Running a one-shot for newbies

[joela]

One of my players asked if I would DM a one-shot for some of her friend's kids.

Ages are 12, 15, and 17, with two boys and one girl. All are new to tabletop rpgs: they've only played EQ and WoW. The player and her spouse will help develop their PCs using the PH.

Recommendations for an adventure? I'm thinking of a traditional hack-in-slash game. Thanks in advance!

 

[jdrakeh]

The older Atlas adventures "Three Days to Kill", "Thieves in the Forest", and "In the Belly of the Beast" all work well for one-shots. Given the ages and stated inclinations of your group, however, I think that Three Days to Kill would work best.

 

[joela]

Three Days

The older Atlas adventures "Three Days to Kill", "Thieves in the Forest", and "In the Belly of the Beast" all work well for one-shots. Given the ages and stated inclinations of your group, however, I think that Three Days to Kill would work best.

Thanks, James (Jim?). I have Three Days and will review it.

 

[Zaukrie]

I ran a bday party last year for mostly newbies. I built 3D terrain of 7 locations, but only had time for 4 or 5. The terrain sat on the fantastic locations maps, or was Hersocape. The party was called into a meeting with the Purple Dragon Knights as one of several groups to investigate odd magical occurances. As they were being teleported by one of the war wizards, something happened, and they ended up scattered in trees and on roads outside of a keep. Once they defeated the wolves and werewolves, they discovered that the keep had 7 portals to other places. This way, I could control how many locations I ran. When they went through gates that had several challenges:

Orcs in a ruined keep (using the ruined keep maps with styrofoam and Heroscape walls) about to sacrifice a unicorn. When they slept there after the battle, they were awakened by a bullette.

Yuan-ti in a dungeon (using mushroom cavern and drow outpost maps with styrofoam walls), the battle was too easy at one point, so I scattered lego weapons around the floor of the dungeon, and they had to roll to keep from being posessed and fighting their friends.

2 seperate mega block ships, each with crew claiming the other was evil. While they tried to figure out what to do, Sahuagin attacked (sharks too).

I also built a dragon graveyard (dragon graveyard map with megablock bones), a colesium where each would be put against a unique opponent.

The finally was a battle against the gargauntuan blue (a gift from my son's grandmother).

This works for newbies because you can control how much they do. If they have time, do more portals. If they don't have time, do less portals. They can get a sense of accomplishmet, and learn the game.

 

[S'mon]

With a bit of tweaking I think Three Days to Kill makes a good intro adventure, especially if your players like Tom Clancy! In the Belly of the Beast has a paranoid, trapped sort of milieu that is not ideal as an intro for newbies, I think. Both scenarios go heavy on the diabolism of the bad guys AIR, for some players you might want to tone that down.

I'm planning to run Goodman Games "Into the Wilds" soon, it looks like being an excellent intro adventure.

 

[Silver Moon]

I always use the original "The Keep on the Borderlands" regardless of the edition of rules being used - it's a classic designed for the newbie!


Later edit: Posted this before I looked at the other thread, where the same recommendation is made in the third post!

 

[roguerouge]

DCC 0: Legends are made, not born:

Read the review
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11942.phtml

Comes with pre-generated characters, a town, a dungeon, and characters that need to work together and be creative to win. Very flexible.