The best thing about running a fun, successful one-shot is that you’ve run a fun, successful one-shot. The worst thing is that now the next game has to be at least as good but ideally better. Session two, that tricky second album…

In an earlier post, I talked about the series of one-shots I’m running, where I invite a pool of players and whoever can play, plays. The premise is that they’re all part of an adventuring guild, and each one-shot is a new mission. Whoever plays, their characters show up at the guild headquarters for a new quest that day. This way, we still get something that feels a bit like a campaign but we don’t have to wait around for everyone to be available for every session. Game one is done, so now I’m planning game two.

I started by brainstorming ideas. Although really it was more of a semi-ordered and almost-structured list of thoughts and questions to myself on a notebook page. Things like ‘what kind of game do I want? Finding someone who’s missing? Taking down a baddie? Solving a kidnapping or a murder? A series of roleplay-heavy puzzles and mysteries, or something more combat-focussed?’

I want the games to have some overarching themes and storylines but for each one to also be a self-contained mini story, so that for the players who play in all of them and players who only play in a few, everyone has a good time. To help with this, I’ve chosen a city for all the games to be based in and around, the Faerûn city of Athkatla. I like urban games, and I wanted to choose somewhere that already exists (in the DnD canon) to give myself a basis for storylines. A canvas with pencil outlines, rather than a fully blank one.

Athkatla is known as the ‘City of Coin’, and it’s a place of extremes. The wealthy live in decadent abandon, while the poor work and live in squalor. I know my party are going to enjoy doing their bit to help Athkatla’s downtrodden masses throw off the yoke of capitalism, and I plan to work in some storylines around the heartless, reckless billionaires of the city and their evil deeds. But let’s not jump ahead too far; I need to ease them in and write game two first.

We had quite a lengthy combat fairly near the start of the last game, so for game two I’d like to give them more opportunities for roleplay early on, and then perhaps build to a combat at the end. The first game involved the players going to a tavern to collect a package containing an exposé on a factory owner who was exploiting their workers, and delivering it to the city’s newspaper (which I named the Athkatla Tattler, because I like words that are fun to say). The tavern had a problem with gangster were-rats trying to extort money from the owner, so the party stuck around to deal with them before heading to the newspaper office. Two party members got bitten by were-rats but luckily they succeeded on their CON saves, so no one will be growing whiskers and a tail on the next full moon.

I’ll be honest, at this point I’m still not entirely sure what will happen in the next game. I know that I want to send the players around more of the city, and get them to visit districts they didn’t in the first game. I also want to introduce some more NPCs who will recur in future games. I’d like them to spend some time in the Wave District of Athkatla, which is the maritime hub of the city, on the edge of the sea. And I want there to be lots of roleplay and a chance for players to use their problem solving skills to work out some puzzles, ending in a chase and a combat.

How will this all come together? I’ll keep you posted. There’s a weekend coming up and the weather forecast is warm and sunny, so it will be a perfect time to be hunched over a notebook or a laptop. I have enough freckles and I take a vitamin D supplement, so I can stay indoors all weekend!