Running a proactive one shot? · Game Master's Laboratory

Aug 28 (edited) • Advice

Running a proactive one shot?

Hi all! First time DM here - although I have been a D&D player for over 4 years now, where I've been in multiple campaigns and one shots. I've also ran a couple very very elaborate but successful murder mystery parties that my group said felt a lot like larping/irl d&d if that counts 😂. I discovered Jonah and Tristan's book on proactive roleplaying in my local bookstore a couple months ago, and it CHANGED my life! So many of the things that I had struggled with as a player seemed to be addressed in this alternate DM style, and after discussing it with my group everyone seems really excited to try and give it a go.

I am running a one shot (although I'm calculating it will be about 3+ sessions with my group) to try and test the waters a bit for possibly DMing our next campaign. I am using a published homebrew adventure (Fey Fayre by r-n-w), although I am changing lots of it to make things more mature and increase the content + difficulty. We are still doing a session 0 (this Sunday 30th August, eek!) so that everyone can finalize their characters together, do the goal creation, and contribute to the world building. Then, I'll have about a month before we are supposed to have our first session, which should hopefully give me enough time to plan everything out.

Most of the examples in the book have been written for more long term campaigns, so I was wondering if anyone has any tips specifically for running it for a one shot? Particularly one that will be adapted from an existing game? How much information should the players have about the world prior to session 0? How many goals should they realistically set for this one off game with characters they likely won't be using in a future campaign? I was thinking it would make sense for the players to have a mid term goal for the overall duration of the one shot, and then maybe two short term goals although I don't know if that's too much/too little. How many factions should I worry about creating and including (other than the obvious ones relating to the feywild courts).

Any and all advice + luck you guys can give me is very very appreciated! Thanks so much 😁

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Running a proactive one shot?