Great GM - How to run a rpg one shot session - Game Master Tips RPG

hello and welcome to this episode on how to be a great game master in today's episode we're looking at a question that came from our website www.investmentpitch.com this is eerily and the entire idea is that within a space of a few hours maybe three maybe four maybe less an entire adventure can play out this is not a deeply complicated adventure there's no master plot with sub plots and subplots and subplots on the sub plots this is a straightforward adventure it is perhaps role-playing at it's very core so how do you do it and how do you do it successfully well a lot of the tools have already been provided to you in the videos that I've done before so if you don't understand concepts like the one-to-one method I suggest you go and have a look at the video called well one-to-one there's that we're talking about stories so if you don't know about someone who wants something bad it is having to be able to getting it again look at the story video so it's all of those concepts we're going to compress them though into a very short space of time and that's where this comes in and we're going to look at that in a little bit let's start with the idea of a one-shot so you've got a bunch of players together maybe they're all friends from out of town and you've got a weekend or a Saturday afternoon free to play a game you need to come up with a one-shot a simple idea the most important thing and I have seen this happen repeatedly at conventions where basically you're playing a one-shot people own the complicate the story they add in too many layers too many historical references too much information and the players and their character we'll never come across it because there just isn't enough time so start your adventure with the one-to-one method very very simple introduce the plot immediately don't start with a preamble you're all sitting in a bar and a stranger walks in now you are in the middle of battle roll initiative the gunmen are chasing behind you firing their 1940s mp4 tees at you and you have nowhere to run except through that door the starship is breaking up and the evacuate ship alarm has been sounded you need to get to an air escape pod before it's too late get them into the action straight away there's no option for players or their characters to go wandering off in different directions or to try and engage with the locals NPC dialogue might be great don't fall into the trap of becoming this lyrical philosophical NPC character yet don't have time so jump straight into the action then have two very clear turning points you've got your first obstacle that the guys have to overcome then you've got your second obstacle that the guys have to overcome and that's it had two major points that you're aiming at and then hit them and once you hit them move on don't over complicate matters don't impress Kate information don't make it so obscure that the players have to spent half an hour trying to figure out just what that NPC meant hit your two points and move on straight into the showdown and again don't make the showdown reliance on the fact that they've done the first obstacle and they've done the second obstacle and they've got this clue and they've got that thing you don't want players to get stuck in a loop of oh we don't have the key so we can't get through the final door oh we didn't push the lever over there which opened up the feather over there move it along move it along that's the theme over one shot don't let your players sit and go not sure what should be then that's a failing on your story behalf not on the players behalf so use the one-to-one to really make sure that you've got a strong simple story you're not running a deeply political campaign here you're running a once-off make it clear and make it simple then again timing is the problem combat combat in one shops is fine but if you make it a to balanced combat where you've got basically a party of PCs versus a mirror party of pcs a combat my last an hour that's insane that's a quarter of your playing time maybe even more combat should be dramatic they should be with flair and then they should be over it's easy don't drag it out this is where I say your rules really need to be given the backseat because you need to move it along at the speed at which you have planned that's the next important point one to one helps you go right I've got four hours I've got one to one that's how long I've got for each thing one hour for the intro two hours for the main bulk and an hour for the conclusion or I've got ten minutes for an intro then I've got 60 minutes for this part six minutes for that part and then 40 minutes for that part however your numbers work you need to have something in your mind which says right I've got 20 minutes or what 30 minutes I got whatever in my game room and it's unfortunate it's over there you can't see it I've got clocks I make sure there is a clock somewhere that I can see my players cannot see it unless they go looking for it I can see it so that I can keep track all right now that's fine we were supposed to be at 15 minutes and you guys have taken seven sure let me throw in a little clue from some NPC who comes wandering along and Gozo overheard you talking about that did you know that I saw this happening three days ago then you can add in so by then timing everything then you take a breather and you can go okay they've got an hour to get through the swamp and part of the obstacle that is the swamp is that there are these trees that will wrap around them and drag them under the water and that's something that they're going to have to go overcome if they make an alliance with the wood elves that live in the area they will show them how to avoid those trees in which case I've got another obstacle planned right I never planned on make it up on the fly but at least I know I have to have an obstacle I have to have one thing that's going to keep them there for an hour because remember I'm watching that clock so if my interaction with the wood elves takes 45 minutes because the players are being diplomatic and asking questions and trying to solve the wood elves lifelong problems then I know that encounter is going to be you see a tree that comes alive and tries to eat a little party of wood elf but they overcome it the wounded tree now starts to move towards you leaving the elves behind you make four or five rounds of combat the tree falls over dead because you now made sure that you're 15 minutes that you had left is used up now you move on to the second obstacle you arrive at the exterior of this massive fortress it spans four miles in all directions and appears to be floating above the surface of the swamp you now know you have an hour for them to move through this castle is that going to be filled with traps that are going to be filled with gods they were going to overcome that's entirely up to you but you now have the ability to control the experience if they're taking too long with one trap because they succeeded on solving it properly well gosh dagnabbit that castle is no longer filled with hundreds of gods they have to fight their way through as a matter of fact the gods all appear to this died of some kind of poison is it in the air is it on the ground if it's in the air well then there's pockets of it which they can identify easily and which requires them to maneuver around again just buying time until my two hours is up and I now have to go into that down which means that they plumb the depths of that fortress and at the very heart of it they find this chamber filled with fire and standing in the middle is this mad sorcerer who summons 12 mirror images of himself and they can all start fighting in two big battle or whatever your conclusion is play it out I've got 15 minutes left right the sorcerer falls over dead and of course you make it dramatic and feel as if the players did the huge amounts of damage and he just couldn't sustain their onslaught and of course then he dies and then you give them some treasure because they always like treasure and then you describe them returning triumphant to the wood elves who shut their names out and applaud them and if you still have several minutes left make the chieftain of the world give a grand speech on how wonderful these strangers are who have come and our land and who helped rid us of this evil and then your time is up and you bow and your players have all had a great time and hopefully so have you so that's how the one-to-one method works really well in terms of running a one-shot now this thing what is this thing I've said it before in a couple of videos and this thing is where you get to make sure that the players on to they're going and I know it's my turn I will cost ah that's better now I can't cross that spell because it's a no no miner now I'm getting there I this is what are you doing five four three two one you're standing there looking like an idiot you're overwhelmed by the scene what are you doing five four three two one you swing your sword because that's what you told me you doing within that little 5 second round remember combats supposed to be between five and six seconds per turn anyway so if in that amount of time you can't set it you swing your sword well then I'm sorry you should be paying more attention to the game perhaps or less involved and trying to find the right spell and rather just knowing your spells doing spellcaster so this little counter five allows you to keep the game going and to not necessarily slow down during combat and it will also make it feel a lot more frenetic in a long campaign you don't care whether the combat takes an hour or an hour and a half or half an hour or 15 minutes because it's just going to keep going on and on and on in perpetuity in a one-shot you have triming and if you want to make it on that time without something having to go oh i lay all the iron you win well done that's not necessarily a satisfying conclusion you have to keep the timing going so don't overthink it don't overcomplicate it don't let the players dally don't let the players linger if they're starting to linger throw in a minor combat throw in a minor skirmish it's going to derail their little entrenched minds where they're thinking and overthinking your problem throw in a desperate cry for help throw in some kind of plea and just get it moving don't let them sit there and if you haven't planned it to be as part of your adventure well head it you've got a master plan your one-to-one method is still an operation sure we don't need the word elves now because we're running out of time because I spent too long in the introduction so now it's not what else it's a wood elf a singular individual who will help them so there's there's time for interaction and there's no shopping opportunities and then band and n so that is how I'm just checking my notes because I had them quite specifically planned out that is how you need to run a one-shot keep it simple don't complicate it don't let the players delay keep them moving time yourself and make sure that your timings stay true to what you planned be flexible in your story be flexible on those rules as it says you need to make 42 rolls in order to climb across a 420 foot chasm bollocks to that make them roll twice keep a tramatic have something attack them while are hanging on the rope and get them across as quickly as possible now I don't want you to think that you sit there having a heart attack because you raising to get these guys through the story it's not a complicated story the players are going to set their own pace use that to tell your story as it fall unfolds you don't need the complicated maze of things players will get through it in their own time and of course so else to take into account is just how many players do you have a one shot with six players means that combat is taking six people's decision terms which is 30 seconds minimum per combat round 50 seconds minimum for them to act members sorted a role and calculate values and then and and and which means that arguably you might be taking up to three minutes per single combat round to get through that combat so if your combats going to take ten minutes well--there's set at the ten rounds that's a long time that's really been burned for a single combat does it really mean that you have to stick to the hit point values and that kind of thing I don't think so I hope this has been valuable and how to run on how to run a one shot another video that I'm looking at doing is how to interpret a convention module so that you can when handed this gigantic book that says this is a module to be run in three hours interpreters and then make it run in actually three hours regardless of what the author might have intended on the other hand how to take a single sheet of paper and to run that into a three hour adventure as well so look out for that video in the far future well maybe in the near future let me know the comments below whether you want to see it next or not until then hit the like button hit the subscribe button join us our wwr 8 game master comm to leave more questions and comments and of course we will see you next week so please and till then I wish you and your fellow players [Music] and

Channel: How to be a Great GM

Views: 148,653

Keywords: dnd 5e, dungeon masters guide, Dungeon master tips, Dnd gm tips, Game master toolkit, d&d, dnd gm tips, game master tips, Great game master, How to be a great game master, Game Master, How to be a great dungeon master, DM Tips, Dungeon Master, RPG, Game Master Tips, Dungeon Master Tips, GMing Tips, DMing Tips, how to gm, One shot rpg session, one shot rpg, how to run a one shot rpg, be a better game master, How to run a rpg one shot game, dnd, matt mercer one shot

Id: Ou-CGHCx71I

Length: 15min 3sec (903 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 22 2017