's had to leave the city for a while and two of the players were on holiday. So we played a one shot in the meantime in which a dubious group of up-to-no-goods were hired to burn down the same "Trullskull Alley Tavern" that belonged to their original group. They were so excited and scared of success at the same time. Also, that was the moment the players found out about Lif the Poltergeist that still lived there. The whole thing turned into a "Lif - Home Alone" vs. the Daltons. We loved it. and they only managed to burn down the stables and 1 table.
The most important thing I have found about designing a one shot is this. Your one-shot is about one (1) thing, and one (1) thing only. If you have two focal points, you have two one-shots. There must be a focus and a coherency in the structure to make sure you actually have a chance to get it done in one night. Typically it'll be about one location, a small one; one event, one culmination where you don't expect to do a whole lot of preamble. You can't afford to have loads of time doing background at the beginning if you want it to finish that night. Think of it like a wave. Once the wave crests, your one-shot is over. If you have two wave crests, you have too much. Make sure that this arc/wave has a sense of possible closure at the end of the wave. It needs buildup, but it can't take too long. Doesn't have to end in one night, of course. Players came to have fun, so make sure that if they're having fun, don't hurry them along. But this is essentially a scene, a short story, NOT a novel. It can lead into a novel the players want to tell later, many one-shots do that, but don't go into it expecting it to necessarily go further.
I can see the hesitancy for new DMs to run one-shots, but I've actually only ever DM'd One-shots and had great success! It definitely depends on the players though. I've run a few One Player One Shots with my partner who is our regular DM and it was great to me to get my feet wet as a DM knowing that if I was ever stuck he could help me out. This video definitely inspired me to run some more One shots! Thanks guys!
Love the advice of starting with a combat encounter. I've only very recently started playing D&D, having long been a fan of watching live plays and theory crafting my own characters, and one thing I found right off the bat was difficulty roleplaying and really getting a feel of my character. Combat is not only a lot easier to understand and get into for the first time, I've found it really helped me get into character. After a round or two of combat, I'm throwing in quips during battle, and describing how my character acts. By the time combat is over, I am much more confident being in character.
By the divines, I needed a video like this! It's so true how the modules from a lot of 5E books can never be done as one-shots because you can't actually finish them in a single game session. In my experience, Dragons of Icespire Peak being split into separate quests allows for you to actually do a one-shot for new players and I enjoy spicying up the encounters to make them memorable.
These guys never miss. Everytime I had a question or thinking of a build, the Dungeon Dudes put out exactly the video I need. Been researching doing a one shot because my DM wants to play and our campaign is coming to an end soon so I'm taking a shot at DM and needed some practice.
Just ran a one shot for my friends to introduce them to D&D and made every mistake you guys listed. Ha! Wish I had seen this video earlier. Great advice for next time, thanks!
I ran a Halloween themed oneshot last week after taking several of my own less from other "oneshots-but-not-really" I've ran in the past. And it all started by looking at the Pumpkin King statblock from Kobold Press' Tome of Beasts 2 and then constructing a setting based on the monster's simple but open-ended description. The players didn't really know I'd run the oneshot that night(we did it instead of our regular game for fun), so I set up some pre-made PC stat-blocks using the Survivors from Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and leveling them up using the Sidekick rules from Tashas. From there I assigned each statblock to a token depicting a mask and I let the players choose which one their in-game characters received as a gift from an NPC in the the village during a festival. And miraculously the players were able to improvise on character names and personalities on the spot. It was pretty amazing how quickly things got on track. We ended up doing 2 combat encounters and 2 social/situational encounters, all by using the Epic Heroism rule from the Dungeon Master's Guide to keep things moving (5 min short rests, 1 hour long rest). I honestly think this oneshot was my best work in DnD and I'm going to forever proud of it! Just seeing a story all flow together and cleanly conclude in a single session definitely felt like watching a good movie. That being said, you are right to say that oneshots isn't something a new DM should attempt unless they want learn from their own mistakes. This one worked very well soley because of my experience running a long term game. And what I mean by that is learning to make compromises for the sakes of pacing; all without taking away any player's or my own fun. I had to cut an encounter for time, and even scale down the HP for starting mob for the sakes of keeping the encounters under 2-4 turns in theory.
I don't even remember if I learned it from you guys from an older video, but I perked up when you said start your one-shots with action, because that's exactly what I did and it worked out PERFECTLY. I had my five lvl 6 players go up against an injured Treant on fire that i homebrewed couldn't attack the same target twice, so that it would never 1-hit kill any of my players but would deal massive damage nonetheless. The 1d10 fire dmg to itself per round is also there to make this first encounter of the adventure end relatively quick. Needless to say, my players were scared shitless of trees throughout the session. And this was an adventure set in a village with a nearby forest with either a druid or a young spellcasting green dragon as the final boss (tldr of my adventure: questgiver put out a bounty on a crazy druid harassing the village. if the players do a social interaction with the druid, they learn that the questgiver is actually a dragon putting the town under her thrall)
i have done one shots where we used dndbeyond and just went "randomize" and what you get is what you play, it can be so funny seeing the results. it is also perfect cause it can make players who are used to using one or two classes possibly try something different.
I run what i call a one shot emporium. Basically, if one of my couple of different groups is missing a player and they don't want to run the main campaign without them but everyone else still wants to game, i throw a one shot. I have a few different groups that come in to the emporium at different times a week and usually end up running something from the emporium about 2-3 times a month on average. My emporium has a collection of rental characters. Some crafted by me, others made by players. There is about 12 of them as of this writing and when a game starts, i bring the players to a character select screen very reminiscent of the super smash bros multiplayer character select screen with the character tokens on it. The players select a character and we get started on the actual game from there.
A possible way to deal with failing skill checks important for moving the adventure forward I read about was like: OK, the PCs manage accomplish the stuff they need to accomplish, BUT with these bad consequences... Like for example: they manage to climb the wall, but one or two of their potions break due to a character slipping or falling a short distance, or they manage to find the evil sorceror's hideout, but not without alarming him about them coming, or they just need a lot of time, so that one of the people they are trying to rescue already got sacrificed in the evil ritual they have to stop.
A great one to start new players on is "a most potent brew". I threw them right into the dungeon ("you guys are an adventuring party and have accepted a quest. You already arrived at the destination, ..."). One tip I have for DMing for people new to TTRPGs is to explicitly tell them that players can do basically anything, not just something that is written somewhere and that creative solutions are encouraged. My players did not figure out the riddle, so they bypassed it with some creativity.
Awesome episode, thank you! The use of a letter from a NPC is incredible in effect. The most common use of one shot campaigns in my play group history has been when two or more of our usual group are unavailable but everyone else still wants to play. This can give the DM the chance to put time into the letter that can be used for climactic gameplay instead! Interested to see if the time savings of pre-made characters overcomes the lack of ownership players feel for the characters by providing the space to increase "boss" levels of the one shot campaign.
Fantastic timing! I've learned a lot about how D&D works, but haven't played much myself, nor DMed. I was planning a simple one-shot for some friends and family, so this will come in handy!
I love starting a one-shot for the combat. In the one shot that I DMed, I gave about 1 minute worth of story to explain their mission and immediately told them to roll initiative. They were an elite group of mercenaries hired to help reclaim a fort and that combat encounter was intentionally easy so they got to go into the one shot really feeling like they were an elite mercenary squad.
Recently I've run a couple homebrew 1-shots for some friends that were new to D&D and I tried to boil down the structure of D&D as a whole. I ended up with a 1-shot structure that's something like; get a quest, go on that quest, and come back from the quest. There are roleplay opportunities all throughout this structure with the quest giver or with the monsters themselves. Just like Kelly had mentioned about Lost Mines, exploration can easily be done in the finding of the monster or dungeon, and combat is similarly packed into the "go on a quest" section as you fight the boss and its minions. Depending on if your players are more combat or RP oriented, you can cut smaller combats or have the quest giver just do basic interactions (giving the quest and thanking them for completing it). The ending bit of turning in the quest can also be narrated through swiftly if the players seem like they are done playing after the defeat of the big bad. Oh, and sprinkle in some loot. Everyone loves getting loot. Kelly and Monty had more generally talked about adventure structure but I know it can be helpful to have somewhere to start and this is the basic formula that D&D runs off of. (At least I think it is. I haven't been doing this that long compared to many.)
You guys are amazing. You helped me design my Tiefling Hexblade Warlock just the night before I played my first DnD campaign where my wife is a DM. I took elements from both your Hexblade builds and have a character who one year later, is still alive and the heart of the party. Just as I was about to design my first Christmas One-Shot, (my first time as a DM too) which is a steampunk/cosmic horror adventure, you release this video. Awesome work. I plan for this One-Shot to become a big campaign so your other videos helped a ton! Thanks a lot!
Thanks for the great video! My favorite one-shot I ran was one where the players were playing 1 foot tall grung in a location from the campain we are running so the players already had most of the context they needed. An amulet was stolen by a beeholder (no, that isn't a typo) and his insect army from an NPC from our campaign that kept a garden full of tiny frogfolk. The NPC wasn't home so the PC's took it upon themself to venture through a dangerous forest into the hive of the beeholder. Along the way they encountered a tiny displacer beast which turned out to be the familiar of a witch they fought to free some kidnapped frogfolk in our campaign. In the end it turned out the stolen amulet was the one that was key to the NPC fixing his relationship with a former apprentice in the campaign. This isn't something you can do with new groups, but on a night where you cannot run a regular campaign game with your group, I liked this way of building a one-shot. It gave my players all the context they needed without spending a lot of time on world building, while the events of the one-shot contributed to the world building of our campaign.
I've been working on a one shot for ages and it was pleasant to see this video come up and see if any of the work I've done so far doesn't stray too far from these guidelines/tips
A oneshot I still really want to run is one where instead of making characters, everyone picks stat blocks. Solving problems or battling through areas as literal dragons, demons, angels, and other classic monsters sounds great~ It also sounds like easy character prep. You either have everyone pick stat blocks and reasons theyre together/on the mission in a group chat before playing. Or you print these out ahead of time and just give them to the players that show up. Now all my players will learn how to read statblocks too, muahahaha.
New DM here who started by running Candlekeep one-shots when my group couldn't play our regular campaign for any reason. I wish I had seen this video first!
Loved the comparrison of one shots being more like movies and main campaigns like tv shows. It even fits if the one shot takes more than 1 session as that is the sequel. Such a great way to think on it not to mention a lot of good tips.
I'm hosting a one-shot with some friends this weekend. Pitching it as a simple "save the cat from a tree" mission, except it turns out the cat is a panther and was carried up there by a giant eagle.
I'm planning this one shot now for my group that I'm a player in. First time dm. But I decided to pull a dungeon from the campaign I wrote and plan to run this year with the same group. This one shot is a creepy circus theme that's been sapping the joy from the towns they visit. The party is gonna fight circus freaks like strongmen and bearded ladies with the ringleader being this weird wizard. There should be 2 social interactions, 1 investigation section, and 4 combat encounters with potential of a second stage of the boss fight. Should be fun but I hope we have enough time. May have to do 2 sessions of it lol
I've always said one-shots are never one session, every one I've ever done was at least 3. This is really helpful for providing tips on how to make them a little more true to form!
Ive played two kinds of one shots, one that went on for 7 hours as we assaulted a gnoll fort, and another where weve explored 2 rooms a session in a spooky church over 4 hours.
I did a 1 shot based off Jurassic Park. Scene 1 was character intros on the helicopter. Scene 2 was meeting sick triceratops, focussed on skills. Scene 3 was T rex attack. Scene 4 was chase from T rex with Galimimus. Scene 5 was run through Raptor enclosure. Scene 6 was final fight with Dennis Nedry. It was so much fun, and all the players had a great time.
Best one shot I've ever played was run by my friend Stevan who gave us all pregenerated Goblin characters (he presented them all to us on character sheets and we got to pick which one we wanted to play) They came complete with a brief personality description and a short little song they could sing about themselves to introduce the character, which we each acted out. We all started off waking up in a locked dungeon room together not knowing each other and had to decide to either work together or try to escape alone. Anyway, it gave us all a chance to exercise our role-playing skills and play a race most of us hadn't played before and classes that some of us were not as used to playing. There was one memorable scene where my rogue found a chest with gold in it and greedily pretended it was empty but failed his deception check and the party had a brief but very goblinesque squabble over it before continuing on with our escape. We had a lot of fun with it and it all started with our DM randomly finding these pre-generated characters online and building a one shot around them to give his players a chance to exercise our role-playing abilities. I recommend trying this at least once for every group to try role-playing a character that you didn't create.
I ran a one-shot called The Tower. It was a horror themed game that censored on players going up into a lonely tower in the snowy mountains. The guard who positioned himself there for so many years said that not a lot of people come out of there and those that do come back changed dramatically. As they went in they encountered so many different things. Game mechanics that relied on stealth, a room that relied on puzzle solving, and another room that relied solely on just pure action. All of these rooms focused on different aspects of the game but with a flavor of horror. At the end of the one shot a lot of folks said it was a really fun time, they definitely were mortified, just how I wanted, and they wanted more afterwards.
My "one shot" of Sunless Citadel for three of my friends (two who have never played before) is now at four sessions and will likely take two more before they finish. But it seems like everyone's having a great time, so I'm not complaining!
Thanks for a great video. I love one shots! I'm getting ready to run a one shot called The Garden of Demons for my group. I'll be telling them some mechanics meta-wise before we begin instead of dropping that info in a vague way via lore or an NPC, etc. The specific mechanic I want them to know is that for every hour they get lost in the forest, a minion is added to the final BBEG battle at the center of the forest. Dropping this upfront before we play gets the tension and stakes up from the start and should make for a fun evening.
Great advice. Thanks! I ran a one-shot for my birthday this past year. I started with an NPC that gave the party a map to travel to the intended destination. They were adamant that the NPC lead them through. We spent way too much time RP'ing that. I should've just gone with the flow and let the NPC "lead" them through to the actual location.
Best one-shot I ever ran, I've done maybe 3 dozen times or so since, well a long time ago. The groups I've played over the years have mostly been combat-heavy with lots of puzzles, quest chains, etc and light on social. I still don't lean heavy on social to this day as a DM for reasons that would be TL/DR so we'll skip that. But the one-shot I've run so many times is almost but not quite exclusively socially based. It's called the Devil Went Down George's. George's is a pub. The devil (which you scale to whatever level is appropriate) is there to collect one or more souls. It's a big pub! Objective, find the person or persons in danger, rescue them, send the devil back to the Nine Circles and don't get YOUR soul eaten along the way. It has a timer-gotta get it done before midnight! So there's a natural focus to it. It's a nice break from our usual fare, leaves room for re-jiggering in an endless number of ways. Have had some of my players go on a George's run half a dozen times and it's always a fun break 8>D And yes, a few souls have been eaten over the years..... mwahahaha! Good stuff dudes-keep it rolling!
For my one shots i take a film/tv show i know with a short timeline and get my players to play the parts of background characters. The last one i did was john wick chapter 1 where viggo orders you guys to protect Iosef. (I changed the names to hide it a little). I started to drop hints of who was after them. People they met along the way would "sense" that "there is a man of focus after you". "This man has commitment" "I can feel your persuers sheer will" "He knows the things you lack". Recreating a john wick type one shot could be a good idea for a first one shot. I really enjoyed that one shop to the point weve set it up as a campaign. My next plan with it is getting my party to want to be hired by the high table. After such devostation, finanical nightmares and general distruption to businesses from wicks hand settles the high table gives the party the order to make sure john wick never returns back to the crimeworld. (We cant afford it). This means that when his pet dies the party needs to replace it quickly, preventing future assassins attacking him so it gets really tense as john stops and listens after hearing a russel in the bushes throughout the park. (Party takes out hitmen, john is no wiser thank god!) Johns new wife gets ill so the party have to decieve john wick whilst they search for the cure 😂 You can go on 😂😂
Wish you guys had this vid out few days ago ran a Halloween one shot and I thought it was lackluster. It was my second time DMing this vid was helpful thanks guys.
I've run a round robin style adventure. Each player got to run 3 sessions for an adventure that loosely ties together. Gave everyone a taste of trying to DM. Revoked around a spooky mirror. It was fun just for casual time at the table.
To me, the most important element of a one-shot is an awesome cinematic ending. You want people to walk out going, "Wow, I want to do this again!" Spend your energy on that! (And if you don't have or can't find a great idea for a climax, don't run the game.) Also: like the Dudes say, make sure you have enough time and energy to make it work.
I've played in a couple good one-shots. They allowed me to try things that I knew I wouldn't enjoy long-term, but could be fun for a few sessions, like someone who is deranged and kind of creepy; using spells like "Summon Shadowspawn" and walking around with material components like "an undead eyeball encased in a gem".
Epic one shot I did was based on runehammers war pigs game. It was truely epic. Especially when the climax is entering the devil's lair and they all save. The lowest is handed a Balor stat sheet and told to kill the party.
I ran a one-shot about a year or so ago and while I wouldn’t exactly call it a success (I had to basically skip the penultimate encounter), but it was fun. They especially enjoyed how I started it. For context, it was a heist one-shot. I had them introduce their characters one at a time with an encounter with the police officer questioning them (it took place in modern day). It was pretty cool to have it play out.
my DM just did a one shot where he gave us the premise over text and then gave us a few weeks to make characters so we could run it around Halloween. It was just a generic spooky dungeon, but it went great because it included every pillar and didn't grind to a halt. His prep was just having random floors already drawn up and a few stat blocks.
Bring this one shot I prepare for a little over a month. Inspiration was from a webcomic room of swords where if you die you respond where you last had a long rest. Ran a modified version of the horror house from curse of strahd. Loved it was my first time dming, players had let me create characters with their preference in mind. They were then given blank character sheets to fill in as time proceeded
I ran a one shot where the party joins a funeral of a aquatinted friend who passed away but left a fortune to find on one final adventure he never completed. I told my players any words you say in the funeral on your adventures with the NPC are canon. Those players came up with some crazy stuff that made the dead NPC a legend
One shots are so fun! Lots of great points and definitely agree that most one shots aren't designed to be done in one session. Or at least without some DM elbow grease!
1:28 Also to play the game if your schedule shifts regularly and you thus could not play at the same day and the same time each week or so. Thus one-shots can easily be slotted in between work shifts and there won't be a "we don't progress the plot" if you don't play for a couple of weeks.
I've DM'd 3 one shots and 2/3 were successful. I felt the key was building up hype with immediate conflict and then ramp up the urgency within 1 or 2 hours and then finish up in very quick sufficient way. Finality is necessary or else you walk away without closure. Quality prep over quantity of outcomes.
The pacing and need to freeform cut/switch stuff is higher in a one-shot. The prep has to be tight and I have to know what makes the adventure tick. A movable boss encounter/objective is essential. "I didn't have time to write you a one-shot, so I made a campaign"
My favourite one-shots (that I ran): The first game I ever ran was a level 1, 3-room dungeon with a necromancer + zombies at the end. (Shoutout to Don't Stop Thinking for the template.) An all-wizards one-shot for level 10 characters. The first half was a gladiatorial battle (vs various monstrosities) and the second half was a magical escape room. A level 20 one-shot for an inter-planar peace-keeping task force. Those ancient gem dragons were trippppy~
I am doing a one shot as an Intro for a campaign I wanna run. It’s essentially a set time before a war that’s gonna involve some of the characters. If anyone knows Fate it’s a holy Grail war. It is also a test run for some fate rules I found that seem fun. This is a group that has played together before but we are not currently in a campaign
One of the people in our gaming group is the one-shot master! He isn’t the regular dm but when our regular dm wants a break or is out that day, our one-shot master takes out this little notebook that has about 30 different adventures. They basically fit on a single page and have the essential elements bullet point style. My takeaway is: have a basic skeleton of essential parts and let the story unfold with the players. Grab a few monsters in-line with the power level and let it fly!
Thank you so much! I'm a DM and I want to do so one shots with other players than my group, but I find the limits of a one shot so intimidating! Your video helped a lot!
1. Always pre-gens 2. Know where you want to get to and skip trivial encounters to get there 3. Manage time - if the players are having a mother's meeting put the next encounter on them 4. Finish strong
I wanted for long time to become both good at roleplaying and battles in dnd and while simply playing social encounters made me and my friends better at rp, fights didn't progress as well and fast. It is like 1-2 fights in 3-4 sessions in our campaign so i am really happy that i found your channel. Also get some nostalgia vibes like wathcing 90-00 tv show about tabletops. great stuff guys.
Thanks for the insights, I was planning to do a sci-fi one shot to give our DM a break and test the waters with the group, this couldn't have come at a better time.
I went off the deep end. My first time trying to DM, and had an idea for a level 20 one shot to lay the ground for a campaign 20 years later with new characters. We're about halfway through now. And it's been flawless. DM of the game I am a player in is a player in mine and said I'm a natural. Everyone has loved it so far. But I figured if I'm going to do this, go big or go home. And it worked.
I've been DMing for my family for a bit over a year now. Started with a module and moved to a homebrew setting when it was done. Finally 2 of my family members are expressing interest in DMing and I'm thinking of having them take the same course. Even if they just run the module, I'll be happy to get to play.
![[UNCUT] The Loyal Pin ปิ่นภักดิ์ EP.6 (1/4)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/m05kZ2GDKXg/mqdefault.jpg)
Yo. I literally just ran a One-Shot for my friends that I've been preparing for months and I colossally underestimated how long it would run. So needless to say I'm eager for your advice
I constantly have this problem. I've started just budgeting 150-200% of the time I think it'll actually require, and I'm trying to get better at being brief with unimportant things like potion buying as suggested in the video.
My suggestions for new DMs are as follows:
1. Plan one encounter per hour of game time you need to cover. "Encounter" does not mean "combat" - it is just an event that the players need to work through in some way, so it can be a puzzle that requires some investigation or other problem solving to overcome, a social encounter of some kind where a lot of talking and a few social skill checks might be needed, or your run-of-the-mill battle with some baddies. The planned encounters should be constructed such that you can drop it into the party's path regardless of the direction they choose to go. For example, if you plan for an urban encounter with some thugs trying to mug the party when they go down a dark alleyway, you can move that encounter to an ambush by bandits on the road if the party decides to just leave town. This allows your encounters to be flexible enough that your efforts aren't wasted if the party decides to go off the rails.
2. Apply the "rule of three" when planning your encounters. The rule of three means that every challenge the party faces can be overcome in at least 3 different ways that the party can actually achieve. As an example, there is a locked door - the party can bash the door down, pick the lock, or cast the "knock" spell to unlock it. Another, more abstract example - there is a puzzle that needs to be solved to advance to the next area - the players might figure out how to solve the puzzle on their own, but if not, a high passive investigation, arcana or religion score might find a clue that will help them solve the puzzle, or the party can just smash some particular thing if all else fails.
3. Have fun and let the players drive the story. Take notes on the things they say and do (or record the session and make notes afterwards). Don't try to force things in any particular direction, but present them with options if they don't come up with any goals or motivations on their own.
For a one-shot in particular, you really shouldn't be investing too much time into preparing it. I personally LOVE writing in-depth and creative stories, but I have found that I often spent a lot of time for very little pay-off when I go all in like that. I now force myself to be more conservative with the time I invest in a single session. So here are my time-management suggestions for preparing a session, regardless of whether it is a one-shot or a long term campaign:
1. Create a villain the same way you would create a player character - give it a backstory, allies and rivals, etc. Build the rest up around the villain. The villain doesn't even need to be a character, it can be an ancient ruin or dungeon or other environment, but giving it a backstory can inform your decisions on what kind of creatures now populate it, what kind of treasures might be in it, how the party learns of its existence and why they would go there.
2. Once you have your villain, find some maps that are suitable for the adventure from what others have already created, write out some bullet-points of how each area looks and smells, the sounds the party can hear, the temperature and "feel" of the air, etc. as applicable. And boom, you have a one-shot adventure that only takes a couple hours to prepare at most.
3. Now that you have what you NEED to run the session, you can add some extra details (verbatim room descriptions to read, villain monologues, etc.), brainstorm ideas for later adventures that stem from this one and the like.
They cover this in the video, but I also meant to mention in my previous response that for a one-shot, the very start of the session should be a brief narrative of how well the party knows each other, what adventure they are embarking on and why, and a brief description of the party embarking on the journey to the destination or their arrival at the destination which immediately drops into an easy but aggressive combat encounter - something they can't just talk/bribe their way out of, such as an ambush or some non-intelligent creatures (undead, beasts, oozes, etc.) often works best. This gets the ball rolling on the adventure right away so you aren't losing time trying to get the PCs to cooperate with each other or agree to do the thing in the first place, as that has all been established in the narrative, and they are already invested in the adventure after that first combat.
I too made this mistake. Didn't even get to finish it. Put in over 1000 hours on roll20 preparing. It was supposed to be just a few sessions but it ended up being at least 12 sessions. It was going to wrap up in 1 or 2 more sessions. There was a falling out in the group though so that sucks.
I’m by no means a veteran DM. probably have 30 or so sessions on my tally. But I don’t spend more than 2 hours or so on a one shot. The more you prep, the more you have to cram into one session. Draft yourself up a loose outline and let the players take the wheel. I’ll have the statblocks set up I want to use and they show up whenever it feels appropriate. Only a handful of things are ever written in stone.
"simple ingredients can still produce complex flavors."
such a good quote. rehashing well done ideas and giving good opportunities to be creative are key.
NGL I'm ready to pin that quote on my wall.
In one shots, I like to create a sense of urgency so the characters are immediately thrown into campaign. Have them roll in first couple minutes and keep their attention so their focus is on game and not other things.
My characters don't respond to urgency
My favorite one-shot that I've built/run was a murder mystery. I asked my players before the session to come up with some reason that they knew each other. They decided that they were junior officers in the local thieves' guild. The setup was that 4 major noble houses all had estates more-or-less adjacent to each other with a road intersection between them. One of them was holding a ball, and the guild was well-connected enough to get them all invited. Their official mission was to engage with the nobles and other high-society types and ensure that the guild wasn't a concern.
However, as soon as dinner was finished, a servant went to fetch some wine from the cellar and discovered a dead body. I had put a battle map out on the table that showed the entire mansion, with rooms labeled, and also had spaces for the neighbors' houses, the back yard/stable and so on. They were set free to investigate each room as they chose.
There were two sets of clues - The first set leading to the killer (Who was the Lady of the house, who conveniently was also not present at the Ball - oh, and she and her husband were both vampires) and the second set being a bunch of red herrings. I know it is often considered poor form to put red herring clues into RPG mysteries, as they can get players going down the wrong path, but these went off without a hitch. The trick/joke to them was that they were all of the murder weapons from the board game Clue. Knife, lead pipe, rope, wrench, and candlestick. It was very good luck from my perspective that the last one of them they found was the candlestick, which is when the joke became obvious to them and everyone had a good laugh.
So they followed the real clues to the correct end, and I had planned at that point that the Lady of the house would come home and there would be a final showdown with Her and her husband. My players, on the other hand, decided on an alternate plan. They would help cover up the crime and pin it on someone else - the leader of the Thieves' guild. With him out of the way, they would be able to consolidate power within the guild. So they struck a deal with the Lord and Lady, and instead the final showdown ended up being basically an execution of the guild leader by the PCs and vampires.
Publish that!
Wow. That’s savage lol
Amazing
😮left without words! Great job!🕵
That is awesome! I will be stealing the setup for this! (If you don't mind)
Matt Mercer’s Red Nose Day one shot with Steven Colbert is an awesome blueprint for a one-shot. Provide the players with a strong narrative and direction (stronger parameters is better in one-shots). Then start off with an easy foreshadowing encounter/combat. Follow up with the discovery of the main location and an intellectual/social challenge, which directly propels them toward a benign encounter that empowers the players and enables them to beat the final boss.
This structure is concise and offers a diverse selection of encounters with a great pay-off.
Agreed!
I ran Phandalin when I first got my current group together and nearly TPKd the whole party with those four or five goblins that where meant to be the "simple introduction fight".
Later I learned from that how devastating an ambush with a big map and spread out ranged enemies can be :D
Goblin short bow attack with a nat20 turn one took down the party wizard and everyone was immediately in panic mode. They are sandwiched between two small groups of goblins with bows and there is nowhere to hide. Used their shock and horror as a reason for the goblins to pull out their swords and charge giving the melee guys something to do rather than get peppered with arrows.
My best 1 shot started with a group of adventurers I pre-made based on some minis I had. They started in a town and I described the adventure they just finished. That night while they were relaxing the town was invaded by Orcs. They spent that night defending the town and trying to rescue towns people. During the fight they captured some of the enemy and found out an evil pair of Dryders started the whole thing as a way to have the Orcs capture as many townspeople as possible for their dark sacrifice in an attempt to change them back into Drow. The group battled through he forest and finally defeated the Dryder sisters in their lair. It was great!
Dudes, this could not have come at a more appropriate time - I'm going to be running a one-shot for 2 or 3 new players in 2 days. The tips & advice you guys provide is so helpful and greatly appreciated - ALWAYS!
Thank you so much for the time & effort you put into making these videos!!!
Ye so true they are great videos
how did it go?
I think they’re fantastic for groups that can’t meet regularly, and also players that are less role playing inclined, and more into the action.
I agree to be able to run regularly i homebrew small session of Three to four hours and have a pool of players who are all of the same guild the partys are never the same
@@cybernetique4 another thing I love about em is players tend to let their inner demons out for fresh air. LOL. Like a full campaign is almost always good players vs BBEG, but there are tons of one shots with heists or assassinations, and they can be an absolute blast
I ran my first one shot on Halloween, I'm definitely glad to see this guide as I think we'll keep doing them occasionally.
It was a The Mummy inspired one shot where they all had to show up with Champion Fighters who were down to scrap (no other restrictions).
Cultists trying to resurrect an undead warlock king. :)
My brain, listening to the Dungeon Dudes:
- 21% new understandings, insights - the direct explanations
- 37% new possibilities, adventure and character ideas for my current campaign and the future
- 42% Are they going to say "We are the Dungeon Dudes" together this time?
I’m considering trying out dming for the first time, and I wanted to just try out a shorter campaign first that I could maybe turn into a longer one if need be and these tips really helped me a lot, thanks dudes.
Being a new DM is like running your own business. You can't begin as a megacorp. Start small and grow. As your confidence and abilities grow, you can scale up *gradually* until you're ready for the big time. And once you learn the "keep it simple" lesson, it will serve you well thruout your career.
My one-shots are more episodic than anything. They all tie into each other with reused NPCs and locations just different encounters and challenges, that way if I choose to do something other than “monster of the week” I already have the setup.
I’m a first time DM running a one-shot next weekend lol
Good luck, have fun!
I LOVE one-shots. This is like the video I always wanted.
Oh, man... Monty just created my new favorite made-up word: "Exabberate." 3:34 - best new word ever. "Exabberate - verb - to increase aberrant behavior."
This is perfect timing. I got my DM guide a bit ago and I'm getting ready to DM for the first time and run a one shot in a few weeks.
Legit just started planning a one shot for 4 brand new players. This couldn't have come at a better time
HIGHLY recommend A Wild Sheep Chase. Was my first one-shot to get into DMing and myself and my players had an ABSOLUTE BLAST!
i’ll take a loot at it! thanks
Getting characters ready prior to the oneshot, and simplifying the start is great advice. Get into the adventure as quickly and simply as possible to maximize time in the one-shot.
There it is. I love the food metaphors XD
During our Waterdeep DH campaign the PC's had to leave the city for a while and two of the players were on holiday. So we played a one shot in the meantime in which a dubious group of up-to-no-goods were hired to burn down the same "Trullskull Alley Tavern" that belonged to their original group. They were so excited and scared of success at the same time. Also, that was the moment the players found out about Lif the Poltergeist that still lived there. The whole thing turned into a "Lif - Home Alone" vs. the Daltons. We loved it. and they only managed to burn down the stables and 1 table.
Hey dudes, shout out to your consistency. Content, format, script layout. It’s all beauty.
🤟🤙
I've been waiting for this video for a long time!
Thanks guys.
The most important thing I have found about designing a one shot is this.
Your one-shot is about one (1) thing, and one (1) thing only. If you have two focal points, you have two one-shots. There must be a focus and a coherency in the structure to make sure you actually have a chance to get it done in one night. Typically it'll be about one location, a small one; one event, one culmination where you don't expect to do a whole lot of preamble. You can't afford to have loads of time doing background at the beginning if you want it to finish that night.
Think of it like a wave. Once the wave crests, your one-shot is over. If you have two wave crests, you have too much. Make sure that this arc/wave has a sense of possible closure at the end of the wave. It needs buildup, but it can't take too long.
Doesn't have to end in one night, of course. Players came to have fun, so make sure that if they're having fun, don't hurry them along. But this is essentially a scene, a short story, NOT a novel. It can lead into a novel the players want to tell later, many one-shots do that, but don't go into it expecting it to necessarily go further.
I can see the hesitancy for new DMs to run one-shots, but I've actually only ever DM'd One-shots and had great success! It definitely depends on the players though. I've run a few One Player One Shots with my partner who is our regular DM and it was great to me to get my feet wet as a DM knowing that if I was ever stuck he could help me out. This video definitely inspired me to run some more One shots! Thanks guys!
Love the advice of starting with a combat encounter. I've only very recently started playing D&D, having long been a fan of watching live plays and theory crafting my own characters, and one thing I found right off the bat was difficulty roleplaying and really getting a feel of my character.
Combat is not only a lot easier to understand and get into for the first time, I've found it really helped me get into character. After a round or two of combat, I'm throwing in quips during battle, and describing how my character acts. By the time combat is over, I am much more confident being in character.
By the divines, I needed a video like this! It's so true how the modules from a lot of 5E books can never be done as one-shots because you can't actually finish them in a single game session. In my experience, Dragons of Icespire Peak being split into separate quests allows for you to actually do a one-shot for new players and I enjoy spicying up the encounters to make them memorable.
These guys never miss. Everytime I had a question or thinking of a build, the Dungeon Dudes put out exactly the video I need. Been researching doing a one shot because my DM wants to play and our campaign is coming to an end soon so I'm taking a shot at DM and needed some practice.
Yeah these dudes are fire. They analyze classes/subclasses in a way I typically don't, which has helped my approach evolve. Love this channel
This seems like the kind of thing I need at the moment. Also I’m very excited for the dungeons of Drakkenheim book!
Just ran a one shot for my friends to introduce them to D&D and made every mistake you guys listed. Ha! Wish I had seen this video earlier. Great advice for next time, thanks!
Nice! I'm currently working on setting up a one-shot. So this will help.
About to run a oneshot tonight, this couldn't have been more perfect. Thanks!
I ran a Halloween themed oneshot last week after taking several of my own less from other "oneshots-but-not-really" I've ran in the past. And it all started by looking at the Pumpkin King statblock from Kobold Press' Tome of Beasts 2 and then constructing a setting based on the monster's simple but open-ended description. The players didn't really know I'd run the oneshot that night(we did it instead of our regular game for fun), so I set up some pre-made PC stat-blocks using the Survivors from Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and leveling them up using the Sidekick rules from Tashas. From there I assigned each statblock to a token depicting a mask and I let the players choose which one their in-game characters received as a gift from an NPC in the the village during a festival. And miraculously the players were able to improvise on character names and personalities on the spot. It was pretty amazing how quickly things got on track.
We ended up doing 2 combat encounters and 2 social/situational encounters, all by using the Epic Heroism rule from the Dungeon Master's Guide to keep things moving (5 min short rests, 1 hour long rest). I honestly think this oneshot was my best work in DnD and I'm going to forever proud of it! Just seeing a story all flow together and cleanly conclude in a single session definitely felt like watching a good movie.
That being said, you are right to say that oneshots isn't something a new DM should attempt unless they want learn from their own mistakes. This one worked very well soley because of my experience running a long term game. And what I mean by that is learning to make compromises for the sakes of pacing; all without taking away any player's or my own fun. I had to cut an encounter for time, and even scale down the HP for starting mob for the sakes of keeping the encounters under 2-4 turns in theory.
I don't even remember if I learned it from you guys from an older video, but I perked up when you said start your one-shots with action, because that's exactly what I did and it worked out PERFECTLY. I had my five lvl 6 players go up against an injured Treant on fire that i homebrewed couldn't attack the same target twice, so that it would never 1-hit kill any of my players but would deal massive damage nonetheless. The 1d10 fire dmg to itself per round is also there to make this first encounter of the adventure end relatively quick.
Needless to say, my players were scared shitless of trees throughout the session. And this was an adventure set in a village with a nearby forest with either a druid or a young spellcasting green dragon as the final boss (tldr of my adventure: questgiver put out a bounty on a crazy druid harassing the village. if the players do a social interaction with the druid, they learn that the questgiver is actually a dragon putting the town under her thrall)
i have done one shots where we used dndbeyond and just went "randomize" and what you get is what you play, it can be so funny seeing the results. it is also perfect cause it can make players who are used to using one or two classes possibly try something different.
I run what i call a one shot emporium. Basically, if one of my couple of different groups is missing a player and they don't want to run the main campaign without them but everyone else still wants to game, i throw a one shot. I have a few different groups that come in to the emporium at different times a week and usually end up running something from the emporium about 2-3 times a month on average.
My emporium has a collection of rental characters. Some crafted by me, others made by players. There is about 12 of them as of this writing and when a game starts, i bring the players to a character select screen very reminiscent of the super smash bros multiplayer character select screen with the character tokens on it. The players select a character and we get started on the actual game from there.
OMG THIS CAME AT THE RIGHT TIMING
I have been experimenting with episodic campaigns, where each session is essentially a one shot that are connected by it being the the same PCs.
Adventure's League modules are great for this. There is an overarching story, but each session can be a separate entity.
A possible way to deal with failing skill checks important for moving the adventure forward I read about was like: OK, the PCs manage accomplish the stuff they need to accomplish, BUT with these bad consequences...
Like for example: they manage to climb the wall, but one or two of their potions break due to a character slipping or falling a short distance, or they manage to find the evil sorceror's hideout, but not without alarming him about them coming, or they just need a lot of time, so that one of the people they are trying to rescue already got sacrificed in the evil ritual they have to stop.
A great one to start new players on is "a most potent brew". I threw them right into the dungeon ("you guys are an adventuring party and have accepted a quest. You already arrived at the destination, ..."). One tip I have for DMing for people new to TTRPGs is to explicitly tell them that players can do basically anything, not just something that is written somewhere and that creative solutions are encouraged. My players did not figure out the riddle, so they bypassed it with some creativity.
Awesome episode, thank you! The use of a letter from a NPC is incredible in effect. The most common use of one shot campaigns in my play group history has been when two or more of our usual group are unavailable but everyone else still wants to play. This can give the DM the chance to put time into the letter that can be used for climactic gameplay instead!
Interested to see if the time savings of pre-made characters overcomes the lack of ownership players feel for the characters by providing the space to increase "boss" levels of the one shot campaign.
100% agree with 2-3 shots being preferable. Did one with pals over a weekend. But sometimes you only have 4 hours, if that.
Fantastic timing! I've learned a lot about how D&D works, but haven't played much myself, nor DMed. I was planning a simple one-shot for some friends and family, so this will come in handy!
I love starting a one-shot for the combat. In the one shot that I DMed, I gave about 1 minute worth of story to explain their mission and immediately told them to roll initiative. They were an elite group of mercenaries hired to help reclaim a fort and that combat encounter was intentionally easy so they got to go into the one shot really feeling like they were an elite mercenary squad.
Recently I've run a couple homebrew 1-shots for some friends that were new to D&D and I tried to boil down the structure of D&D as a whole. I ended up with a 1-shot structure that's something like; get a quest, go on that quest, and come back from the quest. There are roleplay opportunities all throughout this structure with the quest giver or with the monsters themselves. Just like Kelly had mentioned about Lost Mines, exploration can easily be done in the finding of the monster or dungeon, and combat is similarly packed into the "go on a quest" section as you fight the boss and its minions.
Depending on if your players are more combat or RP oriented, you can cut smaller combats or have the quest giver just do basic interactions (giving the quest and thanking them for completing it). The ending bit of turning in the quest can also be narrated through swiftly if the players seem like they are done playing after the defeat of the big bad. Oh, and sprinkle in some loot. Everyone loves getting loot. Kelly and Monty had more generally talked about adventure structure but I know it can be helpful to have somewhere to start and this is the basic formula that D&D runs off of. (At least I think it is. I haven't been doing this that long compared to many.)
You guys are amazing. You helped me design my Tiefling Hexblade Warlock just the night before I played my first DnD campaign where my wife is a DM. I took elements from both your Hexblade builds and have a character who one year later, is still alive and the heart of the party. Just as I was about to design my first Christmas One-Shot, (my first time as a DM too) which is a steampunk/cosmic horror adventure, you release this video. Awesome work. I plan for this One-Shot to become a big campaign so your other videos helped a ton! Thanks a lot!
I'm a master of the one shot. At least that's what my wife tells me.
I sir, too, am a master of the 45 second one shot...
Ah, the one-pump chump. We've all been there.
It's her fault though! She is so damn good at what she does!
@@IkaikaArnado 45 or 4-5 second?
@@genghisgalahad8465 depends on how long it takes me to take off my pants...
Thanks for the great video!
My favorite one-shot I ran was one where the players were playing 1 foot tall grung in a location from the campain we are running so the players already had most of the context they needed.
An amulet was stolen by a beeholder (no, that isn't a typo) and his insect army from an NPC from our campaign that kept a garden full of tiny frogfolk. The NPC wasn't home so the PC's took it upon themself to venture through a dangerous forest into the hive of the beeholder.
Along the way they encountered a tiny displacer beast which turned out to be the familiar of a witch they fought to free some kidnapped frogfolk in our campaign. In the end it turned out the stolen amulet was the one that was key to the NPC fixing his relationship with a former apprentice in the campaign.
This isn't something you can do with new groups, but on a night where you cannot run a regular campaign game with your group, I liked this way of building a one-shot. It gave my players all the context they needed without spending a lot of time on world building, while the events of the one-shot contributed to the world building of our campaign.
I've been working on a one shot for ages and it was pleasant to see this video come up and see if any of the work I've done so far doesn't stray too far from these guidelines/tips
Super helpful, somehow roped myself into DMing for my friends for the first time soon
Been gone for a while but its good to see you guys again :)
We take turns DMing (mostly me) and we do nothing but mini campaigns. Thanks for the overview and tips with structuring this
Matt Colville's Delian Tomb strikes a nice balance for one-shots. Social at the Inn, exploration, a trap, a riddle, a combat.
A oneshot I still really want to run is one where instead of making characters, everyone picks stat blocks. Solving problems or battling through areas as literal dragons, demons, angels, and other classic monsters sounds great~
It also sounds like easy character prep. You either have everyone pick stat blocks and reasons theyre together/on the mission in a group chat before playing. Or you print these out ahead of time and just give them to the players that show up.
Now all my players will learn how to read statblocks too, muahahaha.
New DM here who started by running Candlekeep one-shots when my group couldn't play our regular campaign for any reason. I wish I had seen this video first!
What happens when I check TH-cam shortly after waking up? You see video titles like this and read it as "how to RUIN a one-shot in D&D". Fun stuff.
Loved the comparrison of one shots being more like movies and main campaigns like tv shows.
It even fits if the one shot takes more than 1 session as that is the sequel.
Such a great way to think on it not to mention a lot of good tips.
I'm hosting a one-shot with some friends this weekend. Pitching it as a simple "save the cat from a tree" mission, except it turns out the cat is a panther and was carried up there by a giant eagle.
I'm planning this one shot now for my group that I'm a player in. First time dm. But I decided to pull a dungeon from the campaign I wrote and plan to run this year with the same group. This one shot is a creepy circus theme that's been sapping the joy from the towns they visit. The party is gonna fight circus freaks like strongmen and bearded ladies with the ringleader being this weird wizard. There should be 2 social interactions, 1 investigation section, and 4 combat encounters with potential of a second stage of the boss fight. Should be fun but I hope we have enough time. May have to do 2 sessions of it lol
I've always said one-shots are never one session, every one I've ever done was at least 3. This is really helpful for providing tips on how to make them a little more true to form!
Ive played two kinds of one shots, one that went on for 7 hours as we assaulted a gnoll fort, and another where weve explored 2 rooms a session in a spooky church over 4 hours.
I did a 1 shot based off Jurassic Park.
Scene 1 was character intros on the helicopter.
Scene 2 was meeting sick triceratops, focussed on skills.
Scene 3 was T rex attack.
Scene 4 was chase from T rex with Galimimus.
Scene 5 was run through Raptor enclosure.
Scene 6 was final fight with Dennis Nedry.
It was so much fun, and all the players had a great time.
Best one shot I've ever played was run by my friend Stevan who gave us all pregenerated Goblin characters (he presented them all to us on character sheets and we got to pick which one we wanted to play) They came complete with a brief personality description and a short little song they could sing about themselves to introduce the character, which we each acted out. We all started off waking up in a locked dungeon room together not knowing each other and had to decide to either work together or try to escape alone. Anyway, it gave us all a chance to exercise our role-playing skills and play a race most of us hadn't played before and classes that some of us were not as used to playing. There was one memorable scene where my rogue found a chest with gold in it and greedily pretended it was empty but failed his deception check and the party had a brief but very goblinesque squabble over it before continuing on with our escape. We had a lot of fun with it and it all started with our DM randomly finding these pre-generated characters online and building a one shot around them to give his players a chance to exercise our role-playing abilities. I recommend trying this at least once for every group to try role-playing a character that you didn't create.
I ran a one-shot called The Tower. It was a horror themed game that censored on players going up into a lonely tower in the snowy mountains. The guard who positioned himself there for so many years said that not a lot of people come out of there and those that do come back changed dramatically. As they went in they encountered so many different things. Game mechanics that relied on stealth, a room that relied on puzzle solving, and another room that relied solely on just pure action. All of these rooms focused on different aspects of the game but with a flavor of horror. At the end of the one shot a lot of folks said it was a really fun time, they definitely were mortified, just how I wanted, and they wanted more afterwards.
My "one shot" of Sunless Citadel for three of my friends (two who have never played before) is now at four sessions and will likely take two more before they finish. But it seems like everyone's having a great time, so I'm not complaining!
My group spent 5+ sessions running around that first cave complex. Lots of RP and people learning.
Thanks for a great video. I love one shots! I'm getting ready to run a one shot called The Garden of Demons for my group. I'll be telling them some mechanics meta-wise before we begin instead of dropping that info in a vague way via lore or an NPC, etc. The specific mechanic I want them to know is that for every hour they get lost in the forest, a minion is added to the final BBEG battle at the center of the forest. Dropping this upfront before we play gets the tension and stakes up from the start and should make for a fun evening.
Great advice. Thanks! I ran a one-shot for my birthday this past year. I started with an NPC that gave the party a map to travel to the intended destination. They were adamant that the NPC lead them through. We spent way too much time RP'ing that. I should've just gone with the flow and let the NPC "lead" them through to the actual location.
Best one-shot I ever ran, I've done maybe 3 dozen times or so since, well a long time ago. The groups I've played over the years have mostly been combat-heavy with lots of puzzles, quest chains, etc and light on social. I still don't lean heavy on social to this day as a DM for reasons that would be TL/DR so we'll skip that. But the one-shot I've run so many times is almost but not quite exclusively socially based. It's called the Devil Went Down George's. George's is a pub. The devil (which you scale to whatever level is appropriate) is there to collect one or more souls. It's a big pub! Objective, find the person or persons in danger, rescue them, send the devil back to the Nine Circles and don't get YOUR soul eaten along the way. It has a timer-gotta get it done before midnight! So there's a natural focus to it. It's a nice break from our usual fare, leaves room for re-jiggering in an endless number of ways. Have had some of my players go on a George's run half a dozen times and it's always a fun break 8>D And yes, a few souls have been eaten over the years..... mwahahaha!
Good stuff dudes-keep it rolling!
My streamed Pirates of Eberron One-Shot turned into a Two-Shot and may be a whole campaign!
That's really really good advice; a new DM should run a 3-shot instead of a 1-shot
For my one shots i take a film/tv show i know with a short timeline and get my players to play the parts of background characters. The last one i did was john wick chapter 1 where viggo orders you guys to protect Iosef. (I changed the names to hide it a little). I started to drop hints of who was after them.
People they met along the way would "sense" that
"there is a man of focus after you".
"This man has commitment"
"I can feel your persuers sheer will"
"He knows the things you lack".
Recreating a john wick type one shot could be a good idea for a first one shot. I really enjoyed that one shop to the point weve set it up as a campaign. My next plan with it is getting my party to want to be hired by the high table. After such devostation, finanical nightmares and general distruption to businesses from wicks hand settles the high table gives the party the order to make sure john wick never returns back to the crimeworld. (We cant afford it). This means that when his pet dies the party needs to replace it quickly, preventing future assassins attacking him so it gets really tense as john stops and listens after hearing a russel in the bushes throughout the park. (Party takes out hitmen, john is no wiser thank god!)
Johns new wife gets ill so the party have to decieve john wick whilst they search for the cure 😂
You can go on 😂😂
Wish you guys had this vid out few days ago ran a Halloween one shot and I thought it was lackluster. It was my second time DMing this vid was helpful thanks guys.
don't get discouraged! Your players probably still had a good time. Reflect on what went well, and use your knowledge next time!
I've run a round robin style adventure. Each player got to run 3 sessions for an adventure that loosely ties together. Gave everyone a taste of trying to DM. Revoked around a spooky mirror. It was fun just for casual time at the table.
To me, the most important element of a one-shot is an awesome cinematic ending. You want people to walk out going, "Wow, I want to do this again!" Spend your energy on that! (And if you don't have or can't find a great idea for a climax, don't run the game.) Also: like the Dudes say, make sure you have enough time and energy to make it work.
very good video, never played a one shot that ended in one session.
I've played in a couple good one-shots. They allowed me to try things that I knew I wouldn't enjoy long-term, but could be fun for a few sessions, like someone who is deranged and kind of creepy; using spells like "Summon Shadowspawn" and walking around with material components like "an undead eyeball encased in a gem".
Epic one shot I did was based on runehammers war pigs game. It was truely epic. Especially when the climax is entering the devil's lair and they all save. The lowest is handed a Balor stat sheet and told to kill the party.
I ran a one-shot about a year or so ago and while I wouldn’t exactly call it a success (I had to basically skip the penultimate encounter), but it was fun. They especially enjoyed how I started it. For context, it was a heist one-shot. I had them introduce their characters one at a time with an encounter with the police officer questioning them (it took place in modern day). It was pretty cool to have it play out.
my DM just did a one shot where he gave us the premise over text and then gave us a few weeks to make characters so we could run it around Halloween. It was just a generic spooky dungeon, but it went great because it included every pillar and didn't grind to a halt. His prep was just having random floors already drawn up and a few stat blocks.
Bring this one shot I prepare for a little over a month. Inspiration was from a webcomic room of swords where if you die you respond where you last had a long rest.
Ran a modified version of the horror house from curse of strahd. Loved it was my first time dming, players had let me create characters with their preference in mind. They were then given blank character sheets to fill in as time proceeded
I ran a one shot where the party joins a funeral of a aquatinted friend who passed away but left a fortune to find on one final adventure he never completed. I told my players any words you say in the funeral on your adventures with the NPC are canon. Those players came up with some crazy stuff that made the dead NPC a legend
One shots are so fun! Lots of great points and definitely agree that most one shots aren't designed to be done in one session. Or at least without some DM elbow grease!
1:28 Also to play the game if your schedule shifts regularly and you thus could not play at the same day and the same time each week or so. Thus one-shots can easily be slotted in between work shifts and there won't be a "we don't progress the plot" if you don't play for a couple of weeks.
Best video from these guys. Really helpful info that provides more useful info than most other videos from other creators in this topic.
I've DM'd 3 one shots and 2/3 were successful. I felt the key was building up hype with immediate conflict and then ramp up the urgency within 1 or 2 hours and then finish up in very quick sufficient way. Finality is necessary or else you walk away without closure. Quality prep over quantity of outcomes.
The pacing and need to freeform cut/switch stuff is higher in a one-shot. The prep has to be tight and I have to know what makes the adventure tick. A movable boss encounter/objective is essential.
"I didn't have time to write you a one-shot, so I made a campaign"
My favourite one-shots (that I ran):
The first game I ever ran was a level 1, 3-room dungeon with a necromancer + zombies at the end. (Shoutout to Don't Stop Thinking for the template.)
An all-wizards one-shot for level 10 characters. The first half was a gladiatorial battle (vs various monstrosities) and the second half was a magical escape room.
A level 20 one-shot for an inter-planar peace-keeping task force. Those ancient gem dragons were trippppy~
I am doing a one shot as an Intro for a campaign I wanna run. It’s essentially a set time before a war that’s gonna involve some of the characters. If anyone knows Fate it’s a holy Grail war. It is also a test run for some fate rules I found that seem fun.
This is a group that has played together before but we are not currently in a campaign
One of the people in our gaming group is the one-shot master! He isn’t the regular dm but when our regular dm wants a break or is out that day, our one-shot master takes out this little notebook that has about 30 different adventures. They basically fit on a single page and have the essential elements bullet point style.
My takeaway is: have a basic skeleton of essential parts and let the story unfold with the players. Grab a few monsters in-line with the power level and let it fly!
Thank you so much! I'm a DM and I want to do so one shots with other players than my group, but I find the limits of a one shot so intimidating! Your video helped a lot!
This has come in handy! I'm running a oneshot for a new group soon -not DnD, but this video still works enough- and this video helps really well!
1. Always pre-gens
2. Know where you want to get to and skip trivial encounters to get there
3. Manage time - if the players are having a mother's meeting put the next encounter on them
4. Finish strong
Good timing, ran my first one shot and my first time dm'ing two days ago.
Never clicked so fast lol I’ve been wanting to do one. I’ve never DMd before lol
I wanted for long time to become both good at roleplaying and battles in dnd and while simply playing social encounters made me and my friends better at rp, fights didn't progress as well and fast. It is like 1-2 fights in 3-4 sessions in our campaign so i am really happy that i found your channel. Also get some nostalgia vibes like wathcing 90-00 tv show about tabletops. great stuff guys.
Thanks for the insights, I was planning to do a sci-fi one shot to give our DM a break and test the waters with the group, this couldn't have come at a better time.
I went off the deep end. My first time trying to DM, and had an idea for a level 20 one shot to lay the ground for a campaign 20 years later with new characters. We're about halfway through now. And it's been flawless. DM of the game I am a player in is a player in mine and said I'm a natural. Everyone has loved it so far. But I figured if I'm going to do this, go big or go home. And it worked.
Halloween horror one shots are always fun. I look forward to them each year.
I've been DMing for my family for a bit over a year now. Started with a module and moved to a homebrew setting when it was done. Finally 2 of my family members are expressing interest in DMing and I'm thinking of having them take the same course. Even if they just run the module, I'll be happy to get to play.