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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gilladian" data-source="post: 6617298" data-attributes="member: 2093">Since your new group has experience with playing RPGs, I would NOT do pregens; I would simply tell them that they need to come with a finished character - tell them to do point buy or rolls, and whatever else. Suggest, possibly, that if they don't have a Player's Handbook, that using the free player's guide download is acceptable. Make sure they have your email for contacting you with questions. Also, tell them you'll be starting in media res, and that you expect them to already know that they're a functional group of friends. Ask them to work that out among themselves, and maybe give them bonuses for doing so (double inspiration or something similar). With your 5 hour time slot, a 5-room dungeon, or similar plot, still sounds like your best plan. It doesn't have to be super railroady, and I would try to have at least a basic draft of a small region for your campaign world, if you hope to run one later, started. A town name, a kingdom name, some NPC townsfolk, and a shop or two, an inn, are nice things to have as a fallback. Random encounter tables for the roads and the nearby woods/hills aren't a bad idea, either. That way, when they do go off on a tangent, you've got something ready. But mostly, if everyone knows it is a one-shot, they should be willing to at least TRY to stay "on track". When I do one-shot games, I generally give them a specific goal; one scenario for newbie players was to go from just outside the front gates of a walled estate to the front (or back) door. They were new initiates to an adventurer's school, and this was their entrance exam. I had larded the whole estate with tricks, traps, illusions, dangerous plants, etc... and also equipment in the form of a garden shed, stables, and a couple other things they could pillage to make their job easier. It was a VERY fun afternoon. They started by catapulting the rogue halfling over the wall at the back, nearly breaking his neck; things only got worse as they went along. Quicksand, a burning garden hut, and spiders in the orchard...Another scenario involved them all being pixies (of a sort). This was for a group of women who had never played an RPG before, and likely never would again. They discovered that their wizard friend had "fallen asleep" and was in trouble (his cat familiar essentially hired them to rescue his master). They had to travel across several miles of terrain, including through a human village, to reach the cottage of a friendly witch whom the cat was certain would help the wizard. Again, it was a fairly freeform exercise in figuring out how to avoid a series of obstacles; everything from a berry bush full of fermented fruit, to a vicious dog to a tinker who wanted to capture one of them and sell her to a passing menagerie. That adventure was mostly played for laughs, but it could have been much more serious. Or it would have worked for kids if slanted correctly.</blockquote>

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