Pretty soon in my GMinar series I’ll be talking about one-shot systems, which are so indispensable to the RPG community and its survival that it’s shocking how few tabletop gamers bother with them. For those with only a passing familiarity with roleplaying, let me sum up the medium’s history in a nutshell: old-school, traditional roleplaying games were made by and for 0ld-school, traditional nerds and are mirrors of the sorts of things that get old-school traditional nerds’ gears turning. Most are built to simulate a particular setting to a satisfying, comprehensive, and tactically complex level of fidelity. These rules tend to intersect with each other all the way down; if you start making a character for one of these games while grandma’s defrosting the turkey, you might just be ready to play by dinnertime, and that character’s only going to be making use of a small portion of the rules you’ll eventually require. Plenty of people did and do make characters in these systems that are only intended to be used once, but considering the amount of work–and the amount of useless information you have to establish about a very short-lived character–it always feels lavish and inefficient.<\/p>\n
But these days, players have a lot of options. Among the least simulationist, complex games fall what I call one-shot systems. The hallmark of a one-shot system is that it’s designed for solitary, self-contained stories that begin and end in one comfortable sitting. Ideally these games can be explained to players, set up, and run in the same amount of time it takes to explain the basics of a more complicated RPG. Such games are great for parties, for getting people into roleplaying games, and for trying new things without committing to something potentially tedious.<\/p>\n
I’ve devised one such one-shot game called Drunkens and Flagons<\/em>. The game is flashy, casual, and relatively simple; my rules explanation is about 800 words long and pretty comprehensive. Since I’m mostly going to be talking about more complicated, long-term games in my GMinar series, I thought this might serve as a useful point of comparison.<\/p>\n Without further ado:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n DRUNKENS AND FLAGONS<\/strong><\/p>\n Adventurers go to taverns hoping to get job offers. What do you do when the urgent, deadly, lucrative quest of a lifetime comes along right at closing time\u00e2\u20ac"by which time your rag-tag party, the only one still in the tavern, is irresponsibly drunk? I’ll tell you what you do– you do your best and you hope someone else gets stuck with the repair bills.<\/p>\n DICE<\/strong><\/p>\n Whenever the rules say to Roll, roll four (4) normal six-sided dice.<\/p>\n Every die that comes up [1] or [2] is worth -1.<\/p>\n Every die that comes up [3] or [4] is worth nothing.<\/p>\n Every die that comes up [5] or [6] is worth +1.<\/p>\n Add the worth of all four dice together. Your result will be between -4 and +4. That’s what you’ve Rolled.<\/p>\n MAKING A CHARACTER<\/strong><\/p>\n Everyone but the GM needs a character. First, Roll for your race.<\/p>\n A result of…<\/p>\n -4…means you’re an ogre.<\/p>\n -3…means you’re an orc.<\/p>\n -2…means you’re a gnome.<\/p>\n -1…means you’re a dwarf.<\/p>\n 0…means you’re a human.<\/p>\n 1…means you’re an elf.<\/p>\n 2…means you’re a halfling.<\/p>\n 3…means you’re a half-elf.<\/p>\n 4…means you’re a faerie.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Second, Roll your class.<\/p>\n -4…means you’re a paladin.<\/p>\n -3…means you’re a druid.<\/p>\n -2…means you’re a ranger.<\/p>\n -1…means you’re a priest.<\/p>\n 0…means you’re a fighter.<\/p>\n 1…means you’re a thief.<\/p>\n 2…means you’re a mage.<\/p>\n 3…means you’re a bard.<\/p>\n 4…means you’re an assassin.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What do your race and class mean? Technically, they mean nothing\u00e2\u20ac"but coming up with a haphazard and possibly silly combo is part of the game. Practically speaking, your race and class serve as your inspiration.<\/p>\n The next part is<\/em> meaningful: as a D&F<\/em> character, you get four Talents which make up 100% of your ability. Each Talent has a number associated with it, 1 through 4. Your 1 Talent is pretty weak\u00e2\u20ac"it’s something you’re okay at. Your Talents get progressively more impressive until your 4 Talent, which is something you’re actually pretty dang-skippy good at.<\/p>\n Your Talents can be whatever you want. Specific is good. Silly is good. Some Talents that have worked really well include:<\/p>\n –Self-defenestration<\/strong><\/p>\n -Involuntary surgery<\/strong><\/p>\n -Mage hand out of nowhere!<\/strong><\/p>\n -Proselytize<\/strong><\/p>\n -Death metal<\/strong><\/p>\n -Pranks<\/strong><\/p>\n Finally, mark out six boxes in a row on your character sheet. These are Luck Boxes 1-6. You’ll need ’em.<\/p>\n HOW THE GAME WORKS<\/strong><\/p>\n You’ll want to do something, probably something stupid or dangerous. You can attempt absolutely anything <\/i>you want, at any time. Even if it’s stupid. Especially if it’s stupid. And you do that by announcing it to the GM:<\/p>\n PLAYER: “I’m going to try to cast the spell I find in the wizard’s spellbook.”<\/p>\n GM: “I thought you said you’re a dwarf fighter?”<\/p>\n PLAYER: “Eh.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The GM may want to use the rules to see if you succeed or fail. The GM therefore sets a difficult number between 1 <\/i>and Screw You.<\/i><\/p>\n GM: “This is dark forbidden magic, so the difficulty’s gonna be 5<\/em>.”<\/p>\n PLAYER: “Oookay.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n At this point, the player has exactly one chance to convince the GM that they have a relevant Talent. If the GM agrees, the player adds the Talent’s number as a bonus to their roll.<\/p>\n PLAYER: “Well, this is basically a Stupid Party Trick, right? That’s my 3 Talent.”<\/p>\n GM: “That is super offensive to wizards. I like it.”<\/p>\n PLAYER: “Woohoo!”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Finally, the player Rolls. If applicable, the Talent is added to the result.<\/p>\n PLAYER: “I got a [1], a [2], a [2], and a [4]. Worth -1, -1, -1, and 0, respectively. That means I rolled a -3, and when I add my Talent of 3, I get a result of…zero. Whoops.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If the player had hit the Difficulty or exceeded it, then it would have worked exactly as intended. As it is, the player fell short\u00e2\u20ac"five short. Whenever the player fails the roll, they get to pick one of three penalties.<\/p>\n Whoops!<\/strong><\/p>\n The character screwed up, plain and simple, and made their situation much worse.<\/em><\/p>\n The GM takes the difference between what the player needed to get and what the player actually got and adds it to a counter. As the counter gets higher, more and more disasters pile onto the party, and when it reaches 4 times the number of players the quest fails catastrophically.<\/p>\n PLAYER: “What’s the counter at?”<\/p>\n GM: “Three.”<\/p>\n PLAYER: “Well, I missed the Difficult by 5<\/em>, so…okay, I guess add 5. There’s three of us playing, so we can go as high as 12 before we lose, right?”<\/p>\n GM: (raises counter to 8) “Dark spirits emerge from the book in droves. They rush into the timbers of the tower, which start to smolder…”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Whee!<\/strong><\/p>\n The Gods love a fool. Things worked out through a stroke of unlikely fortune\u00e2\u20ac"and with a bit of slapstick agony.<\/em><\/p>\n The player takes the difference between what they needed to get and what they got. If they’ve got an empty Luck Box of that number, they can fill it in to technically succeed at what they were trying to do. If that box is already filled in, they can fill in the next highest empty Luck Box to the same effect. If they can’t fill in the next highest empty Luck Box, because it doesn’t exist, they can’t pick this option.<\/p>\n PLAYER: “I missed the difficulty by 5<\/em>? Okay, I’ll suck it up. My 5 Box is full, so I’ll fill up my 6.<\/p>\n GM: “Well, then, I guess you successfully cast the demon-summoning ritual.”<\/p>\n PLAYER: “Outstanding.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Wait!<\/strong><\/p>\n You’re just not trying hard enough. Hand someone your ale and give it a real go.<\/em><\/p>\n You get to re-Roll all of your dice. Still fail? Well, your character straight-up dies. On the bright side, this adds nothing to the Whoops! counter.<\/p>\n PLAYER: “I’ll reroll. So that’s…[1], [4], [5], [5]. Total of +1, which, adding my Talent, means…I still don’t make it. Uh-oh.<\/p>\n GM: (searches thesaurus for exciting synonyms for ‘explodes’)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Play continues until the quest has concluded, one way or the other. And it’s usually the other. Let me know how your group does.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pretty soon in my GMinar series I’ll be talking about one-shot systems, which are so indispensable to the RPG community and its survival that it’s shocking how few tabletop gamers bother with them. For those with only a passing familiarity with roleplaying, let me sum up the medium’s history in a nutshell: old-school, traditional roleplaying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tabletop-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}