Have you gotten with Astarion or maybe you were blown up by Gale for the hundredth time? Are your adventures as wild as you had hoped…have you even gotten out of character creation!? Well if you’re one of the legendary few who have, why don’t you take a step into the real world of D&D so you can go back into an imaginary one!
I get it, DMing for the first time can be scary, you might not even know where to start. The prep alone can seem like a mountain to climb. You find a cool-looking One-Shot open the PDF or book and just think to yourself, how in the heck do I turn this into an actual session?
Well, I’ve got you covered! I want as many people out there as possible to experience the Amazing world of D&D and most importantly DMing! I’ve taken the following One-Shots and Mini-Campaigns and fully prepped them so you can run an unforgettable session with ease! The best part, all of it’s free for you to use!
Let’s dive in:
A Most Potent Brew: This One-Shot brings together a group of rookie adventurers on a classic quest; clearing out a cellar from some rats. Things take an unexpected turn though and lead them to their first dungeon! This level-one One-Shot will take your players into the depths of a brewery, that turns out to be connected to an abandoned mage tower basement. Will your players survive their first adventure slaying giant rats, centipedes, and more?
Coming in at approximately 2-3 hours of play, this is the perfect one shot for both new players and DMs to show what D&D is all about, without being an overwhelming 6hr+ session!
(Credits: Winghorn Press)
The Wild Sheep Chase: This One-Shot is on par with some of the craziness that you can experience in Baldur’s Gate 3! Your party will be enjoying a relaxing time at a tavern when a sheep suddenly bursts in and grants them a scroll that allows them to speak with each other. Your players will go on an epic chase, face off against polymorphed guards, and even fight a dragon…made out of a bed!? You can’t make this stuff up…oh wait!
(Credits: Winghorn Press)
Dragons of Stormwreck Isle: This Mini-Campaign is for when you’re ready to step things up and want a more serious Adventure. You’ll go from level 1-3 learn of the history of Stormwreack Isle and face off against…you guessed it a dragon!
(Credits: WoTC)
The Lost Mine of Phandelver: This Mini-Campaign spans from levels 1-5, the only thing past this would be a full-blown campaign, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves! This one is a classic, the very first starter set that WotC released and it stands the test of time, Heck, they’re making an expansion for it coming out later this month! You’ll face not 1 but 2 dragons, explore deadly dungeons, save a town, and live out all of your heroic fantasies! When you’ve done a one-shot or two I couldn’t recommend running this more!
(Credits: WoTC)
If none of those tickle your fancy I’ve got over 2 dozen more sessions fully prepped and ready to go for you, here’s a preview of what else I have to offer!
Other Fully Prepped One-Shots, Adventures, and Campaigns:
- We Be Goblins - Click Here
- Curse of Strahd - Coming Soon
- The Egg of Estyr - Click Here
- Into Ivy Mansion - Click Here
- Wolves of Welton - Click Here
- To the End of Time - Click Here
- Moon over Graymoor - Click Here
- A Wild West One-Shot - Click Here
- The Drunken Treasure - Click Here
- A Grimdark Adventure - Click Here
- D&D vs Rick and Morty - Click Here
- The Wizards Treehouse - Click Here
- A Prison Break One-Shot - Click Here
- The Barber of Silverymoon - Click Here
- The Tavern at Death’s Door - Click Here
- Shadow of the Broodmother - Click Here
- L’Arsène’s Ludicrous Larceny - Click Here
- The Night Before Wintermas - Click Here
- The Secret of Skyhorn Lighthouse - Click Here
If you’d like to support me, shape future releases, and get content early feel free to check out my Patreon!
Cheers,
Advent
Man, this woulda been really useful a couple days back. After finishing Baldur’s for the second time I managed to talk to my guys into doing a one shot. Found no easily digestible guides online and crammed enough info to write a one shot on my own.
Made the maps on Rimworld, made statblocks on illustrator and ai image generation, wrote a bunch of notes and flavor text in case my players end up wandering and picking pockets, etc. Didn’t know DMing was this much work. It’s fun, though. Hardest thing so far is balancing encounters. We’re bound to begin next wednesday, earliest we could do as a group.
Starting up the first D&D game is the hardest game to start, especially if one isn’t used to nomenclature in the hobby. How obvious is it that a “one-shot” is a scenario made to be played and completed within a single session? This time and age though there are so many resources out there that is easy to get that foot in the door.
That said D&D is a hard system to get started with. You mention it yourself - maps, foes, encounters etc. It can easily become overwhelming. And the system doesn’t do any favours in this department as it between the lines urges towards perfection. If you have the time I can recommend you to read (the GM chapter of) Apocalypse World. It has its special tone but it is so good. Really help me to get out of “prep hell” and to embrace Play to Find Out.
Two GM toolkits I also would love to recommend you, and both are free, are Kevin Crawford’s “Worlds Without Numbers” and Shawn Tomkin’s “Ironsworn”. While they are full, playable and great systems they contain so many tables for inspiration and use. Especially love Crawford’s One-Roll tables.
DMing can certainly be a lot of work but it’s real rewarding and hey guess what If your players love it you can always use any of these resources for future sessions!
100% agree that balancing encounters can be difficult! One tip is that you can take a look at other One-Shots/Adventures that are already balanced and around the level you’re looking for and use those!
Yeah. I expect three of four will really get into it and enjoy the experience, the other 3 will probably drop after the first session, but I’ve accounted for that possibility. I really, really like the creative aspect of this, and the problem solving. Let’s see how I like being the DM.
Oh wow so 7 players total, that’s quite a bit, especially for a first-time DM, I usually don’t recommend more than 5. I pick 5 because if one player bails then you have 4 which to me is the perfect number! Having a ton of players can really draw out fights and for social encounters can leave people out of the limelight.
Ywah, balancing anything because of that was real tough. But I let the others in cus honestly, I don’t see them enjoying it, but I’m not gonna say no if they want to try it. Today we’ll be running a combat sim, partly because they don’t understand how combat works, but also because this will help me balance things, they’ll be using their campaign characters against fighter, ranger, and warlock statblocks, which will be what they’ll encounter during the campaign.
Just be careful those who aren’t interested don’t ruin it for those who are! Keep us posted on how your game goes, I’m super curious!!!
Ran a combat sim, just wrapped up. It was goddamn hilarious. Paladin got one shot in his first turn, rogue and wizard got critical failures back to back, but managed to clutch it.
Haha nice, that alone might help get your players into D&D!
My suggestion for balancing encounters? Don’t. As long as the monsters and traps feel appropriate, full balancing is unnecessary. There’s a couple reasons for this. One, your players will escape or beat situations in ways that you could never have imagined, and; two, if things get too hard and everyone’s really struggling, you can scale back the encounter and even fudge dice rolls if it makes narrative sense to do so. Deus Ex Machina is not off the table either, for D&D at least. Remember, your players are heroes: something saving them right as all hope was lost is par for the course. The only time characters should die permanently imo is when it makes for a compelling story.
Oh yeah, I have designed the encounter with at least two “oh fuck” buttons that make narrative sense during their first encounter. And that’s right after I’ve given them opportunity to get acquainted with how skill checks work, and how dice rolling works, as well as how social interactions work. I’ve spent the better part of two weeks planning for all my plans to come apart, to better aid them in doing whatever they want. Also, doing a ton of visual aid, as half of them don’t really use their imagination much
In truth, this isn’t a one shot. It will take two sessions if they’re quick and figure out the foreshadowing I’ve laid down, which I expect two of them to do. Three if they haven’t or if the more impatient take the lead, as there’s a time limit and the big bad will pop out of his cave.