Hmmm... short story/campaign writing block

[BumblingBear]

Hey folks.

I'm pretty good about making long arcing campaigns and multiple plot threads that tie together.

My issue is that I just started letting one of my players GM for a bit to give the group a different flavor before I take over again, but he won't be in town this weekend.

As a result, I need to step in an do one session right in the middle of his story.

This means I need to run a self contained story for one session that can be contained in about 6 hours.

Yikes.

I have a pretty good idea of what I am going to do, but it was surprisingly difficult to come up with a Cliffs Notes adventures.

What do all of you do if/when you have a similar situation?

[Bubba Amon Hotep]

One shots are hard.  Time is always a factor.  You never know how many tangents will come up.  Plus you have to linearize the adventure to an extent the players understand quickly what they need to do, and don't derail themselves for too long making plans.

My suggestions would be:

Start with a strong transparent hook. 
Something that would draw all or part of the players in, and would motivate them to temporarily leave the main story line to pursue the new story side line, because they know it will be quick and they can see what they need to do.

Only have a few scenes.
Keep it simple you only have a few hours.  Come up with a few scenes and leave it at that you are working with a small temporal window.

Try to limit it to 1 or 2  combats.
I don't know why but combat tends to slow most groups down.  Strategy talk, past glory tangents, map drawing, figure moving.  I don't understand how that could possible occur, but it does.  (Yes I understand why it happens.)  Use it to your advantage.

Quick off the top of my head examples.

While stopping for gas and snacks going to (insert storyline proper location).  The group gets caught up in a gas station robbery, a local gang has swung in for beer and smokes, they are armed and in the mood for a fight.  I can envision a firefight scene with things exploding off the shelves, coolers getting shattered, chips and soda spraying everywhere.  Perhaps one of the gang members is talking crazy yelling about what he sees.  They flee, party pursues.  Final showdown at gang house, where the party discovers the crazy gang member was high on third eye, and you have a future hook to bring down a supplier.  After something like that your players will remember the one shot every time they walk into a Quick Stop gas station.

Or how about . . .
Gun shots in the neighborhood lead them to a woman who just shot her husband and is running from the scene.  When they ask her what is going on, she is all emotional crying, he just wouldn't stop, I had to.  You get the weapon away from her, and calm her down.  Then her husband shows up.  Two gun shot wounds and all it did was piss him off.  Insert supernatural monster here, and reason.

What about . . .
Its memorial day, and all the people that have been visiting graves are acting funny.  Players discover this when one of them visits a family grave.  A local necromancer has set up ritual traps to allow the dearly departed to temporarily possess a family member that brings gravestone decor.  All kinds of confusion, and man out of time jokes available.

Hope this helps,
BaH

[Team8Mum]

As a result, I need to step in an do one session right in the middle of his story.

This means I need to run a self contained story for one session that can be contained in about 6 hours.

You mean a convention game

What do all of you do if/when you have a similar situation?

now do you want them to use their usual characters or not? And does this have to be inserted in the same spot in the time line or can it be a 'flash back'?

Because if they want to use thier usually characters and it has to  be a NOW game your only realising option if you are not going to mess up the other GMs plot line is to have a 'side step' adventure where at the end everything will reset to where it was before (Like Midsummer night dream)

Option 2 is you grab some pregened characters from elsewhere (there are a load on the "request a character" thread if you are stuck) and run a one off where like a con game it doesn't matter if every one dies so the players can really let go and go mad.

Chose a physical setting I know well so I can describe locations properly and have a list of names so I am not calling every NPC "Bob"
I come up with an opening location and an opening event to kick off the chaos,
Play the 'fortunately/unfortunately' game with the plot,
Follow what ever leads the players throw out using the 'follow the one that will result in the most insanity' if two conflicting ideas are suggested at once.
And when it gets to the end of the time slot "throw in more ninjas" to give a mega conflict for a finale and push the P.C.' to just short of breaking point so they feel like they have really earnt the victory.

THEN I go home and write up the adventure

[Richard_Chilton]

One piece of advice for NPC names:
1) Go to the cast list of any long running show (wikipedia has lots of them - search for Cast of <show name>).
2) Take the first name of the act and the last name of a random character - this usually results in names that match ethnically.
3) Take the first name of the character and last name of the actor - this gives the same type of name.
4) print off the list of names (or have it open if you game with a computer by you).

Now you have a list of random names for random NPCs.  Nameless people who aren't important enough to name before play begins.  Just make a note next to each name you use.
For example, say they decided to investigate something near a school and you haven't planned for it:
James Soprano
Tony Gandolfini - driver of the cab they took to the scene
Jerry Rabkin - 3rd grader who someone Declared was a witness
Annabella Trillo
Gloria Sciorra - Crossing guard who saw the accident

Doing this keeps you from having Joe the NPC (Joe the cab driver, Joe the crossing guard, Joe the 3rd grader, etc) and helps you keep track of people who might become important later.  Maybe it turns out that Jerry Rabkin's mother (Annabella Rabkin - just cross off the last name and write the new one in) is part of the Evil Cult and when the PCs track down Jerry to ask him more questions his mother is waiting for them with evil in her heart...

Having a name ready can really help at times.  Having it written down makes it so much easier when the PCs decide (for some reason that you never imagined them having) to talk to that guy pushing a broom that someone declared might have seen something.

Richard

[Team8Mum]

For the online generation in need of a quick name
http://www.behindthename.com/random/

[fantazero]

Hmmmm...for example.

You can find a reason to throw your characters into a situation that doesnt really effect the rest of the story.

So your characters are on a cruise, or their plane crashes, or wake up with explosives collars on their necks and told what to do through a mysterious voice coming from a Radio on the collar ( ) Or the classic
Wake up naked in Prison scenario.

Seeing as it's Dresden, and you want to do a One shot, the Never is the perfect place for that. So you can change the setting and throw in characters how ever you want.
You could basically do a Hogwarts type environment if you really wanted to, and just massacre your way through Harry Potter.

[BumblingBear]

Hmmmm...for example.

You can find a reason to throw your characters into a situation that doesnt really effect the rest of the story.

So your characters are on a cruise, or their plane crashes, or wake up with explosives collars on their necks and told what to do through a mysterious voice coming from a Radio on the collar ( ) Or the classic
Wake up naked in Prison scenario.

Seeing as it's Dresden, and you want to do a One shot, the Never is the perfect place for that. So you can change the setting and throw in characters how ever you want.
You could basically do a Hogwarts type environment if you really wanted to, and just massacre your way through Harry Potter.

Oooh! I like the escape from the Nevernever idea.

[Haru]

The problem that I have with things like this is, that they are ooc events leading to in character consequences on a probably massive scale. For example, one of the characters could get stuck in the nevernever. It might be an AD&D flashback talking here, but I don't like putting the main campaign characters into a scenario just so you can play.

I like disposable characters for this. I especially like characters with something along the lines of "Borrowed Time". These characters have only limited time to act, they may be sick, they may have made the wrong bargain and will be turned into a hound, they might be send back for 48 hours to set things right. In any case, they are characters that you want to go out in style, because you know they have to go out anyway. In my experience, this leads to some of the most amazing and heroic scenes I have played.

In this case (I haven't done this with FATE yet), you could prepare the "Borrowed Time" aspects and either let the players draw them randomly out of a hat or show them what you got and let them choose. Give them 20 minutes to do a rough draft of the characters and flesh the rest out as you go.

[Team8Mum]

my list for this week end to avoid calling all NPC's Bob...

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14681070/Sues_Names_Cheet_Sheet.pdf

Just in case any one else woudl find it useful

[admiralducksauce]

The problem that I have with things like this is, that they are ooc events leading to in character consequences on a probably massive scale. For example, one of the characters could get stuck in the nevernever. It might be an AD&D flashback talking here, but I don't like putting the main campaign characters into a scenario just so you can play.

I like disposable characters for this. I especially like characters with something along the lines of "Borrowed Time". These characters have only limited time to act, they may be sick, they may have made the wrong bargain and will be turned into a hound, they might be send back for 48 hours to set things right. In any case, they are characters that you want to go out in style, because you know they have to go out anyway. In my experience, this leads to some of the most amazing and heroic scenes I have played.

In this case (I haven't done this with FATE yet), you could prepare the "Borrowed Time" aspects and either let the players draw them randomly out of a hat or show them what you got and let them choose. Give them 20 minutes to do a rough draft of the characters and flesh the rest out as you go.

Dresden Files ala Crank.  Love it.

Your players could play minor villains or side characters in the same campaign, maybe playing through a heist or crime or something that could then create more adventures for the main PCs when your GM returns to their duties.  If the goons get killed in the adventure, who cares?  If they live?  Great! You have some fully-fleshed-out NPCs to hand off to the GM.  Not only have you entertained your group, you've created plot hooks for the GM without any effort on their part and a posse of NPCs that even if the main characters won't have investment in, the players should at least be morbidly curious to see how their main PCs take on these bumbling oafs who blustered their way out of a sidhe curse/professional hit team out to cause as much trouble for the paranormal underworld as they can before the entropy curse gets the last of them/etc.

[devonapple]

I did a one-shot for my Monday game because one player was gone (in the middle of a critical scene, which I didn't want to continue with him as an NPC), and we wanted to introduce a new player to the system. I had nothing prepared for it, and while chargen was pretty fast, it still ate an hour.

I went back to the DFRPG adventure creation outline: I started with three Player Aspects, made tension- and cooperation-based connections, then found or invented NPCs/antagonists to pull on those.

I even got in a brilliant moment of character pain by placing evidence in the current scenario which implicated the Reformed Cultist's former cult in the death/disappearance of another character's Wizard parents a year or two before.

Unfortunately, it didn't resolve in the 3 hours we had to play, but we got to the doorway to the either the final confrontation or at least a major stepping stone.

[knnn]

Once played in a one-shot (substitute GM) that entailed us being a hit squad for some big bad who were hired to take out some "troublemakers".  We did all the planning and got ready to do the takedown when one of us realized that the targets were our "real" (long-playing) characters...

Long story short, we managed to "bungle" it in a plausible way.  Didn't stop the regular GM from using the same team to hound us later on (much to the chagrin of the rules-lawyer who really tweaked his character to be an unstoppable powerhouse).