What makes a good one-shot?

[Umbran]

Re: Re: Re: Episode 0?

So the advice would be that one-shot's are fundementally different than campaigns and you should have fun with that difference.

I agree that there's some fundamental differences, which should be addressed. If a campaign is a novel, or a series of novels, a one-shot is a short story or novella....

A longer work usualy focuses on the characters and their development. The plot is there mostly to show how the character grows and changes in response to it. In a shorter work, you won't have the luxury olf much character development. There's no time. So, the story you tell will be different. Look at your favorite novels, and your favorite short stories, and how they differ.

Don't depend on characters developing over the course of the game. In fact, characters for one-shots should generally have clear and strong personalities, as subtleties are not likely to get addressed. While they need not be "archetypal", aiming a little closer to that end of the scale would probably allow your players to get a better handle on them more quickly.

The story needs to have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and you must hit them all in one session. In a campaign game the DM is usually not as concerned with pacing, or how much plot gets developed in any one session. If you don't plan properly, though, you'll find yourself rushed at the end of a one-shot session, which can often greatly diminish the effect.

 

[kengar]

Illusionist: "I make an illusion of a dragon to scare away the orcs."

DM: "There's no good way of telling if you've seen a dragon before, so roll a d20. The higher the roll, the better the idea you have of what a dragon's supposed to look like."

Illusionist: "Um, I rolled a 1."

DM: "A man-sized bipedal pink dragon with green polka-dots appears near the orcs. They fall down laughing. He turns to you and introduces himself as Puff."

Illusionist: "Isn't he supposed to be silent, and under my control?"

DM: "That's how it's supposed to work, yeah. Pretty strange that it worked differently, isn't it?"

Ow! I think I ruptured something trying not to spray my drink all over the screen & keyboard from laughing at that.

 

[SirZapf]

I had an entire world made up but had a couple of characters that I hadn't played with before.

I set the one-shot about 2000 years before the actuall campaign began. I sent them to do something quite simple like running through the sewers of this tiny island.

I made sure that they were good players by giving the plenty of role playing experiences outside of the dungeon by investigating what was killing and stealing form these people. I had plenty of traps and tricks in the dungeon, to see if they had the skills needed to stay alive and fewer battles because that is the easy part and you can improve that as you play the game.

After they had finished that I had them all turned to stone for about 2000 years so I could start a real campaign that I had set up.

SirZapf

 

[Kershek]

Another good idea for a one-shot, borrowing from the prequel idea above, is to have the character's play some minions of the BAD GUYS from some time in the past. Make it a notable point in history that the characters in the campaign would know something about, but keep it vague enough where the details aren't known until they play the one-shot. This would be good to play when the characters learn something about the evil villain's past through research or a story told by an old sage. Then the one-off is like a flashback. Then tie it in to the story arc so they learn important information from it.