Flat One-shot games
Ran another flat one-shot this weekend.
If there is going to be an absence at the game table our group plays a one-shot (one-off, one-nighter, what do you call it?). This week I ran a WFRP game. I created two third career characters (A Witch hunter and a Master thief) and intended this to be an ass-kicking, heavy metal, blood spattered, festival of bad-assery.
I failed.
Perhaps failure is too strong a word. It fell flat. And this is the second one-shot I’ve had fall flat recently. So I must ask, Why?
The other game was a Savage Worlds generic fantasy game of rescue the innocents/kill the evil. I go for simple plots for one-nighters.
At this point you may ask, “Have you ever run a successful one-nighter?” Yes, I have. Lacuna, Gonzo Pulp, All For Me Grog, Victorian SciFi, Deadlands: Reloaded, Necropolis.
[Note: All For Me Grog is a rules-light Pirate game I am designing.]
Success!
What constitutes a successful one-shot? Firstly, fun. That’s why I don’t chalk up my recent games as failures. We had fun. Secondly, you complete the adventure. It’s a one-shot. You probably won’t come back to these characters and this story. If I don’t finish the adventure, I don’t consider it a success. That’s it. Two criteria for a successful one-shot.
Analysis
What have my flat games had in common? (If there are others I am not remembering, I hope my group will remind me).
- Fantasy. Both the WFRP and the Savage Worlds games were fantasy.
- Power Level. Both games featured characters that were relatively high powered. Heroic Rank in the SW game and completed 3rd career in the WFRP game.
- System: I would put SW and WFRP as neighbors on the Crunch scale. WFRP is slightly more crunchy, but SW requires the players to shift mind-set if it’s not the regular game (Raises and shaken/wounds). We have found that both games take a little bit to get back into rule-wise.
Perhaps more importantly for one-nighters, crunchier systems mean that combats are going to take up more time. If the combat takes considerably longer than expected, as in the Fantasy Savage Worlds game, then it can really throw the rest of the night off.
- Prep. Both of the games had limited prep. I had broad strokes of what I wanted to happen, but little in the way of specifics. Both involved traveling to the bad-guy’s house, so I had a rough map. I had a few opponents ready. What I didn’t have was a sense of what each scene was and how it connected to subsequent scenes. Instead I had an overall goal for the players and some obstacles for them to face along the way. (This technique has worked quite well for me before)
What have my successful one-shots had in common?
- Strong specific setting. Whether it’s Lacuna, Gonzo pulp, or Necropolis, all my successful one-nighters have had a strong setting. Even my generic settings have had been specific. Not just Pulp Action, but Gonzo Pulp action with PCs part of a secret fight-againt-evil society. Not just Victorian Sci Fi, but world hopping , FTL, on a trip from an outer system to an important inner system that was the headquarters of the Britannic Galactic Church.
- System. Risus, All For ME Grog, and Lacuna are all light systems. In Lacuna the GM doesn’t roll any dice. But I’ve run 2 Deadlands: Reloaded and 1 Necropolis one-shot for these guys and all were successful. Let me go ahead and disqualify one of the Deadlands games. Although it was one-shot PCs, the plot was tangential to the main plot and we were playing Deadlands as our main game. For the purposes of this analysis, it doesn’t apply. That still leaves 2 one-shots at the upper end of my crunch preference.
- Prep. I think this would be a usual suspect in analyzing why one-shot games haven’t worked, but my experience does not support this suspicion. The successful games have varying degrees of prep. One All For Me Grog game all I had was a map of the Cape Fear coast in 1690. For the other Deadlands game I came up with a monster and a location. One the other hand, for the Victorian SciFi I had a map of the ship, a list of passenger and crew, and a order of events.
- Prep vs. Crunch? There doesn’t seem to be a strong correspondence. The games with the most prep have been both light (Risus, All for Me Grog) and crunchier (Necropolis) and likewise with low prep games (Lacuna, Risus, All For me Grog, and Deadlands). I would note that of the crunchier one-shots (Necropolis, Deadlands, Savage World Fantasy, WFRP) only one has been low-prep and successful.
Conclusions.
|
Prep |
System
|
PC Experience
|
|||||
| Game |
Light
|
Heavy
|
Light
|
Crunchy
|
Low
|
Med
|
High
|
| All For Me Grog 1 |
X
|
X
|
X
|
||||
| All For Me Grog 2 |
X
|
X
|
X
|
||||
| All For Me Grog 3 |
X
|
X
|
X
|
||||
| Deadlands |
X
|
X
|
X
|
||||
| Lacuna |
X
|
X
|
X
|
||||
| Necropolis |
X
|
X
|
X
|
||||
| Risus Pulp |
X
|
X
|
X
|
||||
| Risus Victorian SciFi |
X
|
X
|
X
|
||||
| SavageWorlds Fantasy (flat) |
X
|
X
|
X
|
||||
| WFRP (flat) |
X
|
X
|
X
|
||||
| Totals |
6
|
4
|
6
|
4
|
5
|
3
|
2
|
| Flat Games |
2
|
0
|
0
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
2
|
| Sucessful Games |
4
|
4
|
6
|
2
|
5
|
3
|
0
|
*crunchy is relative. In this case I mean Savage Worlds and WFRP.
Looks like I should run one-shots using light systems with low to mid experienced characters. Prep is a wash as far as successful games and a non factor is when I adjust for the crunch and PC level of flat games.
Final Thoughts
As a GM self-assesment is a good tool to improve. While I really like running and playing WFRP and Savage Worlds, I will stick to light systems when running one-shots. With only two flat games to analyze, I will reexamine this next time I have a flat game and see how the numbers change.
If you GM, take some time to analyze why some sessions are better than others. It may highlight issues or themes you wouldn’t have otherwise thought of.
