The typical flow of a campaign goes in one direction. Events and
plots are afoot and players are thrown into the mess. Over the course
of play, they get their bearings, learn the world's rules, and
journey forward towards the conclusion. This works extremely well in
practice, but sometimes we want to allow players to contribute to the
past as well. One-shots are one mechanism to do so and can often work
amazingly well. They can allow you to mix things up, play some new
characters, engage players in different scenarios while also writing
part of the same story. Ever thought, “hey, this would be cool to
play through”? Sometimes you want to follow through with it. It
could also allow you to build up or explore new areas and items that
otherwise would not be possible. They also have unique challenges and that is why I want to go over this topic today.
Strategic Choice
Which things we decide to handle in this way is a strategic choice.
You don't want to break every 5 minutes to play through a flashback.
These should be big, meaningful events in the story. They could also
have smaller side effects. One example from one of the games I was a
part of had a player hide a magic item in a particular place. 100 odd
years later, the main party discovered that same item in the same
spot. The important part here was that it was a cool side effect.
However, the purpose of the flashback wasn't to put the item there.
Instead it was to stop the big bad guy which resulted in their
underling taking over and being even worse (turns out they are responsible for the big bad coming to power over his more moderate master). This also got over the
big problem with making players play through a tragedy. Since they
knew going into the one-shot that things wouldn't end well (or how
else is there more of a game?), they were prepared to lose these
characters.
Restrictions
That last thing I said should have popped out at you. How is there
more of a game if the players end up killing the villain in the past?
We end up in all of the same problems as if we suddenly had time
travel in our game, but without the get-out-of-jail-free cards of
needing to preserve history or time not allowing the change. The
massive risk with doing this is that it can end up being rail-roady.
And, really, there isn't much of a way to avoid this completely.
There are some things that must happen in the past. However, we want
to still leave freedom for the players to figure out solutions to the
problems they find themselves. The best way around this issue is to
make sure to cast a wide net. Your players need to kill the big bad
and they know that an underling will take over and be even worse.
However, they might not know which one is which. They may never run
across them. How they take care of the big bad is all up to them.
However, they also know in the back of their minds that the end of
the one-shot is not the end of the story. Unfortunately, this is part
of the trade-off we make if we go down this path.
Overshadowing the Main Story
You don't want to overshadow your main story. Otherwise, why are we
playing this one? We should be playing that one instead. There are,
again, no clear cut answers here. However, remembering that this kind
of thing is a stepping stone of the larger adventure can help a lot.
It's less advice and more a state of mind I find helpful when
thinking about these. They also often tend to be shorter, clear to
the point, and less epic. A short term victory but long term failure
is often helpful in this regard.
If things are equal, the main story has a way of outgrowing the
one-shot because of the emphasis and time spent on it. We know we went back to go forward.
We are now back, and keep going forward. This makes the one-shot just part of the overall main story. It's possible to break this,
but typically the events done in the one-shot won't be as impressive
as the future. If you think to yourself that the one-shot sounds
better, something needs to be re-examined. One-shots have the clarity
and focus aspect going for them, however, in the overall structure of
the campaign they shouldn't be more impressive, more difficult, or the bigger solution to the problem.
Building a Campaign Setting Through One-Shots
One-shots allow exploration of areas and elements of the story. The
story began with the theft of a magic item by a shady cult? The
players could play the shady cult and kill these characters later as
part of the story. Plan on going somewhere? You can explore the area
first with a one shot. The events of the campaign involve massive
earth shaking events? You can introduce the campaign through one of
these events (kind of like the adventurer's league). A
lot of this will depend on how comfortable your players are and if
they event want this kind of experience. Some people want to be
connected to their characters for the whole campaign. I sometimes
feel the same way.
How Often?
Again, I'd go with the rule of 3. I would be very hesitant in doing
more than 3 one-shots like this over the course of the campaign. I'm
sure you could have a great campaign that was more fragmented in this
fashion, however, it's beyond the scope of what I'm talking about
here. That
way it still keeps the campaign focused but also provides a highlight
for an important event in the past, or an introduction. Having the
trigger for all of the events shown to the players in this way can be
very beneficial and entertaining for the right campaign. I've found
introductions in particular are very good candidates for a one-shot,
particularly if the events of a campaign don't have that discovery
component where they try to figure out what's going on. However, you could also throw your players into the thick
of things and have them unravel the plot. Both are good choices.
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