Nod Oneshots

Now that I'm feeling a little more comfortable in the world and flow, I'm thinking of occasionally running oneshots set in the campaign world, to better simulate the idea of the "open table" expressed in the various inspirations for the game and as stated in the Campaign Document. Any thoughts on this from the group? The games would obviously be open to the current group but time-slots would pretty much be exclusively at my whim and availability. The big question is whether to base the various one-shots in and around Ophir or somewhere else entirely, probably relatively nearby. Upsides of Ophir: the current *characters* could potentially get involved, assuming that they are available in the narrative. Even if not, having various groups of adventurers roaming the area could add to the feeling of a living world rather than a static one. Of course, as the current group starts making an impact on the region, I'd like to start incorporating ways for other powers-that-be to react to them or changing circumstances as well. Upsides of Elsewhere: a chance for current players (if available and interested) to try something else and/or to experience more of the world from a different perspective. There would still be a chance for various groups of adventurers to interact indirectly eventually, assuming the experiment was successful. Having written all that out, in somewhat stream-of-consciousness style, I suspect in and around Ophir will be the superior choice. I'm still curious as to the current group's thoughts on this. I'll likely bring this up in our session tomorrow/tonight, but here on the forums will be the preferred place to comment. One thing likely to be necessary if I press forward with this though will be better communication/collaborative infrastructure: an offsite wiki or google site to help track various happenings.

I've been watching the West Marches actual play (Rollplay on YouTube) which does the open table format. Some people are regulars, others turn up to play for one-offs. What I've noticed is that an awful long time (and I mean awful in every sense of the word) is spent introducing new characters and creating the context for those characters to go out and do stuff. So out of a 3-4 hour session, half or more is taken up with not a lot of forward momentum and exploration simply because there isn't any context to do things until they establish it, which takes time. Imagine how much longer that'd take in a text game... This could be mitigated with forum play to intro and bond characters plus get the adventure hooks in front of the characters. A decision could then be made and play begins immediately when the live game starts. Having the game around Ophir would also help since people in multiple sessions will have that context to draw on. That's rather the premise of West Marches really - there's one starter town and all the adventure is west of there. It keeps it simple and gives everyone the same reference point. I could probably jump into one-shots if they were shorter than our normal session. Four hours is a big block of time. A two-hour session would be great.

"I'd like to start incorporating ways for other powers-that-be to react to them or changing circumstances as well." I love the idea of rolling a one off character who reacts to what our main group is doing/does. For one shots are you thinking 1 on 1 sessions more or less? or the entire group setting up a 2nd day to play different characters? I would also be interested in doing 1 off's between sessions when appropriate (like, if we end in a city) to do things we wouldn't ordinarily do with the entire group. Like if I were to pursue meeting that person with a private collection

TH, definitely having a prewritten context and hook would be important in any one-shot scenario, yeah. And definitely a big plus for Ophir, it didn't occur to me earlier that launching anything out of another city would require a lot more work of me to merely set up that context, which is kinda the opposite of the intent! I'd have to think about the timeframe--probably I'd need to check out some transcripts of 2-hour games to see how pacing is handled, since that would become even more important to get right than in a regularly scheduled game. Lee, the thrust of the idea is indeed for entire groups, but I'd schedule these based on my availability and desire, letting folks here know about it but announcing it to whole roll20 community. I'm not sure how easy it would be for me to run 1 on 1s based on my new and improvedly busy real life schedule, but I'm quite open to running personal "city business" via the forum or private chat when it's appropriate.

If you haven't read them already, here are transcripts of the twelve 2-hour sessions I've run so far in my own game .