Campaign Diary. Running a One Shot

We’ve gotten our group and have a rough idea about the type of story we want to tell. Where do I go from there? We have a lot of questions going forward. Do we like the system, the setting, and how everything works together? Because of this I’m going to run a one shot adventure.

I’ve decided to do this for a couple of reasons. First, I want to try the system. None of us have played in Cypher and it’ll be fun to give it the once over before we dive deep into it. This will give us a chance to see how things shake out and how we like the rules without getting too deeply in.

Second, it let me get familiar with the character creation system. This way I can walk the players through it if we decide to move forward. I’ll be able to give them the necessary tricks and tips I’ve learned from making the one shot heroes.

Third, we’re going to get to play in a superficial bit of the setting. We’ll get to play in the world and see how things shake out. I’m looking forward to getting a look at how these spies run around and do their thing.

In the end we’ll be able to see the system and setting, see how we like them, and then decided what to do going forward. If we like the story I’ll keep setting things up for that. If we like the Cypher system we’ll plan to keep using it. If one of these things falls flat we’ll try and come up with something new. If both of them are a bust then maybe we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.

Because I’m going to run the mission as a one shot it’s going to let me try some things. First off, I’m going to run this as a, “men on a mission,” story. I expect very few of them to live. I’m making six characters for a three person party so they’ll have some backups if a couple of them die. Ideally, if anyone is killed during the game we can slot in one of the other characters.

One of the long term reasons for this is that it’ll set up my villains. With the group having played against them and seen PC’s die, it will hopefully give them a sense purpose. I want my players to hate this group. I could do this with a regular game, but then I’m killing PC’s that the group spent time on. By doing it this way, I’m only killing pre-gens and not characters they’ve put effort into. It will build an emotional connection to the villains without putting undo stress on the players.

To further slam that home, I’ve given them the code names of high level members of the villain’s organization. I’ve also given them descriptions of all but one of them. It’s my hope that when we get down to the last pre-gen I’ll be far enough into the story that I can have that character be revealed as a traitor. I know it’s a cheap trick, but I think it will focus their rage at the group and the betrayer. That way, when they get to create their own characters and go in it will focus them. I want this to add stakes to their missions. Push them harder when they’re going after this group and frustrate them when they have to go after someone else.

I’m also going to use the one shot to test a mechanic that’s not a part of the Cypher system. I want to add a flashback mechanic. I’m going to give each player a poker chip and at any point during the game they can turn in their chip to have a flashback. I won’t be able to effect this at all. This will be them showing the moment where they bribed a guard, got a piece of specialized equipment, picked up a map, or infiltrated an area to drop something off for when they went through later. Basically, I’m letting them do the heist film moment where we see the heroes in trouble only to flashback to four hours earlier when they left a set of handcuff keys in the cell.

I’m doing this because this is a spy game and I’m trying to recreate the fast moving style of the films and television of the 70’s and 80’s I don’t want to get bogged down in planning.  This is another reason to try this in a one shot. If it doesn’t work the players might want to plan their assaults and missions rather than getting thrown in. If they would rather plan we’ll drop this and let them plan. My thought is that using flashbacks will make up for limited time and allow us to drive the story.

Anyway, that’s a couple of the reasons I’m running a one shot of the Cypher System to see how the game works. In the end it may not matter. I’ll see where we go and how we get there.

I’ll be back next week to talk about something else. What would you like to hear about? Any questions?