Using a one-shot to ADD to your storyline.

By now the Monday post will probably have clued in on the fact that I ran a one-shot adventure over the weekend to get my two vet players "up to speed" on the game's mechanics. Monday's post explains all of that and what happened in it, but I'd like to talk about what I was doing, and why I'm doing it. I'm gonna have to put a warning right here and right now, if any of you assholes from the party are reading this, you're awesome but you gotta stop reading. This post has some spoilers and I really would rather you guys not read this.

The Prologue

The gist was that Maggot and Dunmur were given two throw away characters, and were thrown into a prison. I start off the game with them being on a boat and having a short 'cutscene' where the boat is destroyed and they fall unconscious from hitting their head. They wake up in a cell and have to escape from a Naga infested dungeon. The dungeon was actually an underwater research lab where these Naga were doing tests and experiments on humans, following the orders of a superior that isn't present. The players have no idea who is giving these orders but through the game they get the hint that these kidnappings are not for money or food, but for research.

But ... Why? This is exactly the kind of reaction I was looking for, and more importantly just these two players. The other players aren't around at the time but they also don't really need to see all of this because they're trying to learn rules let alone all of this foreshadowing with the story. But more importantly, the other players don't really need a lot of time to learn the rules, so to entertain them a bit more, I hope to drag them in with the story; because, after the first few games of D&D you stop having that "WOW HOLY SHIT I CAN DO ANYTHING" feeling and you need more to enjoy the game nearly as much.

The point of this hook was to let their brains ask questions, and as they play through the main campaign they will start to see the same Naga that they ran into. They will start to see Doppelganger's and other strange creatures that these Naga have been working on, and they'll start asking questions. Very likely they will direct these questions to me, like, no subtlety, just asking. And I don't mind this, in fact, I love it.

These Naga are working for a higher being hiding in the ocean, that's working for another being ... But for the first few sessions, the players will not really be doing much except muddling about and murdering things. They'll be fighting kobolds, goblins, and more until they're strong enough to take on stronger questions. I'm significantly undermining what goes on in my game, but it's the general gist of their tasks. I'll be bleeding in hints that these lower levels monsters are serving something greater until they find out that these are all under the control of the same Naga, they ran into in this session. There characters don't know it, but the players do, and they will get excited.

And so far, I think this has worked, fast forward about a week or so and I actually was able to run the game, it's going perfectly.

The Point

Really, it comes down to this: You can use one-shots to tell stories without endangering, or giving a direct hook for the characters. It can be as subtle as an attempt at foreshadowing, or a direct out-of-character reveal about what's going on while they're characters are busy. It also can be a fantastic source of contrast; two characters stuck in a cell, barely surviving, and then you have a whimsical adventure about saving some sailors so they can go on their merry way to adventure.

You have to be careful about how much information you'd like to give, and to who. If your players can't be trusted with out-of-character knowledge then you should try to hide some stuff. However if they're more manageable and tame, then you can essentially go all out and just have fun with it!

Cheers!

Bonus Post: Why I've chosen 5E

Recently, an older group of mine came to and asked to play some Dungeons & Dragons, and having recently been watching some WebDM (Shout-out to these guys, they're awesome!), I was really in the mood to try out 5E. My background is mostly in 3/3.5/Pathfinder, so I'm mostly familiar with the basic concepts of a d20 based system. However I've always had a few complaints about Pathfinder and it's previous versions (3.0/3.5), I'll be lumping them together since they're so similar.

1. There's too many pitfalls. Players can find it very easy to play the 'nerfed' class, or dip into another class and horribly regret it. Now I get that, we're playing a Roleplaying Game, it naturally has some holes to fall into in regards to character builds and statistics. However depending on what version we're talking here (3.0, 3.5, PF), there are a lot of these. For the most part this is fine but for some groups or players this is a problem.
2. There's too many options. This kind of goes hand-in-hand with the pitfalls problem, often there are too many feats, spells, or classes, and it's hard to sift through all of them. Newer or player's such as myself that aren't 100% dedicated to memorization of the rulebook, have a harder time remembering what to pick. This can be remedied if, as a GM, you just say NO to the expanded books, but you wind up sacrificing extra content that players will likely want in their game.
3. There's WAY too many numbers to keep track of. I know, it's math, I should learn to deal with it, but honestly it gets to a point where your character has too many god damn numbers on the sheet and it just drives you bonkers. Optimizing characters requires you to consider every little detail, including what's the minimum you should ever put into a stat as to not gimp your character's saving throws.
4. It's slow. Pathfinder, is slow, and over time I've developed ways to speed this up, but it's still slow.

That being said I have to make it clear that I do NOT hate Pathfinder or 3.5, infact quite the contrary. I would praise Pathfinder as one of the best tabletop RPGs out there, however I don't not think it is for everyone. Which is exactly why I'm trying it with this group. The group is comprised of two players I'm very familiar with, and one player is 100% new to the game. One of these players will in the end, probably enjoy PF more than 5E as he's essentially our party optimizer. The other player reminds me of an OSR player, he's all about hiring henchmen, building up a hoard of items and gold, establishing a base of operations for the adventuring party, and murder, lots of murder. But he fucking hates math, he hates having too much to customization or optimize, and would in the end just google a PF build when he wanted something done effectively. The last guy, is new; he doesn't know if he likes heavy emphasis on mechanical gameplay, social gameplay, or even storytelling. But he already told me right off the bat, that he would prefer an easy system to get into. 5E solves a lot of these problems for me.

• Power-curve. In previous encounters with our optimizer, he usually outshines the rest of the players in terms of combat and social interactions through pure rolls. Granted this wasn't a problem when he played a low charisma fighter, the combat aspect was becoming an awkward tug of war with the rest of the party wanting to be useful, but he didn't want to be bored. Classes in 5E appear to be much more reigned in when it comes to over-all strength, and while yes, I understand the wizard is still gonna be at the top, I think the gap won't be quite as severe.
• Ease of Use. 5E is simple, damn simple. It's one of the simplest systems I've seen that still has meat on it's bones. It's a nice balance of simplicity and complexity, in my humble opinion. This is incredibly useful for the other two players. The OSR guy is going to enjoy the boiled down easy to follow class setups, and will be able to do his rolls and calculations much quicker and more effectively. The new guy will have less to worry about in terms of stats, and can focus on the role-playing, which brings me to the last reason this was the perfect party to test 5E's waters with.
• Roleplaying. It's baked right the fuck into the game. The new guy is new and has no clue what the hell roleplaying is. Our experienced players have ... a lot to learn. The optimizer is an alright roleplayer but has a hard time making interesting characters, the OSR guy is pretty good but sometimes has a hard time 'staying' in character, he will often take extra leaps in other directions which makes me question who is delivering the line; the character or the player. 5E's background, personality traits, ideals, and bonds, will hopefully help make it easier for all of them to get into character and stay in character, with a constant reminder on the character sheet itself.
• Rerolling. I don't kill characters often but I wish I did more. The reason for this is that I think death can be an incredibly meaningful and impactful moment in the campaign course. A noble sacrifice, the fighter that won't stop drawing blood until he's all out of his own, etc. With how easy it is to make a character, I hope that some of that hesitation on the player's part dissipates a bit. I hope to encourage dashing and daring maneuvers, action packed fights, and moments of heroism in their upcoming adventures. And of course, I'm not going to kill off characters left and right, but I would love to see that be an option on the table from time to time.

All of these factors make me think that 5E is guaranteed to be the perfect system for this group, but you can bet I'm going to be playing Pathfinder for years to come. I'd actually like to expand this topic in another post, and it will likely be my topic for Friday.