[Free RPG Day 2024] One-Shot Wonders

Now in its seventeenth year, Free RPG Day for 2024 took place on Saturday, June 22nd. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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One-Shot Wonders is a preview of the One-Shot Wonders, the supplement for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition published by Roll & Play Press. The supplement, which won the 2024 Silver Ennie for Best Adventure – Short Form, contains over a hundred adventures, of which this preview provides a total of seven as samples. These are divided into five, longer, double-page adventures, one shorter, one page adventure, and three hooks, each of which can be used as a one-shot or a sidequest or an extended encounter. All include some stats—Armour Class, Hit Points, Initiative modifier, and key ability—but these are kept to a minimum. This though, has two consequences. The first is that the adventures in the One-Shot Wonders preview can be used in any Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying game or retroclone. The second is that the Game Master will need to undertake some preparation in terms of the extra stats needed. However, on the plus side, the format of each adventure is extremely well done. Below the name of the adventure is its theme, objective, and setting. For example, for the first adventure, ‘Flower Power’, the theme is ‘Adventurous’, the objective is ‘acquisition’, and the setting is an ‘oasis’. After the opening summary, the entry for each adventure gives its start for the Player Characters, lists its important NPCs and gives their quick stats, outlines the ‘Suggested Story’ in bullet point format, describes the quest rewards, its three important locations, the ‘Secrets and Clues’ which will be revealed as the players have their characters play through the scenario. Lastly, there is a base line indicator as to what Level Player Characters the scenario is designed for. This includes notes on to make the scenario harder, or even harder (and occasionally, easier), so that the Game Master can use it with higher Level Player Characters. There is even a broad outline of events given in the footer of the page!

This layout is terrific. It is easy to use and everything is clearly laid out on the page, which even has room for an illustration! The shorter, one-page scenario outline feels slightly more cramped and has less information and so needs more work, but that should not detract from the rest of the book. Of course, the hooks will need much more work.

The anthology opens with ‘Flower Power’ in which the Player Characters are hired by a Druid to harvest a single petal from a plant at a secret oasis, but must contend with a gang of rival plant hunters hired by a wizard and a team of unsurprisingly stubborn team of mules who are the only creatures who know the way. ‘Curtain Call’ is a murder mystery which takes at a performance at a caravan theatre which the Player Characters are called upon to investigate. It has a flexible set-up with three suspects, three motives, and no given murderer, so its outcome can tailored to the result of the Player Characters’ investigation rather than adhere to a set story. ‘Fishy Business’ is probably the most fun adventure in the anthology, ruining the Player Characters’ fish of the day dinner when the chef at the restaurant they are at, comes running out of the kitchen, yelling that the fish, crustaceans, and cephalopods he was preparing for dinner have suddenly come alive and started attacking him! It is up to the Player Characters to engage in a ‘food fight’ and deal with the seafood strike.

The one shorter adventure consists of ‘Sting Operation’. In this, the Player Characters are hired to deal with an outbreak of wasps out of season and become pest controllers, and follow a string of clues to the ultimate cause. The three hooks involve a hunt for a werewolf, an outbreak of undead at a mortuary, and the theft of an artefact by some of the very knights who are parading it through the street. 

The penultimate adventure in the One-Shot Wonders preview is ‘Dangerous Delivery’. The Player Characters are hired as postal workers in a town recently cut off from the rest of the area by snow. The post mistress has lots of deliveries to catch up on and employs them to make a delivery to a reclusive knight whose estate is up a mountain. Unfortunately, after making the difficult journey up to the estate through the barely melted snow, the Player Characters are attacked by several of the animal denizens who live there. This annoys the knight who blames the Player Characters rather than the animals and who also rejects almost all of his post. This is worst entry in the One-Shot Wonders preview and likely to be deeply dissatisfying for the players and their characters as they are subject to an unprovoked attack, and blamed for the attack, and essentially all of their efforts in getting up the mountain are rebuffed.

‘Spectator Sport’ is the last adventure in the One-Shot Wonders preview and the nearest to an actual dungeon in the short anthology. It is a funhouse dungeon in which the Player Characters are trapped in a series of caves which promised to be a carnival of games and challenges in which they could win a mighty jackpot. What follows is a series of deadly games at their expense all to entertain the devilish owner of the complex. In comparison to the other fuller entries in the preview, the adventure feels underwritten, primarily because it is the only entry with a map, so there is less text. The Game Master will probably want to explain why the carnival is the caves and not been noticed before and definitely work out the mechanics of the various games, but this linear—quite literally—adventure has a surprisingly Old School aesthetic and feel to it.

Physically, the One-Shot Wonders preview is very well done. It is bright, breezy, and easy to read. The artwork is decent.

The One-Shot Wonders preview is a bargain. Five adventures which require minimal preparation in order to play? Plus, some hooks should the Game Master be short on ideas? And not only free, but well presented and fun, too? The One-Shot Wonders preview is worth having on the shelf, just in case, all by itself for that reason. Of course, its real purpose is as a showcase for the full One-Shot Wonders: Over 100 Session Ideas for Fantasy RPGs itself, and on the strength of the One-Shot Wonders preview, it looks to be a supplement worth adding to the shelf of the Game Master running any Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying game.