You know how these threads work by now! The goal for this specific thread is to brainstorm ideas for one-shots. (Could be 1 to 3 sessions) These ideas can fall into 2 categories: the campaign narrative or the quirky parameters of the one-shot. Both are fine! I’ll be designating mine with an (N) for Narrative and (P) for Parameter, but do as you please.
1. (P) The GM changes over the course of the game! One person would write up the one-shot, but at key points one of the players is handed guidelines on how to GM part of the session and at the end of the instructions, it specifies who the next GM is. (Or how the next GM is chosen.) Have you played Betray at House on the Hill? Sort of like that.
2. (N) The players wake up in cages and have been experimented on by a wizard! You need to break free and find a way out. (Plagiarism isn’t bad, right? Ah, memories.)
3. (P) The entire party is the same class! (Different Archetypes encouraged!) I recommend letting your players chose and building around their choice. (Although let them face situations they may not be well suited for.) Whether Oracle, Barbarian or Bard, same class parties can make for some fun stories.
4. Use a module
5. Use a PFS scenario
6. Use the Beginners Box
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Here is one I played with before
7. The party are raiding a local thieve's guild looking for [macguffin]. They find a key and a chest. The key unlocks the chest....but so does every other key they have.
The chest is basically a magical safety deposit box. Everytime a key is used on it, a new pocket dimension is made, and that dimension can only be opened with that particular key.
The party thus has to run around town smooth talking, pick pocketing, or robbing keys from every criminal in town in order to find the right key.
Becareful, because sometimes you will find surprises in the 'boxes'- from serial killer 'trophies' to traps to undead guards.
Here is one I played with before
7. The party are raiding a local thieve's guild looking for [macguffin]. They find a key and a chest. The key unlocks the chest....but so does every other key they have.
The chest is basically a magical safety deposit box. Everytime a key is used on it, a new pocket dimension is made, and that dimension can only be opened with that particular key.
The party thus has to run around town smooth talking, pick pocketing, or robbing keys from every criminal in town in order to find the right key.
Becareful, because sometimes you will find surprises in the 'boxes'- from serial killer 'trophies' to traps to undead guards.
What does it say about me that my mind went to serial killer trophies before I even finished reading that paragraph?
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I made a one shot where my party was having a vision of a past life in which they were all together on the day that they all died: they knew beforehand that there would be no survivors. Fun for a one-shot because the ending is set. They got to find their bodies after seeing where they died in the previous incarnation and looted themselves! A good break from the regular characters that didn't break continuity with the campaign.
Becareful, because sometimes you will find surprises in the 'boxes'- from serial killer 'trophies' to traps to undead guards.What does it say about me that my mind went to serial killer trophies before I even finished reading that paragraph?
It means that I successfully put in subliminal Se7en references into that post.
WHAT'S IN THE BOX?! WHAT'S IN THE BOX!
9. (P) Here's one I've actually run: When the Advanced Class Guide came out, everyone picked a class they were interested in and they played the iconic for that class. It was fun in a few ways; players got to try classes unlike anything they've played before (The Arcanist had never been an arcane caster before) and since the backstory was written for them, it caused them to roleplay characters they wouldn't have come up with themselves. Not really ideal for a long-term character, but an interesting experiment to broaden horizons on what kind of character/class a player might enjoy.
10. (N) The story for this one-shot was nothing special; players arrived in a city looking for work. They're hired by a shady fellow hoping to find something on a mysterious island. PCs get into a fight in a back alley; turns out they were just being tested by their employer. PCs stock up in the city and set sail with employer and a few NPCs. A few fights on the boat, some stormy weather and they end up shipwrecked on precisely the island they were looking for. Story ends on cliffhanger there, although could easily go on for another session or two if you had ideas for the mysterious island.
...see why I made this thread? I need better one-shots!
11) N: The (low level) party has to investigate a series of robberies from various butcher shops and meat markets. P: The culprit/final boss is a 5-7th level cleric/oracle with the Undeath word of power from either being a wordcaster or grabbing the experimental spellcaster feat. Skeletal headless chickens and zombie cows/sides of beef. And no paper trail from onyx purchases.
I knew a group that had an annual event where each player made a representative from one of the many thieves guilds in the city. They had to sneak into a castle one by one, explore it, find and hide from/kill other thieves, and recover the McGuffin. The winner's guild got to run the underworld for a year.
I never got to play it, but it seemed really fun. It requires 2 rooms: one for the GM and player(s) whose turn it is, and one for everyone else to hang out and play cards in or whatever when it isn't their turn.
This was during 3.0, cusp of 3.5, when the only stealthy classes were rogue, monk, ranger, and bard. Maybe a Trickery domain cleric or a special kind of illusionist. Now in PF, there are all sorts of fun stealthy character types!
You know how these threads work by now! The goal for this specific thread is to brainstorm ideas for one-shots. (Could be 1 to 3 sessions) These ideas can fall into 2 categories: the campaign narrative or the quirky parameters of the one-shot. Both are fine! I’ll be designating mine with an (N) for Narrative and (P) for Parameter, but do as you please.
1. (P) The GM changes over the course of the game! One person would write up the one-shot, but at key points one of the players is handed guidelines on how to GM part of the session and at the end of the instructions, it specifies who the next GM is. (Or how the next GM is chosen.) Have you played Betray at House on the Hill? Sort of like that.
2. (N) The players wake up in cages and have been experimented on by a wizard! You need to break free and find a way out. (Plagiarism isn’t bad, right? Ah, memories.)
3. (P) The entire party is the same class! (Different Archetypes encouraged!) I recommend letting your players chose and building around their choice. (Although let them face situations they may not be well suited for.) Whether Oracle, Barbarian or Bard, same class parties can make for some fun stories.
We did a variation of 3 once. I played a Con game where all the PCs were clones of the same wizard. The catch--we had no spells prepared, but once you mentioned a spell, it was prepared on everyone's sheet! We kind of blew the GM's mind because at the end, my friend and I sacrificed ourselves so the 3rd clone could escape and win. He thought it would be a spell battle royal at the end. Also he thought we would mention all the really great spells all at once, but we actually kept mum and just mentioned spells when we really needed them.
I made a one shot where my party was having a vision of a past life in which they were all together on the day that they all died: they knew beforehand that there would be no survivors. Fun for a one-shot because the ending is set. They got to find their bodies after seeing where they died in the previous incarnation and looted themselves! A good break from the regular characters that didn't break continuity with the campaign.
Ooh, I might adapt this idea to help our campaign make a more seamless transition:
We have a couple friends coming back to the USA after a couple years in Japan and they'll be rejoining our Pathfinder group. We're currently in the middle of Curse of the Crimson Throne, and it seems awkward to introduce 2 additional characters to the story at this point. But how about that spooky intelligent item in CotCT gives us that vision of our death in a past life, but there were two other people there the day we died? It will further cement the idea that our current group was fated to meet and furthermore allow for a more seamless introduction of 2 new players.
The PCs wake up on the shores of the River Styx, and don't remember how they got there--who they are!
The PCs are apprentices to epic heroes, who lead them deep into the bottom of a deadly dungeon. So deadly, in fact, that the epic heroes were slain, and now the apprentices have to escape on their own!
Level 1 PCs with 10 mythic levels.
The PCs are evil thieves, planning on robbing the vault of some muckety muck do-gooders--the players' normal heroic characters!!!
The PCs are dragons!
The PCs are dragons!
You have no idea how much I want to play a scenario/campaign of this nature
Greatsword. Use power attack and rage. Hit something squishy. Good chance for a one shot right there.
Greatsword. Use power attack and rage. Hit something squishy. Good chance for a one shot right there.
Bah. Not enough.
I would make a goliath druid that is in the form of a huge giant (also the rage domain), wielding an impact greatsword while doing a vital strike build.
Plus I am fairly sure there is that feat that lets you level up wildshape while taking other classes, right? Do that for more power attack and attack/damage boosters.
Greatsword. Use power attack and rage. Hit something squishy. Good chance for a one shot right there.Bah. Not enough.
I would make a goliath druid that is in the form of a huge giant (also the rage domain), wielding an impact greatsword while doing a vital strike build.
Plus I am fairly sure there is that feat that lets you level up wildshape while taking other classes, right? Do that for more power attack and attack/damage boosters.
Shaping Focus is the feat you're looking for, though it only provides up to 4 levels of wildshape advancement.
Personally I'm more of a mind to go Cave Druid 6/Barb 1/X and once I hit effective druid level 10 changing into a carnivorous crystal. Strong Jaw will boost the slam on that form to 16d6, Vital Strike+Furious Finish turn that into a 192+str damage falcon punch.
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I made a one shot that fit into existing campaigns. It was a Halloween/Fall themed event.
A carnival comes to town, and with it comes Sheogorath, the demi god of madness and chaos. The party plays carnival games (Various penalized skill checks), for prizes, enjoy drinks that apply random prestidigitation effects on people, and participate in some demigod influenced pranks (mostly messing with hypocritical or corrupt priests of other gods, such as painting a priest of Erastils crops black, and stealing his many hundreds of animal trophies), or replacing a priestesses of Iomedaes "steel bar" (metal painted balsa wood, used to show the mighty strength of a divinely infused righteous blade), with a real steel bar (Thus being less impressive when the blade bounces off), and of course, enjoying making them accidentally cheat in the great cheese race (Catch a rolling wheel of cheese as it moves down a hill before their competitors do).
I kind of like the idea of constructing an entire campaign out of "one shots", perhaps with some sort of framing device...maybe it would be like Quantum Leap...
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A powerful "risen devil" has fled Hell for asylum in the Upper Planes, and taken with him a secret diabolical super-weapon. A crack team of high-level villains from across the multiverse have been summoned together and tasked by Hell with retrieving the super-weapon and disposing of the traitor devil.
One idea I had: an evil party working for a contract devil. If they help him succeed in his unique plans, he'll release them from their contracts.
That way you can make sure the party doesn't resolve into in-fighting. ;)
A powerful "risen devil" has fled Hell for asylum in the Upper Planes, and taken with him a secret diabolical super-weapon. A crack team of high-level villains from across the multiverse have been summoned together and tasked by Hell with retrieving the super-weapon and disposing of the traitor devil.
I'm no big city lawyer, but I think you need to sue Suicide Squad!
(P) The one shot is a lead in for a campaign.
The party start as mid level characters that are local heroes for the area the campaign starts. They discover some of the core plot and/or mcguffin objects and quickly run into the big bad and his major lieutenants, who are a good way tougher than them.
Probably they die, some might have the sense to run (especially if they have one of the mcguffins), maybe they turn traitor to save their necks, perhaps they manage to take out one lieutenant before going down.
Have the major showdown for this be somewhere public with witnesses so much of this could be common knowledge later.
After this is done you start the campaign proper and players start their real characters at level 1. By now they'll have a taster feel for the area and the plot, and probably a really strong desire to stick it to the individual villains.