One-off Design

gnunn
gnunn
edited July 2010 in General Discussion
A bunch of my regular players are taking off in a couple weeks to go to a wedding in Vegas. In order to get my gaming fix for the week and indulge the fancies of some other friends who have mentioned an interest in gaming together, I am kicking around the idea of putting together a one-off adventure. I have never run a single session adventure and would love some input on best practices and especially pacing!

Here are the things I already intend to do:
0. Run the adventure in my existing Westerlands campaign setting (D&D 3.5)
1. use pre-gen characters... possibly allowing the players to pick their feats &/or assign skill points... or maybe roll their last level.
2. start at level 6... a little robustness to the characters with some cool powers, but without so much variety as to bog things down.
3. Jump right to the chase... I have a very straightforward story in mind. The characters have shipwrecked on an island. They wake up with minimal gear, but the detritus of the wreck around them... including adventure supplies, weapons, etc to select from. In the distance, they can see smoke from a village. When they arrive, they find that the villagers have ships that can take them home, but that BBEG is preventing anyone from leaving the island... Start quest to eliminate BBEG.
4. Use plenty of handouts from treasure cards to tactical/rules cheat-sheets in order to help speed combat.

My biggest specific question is about pacing. How many encounters should I plan for in order to provide a full experience while still making the quest achievable over the course of an evening? My regular campaign has frequent cliff-hangers because of our short play time, but I'm running this one-off on a weekend, and so can take a longer.

Any advice from those of you who have run one-offs before?

Comments

  • FrankSirmarco
    FrankSirmarco
    Posts: 250
    I haven't run a one-off before, but I've played in several. The best advice I can give is to move the start time up one hour to allow for players to read their pre-gen character, pick skills and feats, and hit the ground running. Excessive banter and digressions that are perfectly acceptable under regular gaming circumstances should be discouraged to allow for quicker, more intense game play. You have one session to get the group through the adventure, so trim all the fat. There's nothing worse than yawning your way through the final battle because the session went three hours past its anticipated end time.

    From a pacing standpoint, use your typical gaming session as a baseline, lose the cliffhanger (replace it with a climactic final encounter), and give the players a few places to breathe (unless, of course, you want them to walk away breathless).

    Just my two cents...
  • arsheesh
    arsheesh
    Posts: 850
    I have found that my expectations of how long and adventure, or even a single encounter, ought to take almost never match reality. Inevitably things always take longer than what I've planned. Hence, in the interests of time and pacing I sometimes resort to skipping encounters that I don't find to be all that I do not find to be essential to a storyline. My advice thus is to start by outlining the most important events/encounters in the storyline and make a very conservative estimate of how long they ought to take. That ought to give you a sense of how many other events/encounters you have room for in the adventure. These additional non-essential events/encounters can always be set aside if it seems that the pace of the adventure is slower than what you'd initially estimated. Any way that's my two cents.

    Cheers,
    -Arsheesh
  • kenurion
    kenurion
    Posts: 80
    Make extra pre-gens, that way nobody gets stuck with the pre-gen character that nobody else wants.
  • gnunn
    gnunn
    Posts: 423
    Yeah, I'm expecting 4 or 5 players, but have decided to create a pre-gen for every class in the PHB, which will leave over half of them unpicked. My plan for the extras is to use them in the event of a PC's death before the end of the adventure. If Joe-bob the cleric gets swallowed whole by a purple worm, then down the path, the group will run across dave the druid tied up and about to be eaten by lizardfolk. If they rescue him, he joins the group and the previously axed player is back in the game.

    If Joe-bob didn't die then it would just be lizardfolk eating meat or maybe a generic NPC in trouble.

    Hopefully this will allow everyone to have a full evening of entertainment.
  • JonathonVolkmer
    JonathonVolkmer
    Posts: 114
    I think Frank and kenurion have covered the two biggest pieces of advice I would give you as far as preparation goes - extra time to choose characters, and plenty of character choices will both go a long way.

    arsheesh's suggestion of writing out a plot outline will also be useful - if you keep it handy while you're running the adventure, you can add in or skip less important encounters on the fly without scrambling or seeming unprepared.

    I'm not sure how long your playtime normally is, but I'll mention this just in case: If you're running longer than 2-3 hours, make sure you have some scheduled downtime/low-point for players to grab snacks, use the restroom, and generally refresh themselves - the game will be better for it.

    Also, a neat bit of science for you to apply to story pacing: most healthy teenagers and adults are unable to sustain their attention on a single subject or task for longer than 15-20 minutes without making a conscious decision to renew that attention. If you can introduce some new question, challenge, or activity at regular intervals like that, players (not to mention you) will generally experience less difficulty staying engaged.

    Hope something I've said helps. Have fun in Vegas!

    -Jonathon
  • gnunn
    gnunn
    Posts: 423
    Oh, I'm not going to Vegas... most of my regular group is. I have no desire to go to Vegas in the middle of August. I'll be running my one-off from sunny Seattle.

    Also, thank you to everyone for the advice! I'm starting to get excited about my little adventure. If things go well, I might start up an alternate series of one-offs separate from my regular weekly campaign. This would allow friends of mine with super hectic and unpredictable schedules to have a gaming fix without having to commit to a full campaign.
  • JonathonVolkmer
    JonathonVolkmer
    Posts: 114
    Ah, well, that'll teach me to read better. Don't have fun in Vegas then. Have fun in Seattle. And I heartily endorse more one-offs - best of luck!
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