Introduction
Should all D&D campaigns start out as a one-shot adventure?
- If a one shot becomes a campaign, great
- If a planned campaign becomes a one-shot, not-so-great
Grand D&D campaigns often get started in one of two ways: they are designed and planned by the Dungeon Master from an original concept and long-term vision; or, they are a series of stand-alone one-shots that they somehow find a way to tie together and the players are none the wiser.
In this article, I’m going to talk about that second option and will present some perspectives that show how one-shots just might be a better way to create your D&D campaign.
Prep Is Fun, But…
To be clear, this isn’t about a right way or wrong way to create a campaign in D&D. On the one hand you’ve got the classic pre-planned approach. I’ve always enjoyed the prep side of being a dungeon master even more than running the game, and planning things out ahead of time, to me and to a lot of other dungeon masters, is a lot of fun.
But, I’ve noticed in recent years that running one-shots is also a viable method to create campaigns in a more organic way. This method has some benefits, with flexibility being the biggest. So, I’m going to talk about the pros and cons of planning your campaign the traditional way, then I’ll describe how organically building a campaign through one-shots can be another approach worth considering.
What About Planning?
To start, there’s the question about planning. By their nature, don’t campaigns need a coherent and deliberate plan from the start? It can be argued that, yes, they do.
By definition, a campaign is a series of adventures that tie together with a common theme or broad objective. This implies that the common theme or broad objective must be known to the DM, and maybe even the players.
But there are some risks associated with all that planning. In the military, they say, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy” and fantasy gaming is no different; every DM knows that no campaign goes completely as they planned. As I’ve talked about before, there’s a difference between planning and preparing.
See my video “Preparing vs Planning Your D&D Campaign” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlDIwC2KGJk
Why is Planning Risky?
So what’s all this talk about planning got to do with one-shots, and why is too much planning risky?
Planning implies you pre-decide not just what CAN happen, but to a certain extent what SHOULD happen and when. That’s dangerous because the players, and the dice, can go one way when your plan assumed they should go another way.
Instead of planning, prepare instead. It’s largely a matter of perspective, but it matters. Prepare by creating locations and monsters and NPCs but not requiring them to be discovered in a particular order, or handled in a particular manner, in order for the campaign to proceed. That’s the key difference.
If you create a one-shot adventure, where it can stand alone and there’s nothing bad if the party decides to do something completely different, then that’s cool. You can still create it with a mind for where it COULD go or what COULD happen, but if none of that comes to pass, it’s no big deal.
The Ultimate Muse
Here’s another advantage: a one-shot adventure is the ultimate muse for subsequent creativity. One of the best ways to create an adventure is to use the events of the one-shot you just ran as the foundational inspiration for where the next one will go.
You take where you left off in the last session as the starting point for the next. And so on.
You also have the flexibility to change directions for the next session based on how the previous session ended.
Forever DMs
There are many forever DMs who started off by being asked if they’d “volunteer” to run a single D&D game for a group of players, and for whatever reason they discover they either really love being a DM and want to do it again and again, or the players really love the job they did and kept begging for more.
In those situations, especially ad hoc or short-notice D&D games, it starts off as a one-shot. There’s no intention or expectation of it going any further than that one session. The DM may even start the game session without any sense for how they’ll finish it.
Somehow they do it the old fashioned way, by making it up as they go along or by bastardizing someone else’s adventure, or even taking inspiration from a completely non-fantasy source and throwing some swords and goblins at it.
Where to Go From Here
The session is a big success. The players have a great time and come away convinced you had everything planned all along. After you get home and your heart rate comes down to a reasonable level, you have two realizations: That was crazy-stressful and I don’t know how I got through it … and, that went better than I thought it would and I already have ideas for where to take it from there.
There’s some common wisdom that a lot of teachers are only one chapter ahead of the class, and there may be some truth to that. There’s also some wisdom in it for Dungeon Masters, in that you really only have to be one session, or even one encounter, ahead of the adventurers.
Build a Campaign One Session at a Time
When building a campaign a single session at a time, the two things you should strive for are: to the best of your ability, make everything look as if it was intended; and, do what you can to take that random encounter you discretely rolled for behind the DM screen and connect it to the organically growing theme of what is slowly looking like an ongoing campaign.
Can you imagine the look on your players faces if, after running dozens or even hundreds of sessions in what they assumed was some grand campaign you planned and plotted to Tolkienesque proportions, you admit, “I was making it up as I went along the entire time.”
I’ve done that, and it’s an amazing experience to see the players’ reactions.
Even though I’ve been doing this since 1980, I’m still learning something new with every game I run. It’s through sharing, “This worked for me” or “I tried this and it didn’t go so well” that we all get better at running the game, and at being better players, too.
