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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zaruthustran" data-source="post: 6623075" data-attributes="member: 1457">I like the idea of starting in a flying ship which crashes. I did the exact same thing for a one-shot I ran for my buddy's bachelor party. It's an effective way to get everyone amped up quickly, and limit options / railroad. For a one shot, railroading is a *good* thing. It's important--essential, really--that the players have a complete experience. So when planning your session, err well on the side of short. If you finish early, you get to hang out socially with your friends. If you run long, everyone is aggravated because you had to either rush to the end or not end at all.If you think you've got 10 hours, plan for a 4-6 hour experience. Don't do open-ended sandbox encounters, like "they wander around and have to make Con checks" or "they meet some villagers and RP". No. You've got to have a solid plan with a realistic time budget. They're on a Ride, not in a Sandbox.Here's a specific adventure outline based on your ideas:1. Intro and opening scene (30 minutes). The flying ship could be a bug. An animated bug: either undead, or via Animate Object-like spells. The players are inside the hollowed-out abdomen, bound and blindfolded with hair rope.When they crash, they've got three ready-made goals: 1) survive, 2) find out who attacked them*, 3) get revenge on whoever imprisoned them. Those are Big Esoteric Goals. Give them an immediate goal by placing some obvious destination in the near distance, and a threat to get them there. Like a ziggurat on the horizon, and a giant sandstorm bearing down on them. They know they need to get to the ziggurat to have any chance at survival.Note: from here until the Ziggurat, do not let the players drink any water. Place a giant glass pitcher of ice water on the table, but do not let them drink it. Turn up all the lights, too. Go buy one of those cheap floor lamps to really sell the sun. Trust me on this. Your players will talk about your commitment to the bit for years to come.2. Assess, repair, first chase (1 hour) After the crash, the giant bug's in bad shape. The wings are completely wrecked. But it can still crawl. Give players the means to patch it up, while interrogating their prisoner (he's crippled, but alive, and bargains well for his life). Then chase the characters to the ziggurat. Elves in Dark Sun are essentially the bikers from Fury Road (they run fast). Put some on kank-drawn chariots. You've now replicated the Buzzard tribe encounter from the first chase scene in Fury Road.3. Betrayal, into the sandstorm (45 minutes) After the PCs deal with the elves, their prisoner somehow alerts his superiors. Now a new Templar-led force is on the way. More chariots. More scuttling up-armored animated bugs. On-again, off-again combat as forward elements catch up to the bug and try to slow it down. Crazy environmental dangers as the sandstorm nears. Keep moving toward the shelter of the ziggurat, which they reach just as the sandstorm engulfs them, sweeping away nearby pursuers and driving them into its unknown depths.4. Explore the ziggurat, reveal the truth (45 minutes) It's been all-out chase and combat and storms, and you need a break. For pacing, and probably also for the players to eat (and drink). This segment is mostly-narrative exploration of the ziggurat, and dealing with the prisoner (probably killing him). Find a puzzle or some other way to occupy the players, and challenge them in noncombat. How about they discover a huge reservoir within the ziggurat, a huge columnar pool taking up the entire middle of the ziggurat, and this asset (coupled with the threat of the Templar army) leads to a segment where they shore up defenses. Montage-style as they jury-rig traps and prepare hard points and fallback positions for a siege. Give them a map and some resources and let the players collaborate and go nuts. All the while, tease out story elements.I suggest something like revealing the ziggurat was the intended destination the entire time; the NPC was bringing them here to sacrifice, or hand over to something even worse than the Sorcerer King. Maybe the SK was going to give the PCs over as tribute to the Dragon. Hey now, that's something.5. Stunning conclusion (1.5 hours) This is when the players realize they've got a bigger problem than the Templar army. The Dragon is on the way, and he wants them (for some reason). Maybe one of the characters is a prophesied threat. Maybe one of the characters is the prophesied parent of a prophesied threat. Maybe a character is already a threat. Whatever the case, the conclusions sees the PCs recruiting/strong-arming the Templar soldiers who survived the fight and sandstorm--those guys don't want to be killed by a sure-to-be pissed-off Dragon either, and they can't leave because the sandstorm is still raging. So they and the PCs must fight off The Dragon's minions before a showdown with the big boy's main enforcer/emissary/avatar. I suggest making things go such that they shed Redshirts (the conscripted Templars) and are forced to fall back repeatedly until they reach the reservoir, where they feel trapped before they realize they can somehow release it all at once and thereby flood the tunnels and drown all of their enemies. And lose all the water, forever destroying a priceless resource. Hey, that's Dark Sun.And that's 4.5 hours. Figure 5.5 hours with normal time for screwing around and long combats. That's a solid amount of gaming by any measure, and you'll be 100% guaranteed to fit it all in. You can always pad it out with additional combat and exploration in the ziggurat, and/or RP with the Templar soldiers recruitment scene. * the attack on their flying bug was orchestrated by a rival Sorcerer King, who wanted their captor to earn disfavor of The Dragon.</blockquote>

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