What a one-shot is, and whether yours should be first

A one-shot is a game of D&D that starts and finishes in one sitting. Characters are usually handed to you already built, the story has an ending written into it, and when the session is over nobody owes anybody another Tuesday.

What's different inside a one-shot

Everything gets compressed, and good one-shots are designed around that rather than pretending otherwise.

• Pre-made characters. Character creation is an hour you don't have. A good one-shot hands you a sheet with a personality and a reason to be there already on it.
• A hook you can't refuse. There's no time for the party to decide to go somewhere else. The premise starts the story already in motion.
• Fewer, bigger scenes. Three or four set pieces, not twelve rooms.
• An actual ending. This is the part players remember. Campaigns often just stop, but a one-shot finishes.

When a one-shot is the right first game

It's the right start if any of these are true. You've never played and want to find out whether you like it before committing a weeknight. You have a group that has never played together and you want to see how they get along. You can spare one evening this month and not one evening every week. Or you want to try a system you've not played, without a campaign's worth of rules to learn.

When it's the wrong one

A one-shot can't give you the thing most people are after. The good part of this hobby is the accumulation: a character who's different in session forty from session one, a table that develops in-jokes, a decision from months ago coming back. None of that fits in four hours. If what you want is a game you look forward to every week, a one-shot will read as pleasant and thin, and you'll have tested the wrong thing.

What we run

Crit Fails is built around ongoing campaigns rather than one-shots, so we'll be straight about that: what we offer a new player is a session zero and a first session, and you're not charged for a campaign you decided against afterwards. In practice that gives you the same low-risk trial a one-shot does, with the difference that if you like it, the story keeps going instead of ending.

If a true one-shot is what you want, ask in the Discord anyway. Our Dungeon Masters run them between campaigns, and we'd rather point you at the right thing than sell you the wrong one. The rates are published either way.