Single-session campaigns

[Student of Trinity]

If there isn't interest here in single-session AIMHack campaigns, there should be. It's a lot easier to get people together once. And the constraint of having everything wrap up in one session is a fun one, actually.

 

I did this over Christmas with a mixed group of nieces and nephews plus my older daughter, 8 kids from ages 5 to 13. The five-year-old didn't actually participate much, but he technically made the final winning move. When he suddenly wanted to join in, right at the end, he was given control of his sister's character's pet snake. His winning move was a successful roll to regurgitate.

 

So already you know it was totally awesome, but let me explain more. This was a short family ski getaway, in a remote little cottage in the deep Quebec snow. Everyone wanted to roll up characters, and then draw their characters, but the only dice we had were a copy of the Steve Jackson game Zombie Dice. So, fine, I improvised an entire new set of rules that used only dice that showed Brain, Footsteps, or Shotgun Blast — in varying proportions out of 6, depending on the die's color. If somebody rolled a Brain, that was good. If they rolled Blast, that was bad. If the task seemed easy, the player got to use a green die, with 3 Brains and only one Blast. If the task seemed hard, they had to use a red die, with the opposite proportions. In between got the yellow die, with two faces for each shape. Those were the rules, in their entirety, and they were enough.

 

I let the kids choose their characters pretty freely. I let them each have one special power. One ended up being an intelligent monkey noble, with the power to summon a monkey army once in the game, but only if there were monkeys around. One started out being a fallen guardian angel, able to fly, but only to rescue someone other than herself; but then she changed at the last minute into something more mundane, mainly because of general dissatisfaction with the way the wings on her character sketch were turning out. One was going to take a submachine gun, but when I insisted that she could not have more than thirty bullets, she opted for the pet snake instead. Another was a werewolf, but unfortunately we sort of forgot about this in the course of the game. That particular player made some valuable contributions with her crossbow, but when she didn't know what else to do, she opted for literally 'doing the hokey-pokey' in the dungeon. Apparently, for her, that was what it was all about. Another was 'a crab-man'. We never really pinned down what that meant, because doing so seemed like kind of a can of worms as far as I was concerned, but the player really enjoyed making claw gestures whenever he attacked something. The oldest nephew wanted two daggers that were permanently on fire. They ended up serving as the party's only light sources throughout the game, and it was a darned good thing that he had two. One niece was half-vampire, and could turn into a bat at will. Arguments about just how much weight a bat could lift became a sort of leitmotif. By the end we had the physiology of this particular bat pinned down very precisely indeed.

 

Gamemastering with this kind of player group is not for the doctrinaire rulebooknik. In fact I really recommend a strong beer accompaniment. Then it goes well.

 

The premise was: the peaceful jungle kingdom is being overrun by horrible pygmy cannibals from another dimension. Your chief witchdoctor has determined that the only hope is to retrieve the Emerald Skull from its lost ruined temple. Go!

 

There was a simple puzzle to get into the lost ruined temple, a pit trap, a snakepit, a maze full of face-eating spiders, a chasm spanned by a tiny rope bridge with a giant spider lurking above, an army of skeletons, and an unbeatably enormous serpent guarding the Emerald Skull. Yada yada yada, they did a decent job of getting through all that, including successfully blinding all of the giant spider's eight eyes. They got the Emerald Skull, and dumped the skeleton army into the chasm by cutting the rope bridge behind them. Everybody survives, but the boldest and bravest of the cousins is satisfyingly down to one health point, and every escape has been narrow. Everyone agrees that they have really had it with these doggone snakes in this doggone pit. Finally they make it out.

 

Only to be met by the chief witch doctor, frantically shouting across the waterfall that they have to put the skull back, because the only way to banish the pygmy cannibals is to leave the skull on its sacred pillar, but turned to face the opposite way. Chief witch doctor then falls with a pygmy spear in his back.

 

Much consternation. General satisfaction with the fate of the witch doctor.

 

They end up climbing onto the back of the blind giant spider, after it tries to eat them again, and steering it by lowering food in front of its face. They successfully ride it back to the pillar cavern, and manage to feed it to the giant serpent, jumping off just in time, so that the serpent goes into a digestive torpor and leaves them in peace. At an early stage they had argued and pleaded and made a lucky roll, to get the pet snake to swallow the Emerald Skull, because that seemed like a good idea at the time. At the end they had to get the pet snake to disgorge the Emerald Skull in order to save the world.

 

If you think it was an obvious alternative to just kill the pet snake and dig the Skull out, you have not grokked the ethos of this particular gaming community. The world can burn a thousand times before Snakey loses a scale. But little brother came through, and it was a wrap.

 

The campaign constraints that it all finish up in one session, and use only Zombie Dice, turned out to be liberating and fun. It might be worth trying to do something similar with AIMHack.

[Actaeon]

This was, in essence, what I was hoping to do with a sandbox setting. Since there doesn't seem to be much interest in that, I'd love to participate in whatever you have to dish out.

[Mosquito---Slayer]

This was, in essence, what I was hoping to do with a sandbox setting. Since there doesn't seem to be much interest in that...

Well that's disappointing.

Edit: And yeah I will like to participate as well.

[BJ Back From the Beyond]

Basically, if there's an RPG, you can count me as interested.

[nikki.]

There have actually been some single-session campaigns, but these usually only happen absences cause a regular schedule to be postponed. The ones I've been a part of have actually been pretty fun, but personally I prefer the longer campaigns; even if the same players are present in different campaigns, I find it always takes a session or three until the group has gelled (or not) and settled into their roles.

 

I'd be interested in taking part in (and perhaps even running) some shorter campaigns though.

[Ouroboros]

Count me in too

[BMA]

Sounds good, I'm in too.

 

Post 500, oh yeah

[Rowen]

I would be willing to play some one shot story AIMhack.

[Actaeon]

How are we getting around the time consumption of character generation? I was thinking of recycling them, but perhaps the system will be simple enough that it can be quick?

[Triumph]

Creating a level 1 Aimhack character really doesn't take that long, especially if people don't have to make up any new spells or combat techniques.

[Ouroboros]

Creating a level 1 Aimhack character really doesn't take that long, especially if people don't have to make up any new spells or combat techniques.

 

Its the backstory that takes quite a while.

[Lilith]

backstory is overrated

[Randomizer]

"Okay, so what's this box that says character background??" - Dave

"Baaah!! We never use that. I don't even know why it's on there." - Bob

"That's right. Don't let the little stuff distract you from your mission" - Brian

 

Bundle of Trouble, Issue #1 Bonus Strip

[nikki.]

Besides, as you're creating a character you're going to start getting ideas about who they are and what they're about. Even if that isn't presented formally with the character, or even typed it, there's nothing stopping you from using a couple of key words to sum it up, and then expressing it through the game.

[Actaeon]

First off, do we really want to confine ourselves to first level? I usually start my D&D characters at second or third, and have run some one-off campaigns at level six.

 

Second, why not make a depository of characters? You can prepare your own ahead of time, or use a surplus one from someone else (there will always be those people that want to make

[nikki.]

In a single-session campaign, aren't levels meaningless after character creation anyway? If I run anything, I'm much more likely to do away with them. After giving the players a large hunk of points they can place into skills at character creation, I think it'd be more fun to either give them a couple of points a couple of times per campaign that they can distribute during a break, or else have their stats increase slightly as they use skills. As an example, if Shooty McElfGuy prances over a bottomless cavern 20 or so times, he gets an extra point in Prancing.

[Actaeon]

I proposed that (Shooty McElf) to a group of Spiderwebbers once, and was told it was a bad idea. I still think I could make it work- particularly with the help of a programmer (I dream of an interface that keeps track of your character even as you roll. You put in the name and description of an ability, the DM sets the difficulty, and you level up dynamically.

 

Also, I'd like to offer "The Inn Between the Worlds" as a setting that would let you recycle characters but mix up genres.

[keira]

particularly with the help of a programmer (I dream of an interface that keeps track of your character even as you roll. You put in the name and description of an ability, the DM sets the difficulty, and you level up dynamically.

we should talk

[Lilith]

I proposed that (Shooty McElf) to a group of Spiderwebbers once, and was told it was a bad idea. I still think I could make it work- particularly with the help of a programmer (I dream of an interface that keeps track of your character even as you roll. You put in the name and description of an ability, the DM sets the difficulty, and you level up dynamically.

 

pro tip: if you're going to do this, failure should level you up faster than success. otherwise you end up with characters who succeed early on outpacing characters who fail early on at ever faster rates

[Actaeon]

On the flip side, having success determine outcome means you only have to use one formula for determining the ratio between attempts and improvement. That is, if the DC is higher, it will necessarily take more tries to get very good at something difficult (picking a lock) relative to something mundane (climbing a tree). How to offset the potential for imbalance? Occasional manual level-ups at the DMs discretion, perhaps, rewarding accomplishments that are more out of reach or required a great deal of ingenuity.

 

we should talk

 

I had thought of trying to enlist you on this.

 

Basically, I realized that my attitude toward online tabletop gaming was backwards. I thought if it as a poor substitute for the in person sort, and endeavored to make it more like what I was used to. I'm beginning to think, however, that it could be greatly improved by automating the mechanics, which were always sort of clunky. You keep the everything-is-possible, descriptive quality that, in my mind, puts tabletop RPGs above computer games, but get rid of 75% of the time spent generating characters and arguing over rules. Most importantly, you render the learning curve almost obsolete.

 

I have an in-person friend (does one meeting make you one, too?) that's interested in helping, but he's quite busy with work and thus useless for most other things. He may also have an account here, so it's possible he'll call me out for saying that.

[BJ Back From the Beyond]

particularly with the help of a programmer (I dream of an interface that keeps track of your character even as you roll. You put in the name and description of an ability, the DM sets the difficulty, and you level up dynamically.

Ahem. What about MapTool?

 

I recently picked up MapTool and have been fiddling around with it quite a bit. As I recall, Lilith used it in the City of Hope campaign with mixed results, but that was some years ago. I imagine it's come a long way in that time. I've been planning to use it for a mini-campaign sometime later this year and have been busy writing macros for it that use the QuadHack rules Nioca was developing, in an effort to make the DMing process more automated. I imagine I could put together a framework for you to use, if you like.

[nikki.]

Yeah! MapTool worked great with City of Hope, though that might be because Lilith is an amazing GM and made the most of the software.

 

Also, god, that was years ago. Poor Meredith.