Micro adventures? and advice

[kg8jk]

Hello,
New here to the forum. I am starting an rpg group at the high school where I teach. We are thinking just very short sessions for now (45 minutes) one day a week. I was wondering if anyone had any extremely short adventures (I am calling them "Micro Adventures) that they could share. Just something to let them get the idea of what old school pencil and paper RPGs are like. I will probably start with a simple encounter of some sort (level 1 monster), maybe the back story is they are on their way to a village and are attacked. Something like that. Later I will try and add a little more Role-play to it. Anyone have anything that would work for such a short time period? Not a problem if it takes more than one session but I don't want to get into anything too long as the school year is ending in June. I do have the Adventure Anthology and am looking at that for once we get going. Maybe next year start with BF1.

So far I have made up character sheets for each class with basic equipment for each and beginning armor and weapons (leather, short sword) and gave each full HP except for the Fighter which I gave 6HP in case they want to be an Elf. I am going to let them decide what kind of character they want to play (class/race) then have them roll their numbers. If they don't get a 9 for their prime requisite, I am going to let them switch that roll with another one that is closest to 9. For example, if they want to be a fighter and they roll Str -8, Int - 12, Wis - 10, Dex - 14, Con - 4, Cha -11 - I would let them swap their strength and wisdom rolls to fit the fighter. Later as we get a little more into it, they can roll up their own at home.

I haven't played in quite some time and have done little to no GMing. To try and keep things simple for me, I am going to ignore a lot of stuff for now (encumbrance for example unless it is quite obvious - they are carrying too much and trying to run etc.) I am also thinking of just having one saving throw for everyone/everything. Looking at the different values for save against Death Ray 12 looks about average for a level 1 character so I thought I would use that. Later we can add more as I get comfortable with the GM role (unless I can get one of the students to take that on).

Any suggestions and materials would be very helpful. Our school tends to have extra curricular activities that end up costing a lot so I am excited to offer something that doesn't involve much money. (tired of the "haves" vs "have nots") Some paper, pencils and a bag of snacks from the dollar store and we are ready to go.

Eventually I would like to publish something for complete newbies (like Blue Holmes but not so confusing). I will have lots of questions about that later.
Thanks.
Dirk

[Dimirag]

Welcome to the forum!

As you are going to do fast and easy adventures do not take to much preparation, specially if you are a little rusty on the GMing and your players are new, just tray to be ready for whatever the players do.

There is a supplement ton the Whorkshop that deals with single value Saving Throws, so, if you wish to play for the long run with that system go ahead and use it.

For the Ability Scores: Rolling a PC takes no time but for new players it could end up eating some of their time or giving them a bad taste if they roll low on their abilities, one solution is that you roll all characters, trying to give them a 9 on their required ability and an extra 9 that they can switch for another score if they wish to play non-humans.

Alternative, roll the dice and note the numbers and let each player to accommodate them, using the same rolls for everyone will give them a random "fairness".

Adventure: There are lots of possibilities, if they already know each other then make a narration of what happened that lead them to where they are, let them say how they meet another character, they'll get some roleplay and will create their pc's bonds. Put them at the entry of a cave or a basement, perhaps they are dong a "cleaning" job against rats (that can lead to an old tunnel being discovered with some undead inside and something important happening at the end of the road), maybe its a job as a favor to somebody they know, or a job granted to new adventurers by the locals, etc, etc.

Remember that whatherver you do the mos important thing is to have a fun time.

[Solomoriah]

Use the "flipping" option for ability rolls:

After a player rolls all of his or her ability scores, add up the total bonuses and penalties; if the total is negative, subtract all the scores from 21. This makes a 3 an 18, for example. Flipping the scores when the bonus/penalty total is negative makes that total positive in all cases, but the character might still have some scores with penalties.

[teaman]

If you need shorter adventures, here's a link to the One-Page Dungeon contest page. They have a ton of downloads. I've used some of them for inspiration over the years.

http://www.onepagedungeon.info/one-page ... test-2014/

[kg8jk]

If you need shorter adventures, here's a link to the One-Page Dungeon contest page. They have a ton of downloads. I've used some of them for inspiration over the years.

http://www.onepagedungeon.info/one-page ... test-2014/

Perfect! That looks great! Thanks.

[Longman]

45 minutes is super short.

To start with, I would pick fairly tough monsters from the core rules - say, 3-4 HD - and base the session around defeating those, one at a time. It's much easier to keep track of one bigger creature, than a bunch of smaller creatures.

Suggestions -
A Hangman Tree positioned on a path where the party are travelling.
A Bugbear, who sneaks up on them.
A Doppelganger who impersonates a friend of the party.
A Gelatinous Cube lurking near a dungeon entrance.

etc.

To make things easy, give each monster 5 HP per hit die, and remember that its Attack Bonus is the same as its HD. Just write down AC, Attacks and Damage and you pretty much have the monster prepared.

A fight with a monster like that could take the full 45 minutes or it could take 5 minutes, depending on what happens and how fast you play. So just prepare for a bunch of them, and then put them in the party's way. I'd avoid any module that seems like it has an inbuilt plot that needs to be finished - - you never know how smart they are going to be, in working out plot clues.

Keep it simple and open. Have a wilderness area containing random monsters, as well as numerous small dungeons or caves that have 1-2 monsters each.

And yeah...have fun.