From Spencer Campbell’s GILA RPG’s, home of the LUMEN system, comes HUNT – a diceless one-shot system of doomed beast-hunting knights. It’s a flavourful mix of shared narration and tactical combat, and well worth checking out if you want a one-shot narrative system to use at a convention or game night.
Continue reading →Month / October 2023
Guiding the Ironlands – how to run Ironsworn as a One-Shot
Ironsworn, Shawn Tomkin’s RPG of dark fantasy with solo, guided, and GMless modes, is one of the most exciting releases to the hobby in recent years. With its sci fi sequel, Starforged, now established it’s beginning to get some decent play on the convention circuit – and it plays really well with a GM (in ‘guided’ mode) as well. So here are some tips if you want to get it to the table.
Continue reading →The Fire In Men’s Hearts – a mystery for Vaesen
Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine is a fantastic, pay what you want, supplement for Vaesen that brings a wide range of Vaesen from Ukraine to the game. Illustrated by a selection of artists, it’s a good old fashioned bestiary. Each Vaesen has several plot hooks and ideas, and there’s a real range here.
After meeting Tasha and Oleg from Idea Roll over at The Kraken, at Unconventional GMs we recorded a mystery based on one of the Vaesen from the book, and here’s my (largely unedited) prep notes to run the mystery. The recording is over on the channel here – it comes in at just over 2 hours of play, although it could easily be a 3-4 hour game with a bit less pushing and pace. Over on the channel we’re trying to demonstrate how much you can pack into 2 hours – at your own table you may want to luxuriate a bit.
Continue reading →Bandits! Bandits! – an underrated low-level antagonist
Prepping a low-level fantasy adventure? Then you need to realise that the ultimate antagonists aren’t goblins, orcs, or kobolds – but bandits! Too often an extra in the TTRPG space, they can and should be the centre of your prep.
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Burn After Running: RPG One-Shots 