What makes a good D&D one shot?

what makes a good DND onot on the surface it sounds like a pretty simple question doesn't it good DND is good DND just look through a book find a fun little segment that you like the look of run it with your party couple of hours no commitments no followup jobs are good except it's not quite that simple is it because I would say that running a d andd one shot is one of if not the hardest things that you can do as a DM why well part of the reason is because of the name it's a oneshot you have just one session to get all the way through a story from beginning to end one session to give your party an adventure throw in a few challenging fights a few puzzles a few traps and a satisfying conclusion there's no followup if you run out of time if you prep too much or heaven forbid if you run out of stuff too bad that's all you've got so the pressure is on as a DM to plan your time even better even more carefully than you would in a regular campaign session where you've got a little bit more latitude to just kind of make things up as you go but this leads into a second issue which is as a result of all of this careful time management on the part of the DM one shots tend to be a lot more railroad than a normal campaign oh what's that party you want to go and spend half the session chatting to some random MPC you want to take a boat and check out that interesting Island over there you want to take part in a drinking contest with the dwarves at the bar well sorry you don't have time for that we're on the clock here the DM's got an adventure prepped and we've only got one 4our session to get through it all difficulty is an issue too obviously you want to make the session challenging for the players but at the same time you can't kill them I mean this isn't a campaign they can't just roll up another character if you kill the party the one shot's over so that makes balancing a one shot really kind of hard especially considering the next point which is probably the hardest one of all to deal with to wit the party itself because whereas in a full campaign people usually kind of take their time building up an interesting character making a cool backstory making sure it kind of fits into the world that you're creating in a one shot there's no continuity there's no World building and so people tend to in my experience use the opportunity of one shot to experiment shall we say try out something new maybe some build that that they've never tried before or a silly character idea maybe some crazy old cat lady warlock who fires eldrich blasts by yeting cats to her enemies or what about an artificer who's clearly just Willy Wonker in Disguise and all of his spells are themed around types of chocolate or what about an old man who is both deaf and blind because the player character wanted to try making something challenging for themselves maybe a strength-based wizard or an intelligence-based Barbarian you know one shots are free real estate for just testing out the craziest ideas that player characters come up with but not only does this lead to some very interesting interesting character Dynamics at the table it's also far more likely as a result that the party composition you end up with is frankly very unbalanced given that you as the DM probably had less time to kind of prep this than a campaign you had less time to sense check with the party of what they're coming up with makes sense and less time to push back on some of their crazier ideas and this further adds to the issue of Challenge and difficulty and keeping things on track that I mentioned earlier case in point the very first one shot that I ever ran in fact it was the very first time I ever DMD you can find a full breakdown of that particular one shot up here in case you're interest interested but I I ran a one shot for three players and in my play group uh we tend to only ever do one shots if we've got several people missing from our normal group and so uh you know the party was on the small s just three players at the table but that was fine uh they were all very experienced people so one of the players he decided that he wanted to play a kenu and this was before Monsters of the Multiverse wrecked con the class and so he couldn't speak common and he was very keen to play it straight that he could only speak by repeating things that he heard then we had another player character who decided to play a grung a character which again cannot speak common and can only speak grung a language that almost no one ever takes as a backup language and finally the final person in the party was a human wizard who than God actually could speak common the end result being that he was the only member of the party that could actually communicate with any of the MPCs that I had created and considering the fact that this particular one shot was designed to be a complex social situation with a central mystery that needed to be solved that kind of made things a bit of a problem so with all of these things taken together you might well ask yourself well why on Earth would someone actually want to run a one shot well fortunately there are a couple of reasons why one shots are good for me a onot is a pallet cleanser they are a way of giving the group something different from the usual game that they might play something for them to sink their teeth into for a few hours new characters new party Dynamics new player races and classes is the main campaign that you're running a Sandbox simulator or great give them a one shot that involves a lot of combat or a Dungeon Crawl or a central mystery to solve is your main campaign set in a jungle space well then give them one set in the desert or at sea or in space now obviously you don't have the time to dive deeply into any of these Concepts or game types youve only got a few hours to play with but I always approach these things by treating them like a small sampling of the different game types that D and D has to offer and a mo bu if you will you know I've taken part in in a one shot that was 100% PVP combat in which the DM just threw us into an arena and made us spend the entire session just attacking each other uh and it worked surprisingly well uh on the Other Extreme I've had one one shot which was 100% a mystery set on a ship traveling the astral sea someone or something was poisoning the ship in hopes of stealing a valuable gem to give to GI Yankee Pirates Who Could It Be it's definitely someone on the ship can the party find the culprit in time to stop the ship from crashing so for me that's where the fun of a onot lies you just pick an idea some strong core central idea maybe a setting maybe a type of gameplay maybe a situation and then you just run with it in terms of structure actually making the structure of your session I found that most one shots that I've really enjoyed participating in and that have stuck with me for a long time afterwards they kind of follow the same three act structure that you might be familiar with from something like Joseph Campbell's the hero's journey for those of you who don't know the hero's journey is another word for the monom myth Joseph Campbell who was um scholar by by trade he looked at all of the oral storytelling Traditions from across time and from across culture from all different parts of the world even parts of the world where people had never spoken to each other before and he found a fundamental theme that seemed to run through all of them that no matter where these stories were coming from no matter what time period they were being told in the stories boiled down to a very similar structure to them a kind of fundamental Rhythm that they went to now that's not to say that all stories ever written have followed this pattern but essentially this hero's journey is to storytelling what the 44 time signature is to music as soon as you hear it you understand it as soon as you uh it just feels comfortable to you like slipping on a pair of shoes and that is the key to success to making a good one shot because it is something that the party are going to understand just a shorthand a way of getting them like ah I get what's going on now you don't need to explain so here's how it goes in a nutshell the hero's journey basically breaks a story down into two main phases we have the Ordinary World phase and we have the special phase The Ordinary World is another word for the starting point it's where the hero Begins the adventure and the place to which they eventually return probably changed as a result of their experiences the Special World on the other side is the unusual circumstances that the hero finds themselves in which underpins the bulk of the story itself following this structure we can therefore see that most stories start in the Ordinary World the hero is just an ordinary guy nothing special but then he receives a call to Adventure perhaps at first he rejects the call he can't be dealing with this right now he has other more important things to do but eventually he is forced through circumstances Beyond his control to take up the mantle and fight along the way he very often will meet some wise old Mentor who will then help him to understand the destiny that is calling to him and from this person he then learns more of the abilities and skills that he's going to need in order to take down the villains at this point the hero fully enters into the special world and and in doing so we enter the second act of a three act structure we meet friends and allies the hero starts to face challenges and tests which he has to overcome but which ultimately aren't particularly perilous or difficult and all of these things ladder up towards the innermost cave which is a fancy way of saying basically the place where the McGuffin or the big bad is hiding and uh this is then the hero toughest challenge yet he has to use all of the knowledge that he's gained so far all of the challenges to take on the the threats that lie within the cave but eventually after going through some climactic ordeal which often involves the loss of something very important to the hero he managed to escape with the thing that he set out to get and is now armed and primed with the knowledge and the abilities to take on the big bad once and for all at which point the story then enters the third Act and the den numont of the story translated into D and D speech this would mean three acts three sections The Call to Adventure the tests allies and enemies section and the ordeal followed by the reward at the end you may notice however that there is one section of the hero's journey here that we haven't mentioned yet the road back the Resurrection The turn with the Elixir I'll come on to this a little bit later but for now we have these three basic sections that we can work with setup Challenge and climax so let's take that beginning part first the call to an Adventure this is the part of the adventure where the party is formed where it gets together the party meets each other often in a Tavern or some other place uh they are given the mission this is the part where you as the DM can kind of establish what is the Ordinary World in which the heroes live uh and generally speaking I like to allocate about 30 minutes to an hour on this part of the session now that this might seem like quite a long time because let's face it this section could be done in as little as one sentence yeah the party meets in a Tavern and uh you see on the notice board that there is a dragon attacking the fields nearby and you decide to help but I do like to give the party a little bit longer here to kind of settle down and find their feet remember what I said earlier people like to experiment in one shots they come to the table with these weird and wacky characters and builds and so just kind of giving them a little bit of time at the beginning to just settle down discover who they are what the dynamic at the table is and just give them a chance to kind of use these characters is in a safe environment before you kickoff is is normally advised so for example uh I had a one shot that I made once where the session actually started in a jail everyone was in prison they had none of their equipment it was completely dark and they had no idea why they were in prison none of them could remember being arrested and so the opening section the opening hour here was really just spent giving the party complete free R to find a way to work together to escape from prison and I as the DM had absolutely no idea how they were supposed to do this but they managed to do it you know they had complete free reign they worked together they figured it out they used uh abilities and skills that were quite unusual and in the process they kind of met each other and upon escaping from prison they then uh went to the guard room where the guards um were posted obviously took them down quite easily while working together and there they discovered the arrest warrant that had led to them being arrested in the first place and they saw that they were all on the hook for apparently committing the same crime some heinous murder uh a crime which of course none of them could remember committing and as far as they were concerned they were innocent of it and therefore we now have the hook not only has the party had a chance to meet each other not only has the CH the party had the chance to kind of use their abilities and and and just in a safe environment but they have a clear hook for the story going forwards namely find a way to clear their name and find the real culprit of the crime and it was a fun session for everyone as a result all right so now we're into the middle part of the session and this really is the meat and potatoes you know this is going to be the longest part of the session you're aiming for at least a couple of hours here this is the bit where the one shot actually happens maybe it's a mini Dungeon Crawl maybe it's a sequence of combat maybe there's a mystery that needs solving whatever it is that you've set the ones shot up as being it happens here now that's not a lot of time 2 hours so you can't overly stuff this section and in my experience this is the part where if a one shot does fall down it falls down here because DMS can often over prep I'm guilty of this myself and it it leads to this part becoming a bit bloated and then you end up not having enough time time to do a satisfactory Climax and the whole session kind of ends in a bit of disappointment so balance is needed in this part a little bit of flexibility it needs to be challenging yes but not deadly and as the DM I'm always kind of ready to step in more than I normally would to throw the party a bone or two and help them out if they're struggling one way or another they are getting through this to where they need to be if that involves fudging roles moving room around skipping combats Al together whatever I'm I'm there for it this is a one shot you don't have time to be a fair DM you are completely biased on the party side but then finally all of this builds towards the climax the ordeal and uh you know given the sort of game that D and D is it's a tabletop role playing game that means we're going to be having some sort of boss fight probably uh there is a big bad you need to take him down and uh in my experience you do need the time here to make this section epic and that means you're probably going to be wanting to spend about an hour minimum on this part yes 1 hour of combat followed of course by a very quick wrap up at the end because let's be honest now you do need some sort of conclusion but there's you never going to come back to these characters or this world ever again so the wrap-up really can just be done in a couple of sentences oh you go back to town and you give everyone the gold hooray the end you go off to do Further Adventures that's not the important part part but in order for the players to walk away feeling accomplished and like they've achieved something you do need to make the final encounter feel substantial and epic the players at my table we don't dilly-dally we're all quite uh experienced with the game and uh we tend to have our our turns prepped before it comes round to us in the initiative order but even if you got four players at the table plus the DM if each person there takes 2 minutes on their ter which is very possible and your boss requires five turns to kill because he has a lot of HP which is also very possible well that right there is a minimum of 50 minutes needed fights take time so if you give the party all of that which I've just gone through you would have a successful one shot on your hands I've certainly played through more than a handful of one shots that felt exactly like that it's the sort of Adventure that you would get if you ever played adventurous League very straightforward very simple one and done jobs are good but the title of this video is not what makes a successful onot it's what makes a good one shot what makes a ones shot that sticks in your mind for days afterwards what makes a one shot that you as a DM aim to replicate when it's your turn to sit behind the screen and for this this is where we introduce that fourth segment of the hero's journey that we previously skipped think about some of the great stories that you've ever read or some of the movies that you've watched think about how often the hero in the story doesn't actually succeed the first time they try to take down the villain there's usually a moment near the end of the second act where the heroes actually fail in their Quest at the first time of asking or they realize that they've maybe been barking up the wrong tree the whole time and the real villain is this other person over here there's this moment that happens where the hero is at his lowest e everything is hanging on the line and it looks as though the villain is going to get away with it but then character growth the hero maybe makes some Discovery or they find a new well of strength within themselves or perhaps they are revitalized by the power of friendship whatever it is they are now supercharged with this knowledge and the experience of their earlier failure to now take down the big bad once and for all they throw themselves at the enemy and finally they succeed now obviously a DND session is not a novel or a movie and you don't have time to be forcing character growth and development on a party nor should you ever interfere with people's characters in that way so you might say well that's impossible to do but what you can introduce as a DM is a Twist one of the best one shots that I ever had the pleasure of playing through was set at a concert basically the heroes had been hired on as security for this very famous musician who had had some death threats made against him and so we as the party are protecting this uh establishment we're walking around looking for any suspicious individuals and of course there's a couple of red herrings but then suddenly these hooded figures attack in the middle of the night and of course the party leaps in to take them down because that's what they were hired to do but it turns out that this was just a distraction because actually the musician himself was in service to the dark gods and was using his concert a heavy metal concert of course to summon demons from the nine Hells those hooded figures that the party took down oh well those were actually paladins and Priests who were trying to stop the ceremony going through and so the party is then forced to take down these dark gods for themselves interrupt the summoning ceremony and capture the musician before he can do any more damage it's still a threea structure beginning middle and end but thanks to that twist in the middle it sticks in in the mind for a long time afterwards so armed with all of this knowledge let's try putting this into practice right so in the very next video to this one I'm actually going to follow my own advice here and I'm going to create a onot for you in real time in front of your eyes I honestly have no idea how this is going to go uh I will be up front I'm going to use AI to do a lot of the early idea generation things like chat gbt and otherwise but then I will be stepping in to kind of streamline things and improve things that they kind of make sense and follow a clear threea structure and would actually work within a single 4H hour session but hopefully in this way you'll be able to see how I personally approach making a good one shot the choices that I make uh and you can then adapt this when you're making your own one shots and to fit your own style and to fit your group so until then uh please don't forget to comment down below with your own one shot ideas your own experiences what what's made a good one shot for you tell me something that you've been through your own little War Stories um and don't forget while you're doing that to like subscribe all that yummy YouTube goodness but most importantly most importantly of all please have a wonderful day because you deserve it and so do I bye [Music] [Music]

Channel: Metrophobian

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Id: 5Ot5qS9n4Xs

Length: 24min 13sec (1453 seconds)

Published: Mon May 20 2024