D&D 5E (2014) Help me run a 90 min D&D 1-shot for 8 Girl Guides!

[aco175]

Another idea if you are spending any gold on this is to buy each one some dice. They have color-coded dice where each d20 is red and you just tell the players to roll the red one. I saw sites with them for $18 for 5 sets, but you can get basic dice on Amazon cheaper but not color-coded.

 

[Helena Real]

Another vote for The Delian Tomb!


Make it personal: the kidnapped person is a friend of the group, or even a relative of one or more of the girls.

Start right outside the Tomb and tell them that an oracle NPC told them that if they don't find the kidnappee before the session ends, the NPC will suffer "a terrible fate".

Give them level 1 pregens. If you want to let them customize their characters, let them come with their ancestry and decide on the spot whether they're good at something—or not. Fairies can fly, elves are agile, etc.

For spellcasters, print cards with their spells for ease of reference.

Keep an eye on the clock at all times. End scenes earlier (especially combat) if things are over already.

Good luck!

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I ran Matt Colville's Delian Tomb for 8 scouts last winter. It took a little more than 2 hours, so you could chop some out and fit things. I found map printouts online and other advice for running things. It was fun, but chaotic.

I ran initiative by having everyone roll, take the highest to go first and then go around the table.

Premade PCs with cool powers printed out along with spells. I highlighted in different colors things like HP, AC, and base attacks to make things easier. I did swap a few 1st and 2nd level powers so a fighter had extra attack and the other has second wind. I kept to the basic classes and had the casters with only a few spells printed on another sheet, but each had a slight different flavor.

One thing the kinds liked was to have a paragraph on the character's personality. One of the mages was a snooty know-it-all and liked to use big words to make him sound smarter, and one of the fighters had a cool shout every time he attacked- the player chose "Cowabunga!".

I'll check out Delian Tomb. That may be a bit long, but might give me some ideas at least.

Highlighting things in different colours to make for ease of play at the table is a great idea, as is having a paragraph or dot points on the PCs personalities is a great idea too.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Another idea if you are spending any gold on this is to buy each one some dice. They have color-coded dice where each d20 is red and you just tell the players to roll the red one. I saw sites with them for $18 for 5 sets, but you can get basic dice on Amazon cheaper but not color-coded.

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I'll likely just provide the girls with dice of my own for them to use. Letting them take their d20 home with them at the end of the night might be an idea though.

 

[Andrew Anderson]

Honestly, a lot of this sounds like Shadowdark, including the initiative/turn order and simplified characters. If you were already familiar with that, I'd just run that and give them one torch (which means they have exactly 60 minutes of light to get to the other side of the dungeon and safety).

If you don't know Shadowdark already, though, disregard.

Second. Just started for my daughter and her three friends in the 7th grade.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I would definitely not go with a premade adventure. All of the ones suggested are far too long, in my experience.

Realistically, whatever is run, it isn't going to be finished. It's going to be times up - cliffhanger. Which is why I suggested Tide of Retribution. It has a very strong opening scene which the players will find easy to relate to - everyone is lazing around on the beach when shark people emerge from the water and attack. It really doesn't matter if the adventure does not get beyond surviving the the initial attack.

Additional notes (speaking as a secondary school teacher): At 14-16, these are not "kids" and will hate it if you try to treat them like they are. What they are is Generation - not what we are. Which means they will likely find a "dungeon" type adventure embarrassingly archaic. Focusing on social interactions with quirky characters is probably the best bet, especially if you can do voices. Aside from being more modern, it doesn't require knowing the rules, and doesn't take place in slow motion like combat.

 

[Golden Bee]

I'd give each of them 1/2 of a character, so you're calling on four teams instead of eight ppl. 90 minutes would be hard for a group to learn all the names, races & classes, let alone skillsets.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

races

Don't need this, just make everyone human. Also avoid anything setting specific and getting into D&D's arsenal of archaic weapons and armour.

Despite the large number of players, I would avoid sharing character sheets - role playing as (a more badass version of) yourself is what is likely to work best.

There may be dropouts anyway.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

the dude for Penny Arcade made a game for his kids years ago.

Essentially, they’re all trainees in a small village and they are taken by the village guard master to train them to defend the town. He has a fenced in area with a few monsters in cages and he releases them one or two at a time to let PCs learn how to fight.

PCs can fight to 0 and each has a healing potion they can use to go back up to full hp.

It’s basically a gladiatory ring scenario.

In the original, since it was for kids, they couldn’t die and the monsters were weird creatures who’d poof into smoke or something or run back to their cages when defeated.

Each pc had an attack and one special ability. That’s it.

 

[Piperken]

Ancillary issues, which probably could be answered more fully based on what you're comfortable sharing:

The immediate question that came to my mind was: did you have enough dice for eight? I don't! But I see you have that in hand.

Is the 90 minutes actually 90 minutes of game play, or more a block of time wherein everyone arrives, will want to talk some and so on, and possibly during? Will you have a break for a few minutes?

Definitely concur running a lite version of mechanics, based on whatever you decide to include in scene. If the purpose is to introduce D&D, may want to use the terminology from that system at least for their side. If it will be faster or more efficient to prepare for you by using an alternate system like Shadowdark as some suggested, then keep all that on the player-facing side.

Be kind, and set modest goals for yourself!