Opinions about 4e as a one-shot game?

[Rel]

I'm a pretty big fan of 4e, although I choose to run it with a few house rules tacked on to customize it for my gaming group. It's been a good fit for us and the players seem to really enjoy it.

I was stoked about getting to play this past weekend at the DC Game Day with Piratecat as my GM. I got to play a 7th level Dwarven Invoker. It was a fun game, by one of the best GM's I know and all the players were good folks.

But it was kind of a struggle too. Even though I'm very familiar with 4e and the layout of the character sheets, it took me until halfway through the game before I had a decent grasp of what most of my powers did and how they worked together. By the final battle I knew enough to use them synergistically to great effect. But it was a heck of a learning curve.

I talked with PC about it after the game and his general opinion seemed to be that he agreed that the learning curve was kind of tough. He reminded me that he'd done a series of one-shot games for his regular gaming group when 4e had first come out. He was advancing the characters by (IIRC) 5 levels between each adventure to get a feel for how it played at various levels. In the end he quit this progression because there was too much learning curve at each session. They simply created new characters at 1st level and started playing their campaign and it went much more smoothly.

I don't really consider this a major failing of the system. Different systems have different strengths and weaknesses. But it prompted me to wonder what other people's experiences have been with running 4e as a one-shot game. My hypothesis would be that it ran fairly smoothly at 1st-3rd level but got progressivly more difficult at higher levels given the learning curve.

There are probably some ways to mitigate this (if it is true). I suppose you could let the players build their own characters so that they would be more familiar with them from the start. Alternatively if you make pre-gens (which is nearly always the case at the Game Day and GenCon games I've played in) you could send copies of them to the players beforehand so that they could get the learning curve out of the way at home.

Anyway, I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of others about this.

 

[billd91]

I had a similar problem playing a cold character at the paragon tier. There were too many conditional feats and powers to deal with to really get into the character for a long time (and by then, the time was over). And this was with the feat cards from the DDI printed out right in front of me.

There has always been a bit of this issue in higher level play with pre-gens. After all, not everybody knows the wizard's or cleric's spells very well in 1e-3e even if you give the PCs a limited list. But at least then you could always ask to play one of the simpler pre-gens like a fighter or ranger and these characters could all have been built mainly with items or feats that could be directly added into the character sheet - few conditions involved.

 

[Baumi]

I would have usually not recommended 4E for one-shots, because they usually require simple/uncomplicated Rules, but if you use Companions (DMG2 Rules) instead of full characters then I think it should work well.

You would have all Powers and stats on one page, everything precalculated, no need for remembering Items and Feats but still approximately on the powerlevel of a normal Character.

A Companion could become boring if it was played in a Campaign, since he has only a few options, but that should be a Problem with a one-shot.

 

[Umbran]

I don't think it is specific to 4e - most games get harder to play as a one-shot as the power level rises. The effect is increased if the players do not have mastery of the system. My usual offerings for the Boston Gamedays are introductory adventures for their systems for just this reason.

You might expect that 4e would not have this problem, as the number of powers you have to marshal doesn't increase much with level, but higher levels do call for more finesse, and a sense of timing you only get through practice. At first level, you can probably get through an adventure using just your at-wills, and basic healing options. If you try to do that at 11th level, you'll probably be dead.

 

[Rel]

You might expect that 4e would not have this problem, as the number of powers you have to marshal doesn't increase much with level, but higher levels do call for more finesse, and a sense of timing you only get through practice. At first level, you can probably get through an adventure using just your at-wills, and basic healing options. If you try to do that at 11th level, you'll probably be dead.

Well I think part of the issue is that it's not just the Powers that you have to juggle. As you rise in level you are also adding Feats and Magic Items. Since most Magic Items also give you a Daily Power of some kind, that further adds to the overall complexity. I do agree that this is an issue with many higher level/higher powered games, not just 4e. But some game systems accomodate it better than others.

This is why when I've made pre-gen characters for higher level games in the past, I've always had a strong preference for abilities that are already calculated into the numbers on the character sheet, with only one or two "external powers" that cause the player to have to learn how they work.

 

[ggroy]

For one-shot games played over an evening, it would depend on what the other players were interested in.

Over the years my preference would be to use one of the basic D&D box sets for a 1-shot game. I've played several 1-shot and long weekend marathon type games using the basic D&D clone Basic Fantasy rpg.

For 4E, I usually simplify some of the rules to speed things up for a 1-shot evening game, such as:

- use group initiative instead of everybody individually rolling for their initiative
- reduce the monster hit points to half
- premade characters

To save time, I've used one of those short "free rpg day" (and other events) modules like:

Khyber's Harvest:
Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Khyber's Harvest)

Treasure of Talon Pass:
Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Treasure of Talon Pass)

EDIT: For some 4E encounters, I've found things move along faster when some monsters are replaced with their minion versions or modified minions (ie. require two or three hits to kill).

EDIT2: For leveling up, I usually don't do it as strictly by specific XP values. If I feel the players have reached a milestone of some sort, I'll just have them level up all at once. In most 1-shot games I've done, the players may level up once or twice through the evening.

 

[Henry]

I would extend that "easy" range to 1st through 4th level - all they're getting at level 4 is another feat, some +1's and a few more hit points. I agree with the premise, though. The level 6 "white plume mountain game I ran went pretty well, but it did seem like there was a little bit of struggle with the extra daily and utility powers. I think 3rd to 4th hits a good spot for one-shots in 4E -- there are two encounter powers for some extra variety, you only have to keep track of one daily and util, and it's high enough level to let the multiclassing start to kick in, so you can swap out one of the encounters for something from your multiclass choice.

I can't say as it's a failing with 4E itself, as I wouldn't want to run a 3E game at above 8th level or more either, because the list of special abilities and spells starts to get too much to deal with. I'd run a 10th level game of AD&D in a heartbeat, though, because the spellcasters don't get too much to deal with at one time, and every other class has very set progressions and limited mechanical options for what they get at each level.

 

[Cadfan]

I think it works alright for a one shot game at heroic tier with people who basically know the system. Learning a character and the system all at once at any level other than one is a little tough.

 

[Rel]

EDIT2: For leveling up, I usually don't do it as strictly by specific XP values. If I feel the players have reached a milestone of some sort, I'll just have them level up all at once. In most 1-shot games I've done, the players may level up once or twice through the evening.

Wow. I never even considered having PC's level up during the course of a one-shot game. In fact the only time I've ever played in a one-shot game where we got XP of any sort was in Gary Gygax's game at GenCon. He insisted that he assign us XP so that we could keep track for next time he ran a game for us (the ENWorld Moderators). Alas, it was not to be.

It's probably worth pointing out that I got more XP than anybody in the group on that occasion.

 

[gamerprinter]

How do you define a one-shot?

How do you define a "one-shot"? In my eyes its a single nights gaming session, which means the likelihood of leveling up is non-existent. If the standard 13 encounters are used define what is necessary to level up, its unlikely that a one-shot will carry through all 13 encounters. This all depends on how long each combat or encounter takes.

Or do you believe a one shot is a mini-campaign that might last two or more sessions, then its possible to level up sometime during the course of the mini-arc. In most D&D games I play, it takes two or more nights of play to actually gain enough experience to level up.

Since I view a "one-shot" as a single night's gaming - all the discussed problems of leveling up and dealing with greater amounts of complications is non-existent, so its no problem.

Reading this thread and the problems discussed is only confusing, since I've lost the conception as to what is a "one-shot". It apparently isn't what I thought it was.

GP