In this series, I’m going to be showcasing some techniques you can drop into almost any one-shot TTRPG session to improve it – even if the adventure you’re running is already published, these will make it better. Each one is minimum-prep, and guaranteed to be well worth it at the table.

In Part 1, we looked at hirelings and sidekicks. In Part 2, we looked at a hexcrawl structure. Today, we’re looking at improving set-piece fights by DEADLINING THEM.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

Deadline Fights?

You know how in a particular d20-based TTRPG, sometimes fights just drag? Don’t let them, by… not letting them. This can happen in almost any medium/high crunch system, and it’s always tricky to manage in-game. The (correct) principle of letting the dice decide sometimes leads to the dice making suboptimal decisions – like everyone missing for an entire round of combat and spending fifteen minutes achieving nothing. Unpicking this in the moment is hard – because combat is one of the times in a game where the GM needs to have their “neutral referee” hat on instead of their “exciting storyteller” wig.

How This Works

Decide ahead of time how long you want the combat to be. Usually, 3 Combat Rounds is the sweet spot. If you want to surprise yourself, you can use a variation below – or for a particularly epic battle, you might go as far as 4-6 rounds – but that’s probably enough, unless you’re going to massively change the combat

After this time is up, decide who’s won – the remaining enemies will flee, surrender, or otherwise disperse. Usually this will be the PCs opponents – of course, if it’s the PCs who are losing, you players may want to carry on fighting – and let them – but if they’re winning, let them win.

A good idea is to flag at the end of each round where you are in the circuit. Plan this ahead of time – you could have the orc shaman barking orders the party can hear, or environmental effects that echo – symbolically or literally – how much longer you have. Your fight deadline could be literal, of course – the chasm will collapse in 4 rounds – but plan to narrate this each round.

Variations

There’s few ways to mix this up

• Give your fight a random length – 2d2 or 2d3 rounds is often a good range. 2 round battles are great for the start of a one-shot where you just want the players to get their swords wet and their heads around the system
• Instead of a set number, roll to see if it ends each round; in 13th Age, for instance, roll 1d6 and if it’s equal to or below the escalation dice, you could end it there. Or just roll a growing pool of dice and look for a set number. This works well for random-ish environmental effects, and you could even let the players affect it by trying to stop (or help) the chasm collapse
• Instead of a hard deadline, have things get progressively worse for everyone. End of round events are for a separate post, but having everyone save at increasing difficulty to avoid getting knocked prone (in the collapsing chasm example) is a way to escalate everything. 

So, part three of supercharging your one-shots is deadline your fights. Subscribe to not miss any more in this 2d4-part (see what I did there) series!