|
|
|
|
Author |
Topic: One Shots: Return on Investments (Read 187 times) |
|
Fandomlife
Expert Poster
Last On: 08/24/08
View Profile
Message Player
United Kingdom
Posts: 261
|
It's mentioned occasionally that one shots have a significantly reduced return on investment than campaigns in terms of character depth and drama. This is true, and I'd never argue that was not the case. I do think though that tools can be used to radically reduce the time it takes to get character depth in a game, in that it does not take 3 months of play for the characters to become interesting, and these tools can be used to radically enhance the depth of one shots.
The approach involves using two things: situation and issue.
Situation involves setting up the one shot so that it does not have a plot for the players to run through, but instead a situation for them to solve which doesn't really have a conclusion, that will be found when the characters start interacting with the situation. As an example, the characters arrive at a village which is being terrorised by a monster, each night it shows up and kills someone. In order to deal with this the community runs lots and the loser is tied to a post as a sacrifice to the beast. That is the situation. The back story is that a great hero died a few months ago and then the beast attacks began, in truth the hero was poisoned by the Witch of the Fen, but at the behest of the community leader who was besotted with the young woman the hero was to marry (the woman is now married to the community leader, but the child she has had is the heroes). The payment for the Witch poisoning the hero was the first born. Until the leader hands over the child the beast will continue to attack (and the beast is essentially the dead hero).
Obviously the characters will slowly figure this out, but there is no clear solution: Do they kill the Witch despite it not stopping the beast? Do they insist the leader hands over the child to stop the attacks? Do they try and kill the monster despite it being a very hard fight? Will they believe the Witch is a harmless woman and take her advice on how to kill the creature (a lie)? What do they when they realise..do they tell the community? In short, dramatic choices.
These dramatic choices are important, as is the lack of a firm, clear conclusion – the characters have to make choices to end the story (however it ends). Now, when characters make should choices you add depth to characters – this is why movies work which have only about 120 minutes to get the sort of character depths some campaigns don't even get after months and months of play.
So we bring in issue. Each character entering the one-shot will probably have some sort of background that the player has written or knows in his head. These backgrounds are pointless in one-shots (they also don't have as much value as people suggest in campaigns, but that is another thread), but what isn't is a kernel of truth about what that character's story is. Say you have an assassin who had to kill the woman he loved and gave up his profession – surely his overriding story is the issue of redemption. So when that player was asked for an issue to explore in this one-shot he would say redemption. Now, the fact this is known and has been explicitly stated between DM and player (and potentially other players, but that is slightly more radical for some) instantly gives the one-shot more depth.
Why? Well, think about it. That situation the player is involved in can immediately become a crucible of drama for him to explore his issue of redemption, he can approach interactions in the game from this view point and so can the DM. A character looking for redemption is going to have a much different take and have harder issues taking a hard line on the community leader when he asked for forgiveness for example? In short, his issue of redemption can be explored actively in the context of the situation and will feed in to how it solved and how he relates to other characters who will have different takes due to dealing with different issues. Also, the fact it is a one shot, allows the charaters to make seriously dramatic decisions knowing the 'movie ends' - the ex-assassin may decide to defend the community leader against his enemies while other players may decide he deserves what he gets. He does that and dies, believing all should have a shot at redemption - as if that's not true, what does that mean for him?
So, create one shots which present situations for the characters to solve somehow, and have each character, if possible, define their characters and resulting drama from their background as an issue to explore in the one-shot and you can get better results.
|
| « Last Edit: on: Jul 20, 2005, 12:02PM » |
 I.P. Logged |
|
|
|
samiamX
Forum God
Last On: 06/08/10
View Profile
Message Player
United States
Posts: 636
|
Insightful commentary and an interesting example you provided. Another similar analogy would be the comparison of a campaign to a novel vs. a one shot to a short story, you could also add the 3-5 shot mini-campaign as a novella.
Both short stories and novels work, but they are radically different formats requiring quite different skills in the writer. I imagine the same could be said for one shots vs campaigns, both for the DM and the players.
With the latter you have the luxury of time to develop characters, slowly peeling away the layers revealing subtleties as well as the ability to grow the character and allow the characters to mature and evolve as they progress through the story. In short stories you don't get the details and often not the subtleties, frequently just a sense of the essence of the characters.
I think you've hit it by stating that in roleplaying heavy one shots the plot needs to centered on a situation with open ended solutions that will quickly draw out the underlying nature of the character's personalities, core issues that engage instinctive reactions or create visceral responses. Or at least that is one valid approach.
|
|
I.P. Logged |
|
|
|
Fandomlife
Expert Poster
Last On: 08/24/08
View Profile
Message Player
United Kingdom
Posts: 261
|
I tend to view it as movie, mini-series and TV series but the analogy with different literary formats works well also. One thing I should point is that one of the big disadvantages of the above approach is it often means your one-shot is not a one-shot in that it is over in one session – it can sometimes go on for two and potentially three. So if you truly want it to be a one session affair then you have to have an extremely simple situation with a reduced set of variable – though ideally a highly charged set. I don't think it's beyond the description of a one-shot for it to feed into an extra session though.
|
|
I.P. Logged |
|
|
|
Selric
Extreme Poster
Last On: 06/13/09
View Profile
Message Player
Canada
Posts: 512
|
I ran a game intended to be a three shot but it was resolved in one session (because everyone died at the end of session 1) but that was ok. I don't treat the design of my games like writing, I do enough writing that I try to draw a line between the two most of the time. I treat my RPG's like games, even the PnP ones. I think of games you can spend month's playing before you finally complete it, a series of games which just doesn't know when to end and perhaps those little games you can complete in 2 hours. One of my favorite games ever made is "Way of the Samurai" because it's short, very well designed and can be played in many different ways. Even though it always starts out the same way and always ends with a big fight, what happens in the middle all depends on where you go at what time. Ideally, I want to someday make a short game like Way of the samurai that contains hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of gameplay but can be finished in just one or two so one must play it many times to get the full effect. I allready find myself rerunning my sucessful one shots but unfortunately they are all too small in scope to allow for such drastic variations. Nonetheless, they are variable enough that people keep wanting to play them again and again, but I do get bored of running them again and again. I've rambled enough... yeah, my basement flooded yesterday. Getting out two nights worth of message board posting.
|
|
I.P. Logged |
|
|
|
Elbast
Forum God
Last On: 08/09/11
View Profile
Message Player
United Kingdom
Posts: 764
|
on Jul 21, 2005, 11:18 PM, Selric wrote:| I allready find myself rerunning my sucessful one shots but unfortunately they are all too small in scope to allow for such drastic variations. Nonetheless, they are variable enough that people keep wanting to play them again and again, but I do get bored of running them again and again. I've rambled enough... yeah, my basement flooded yesterday. Getting out two nights worth of message board posting. |
|
I had a one-shot module I was quite pleases with, and ran it several times way back around NWCon1. The first few groups I took through it all overran the one session (which was fine, there was scope for a few-shot minicampaign therein too) but later groups were nailing it in one go. I was pleasantly surprised that those early runs all started, progressed and ended differently, enough to keep me enthused about running it multiple times.
Then the repetitions eventually started, plus I had experiences with groups who were just utterly not right for the module (an RP-focused one-shot with server-side characters is *not* going to be a loot or kill fest, folks!) and I stopped running it.
Now, NWC personel have turned over a lot and it might be interesting to run it again some time, but I simply haven't the time, energy or inclination, despite there being little-to-no prepwork involved. I get my gaming fix from the campaign I run, and I've found that I can no longer play or GM more than one NWN session a week.
In some ways, I'd love to *play* again, but the times I've tried, I simply haven't been able to cope on top of my GMing slot for some reason. A one-off might be different in this regard, but I find it tough to lift my interest levels enough to try and see.
/Grumpy old GM
|
|
I.P. Logged |
|
|
|
Lazybones
Forum God
Last On: 12/31/11
View Profile
Message Player
United States
Posts: 4695
|
*points to Elbast's post, which sums up his situation as well*
In a sense, it's fatigue... the game is 3 years old, and I've run Shrine of the Eth'barat maybe 30 times since I created it in early 2003.
|
|
I.P. Logged |
|
|
|
Fandomlife
Expert Poster
Last On: 08/24/08
View Profile
Message Player
United Kingdom
Posts: 261
|
Yes, I agree, the main problem is time, I was mainly addressing the issue of people not getting a return in terms of character depth when they run them.
The modules referenced by Elbast and Lazybones actually represent perfect examples at each end of the spectrum.
Anyway, time to move on.
|
|
I.P. Logged |
|
|
|
|
|
|
