Would like some advice.

[Barak]

Alright, so this coming week-end, I'm going to be running a Iron Heroes one-shot. I've never designed/ran a one-shot before, so any advice, both general or specific, would be awesome. Here's the specifics.

-Iron Heroes
-Will have 5-6 players.
-Best would be 4-6 hours long.
-None of the players has played Iron Heroes before. All are experienced RPG gamers though, especially D&D of various incarnations, but not limited to that
-Will be making pre-gen characters, along with a "cheatsheet" explaining each characters' abilities/feats/skill uses/whatnot.
-Thinking of doing characters in-between 5-10 levels, single class. They'll all be the same level, mind you, I'm just not sure which.
-Won't be using Arcanists or Thieves, for various reasons. Otherwise, I'll make one pre-gen of each class.
-My players prefer combat to heavy roleplay.

For the scenario, I'm thinking of the world in general being virtually no-magic, but not quite, sort of a-la Conan. That is pretty much the given Iron Heroes setting anyway, and that's what I'll run with. I'm thinking of a sort of 13 warriors type-deal, with the BBEG either being "magical" in some way, but nothing's set yet. I do have Mastering Iron Heroes and the Iron Heroes Bestiary, so that's good. That's where I'm at so far.

How many combat encounters should I plan on? Any other advice or whatever?

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Iron Heroes Primer

That's a really cool summary of iron heroes in just a few pages. Print a few of those out and hand them to your players. I'd also make several pregen characters to choose from so everyone feels like they have some options when choosing what to play.

Edit: I should note I stole the primer from Pbartender. Couldn't remember which poster I stole it from when I typed up this post.

Also, if you're group likes combats, I'd shoot for 3 or 4 if that's managable. For the first one or two fights, keep it fairly simple so each player can get a feel for the classes. After that, throw in some more complicated stuff: find ways to encourage challenges and stunts. For the last combat, make it a really epic affair with lots of obstacles, zones, etc. Good luck!

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

You're on the right track, I think. The pre-gens are a must, and the hand-outs help a ton, especially if you point people to them or post them in advance, so they can come with any questions already on their minds.

I'd keep it to 5th or 6th. That's high enough to have some neat options and get some of the flavor of IH without swamping things. Given that the players are unfamiliar, I'd think maybe 3 encounters max -- a small warm-up to get them used to the new rules without a lot of risk, and the endcap encounter where all bets are off. Throw in one more, maybe two if things seem to be moving well, maybe with an exotic location, and you're good.

The thing with one-shots is you want to give the party a very good chance of success with relatively little risk. I'm a big fan of grim'n'gritty for regular campaigns, but for one shots I put on the kid gloves. It's no fun to get ganked in the first encounter and be out of the session. Make sure you have ways to get characters back into the swing of things, whether its the availability of post-combat healing, or NPCs that can replace PCs as needed, etc. Also, be wary of red-herrings -- it's ok in a regular game to have the party go off on a wild goose chase, but time is of the essence in a one-shot, so be ready to nudge where appropriate.

 

[pogre]

I think 4 is a good target, but have a few optional combats prepared in case one or more of the planned combats goes very quickly.

 

[Barak]

Thanks for the advice so far!

I had already planned on providing pre-gen characters, so that's all good. I will print some of those primers (thanks!) though. Note that some of my players do have the Iron Heroes book, and have been reading it, so some of them will be somewhat knowledgeable on the rules.

I -would- like some advice on the adventure itself, too. As I said, I plan on a 13 warriors sorta deal. By that, I mean that the PCs will be vassals of a count-equivalent guy, sent to investigate weird occurings in one of his outlying villages. Said village will be under sporadic attacks by "normal" people (IE 1st encounter, possibly second as well), at which point they'll try and go to the root of the problem... Which is where I'm mostly wondering.. What to use?

 

[Wik]

The thing with one-shots is you want to give the party a very good chance of success with relatively little risk. I'm a big fan of grim'n'gritty for regular campaigns, but for one shots I put on the kid gloves. It's no fun to get ganked in the first encounter and be out of the session. Make sure you have ways to get characters back into the swing of things, whether its the availability of post-combat healing, or NPCs that can replace PCs as needed, etc. Also, be wary of red-herrings -- it's ok in a regular game to have the party go off on a wild goose chase, but time is of the essence in a one-shot, so be ready to nudge where appropriate.

Really?

I figure one-shots are the place where you can really be a jerk and get away with it. It's the place where you can be incredibly harsh to the players, and no one's going to yell at you because it's just a one-shot, after all.

 

[Barak]

Really?

I figure one-shots are the place where you can really be a jerk and get away with it. It's the place where you can be incredibly harsh to the players, and no one's going to yell at you because it's just a one-shot, after all.

That's true of the last combat of the one-shot, very much untrue of the first combat of same.

 

[Stormborn]

Really?

I figure one-shots are the place where you can really be a jerk and get away with it. It's the place where you can be incredibly harsh to the players, and no one's going to yell at you because it's just a one-shot, after all.

No, they arent going to yell at you, but they are going to be disappointed if they don't get to play anymore in something that is only going to last a few hours anyway. Actually IH is probablly a god system for that because of how healing works.

 

[Wik]

You know, I've had a lot of fun running brutal one-shots, particularly with Omega World and Call of Cthulu. And whenwe played an IH one-shot, things did get fairly tough. Of course, the other argument (easy encounters, tough finale) works, too - I guess I just see things differently, is all.

 

[MonkeyDragon]

Drop em off at the station.

Railroading is badness in an ordinary game, but in one shot you don't have time to bait the hooks, drop the hooks and gather everyone together to be sure that's what their characters want to do. When you design your pregens, build into them little personality or history gibbets to provide a desire to do whatever it is you're going to be doing. Don't be afraid to start off the adventure with "You hold the battered treasure map in your hand. The door looms before you." Obviously not all one-shots are going to be simple dungeon crawls, but you need to get straight to the meat of the adventure, or before you know it, the game will be half over.