Short and sweet scenarios?

[Matthew Morris]

Good evening.

Anyone want to list scenarios that tend on the short side? I plan to be doing some gaming during the work week and would like suggestions.

[Paz]

Off the top of my head...

#13 The Prince of Augustana
#8 Slave Pits of Absalom
#5 Mists of Mwangi
#23 Tide of Morning

[CanisDirus]

There are a few of these "shorter scenarios?" threads floating around the forums if you look for 'em (I even started one myself awhile back). If I had more time right now I'd find them, but look around and you'll find 'em :)

[Netopalis]

The shortest thing I've ever ran has been Assault on the Kingdom of the Impossible. 45 minutes.

[TriOmegaZero]

Just TPK and you can finish the session in five minutes. :)

[Adam Daigle]

There are also Pathfinder Society Quests. Two of which showed up in Kobold Quarterly, (one later made into a standalone PDF) Ambush in Absalom and The Urge to Evolve.

[Kristen Gipson]

Goblinblood dead tends to run short (2-3 hrs)

The Disappeared and Severing Ties can run short.

Most season 0 scenarios run on the short side.

[Yiroep]

#14 Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch can run short. IIRC, it's only 13 pages long.

[Genuine]

Umbral Accords is pretty quick - even with the optional encounter included we only took an hour and a half.

[Matthew Morris]

Follow up:

Thank you everyone. I ran Mists of Mwangi and with a lot of paranoia and fun, we got done in 3.5 hours. Pesky PCs almost all made their saves vs the mists. In a case of extremes, the In 14 lore warden didn't and the int 8 cha 9 druid didn't either. I pointed out that they didn't notice much of a difference in her. :-)

[kinevon]

Matthew Morris wrote:

Follow up:

Thank you everyone. I ran Mists of Mwangi and with a lot of paranoia and fun, we got done in 3.5 hours. Pesky PCs almost all made their saves vs the mists. In a case of extremes, the In 14 lore warden didn't and the int 8 cha 9 druid didn't either. I pointed out that they didn't notice much of a difference in her. :-)

Wanna bet that the Lore Warden had the necessary Knowledge skill trained that would have given them the information needed to ignore the tainted mists?

Spoiler:

Knowledge (History) DC 20

Last time I ran it, we had a Wizard with all Knowledges trained, who made a good roll. Meh.

[Jason S]

Also, there is another post on this topic.

For following is a summary of both threads so far.
Summary
Most season 0 scenarios run short:
- #13 The Prince of Augustana
- #8 Slave Pits of Absalom
- #5 Mists of Mwangi
- #23 Tide of Morning
- #33 Assault on the Kingdom of the Impossible
- #14 Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch
- #1 Silent Tide

Also:
- Goblinblood Dead
- The Disappeared
- Severing Ties
- Penumbral Accords
- We Be Goblins
- Infernal Vault
- Devil You Know Part 2
- The Icebound Outpost

[Shifty]

Adam Daigle wrote:

There are also Pathfinder Society Quests. Two of which showed up in Kobold Quarterly, (one later made into a standalone PDF) Ambush in Absalom and The Urge to Evolve.

Ok I don't get it, why play/run these?

No credit, no gold, no fame, no xp...

It's almost like you don't get anything for running it, and they don't get anything for playing it? (Other than a boon sheet)

[rknop]

Run them if you only have an hour and a half in which to game, but you want to give people a taste.

[Shifty]

One was lowlow level, so thats cool, but the other was like 3-7... I'd hope they knew the flavour by then! :p

[Zauron13]

Quests are just for funsie, really. You got an hour or two, and just want to play for fun.

[Shifty]

Yep got that now, just figured they could have a little more oomph, like a bit of pocket change to at least cover any consumables.

[Zauron13]

Some people are putting forth such ideas in a thread discussing quests. No idea if they will be taken, but we'll see.

[KestlerGunner]

I am about to run out of season 0 scenarios at my weeknightly game and would love more suggestions.
*Raise Dead!*

[Rei]

Delirium's Tangle can run a bit short if the characters are good at the minigame. I squeezed it into three hours flat at a con.

[Muser]

All of the Shades of Ice scenarios are rather short, particularly if you have a very combat effective group.

Rivalry's End is likely one of the shortest and simplest scenarios I've GM'd. Really, the only thing that might make it take a bit longer is with a newbie group since there are so many spell effects in play and explaining and/or handholding takes time.

Heh, for funsies' sake let's posit a couple scenarios which to avoid if you wish to have a short session:

1. Cultist's Kiss, definitely. Lots of roleplaying, a sandboxy style of story progression and some hard combats makes for a long session.

2. Sewer Dragons of Absalom can run for a long time, since the encounters are anything but straight-forward.

3. The Icebound Outpost! It's purposely written so that escalation becomes easy. Really, it's an easy scenario, but rather expansive and has a lot of neat features, both terrain and enemy based, that can take a lot time to play and explain.

[Paz]

Rei wrote:

Delirium's Tangle can run a bit short if the characters are good at the minigame. I squeezed it into three hours flat at a con.

We played this in 3 hours at a games day last weekend.

I imagine many season 0-4 scenarios can have a bit shaved off the expected duration by not having people going off on tangents to do their faction missions any more.