I’ve got a notion for a hook for a one-shot:
During teamgen, the GM actually creates an NPC as a teammate as if the NPC were another PC. Then the inciting incident is simply: the NPC has gone missing.
(The NPC, once found, will be in suspended animation or some such — no PCs will be de-protagonized on my watch.)
I’m currently reading Titans Hunt and this kind of reminds me of that, lol.
Always good. I have seen this with several different games run by different GMs.
You could also have one of the PCs volunteer to be the one who’s gone missing, and cut back and forth between the team trying to rescue them and them trying to escape wherever they’ve been trapped, if you and your players feel up to that kind of party-splitting, although if you do that you might want to reunite them sooner rather than later. I started an Apocalypse World one-shot with one PC captured by Dremmer and the others outside Dremmer’s fortress preparing to charge in and rescue their buddy, and it worked beautifully.