RPGaDay2024 Day 11 - An RPG With Well Supported One Shots

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The real answer to this question is the games that provide a number of one shots which allow people to experience the game, or start a new campaign quickly. But to start with, I have a different answer, and that's all the indie-games that I've played at GenCon. 

Indie Games

Events like GenCon run on one-shots--people show up, either having played the game system before, or not. Some games or companies, such as Paizo with Pathfinder, create long-term games, where you can play campaigns as part of the story. But the events that really shine are the indie press games, the pre-kickstarter games, and the games that are people's passion projects.

These events are almost always run by the creator, or close friends who have played the game a lot. And while they may be completely new rule systems, they know how to make the game both fun and memorable--and they almost always have events that show off the systems' best points.

Over the years, I've played Mythcraft, QAGS, Die Laughing, and usually 1-2 other games each convention that have been what I talked about after the convention. Some of these games go on to be long time sellers and standards at GenCon; other games stay in a niche or don't make it. But even in those cases, they are games that had some people who really enjoyed them and have wonderful memories of them.

Dungeon Crawl Classics

There probably isn't a game system that has so many one-shots available. The introduction games for DCC, funnels, have numerous purchasable stand-alone options. And then they have a massive number of single-level games after that, in addition to their "campaign" games that take people from 1st level through the max level.

DCC feels a lot like TSR did in the old days with dozens of official modules, and numerous third-party modules that you can just pick up and run in a short time, and many of them are designed to be run in a single session.

Numenera (and Cypher)

One of MCGs products is their "Instant Adventure" series, which is designed to be picked up and run. There is minimal prep required. Understand the basic plot, understand the party goals, and a view of the places the party can go--and from there, you just fill in the details, including where the MacGuffins are going to be found in the map.

They have these in books of 10 adventures for about $10, and some of the convention modules they create are in this format. This means it's easy to prep, as a gamemaster, but it's also possible for you to add or remove details, depending on how much time is available.

The beauty of this format is that you can run the games multiple times, and have completely different stories, depending on what the party chooses to prioritize and what details you include for each location. I've had the same room work 4 completely different ways in 4 sessions, because of when the party got to that room, what I chose to do with it, and what items they'd already picked up along the way.

Honestly, my only complaint about this format is that they don't create them for all the Cypher products, so Predation, We are All Mad Here, Old Gods of Appalachia, and so on. But for the systems they do have them, I love the ability to just throw out a new adventure and get to it in the 4-hour window we usually have.

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