One-shot advice & recommendations

One-shot advice & recommendations

One-shot advice & recommendations

I’m thinking of running a one-shot of Urban Shadows at a regular story-game event at a game store and I’m curious about advice for running one-shots of US. So far I’ve mostly gotten things along the lines of “partially make the characters” which is something I really don’t like being on the other side of so I’m not going to do that. (I also don’t see it saving much time in PbtA games if I choose a move or feature of an extra.)

Some thoughts I’ve already had:

-Not allowing certain Archetypes: Probably not allowing Hunter as its automatic PvP slant might be a hindrance to tighter play. Are there any other Archetypes that might be problematic in a one-shot? Maybe because of narrative issues (Hunter) or due to being a “slow-burn” (In Monsterhearts I felt The Fae was not good for one shots because they need to collect promises).

-Start with an initial threat and give the players some vague info about it before character generation. “There’s an old mansion in the center of town that has begun leaking impossible creatures from… somewhere else.” Or something like that. When doing the beginning of session move ask them to focus their rumor on that threat and how the highlighted faction or some part of it wants to interact with the pre-defined threat. “The Vampire elder wants to contain or destroy it.”, “The Mage’s Guild wants to study and harness it’s power.”, etc.

-Love letters for each of the allowed archetypes. “[Tainted], you have agreed to check out the mansion for your patron but what else does it want you to do while you’re there? [Something mechanical I haven’t thought of yet.]” This could be in addition to the beginning of session move or instead of it, though I lean towards in addition to. I see this as pushing for an opening scene that’s hard framed with all the characters there.

Anyway, curious what others think of these ideas or have other ideas for one-shots. I already read the book suggestions.

11 thoughts on “One-shot advice & recommendations”

  2. The only thing I found needs real pregenning is things with stats like weapons, holdouts and workshops, etc.

    The players can still do all the customizing stuff like picking their name, look, and moves. That’s just checking boxes. So they’re kind of more like playbook kits, really.

  4. I think pushing down harder on the number of archetypes. Maybe 4, maybe 5.  Make all non-essential selections outside of name/look. Give them love letters with one or two choices to make and let them feel like they own the character. Give lists of pre-made options for bonds or just put bonds already out there.

    I think people can get excited about “look at all these cool choices I could make if I played this on my own.” but honestly, the 60m-90m character creation game in a 4 hour slot is rough, especially for a game like Urban Shadows where so much is pointed long-term and will never pay off in a one-shot.

    It can feel frustrating to put all the creative work of full character creation in and then abandon after a few scenes.

    30m or less from start to a player rolling the dice the first time. Each choice which isn’t really that important takes another minute or two away.

  5. So my issue is not so much that I’ve felt PbtA character gen takes too long but that getting the ball rolling once we start scenes is a hangup. Hence some of the initial scene planning and related love letters. Has anyone used any of those methods or thought about them and come up with too many cons?

  6. Ask loaded questions. YOU have read 300 pages of Urban Shadows; THEY have a few playbooks to look at.

    Give them a Spiel (This is an Urban Monster Game where we don’t whitewash; you all have messy ties to each other, and your backstory has to tie into Chicago’s South Side), explain each of the classes (I’d say Give #-of-Players+2 options) and continually ask questions. Explain moves as they come up.

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