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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zaruthustran" data-source="post: 322004" data-attributes="member: 1457">one-shot funHere're a few ideas:Let people know that they're playing in a one-shot, so that they feel free to let loose and have fun. Keep the action moving. Don't let the players make decision by commitee. Ban "table-talk" during combat. Speaking of combat: keep it SHORT. Find a way to discourage dawdling. If the one-shot is in a cave, then make it so that the cave is slowly flooding and the players have to escape before it fills up. Or poison the players, so that they have to find a cure within 48 hours. Or stick them on a luxury super-yacht that just struck an iceberg and is slowly sinking. Anything to prevent the players from taking a "well, let's just rest here to recoup our spells" kind of path.Keep it focused. Present the players with a clear goal or challenge (even it's not the "real" challenge). Within 5 minutes of the start of the session, everyone should know what the Big Deal is. This works nicely with the point right above about dawdling. Here's a classic: "We've come to this mansion, a storm started, the bridge is washed out, weird things are starting to happen. We have to survive the night/weather the storm, and hopefully figure out what's causing the weirdness."Take cues from one-shot movies: Night of the Living Dead, Air Force One, The Towering Inferno, Evil Dead, Titanic (after the iceberg), Aliens, Run Lola Run. Also take cues from sitcoms and 1-hour dramas. Most of these shows take place over a short period of time, such as a single day or even a single work shift.Not that a one-shot has to be a single night. But keeping the time period short makes the one-shot more focused, more memorable, more intense, more fun.-z</blockquote>

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