If you only had one shot?
Since it is the holiday season, a lot of people find having holiday themed one-shots as a fun break from the normal campaign grind. These can give everyone the break they need to recharge and have a change of pace.
I will not be providing a one-shot but I will be giving you some tips to help you create a fast paced session.
Theme of the day
The easy part is the theme for your one-shots. Since they will be at a specific time, you have all the foundations to build upon. For Thanksgiving time in the states you could build a session about stopping a kaiju sized turkey destroying a city. For Christmas maybe the elves of the north pole rebel against Santa. If you feel saucy, you could do a Nightmare Before Christmas and mix both themes together.
This is a time to have fun and experiment with homebrew. These can be a bit more deadly than normal games, and can be part of the fun if you’re upfront about the intention.
She drives me crazy
Since these are one time games, you can let loose and let the rule of cool reign. If a player wants to do something crazy, let them. If they want to do an action movie scene, have them roll but treat this roll as how spectacular they pull it off, there’s no fail condition in this roll.
These kinds of games are perfect for high level characters. Let the high stakes drive the action. Give your players powerful magic artifacts, let them be Superman or Thor. This is the best time to bend rules to allow the story to be fun.
Time of our lives
Time is something that must be thought about. As these are one-shots, they could be anywhere from an hour to 8 hours. Keep the time you have in mind because this kind of game moves fast and sometimes you have to railroad players a lot more than a normal campaign.
Keep the descriptions short and snappy. Because of the time limits you may not have many encounters, and these games tend to feature a single major boss battle near the end.
Concussive conclusion
I hope this article has gotten the gears turning on how to create a fun game that everyone can play without the weight of every decision affecting the whole campaign. Remember to have fun experimenting with something crazy and off the wall.
I thank you for taking the time to read this article. Leave a comment on this post or join WallyDM’s discord to get more great ideas or chat with other DMs.
I’m a published author that has written various stories over the span of about 25 years. I’ve also been playing TTRPGs for just as long, if not longer. I am currently DMing a campaign thats been going for about 5 years and still going.
