Five TTRPGs Perfect For Your Party’s Next One-Shot
One-shots are the perfect way to dip outside the normal waters you might expect from an RPG, and these five are some of the best.
One-shot games deliver experiences like few others. A one-shot RPG is exactly that: a game designed to be played in a single session of play. There’s no expectation of a long campaign. And consequently, no need to worry about syncing up schedules more than like once. A one-shot RPG can be a perfect way to tell a story and live outside your normal expectations for what an RPG can be.
Like a good short film or a novella that tells a succinct, but meaningful story, one-shot games are a great way to share memorable moments with your friends. They’re also great ways for getting people new to RPGs on board.
And these five RPGs are absolutely perfect for running a one-shot game. They’re everything you need to play in one easy package.
Bluebeard’s Bride
Do you like horror? Dark faerie tales? Bluebeard’s Bride is an award-winning RPG of investigatory horror. In it, you and your friends play as different aspects of the personality of a young bride, who is newly-wed to an ugly, but powerful man with a blue beard.
The game takes its name from the dark fairy tale, only now you and your friends are the ones exploring the rooms of a broken place, trying to decide what you’ll do once you discover what lies beyond the forbidden door.
This is a fantastic horror RPG. It showcases some of the flexibility that RPGs have. You have to decide together what your Bride will do, and whether or not you’ll end up being faithful or disloyal, as well as what happens next.
For the Queen
Want a game that surprises you as you head for what you think the ending is? For the Queen is a card-based RPG that you can start playing in minutes. You and up to five other players can jump in, telling the story of a queen on a journey, who comes under attack. The game asks the question: will you defend her?
Figuring out the answer is trickier than you think. It’s super fast to jump into, pick a Queen and start playing. You’ll use cards to collaboratively tell the story of your relationships to the queen. Whether they’re fueled by devotion, love, or betrayal, you’ll start answering questions and discovering what you know about the Queen and the moments of your journey.
It’s an incredible experience, so much so that, for now, the only way you can get it is through Roll 20. Currently, designer Alex Roberts is gearing up for a 2nd Edition. In the meantime though, Roll 20 makes it easy to play.
Fiasco
This game is an award-winning RPG that will transform you and your friends from a collection of gamers sitting around a table to the cast of a Coen Brothers film in a surprisingly short amount of time. It’s a fantastic game that you can start playing very quickly. There’s absolutely no prep or GM required for this one.
All you need is a handful of six-sided dice, an index card, and the willingness to make bad decisions with even worse impulse control. Over the course of a single evening, you’ll wonder “how did we end up here?”
And here is like, in the back of a van that is actively on fire, holding the dog you kidnapped at arm’s length as you careen towards a cliff edge. If you want to play a character like you’d drive a stolen car, this is absolutely the game for it.
Dread
This game accomplishes what few other horror RPGs do. It makes the players feel just as scared/tense as their characters. And the way it does this is by making you rely on the frailty and ineptitude of your cursed meat body.
No appeals to dice rolls here. Dread is an RPG you play through with a Jenga set. And if your b-hole just clenched, you know exactly what you’re in for. For the rest of you, who weren’t traumatized in front of your friends at a restaurant with one of those giant Jenga sets you thought would be fun to play “just to see if it holds up”, any time your character tries something, you pull from the stack.
And if it falls apart in real life it falls apart in the game. It’s awful. I love it. You should try it.
The Quiet Year
It wouldn’t be a list of great one-shot RPGs without mentioning one of the all-time greats. The Quiet Year is one of those RPGs you can read about, but you won’t really know the magic of it until you play. And suddenly you’ll find that you’ve unlocked the secrets to building a world.
To design a rich tapestry that only you and your friends could come up with. No game will ever feel the same. It’s a fantastic way to tell a story and have an ending that sticks with you long after the playing is done and you’ve gone home.
Can’t recommend it enough.
What are your favorite one-shot RPGs?
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