What is it about one-shots that makes it so difficult to finish in, well, one shot? Are your players too chaotic to be contained into one measly session? Do you need to work on your pacing? Is the story too intricate or the final battle too complex?

It could be a little of column A, little of column B, and parts of columns C-Z. I can’t diagnose your particular DM style or how your friends play. But I can share some tried-and-true tactics for how I’ve tamed the unruly one-shot. Who am I? I’m Action Serg, and I’ve run back-to-back one-shots under tight convention schedules and wowed players in under three hours in a noisy bar. So when I share with you these 5 tips for running a one-shot, know they come from hard earned experience. 

Pick Two Major Encounters And Stick To Them

Select the two most important encounters and focus on developing them into the most satisfying experience you can deliver. Depending on what system you run or the theme of your one-shot, the first encounter varies. It could be a combat, puzzle, intense roleplay negotiation, chase– whatever most serves the story. The final encounter is typically the boss battle or some kind of getaway chase scene. 

These encounters account for about two and a half hours of your session. The other hour is reserved for introductions, roleplay, and getting from place to place. Three and a half hours is my ideal one-shot length. You end up reaching four hours when you factor in pre and post-session chit chat.

I developed this habit while running pre-written modules like those from Dungeons & Dragons Adventurers League. AL mods often list a run time of four hours but go far over if you actually try to include every encounter. So don’t. Focus on two. This is also a reminder to kill your darlings. If you wrote your one-shot, you probably need to take a second look at your work. Sure the bartender NPC is funny and the turtle gathering quest is adorable, but are they necessary to the story? 

Begin With A Call To Action

Most one-shots lose any hope of wrapping up in one night right at the beginning. “As our story begins, what is your character doing?” It’s like unleashing a class full of children into a candy shop and expecting them to come back to the bus on time. You know those field trip buses never left on schedule. 

The common advice from YouTube videos is to start right in the middle of the action. They’re attacked by goblins right away, or they wake up at the inn and everything is on fire. It’s an exciting, cinematic opening. It also puts the plot right in the players’ faces so they can’t ignore it to go wander off asking every NPC their names. This is good advice, but I have my own method. 

I start many one-shots with the party being right in front of the quest giver. Usually it’s a local noble who is paying a generous sum for their quest. I ask each player in turn to describe how their character enters the room and greets the others. Players love having that immediate spotlight to introduce their characters. But as soon as they do their thing, I have the quest giver give the details and send them on their way. They get their moment, and I put them right on track to encounter one. 

Let Players' Wild Plans Work 99% Of The Time

I love having smart guards to challenge players, especially at higher levels. In a world of magic, a good hired goon should know that illusion spells exist. But to keep a one-shot moving, you don’t have time to hash out complex interactions with NPCs. 

Let the nat 20, nat 12, or nat 1 pay off into some extraordinary feat beyond the rules. Let the Ranger “cast” Animal Handling to soothe the savage owlbear. This way you’re not spending valuable time flipping through the rulebook or negotiating results. 

I’m not saying to make the game too easy. Just that you should save the tactical, time consuming rules interactions for your two major encounters. Break out the chase minigame for the first big encounter. Have the final boss confidently pass the check to see through illusions. This immediately raises the stakes, especially after the players spent the past hour using shenanigans to conquer everything else. 

Give The Adventure A Countdown

The best way to keep players' eyes on the prize is to introduce a timed goal. There’s a bomb to defuse, a dark ritual to interrupt, a powerful enemy approaching etc. The players still have agency in how they solve the problem, but you get to set the pace. 

The official Avatar RPG one-shots are a great example of this. They often come with a countdown clock built into the main objective, typically the Fire Nation capturing them if they linger. Blades in the Dark’s progress clock works very much the same and even has varying levels to represent more complicated obstacles. The concept is very easy to introduce and can be ported to other games with little effort. 

Wind Down In The Final Hour

A satisfying conclusion takes shape an hour before the session ends. When you arrive at that final hour, take a quick assessment of where you are in the story. Are you already at the final encounter? Awesome, then take your time to make it the best it can be. 

Are you running behind schedule? Then it’s time to cut right to the final encounter. But do so in a way that either rewards players or dramatically increases the stakes. The player who methodically searches every dungeon room finds a secret passage right to the boss. The middling roll during the chase scene evades pursuers, but ends with them crashing into the vault. 

Did the players dominate encounter one and are destroying the boss early? Guess who gets a second form! Or perhaps their employer betrays them after getting the data disk, giving them a chance for one last bit of dramatic roleplay. Just stick with a simple twist instead of adding another elaborate tactical encounter.