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. Check out the previous posts here (adding sidekicks), here (hexcrawl plots), and here (deadlining fights).

Use a Montage Scene

A montage is a scene where you zoom out of the action for a bit while the PCs travel somewhere, and let the players narrate some scenery and action. They’ll take on some of the GMing duties, to describe what’s happening. It’s a good interstitial scene between more traditionally-played scenes, and allows your players to stretch their creative muscles while giving the one-shot a sense of scale and verisimilitude.

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!

Montages were first used to great effect in 13th Age – as befits a crunchy game that tries to give players a lot of narrative control, they’re ideal to give a break between crunchy action scenes and to flesh out the loosely-painted Dragon Empire setting. But there’s no reason they shouldn’t be used in any game where you want your players to contribute to the story more generally.

Two Kinds of Montage

There’s two ways you can introduce a montage into your one-shot – the diceless montage and the challenge montage. The diceless montage requires more player buy-in and engagement; the challenge montage keeps closer to a traditional player role.

If you’re running your one-shot for strangers, you might think you’re asking a lot of your potential players. In my experience, you don’t need to worry too much. I’ve only seen one player not really get it at a table in all my years of using this in most of my convention games, and even that was easily fixed.

You can give a safety net by having a list of things that could be encountered along the journey; you could even get players to write this themselves. 

So, it looks like you’ll have to cross the Gnolltouched Desert. What dangers, monsters and terrors have you heard about in the desert?

The Diceless Montage

In its purest form, this is just turn taking and storytelling. Go round the table and each player describes a scene on the journey – within some limitations if you like, or just a clear idea of the setting

You’re in some snowy, treacherous mountains. You’re not going to meet other humanoids here, but arctic beasts and even yetis are fair game.

In a 13th Age-style montage, you take this a little further. As you go round  the table each player describes a challenge the party faces, and the next player resolves it. This turn taking adds a little more nuance to the montage above, and is my preferred method.

The Challenge Montage

This works as above, except players describe what their characters do, and then attempt a skill check or similar to resolve the action. This is similar to a skill challenge, with two differences – firstly, they’ll be able to zoom out in their description – the check could be for two weeks of guiding the party through snowy mountains, or keeping them supplied with food in a treacherous journey. And secondly, you don’t have an overarching consequence in mind for success or failure – it’s expected that the journey will be completed successfully, but each check has individual consequences to its roll.

These can be negative on a failure (if you fail the roll on this journey, take a level of fatigue / 1d6 damage / lose an item from your pack), positive on a success (get a Bennie / a useful item / recover 1d6 hp for a successful roll), or – ideally – both. These don’t have to be huge consequences, either – the players just have to feel it smart a little, it’s not a scene with genuine peril.

The clockwork caverns are treacherous – if you fail your skill roll, you’ll be taking 2d8 damage, or 1d6 damage to everyone in the party – I’ll let you choose, depending on what narratively makes sense.

Note that while in a more traditional skill challenge you want the skill checks to be relatively easy (the binomial distribution will make the overall cumulative challenge more difficult), for a challenge montage you don’t have to adjust it – because the sum total of successes and failures doesn’t have meaning beyond the consequences mentioned.

When to Include Your Montage

The montage is a bit of a break from the rest of the mechanics of the game, so it makes sense to include it when your players might need it. And if you’re doing a challenge montage, you want the consequences to be felt, so don’t let your players rest after it.

An ideal time is either just after the first action scene, or just before the final one. If you do it near the start, your players will come up with lots of juicy setting details that you can then throw back at them using reincorporation. If you do it at the end, it sets them up for an epic finale.

So, part four of supercharging your one-shots is to have a montage scene. Subscribe to not miss any more in this 2d4-part series!