"1-shot" Games

[RedWick]

A one-shot I played in at a con and loved, was just a group of people role-playing through a mythological creation. Each person was a god who had certain types of powers (we each picked what we had control over during the inital character creation), and most of the game was focused in on creating the world and the things living in it. Kinda esoteric, but super creative and original. I'd love to try running it sometime, but I'm lacking in players.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

My group was involved in a long-running Eberron campaign, which we then took a break from to play a rather long StarWars d20 campaign.

I'll be running an Eberron one-shot, with the party as a spec ops warforged detachment from Cyre during the Last War, as a way to get back in the Eberron / D&D mood.

 

[Henry]

My personal preference is to pick a relatively new system that has had some buzz on it, and run that with pre-genned characters; that way, I rarely have slots unfilled in whatever con or gameday I'm running, and people who love new games, or whose groups are hesitant to run new systems can get a chance to try it out.

In 2003, I did d20 Modern, Mutants and masterminds.

In 2004, I did Arcana Unearthed.

In 2005, I did AD&D 1st edition (when Castles and Crusades was about to hit), and was going to do Spycraft, but circumstances killed it.

It's a formula that works well for conventions and the like.

That's what I go to conventions for, in part - to play in games I rarely would have a chance to at home. Also, running them at cons is a good excuse to draft my local group into a session or two of a new game as a "playtest".

 

[MonsterMash]

Paranoia works well for this or Call of Cthulhu.

 

[Umbran]

I personally tend to go with games that lend themselves well to "episodic" plots, and that don't require much rules-mastery to be high-action, because I prefer them to be open to people who have no knowledge of the system before they enter the room.

Unfortunately, beyond the lowest levels, d20 isn't very good for this. Marvel Superheroes (faserip version) is very good. Paranoia (5th edition or earlier, I haven't worked with XP) works well. I have found I can usually trim Shadowrun down to suit. I've had good luck with Alternity, and I think the core WoD 2.0 rules would do well, too.

It also depends upon where and when I'm running the game. At home, I pick based upon what kind of plots or genre I want to work in. If I'm runnign at an EN World gameday, I tend to lean towards something the players may not have seen before, to add to the smorgasboard.

 

[MonsterMash]

Actually Conan's setting lends itself well to episodic games and the low levels of magic mean it can run combat faster than other D20 games making it better suited for one off games.

 

[BSF]

Feng Shui, Paranoia, Car Wars.

 

[scourger]

Our group plays card and board games for "filler." As I generally find these less interesting than RPGs and downright boring after 1 session, I like to have an RPG at hand. For an RPG 1-shot to run, I would like to do more ORK! (despite one failed attempt) or different Savage Worlds (I am running it as a campaign now). I would like to play Omega World or something new & simple.

 

[Tinner]

For one-shots, I like games that seem to be designed to end quickly.
CoC has already been mentioned, and it's always a good choice.
I dig X-Crawl as a player or GM for the same reason. :If you die, you DIE.
Year of the Zombie is likely to be my next one shot. I probably will run the Independance Day Massacre for it.

Another tactic that I've had good luck with is picking a movie that's familiar to players, and has some "buzz" around it, and then completely steal the plot for your game.

I ran a D&D 3.5 game based on the Matrix, where the adventureres were on the run from the mind flayers that wanted to use their brains as a power supply.
I ran a great Changeling the Dreaming one shot based on the musical "Guys & Dolls."
I'm kicking around an idea for a one shot d20 modern game based on the movie "Dog Soldiers."

 

[Dave Turner]

What the industry needs is more games designed as one-shots, rather than adapting regular games into one-shots. We need games that you just play once.