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.
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.
"simple ingredients can still produce complex flavors." such a good quote. rehashing well done ideas and giving good opportunities to be creative are key.
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 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. :)
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
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.
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.
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.
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)
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!
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.
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 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.
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.)
Oh, man... Monty just created my new favorite made-up word: "Exabberate." 3:34 - best new word ever. "Exabberate - verb - to increase aberrant behavior."
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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!
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!
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.
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 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
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.
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 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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
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~
Absolutely agree with skipping the prelude. There is no reason to ever spend a bunch of time on loose world building or roleplaying at the start of a 1-shot. Keep that for proper campaigns. It just draws out the session and means very little in the long run. Also completely agree with nudging the players forward and preventing them from engaging in passivity. I once ran a 1-shot where, after investigating into disappearances in a hamlet, the players were instructed of a dungeon where the likely culprit was hiding. My players then went "Oh, that sounds dangerous. We shouldn't go there." And I had to give them "one of those looks" before asking them if they had some kind of other plan. Sure, they could've set a trap for the culprit instead of dungeon delving, but all they wanted to do was just go back to the tavern and ignore the whole thing entirely. After having them wake up to a sudden surge of disappearances, they kind of picked up on their mistake and got back on track. 1-shots are all about quickly blowing through a thematic adventure. As a DM or a Player, always keep that in mind during the game.
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.
I like using oneshots as possible session zeros. I usually have three endings in mind gauged based on how excited my players are. If the oneshot hits well and everyone has kind of developed their characters, then some of them ask me if they can play those characters again. I usually leave a possible conflict in my notes that could lead to a campaign if that's something I'd like to test out or change the conflict in my oneshot enough that if we did play it again it still feels fresh. I also think it's kind of fun to have a recurring character in my oneshots to make it feel like it's in the same universe. Like a psychic that if you find the item she wants before you meet her, she'll give cryptic advice that could hint towards an advantage (think man of median or the quarry). I love props, so I might give coded messages or use the deck of many things. Or as an enemy, I have a warlock whose given his body to a demon (I like to call him the crooked man based on a urban legend) As I do more oneshots, it feels like I'm fleshing out the world and adding lore that could lead to a major campaign. sometimes I use recurring items like a dragon egg that appears to be increasingly likely to hatch, hopefully not in the wrong hands as it gets passed around. I actually like writing oneshots more and essentially making them feel like they're connected! I like to think that these oneshots build the lore in the background, I'll make their old characters NPCs that occasionally come around or become adversaries. Of course once I become dedicated to it lol
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.
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.
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".
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
SKIP THE PRE-AMBLE -absolutely. One-shots include this as a way to introduce the scenario to the characters in game (meet the quest giver, receive quest, travel to location). This is useful if you want to insert the one-shot in an existing campaign. The inclusion of fluff tends to invite additional roleplay and exploration which can extend a one-shot to a 2-3 session adventure. Useful when you need time to prep the next adventure arc in your primary campaign. However, if your intent is to present a 1 off, self contained, single session adventure -just drop them off at the gate. Summarize the preamble (you were hired by [NPC] to do [Quest] and were promised [Loot] upon completion. You arrive at [Location]), but just get to the adventure already lol.
I ran a one shot that was like the Hangover, I found a great set up for it from The Rat Queens. I had to restructure it for the players I had as well as my world, but in the end it was a great way for the players to get in and get busy. They bypassed one or two things through role play which I found insanely great and they really enjoyed that part. They got introduced to each other partying it up and role playing then waking up with an adventure to figure out all they had done. It lead into a full campaign afterward due to them having so much fun. In retrospect I should have had them just do new characters for the campaign though so the crew we ended up with could have built them together. But...it was a good campaign too.
A short campaign i recommend you play with new players: "Youre about to sit down to play dnd around a table when suddenly you fall through a portal into a magical land!" Set up level 0th characters that are the players themselves. I linked them an online 'what are your ability scores?' Test I liked. And then prep a one shot for this level of play. Being level 0 for a short bit helps keeps the mechanics as simple as possible for the player's first couple games (they get to focus on the stuff everyone can do. Handouts for combat actions are excellent). Simply being themselves in a weird situation will help ease them into roleplaying so that it isnt as intimidating. And I find playing as themselves can help temper expectations of what (especially low level characters) can do, otherwise asking for the characters to do action movie set pieces can be common and dissappointing to shoot down. Once they get the hang of it with a 1-3 session adventure, start a normal campaign/one-shot where they can play the fantastical characters they dream of.
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!
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.
Tip for handouts and info dumps: My players and I share a WhatsApp group, but this applies to Discord or whichever platform you use. Have any thing they might need or acquire (lore dumps, item loots, NPC descriptions possibly) at the ready. Then, as need arises you just re-forward the relevant information as a new text for the group. It saves a LOT of time and it's also useful for those players who forget information and are a little too shy to ask
I love one shots. Sometimes people can get more into a one shot character than they can their campaign character because they don't have time to overthink things, the pace is always frantic, the story goes off the rails, but as a DM, your advice on 'cut something' and 'finish' are so key. Get them in the action, cut the middle if you need to (no one will notice), and save time for the finale. Here's my advice, for what it's worth: lean on published material from any source, read the adventure, have your combats pre-generated for monster initiatives, cut NPCs that are duplicates, ensure the players get the information they need for decisions, don't introduce characters instead tell them they are working together, allow for the pace and tension to ebb and flow, and break all the rules. I ran a one shot last week when several players didn't show for the main campaign for good reasons, but one player said, "I want to play a goblin warlock that doesn't know he's a warlock!" I said to the other players, you have 5 minutes to get your goblin character ready, I checked my random pile of notes on the iPad for an adventure hook and a map, scratched some monsters down, used my random encounter tables, and it was a nail-biting solid session.
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
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!
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 recently did a special Halloween One-Shot as our normal campaign day was on Halloween night. 4 of my 7 players were still wanting a game, but I didn't want to continue the normal game without half the group. They used their existing characters, and I adapted 'The Camp Clearwater Massacre' module on Roll20. In particular the area to explore is so big I had to stripe it down considerably to get it to fit in a 4 hour block. It was a bit more railroady then I'd generally like, but the players still enjoyed the time spent (& the loot they got). Including a rather epic battle after uncovering clues.
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.
Another form of the one shot is the campaign side adventure. What to do if some of the players aren't available, or some of the characters temporarily out of action? Perhaps the party got split up, and some campaign time needs to go by to get them back together. Then it would be fun to have a side adventure with each piece of the party, with players whose characters aren't there taking temporary characters. Those temps can end up having recurring roles in the campaign. I would have a few prepared scenarios up my sleeve in case of emergencies.
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.
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.
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.
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!
"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.
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 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. :)
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
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.
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.
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
Hey dudes, shout out to your consistency. Content, format, script layout. It’s all beauty.
🤟🤙
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.
I've been waiting for this video for a long time!
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.
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)
Legit just started planning a one shot for 4 brand new players. This couldn't have come at a better time
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!
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
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 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.
What happens when I check RUclips 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.
There it is. I love the food metaphors XD
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.)
Oh, man... Monty just created my new favorite made-up word: "Exabberate." 3:34 - best new word ever. "Exabberate - verb - to increase aberrant behavior."
About to run a oneshot tonight, this couldn't have been more perfect. Thanks!
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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!
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!
OMG THIS CAME AT THE RIGHT TIMING
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.
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 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
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.
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 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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
100% agree with 2-3 shots being preferable. Did one with pals over a weekend. But sometimes you only have 4 hours, if that.
Best video from these guys. Really helpful info that provides more useful info than most other videos from other creators in this topic.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
Nice! I'm currently working on setting up a one-shot. So this will help.
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~
Really good advice in here. I watched several video with similar title, but you getting it down to actually useful points. God job!
Good timing, ran my first one shot and my first time dm'ing two days ago.
Been gone for a while but its good to see you guys again :)
Absolutely agree with skipping the prelude. There is no reason to ever spend a bunch of time on loose world building or roleplaying at the start of a 1-shot. Keep that for proper campaigns. It just draws out the session and means very little in the long run.
Also completely agree with nudging the players forward and preventing them from engaging in passivity. I once ran a 1-shot where, after investigating into disappearances in a hamlet, the players were instructed of a dungeon where the likely culprit was hiding. My players then went "Oh, that sounds dangerous. We shouldn't go there." And I had to give them "one of those looks" before asking them if they had some kind of other plan. Sure, they could've set a trap for the culprit instead of dungeon delving, but all they wanted to do was just go back to the tavern and ignore the whole thing entirely. After having them wake up to a sudden surge of disappearances, they kind of picked up on their mistake and got back on track.
1-shots are all about quickly blowing through a thematic adventure. As a DM or a Player, always keep that in mind during the game.
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.
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!
Matt Colville's Delian Tomb strikes a nice balance for one-shots. Social at the Inn, exploration, a trap, a riddle, a combat.
I like using oneshots as possible session zeros. I usually have three endings in mind gauged based on how excited my players are. If the oneshot hits well and everyone has kind of developed their characters, then some of them ask me if they can play those characters again. I usually leave a possible conflict in my notes that could lead to a campaign if that's something I'd like to test out or change the conflict in my oneshot enough that if we did play it again it still feels fresh. I also think it's kind of fun to have a recurring character in my oneshots to make it feel like it's in the same universe. Like a psychic that if you find the item she wants before you meet her, she'll give cryptic advice that could hint towards an advantage (think man of median or the quarry). I love props, so I might give coded messages or use the deck of many things. Or as an enemy, I have a warlock whose given his body to a demon (I like to call him the crooked man based on a urban legend) As I do more oneshots, it feels like I'm fleshing out the world and adding lore that could lead to a major campaign. sometimes I use recurring items like a dragon egg that appears to be increasingly likely to hatch, hopefully not in the wrong hands as it gets passed around. I actually like writing oneshots more and essentially making them feel like they're connected! I like to think that these oneshots build the lore in the background, I'll make their old characters NPCs that occasionally come around or become adversaries. Of course once I become dedicated to it lol
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.
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.
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".
My group spent 5+ sessions running around that first cave complex. Lots of RP and people learning.
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
This is just such an excellent episode, so full of truth and useful knowledge... DDudes freakin rule
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.
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.
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.
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.
SKIP THE PRE-AMBLE -absolutely. One-shots include this as a way to introduce the scenario to the characters in game (meet the quest giver, receive quest, travel to location). This is useful if you want to insert the one-shot in an existing campaign. The inclusion of fluff tends to invite additional roleplay and exploration which can extend a one-shot to a 2-3 session adventure. Useful when you need time to prep the next adventure arc in your primary campaign. However, if your intent is to present a 1 off, self contained, single session adventure -just drop them off at the gate. Summarize the preamble (you were hired by [NPC] to do [Quest] and were promised [Loot] upon completion. You arrive at [Location]), but just get to the adventure already lol.
I ran a one shot that was like the Hangover, I found a great set up for it from The Rat Queens. I had to restructure it for the players I had as well as my world, but in the end it was a great way for the players to get in and get busy. They bypassed one or two things through role play which I found insanely great and they really enjoyed that part. They got introduced to each other partying it up and role playing then waking up with an adventure to figure out all they had done. It lead into a full campaign afterward due to them having so much fun. In retrospect I should have had them just do new characters for the campaign though so the crew we ended up with could have built them together. But...it was a good campaign too.
A short campaign i recommend you play with new players: "Youre about to sit down to play dnd around a table when suddenly you fall through a portal into a magical land!"
Set up level 0th characters that are the players themselves. I linked them an online 'what are your ability scores?' Test I liked. And then prep a one shot for this level of play.
Being level 0 for a short bit helps keeps the mechanics as simple as possible for the player's first couple games (they get to focus on the stuff everyone can do. Handouts for combat actions are excellent). Simply being themselves in a weird situation will help ease them into roleplaying so that it isnt as intimidating. And I find playing as themselves can help temper expectations of what (especially low level characters) can do, otherwise asking for the characters to do action movie set pieces can be common and dissappointing to shoot down.
Once they get the hang of it with a 1-3 session adventure, start a normal campaign/one-shot where they can play the fantastical characters they dream of.
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!
This video contains a lot of GREAT tips for "what to expect from new players" too. I feel like that would be a good topic of a video as well.
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.
Literally running one Saturday. You guys are amazing and also psychic :3
Tip for handouts and info dumps:
My players and I share a WhatsApp group, but this applies to Discord or whichever platform you use. Have any thing they might need or acquire (lore dumps, item loots, NPC descriptions possibly) at the ready. Then, as need arises you just re-forward the relevant information as a new text for the group.
It saves a LOT of time and it's also useful for those players who forget information and are a little too shy to ask
I love one shots. Sometimes people can get more into a one shot character than they can their campaign character because they don't have time to overthink things, the pace is always frantic, the story goes off the rails, but as a DM, your advice on 'cut something' and 'finish' are so key. Get them in the action, cut the middle if you need to (no one will notice), and save time for the finale.
Here's my advice, for what it's worth: lean on published material from any source, read the adventure, have your combats pre-generated for monster initiatives, cut NPCs that are duplicates, ensure the players get the information they need for decisions, don't introduce characters instead tell them they are working together, allow for the pace and tension to ebb and flow, and break all the rules.
I ran a one shot last week when several players didn't show for the main campaign for good reasons, but one player said, "I want to play a goblin warlock that doesn't know he's a warlock!" I said to the other players, you have 5 minutes to get your goblin character ready, I checked my random pile of notes on the iPad for an adventure hook and a map, scratched some monsters down, used my random encounter tables, and it was a nail-biting solid session.
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
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!
Halloween horror one shots are always fun. I look forward to them each year.
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 recently did a special Halloween One-Shot as our normal campaign day was on Halloween night. 4 of my 7 players were still wanting a game, but I didn't want to continue the normal game without half the group. They used their existing characters, and I adapted 'The Camp Clearwater Massacre' module on Roll20. In particular the area to explore is so big I had to stripe it down considerably to get it to fit in a 4 hour block. It was a bit more railroady then I'd generally like, but the players still enjoyed the time spent (& the loot they got). Including a rather epic battle after uncovering clues.
Perfect timing. I've got a one-shot coming up soon
You guys definitely read minds. I managed to convince my friends to play D&D and I’ve volunteered to DM a one shot for them. Only DM’d once before
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.
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.
We take turns DMing (mostly me) and we do nothing but mini campaigns. Thanks for the overview and tips with structuring this
Super helpful, somehow roped myself into DMing for my friends for the first time soon
Thanks for the advice guys! I'm running a one shot next week and these pointers will be helpful I think.
Another form of the one shot is the campaign side adventure. What to do if some of the players aren't available, or some of the characters temporarily out of action? Perhaps the party got split up, and some campaign time needs to go by to get them back together. Then it would be fun to have a side adventure with each piece of the party, with players whose characters aren't there taking temporary characters. Those temps can end up having recurring roles in the campaign. I would have a few prepared scenarios up my sleeve in case of emergencies.
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!
This seems like the kind of thing I need at the moment. Also I’m very excited for the dungeons of Drakkenheim book!
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.