Author: Dylan Clayton

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.