Nearly every year, I make the trek out to PyCon US. Most of my time is taken up with running a kids coding class, being an auctioneer, and maybe seeing a talk or two. Some years, I like to bring a special event with me that’s not explicitly about coding or the open source community.

This year, I thought I’d do a one-shot on the first day of sprints. I’d never run a one-shot before (if you discount a few failed starts at campaigns…), but most of my sessions run for a set amount of time and I’m pretty good at ending at a logical point, so I figured I was as ready as I could be to do my first.

So I packed up a kit, made a few tweets, and then met my players at 4.

How’d it go?!

It went amazingly well! In my regular game, we’re in it for the long haul, so the players are more cautious. With the one-shot players, everyone knew that they could just grab a new character if they died, so they were happy to take huge risks (most of which paid off!). It was hectic and crazy and full of players just barrelling through to keep things interesting.

We only got halfway through the dungeon, but I thought that might happen. We found a good stopping point, though, after which I told them about some of the rest rooms and how some of the choices they made would have played out if they’d gone a different direction.

The scenario

Because it was fresh in my mind, I used the end dungeon from Book 2 of The Council of Thieves. You can pretty much use it wholesale without much rewriting. I ended up changing the opening and rewriting the motivations of one NPC (who they never met).

The new opening:

One day, you’re all called to your local Pathfinder lodge. A few days ago, a crowd of new adventurers took on a contract to clear out the long abandoned mansion of a crazed mage, Vheed. The town had been on the verge of taking him out on their own due to rumors of gruesome experiments, but found he was missing. Uncertain as to what to do, they opted to leave the mansion alone, worried burning it down might unleash some magics they were unprepared to deal with.

A band of goblins had taken up residence, so the Lodge was tasked with clearing them out. The adventurers did so easily, but then came upon the entrance to what appears to be a pocket dimension. Stating that they “weren’t being paid nearly enough”, they returned and asked the task be finished by someone else.

I skipped over the trip to the mansion and getting to the dungeon, dropping them in the first room right off the bat.

As for the NPC, the assassin Sian is merely someone who heard of the fleeing adventurers and is determined to find what the dungeon holds before anyone else. Because of this, though, I decided that she could possibly be talked into joining the party, though she would still try to get the drop on them. It would take some fairly high rolls, but I’ve learned to never underestimate the ability of players to sell crazy plans.

Her arrival time means that the first adventurers did not see a body, allowing the players to deduce that they’re not alone in this dungeon.

I also dropped everyone’s level to four since so many people showed up, and spare characters were available if anyone bought it. Also, the sheets I found only had the levels one, four, and seven, and I didn’t want to spend time leveling up on PDFs.

The materials

The kit I ended up taking was an interesting mix of high-tech and no-tech.

Because I’ve taken to printing out my Adventure Paths, I went ahead and took my current game binder. I also took my dice box since I knew most people wouldn’t have their own, and you know there will always be at least one player who refuses to use a dice roller on their phone.

However, I completely forgot to bring character sheets. I had them all collected into a PDF for printing, but in the rush of packing, left it on my personal computer. Fortunately, some kind soul had collected all of the pregens for Pathfinder Society games, so I passed that out to players digitally.

I also used Roll20 since there was no way I was packing maps and markers. Besides, I already had that game set up for my current group, so making a new session was trivial. I made a bunch of throwaway accounts since I wasn’t certain that people would want to create one of their own. Out of a group of ten or so, though, only one got used, so it looks like Roll20 got some new users!

I also set up a ton of tokens ahead of time, which saved time in getting people set up. I used a batch of icons from Icons8 because they’re highly distinct even at low resolutions.

Finally, I brought a portable monitor as a fallback for anyone who couldn’t use their computer. It ended up being pretty useful for showing information to people, though I ended up tweeting out most links that people needed.

What I’d do differently

Well, first off, I’d remember to bring printed character sheets…

I’d also run a shorter scenario. That, or rework the dungeon I used to be shorter. There are a few bits that could be removed without hurting the overall feel, like some acrobatic puzzles and a rather large maze. There’s also a prison area where I feel like everyone would choose to avoid the encounter, it may just be better to leave it out. This would mean moving the glaive to another area of the dungeon, but there’s more than a few places to stash it. Maybe Sian found it, or maybe Jabe could be wielding it.

While my players opted to not get the reward from Livia, I think I’d have to change what she gives them. Instead of six answers (which is of little importance in a one-shot), I’d probably give out some potions of lesser restoration. In The Council of Thieves, the players start out with four, so I feel like that would be a fair swap.

I’d also make a formal sign up page so it would be easier to contact everyone. This one should have been a no-brainer, but I forgot how little time I spend on my laptop at conferences. I would also make the throwaway accounts available to those who signed up so they can claim them right away.

Because I didn’t know how many people would show up, I didn’t gather up tables in advance, which meant we were scrambling a bit to grab enough. Next year, I may just grab a table in a sprint room since most of them emptied out by the time we started. Also, since others may want to join me in running one-shots next year, grabbing a room for the evening may be a good thing to arrange in advance.

By next year I might have a new travel laptop. If that’s the case, I’ll bring Hero Lab with me. While I did okay, there was some fumbling looking things up mid-combat, especially as we ventured into rooms I hadn’t done yet.

We also had some people with no laptops or tablets. I was able to put one of them onto a spare iPad while the other looked on. I’m not sure what I could do about that (they were an attendee’s children didn’t have laptops in the first place), but maybe if I knew ahead of time, I could arrange extra tablets.

Will I do it again?

Absolutely. It was a chaotic, wonderful blast, and a great way to blow off steam after a hectic conference. Even people who hadn’t gamed in decades were able to get up to speed quickly, and everyone who attended (or even watched!) seemed to have a great time.

Next year…

There’s some talk of doing a custom adventure that takes some jabs at Python and its community. Also, some others said they’d like to bring their kits and join in on doing one-shots, which would help if we manage to get a bigger crowd. I have a feeling that’s likely, since even with my lackadaisical organization, we had started with a group of ten.

Though running a table top has little to do with coding, I love events like this that let us just be people around each other, rather than just coders. We all joked, laughed, and egged each other on to do crazier and crazier stunts. It’s a great chance to meet some new people and see people I’ve known for years in a completely different light.