One Shot RPGs

Bickaxe

Bickaxe

Bickaxe

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Couldn't find a thread for this...

Does anyone know of any one shot (couple of sessions at most) rpgs? My missus is currently writing our next campaign so looking for some time fillers.

I usually create one shots using the Pathfinder ruleset with pre-gen characters but we are looking for something a little more simple and less time consuming for the GM in regards to set up.


Played Honey Heist last night which was a blast. Very simple to learn (suitable for kids), incredibly funny when the bear and bee related puns start and fits the definition of pick up and play perfectly.
 
Are you looking for Pathfinder, D&D or another system?

If it's Pathfinder, then lots & lots of one-shot scenarios in the Pathfinder Society content that you can pull from.
https://paizo.com/store/pathfinder/pathfinderSociety/pfsrpg/scenarios
For D&D 5e, the Prepared and Prepared 2 books are a good starting source, each has a good collection of one-shots.
https://koboldpress.com/kpstore/product/prepared-a-dozen-adventures-for-5th-edition/
https://koboldpress.com/kpstore/product/prepared-2-one-shot-adventure-for-5th-edition/

Kobold Press do a good selection of adventures (they also publish the Prepared books):
https://koboldpress.com/kpstore/product-category/all-products/adventures/

As already said, DM's Guild.
It's by far the best possible place as there's just endless content for all sorts of systems on there.
 
It would be another system. I'm after something that we can pick up, create characters and play with very simple rules inside 15 mins much like Honey Heist. These are essentially single dice games

I have a fair few Pathfinder one shots but they do require some knowledge of the system in advance. I tend to merge them into a campaign when I'm feeling lazy.

DMs Guild is currently undergoing maintainence
 
For systems that are quick to get players ready and jump right into the game in no time, there's a few very simplistic ones out there, though not a lot of them have pre-made adventures so you'll likely have to make something up or use the story from a scenario belonging to another system.

If you enjoyed Honey Heist then The Witch is Dead may be worth a look for a familiar style of system - made by the game guy.
He's made a fair few little games, some of them quite odd - http://lookrobot.co.uk/games/

Or there's Risus - The Anything RPG
Normally you can download if from DriveThruRPG but as they're tied to DMs Guild, they're also down for whatever work is going on. Hopefully they'll be up and running again soon...

Or... if you want a system that requires absolutely no setup for character sheets, could possibly give Roll for Shoes a go... it's terrible but also great at the same time... you essentially start off with a name, a description and a single skill and then add more skills as the game goes on and you try to do stuff.
https://rpg.stackexchange.com/tags/roll-for-shoes/info

Mouse Guard is quite a simple one to setup and start, has a little bit of a D&D feel but with mice and less skills & attributes to worry about.

There's also Dungeon World as a sort of D&D lite system that might be worth a flick through, fair bit of initial setup for the DM but quick to play once you're in the game.

When I DM at shows like UK Games Expo, I tend to run players through Trial of Cthulhu as it's a fairly simplified Cthulhu system and easy to get people to understand the concept. Weaving the story is simple too as you use a lot of real world locations and features and then simply warp them with cult, horror & mysterious elements. Pelgrane Press have a nice condensed rules book available to download (28 pages):
http://site.pelgranepress.com/trail/files/Trail_of_Cthulhu_Condensed_Rules.pdf
 
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