Here is our review of One-Shot Wondersa fantastic one collection of adventures for them D&D 5E campaigns published by Roll & Play Press. The purpose of this supplement is to provide helpful advice and background on creating one-shot adventures and styled campaigns sandboxreducing the preparation times necessary for their construction.
The adventure index
The manual of One-Shot Wonders is presented with bright colors and illustrations, while its structure consists of a collection of adventures divided by difficulty, levels recommended e game biomes.
The adventures are normally displayed in two pagesthe first including the prologue, the beginning of the adventure, the key characters and two quick tables for the narrative, while the second introduces the descriptions of the key places, the clues and secrets of the characters, and the possible rewards.
The introduction of adventures is composed of the title and i descriptors which indicate the type – adventurous or defensive – and the relative biomesuch as snowy tundra or coast, then followed by the story's prologue.
The first adventure”The Cats' Mother“, taken as an example, is categorized as adventurous, defensive and set in the snowy tundra. The prologue of the story is introduced with: “As poachers approach a pregnant saber-toothed tiger, a fervent conservationist will do everything in his power to protect the animal and her unborn cubs. This includes hiring a party of adventurers to travel with him across the frozen tundra and watch over the animal during birth.” . In short, in a few lines you will have a fair picture of the initial data.
The beginning of the journey
Once presented the prologue it's time to introduce players to the game context. This phase, internal to the manual as “start the adventure“, describes the reason for the presence of the group of adventurers and the key characters met. A brief characteristic description is dedicated to these characters, consisting of name, age, race, class or item to search in Monster Manual (such as lookout or kobold), along with an overview of his character and physical appearance.
A example of key character encountered by players, considering the same adventure as above, is Belvadere “Belle” Solis a 164-year-old elf scout presented as an environmentalist, when in reality she is part of an organized gang of poachers who carries a bottle of animal milk and a small packet of bird seed inside her cargo jacket.
The subsequent narration is left to free improvisationas contained within the adventures there are two tables: one table is dedicated to quick datingwith some variation of the creatures' statistics compared to those described in the monster manual, while the other table it contains suggestions on possible events administered during the session, in the key locations indicated below.
The key places they are precisely displayed with a brief description of the morphology and function of the place, accompanied by the characters and/or creatures that can be found inside them. Returning to the example of “The Cats' Mother“, one of these places is the rocky alcove, of which an accurate and brief description is given: “near the frozen cliffs, a small alcove offers protection from the winds and the cold climate of the area. Small grasses cling to its gray walls, benefiting from the shelter offered.”.
Protection from the elements makes this alcove the perfect place for your saber-toothed tiger to safely give birth, plus poachers can be observed circling above the area. After navigating through the events of the story and collected the clues (listed on the second page of the chosen adventure) the journey can be concluded and, based on its implications, the players will obtain one of the rewards described at the end of the adventure.
New story same heroes
One-Shot Wonders Of Roll & Play Press It is a fantastic tool, born from the need to speed up the organizational process of a session. Providing helpful backgrounds and adventures complete with hints, this book sits at the heart of worldbuilding sandbox or fill the interludes of campaigns already underway. Each adventure narrated in it is categorized in an index at the end of the book itself in order to collect the material necessary to enrich the theme of our future campaign. The rules system used is that of the fifth edition of D&D, however the setting of the adventures is strongly narrative giving the possibility of adapt them to other similar regulations, as suggested by the authors in the first pages of the manual. This elasticity makes One-Shot Wonders easily approachable from beginners and experts in narrative games.
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