I was thinking about my all-time favorite one-shot, the Call of Cthulhu scenario “In Media Res” (from Pagan Publishing’s excellent magazine, The Unspeakable Oath), and one of the things I enjoy so much about it is just how brutal it can be.
CoC one-shots are always pretty unforgiving, but this one is doubly so — I don’t want to spoil it (if you like CoC, you should track it down and run it, stat), but it’s entirely reasonable for the party to kill each other in the opening scene. At least in my experience, that sort of gloves-off, bring-the-pain approach isn’t something most GMs get a chance to employ on a regular basis.
That kind of scenario definitely isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but that’s the beauty of one-shots: They free you from all of the many constraints placed on you — and your players — in a campaign game, and let your whole group try things in-game that they’d never consider in their regular adventures.
There are lots of things to love about one-shots, but reminiscing about running “In Media Res” reminded me that this is one of the best things about them. If you’ve never run a scenario like this, I encourage you to do so — if nothing else, it can be quite an experience.
(As an aside, if you’ve been waiting to read other GMs’ adventure notes, your wait is over: Adventure Notes: Read and Share has been updated with links to three downloadable sets of notes and one online archive. My thanks to everyone who sent in their notes!)
One of the most fun games I’ve ever run was a Judge Dredd game where one of the Player Characters is secretly a Sov Blok spy.
This character has radically differnt mission goals than the rest of the group that usually lead to him harming or even killing other party members. This invariable leads to the other party members confronting and killing him.
On top of all that, they were all trapped on a giant, deserted Penitentiary now infested with Aliens (like from the movie).
I ran that game three times and not once did everyone make it out alive.
It was awesome.
Paranoia is a great game for a one-shot like this.
The computer is your friend.
I agree. Paranoia’s awesome for that sort of gloves-off action. The system’s light enough to be quick and easy, but the action’s lethal enough and bizarre enough that you can have the character revolving door without problems.
Okay, you guys are making me miss Paranoia. I played quite a bit of it in high school, but since then I’ve only gotten to play one mediocre event at GenCon. Such a fun game — and you’re right, perfect for one-shots.