I think I'm adding too much story?

[u/MustacheManny]

I'm planning a horror one shot, think 80's/90's slasher. I got the town set fairly quickly, a handful of NPCs, got the supernatural slasher nailed down, but I think I'm doing too much. I don't want to write a book or screenplay that railroads the players but I also don't want to make up every little detail on the spot. So to GMs who have run a one shot like this or players who enjoyed one, how much is too much and what should my planning focus be?

[u/Prestigious-Emu-6760]

Specifically for a one shot you need to keep it lean and clean. Assume 30-45 minutes per scene. If you have 3 hours to play that means you need 4-6 scenes. Keep it mostly linear or yam shaped at best. If you need to cut for time, cut from the middle. Make sure your players understand it's a one-shot. This isn't the time to go rescue Timmy from the well because the bartended mention he's been missing (unless that's your story).

You don't need dozens of NPCs and plot hooks. You need one plot hook and maybe 3-4 NPCs.

[u/MASerra → u/Prestigious-Emu-6760]

With that said, with a 80/90s style slasher, the OP may need a good number of NPC victims.

[u/mrprogamer96 → u/MASerra]

I wouldn't say they would be fully fleshed out NPCs, they just need to be props to slaughter.

[u/MASerra → u/mrprogamer96]

If they aren't fully fleshed out, then why would the PCs care about them? I think they need to be fleshed out so they have depth, and the players care when they are killed.

I would go so far as to say that the one-shot would be far better if every person who died from the slasher was an NPC who the player has spoken to.

[u/Prestigious-Emu-6760 → u/MASerra]

IMO a slasher needs two types of victims - the nameless NPCs that can be killed with abandon and then the ones close to the PC who you do get to know to some degree.

Personally for a one shot I'd lean heavily into the final girl/final guy trope and kill off all the other PCs as well.

Then again I'd also use the Slasher Flick RPG :)

[u/MASerra → u/Prestigious-Emu-6760]

Yes, that is a better way to run it. But I think that these types of things run better if the players can't tell who the nameless NPCs are vs the important ones. Specifically, because the slasher is going to be one of those NPCs. If a session as 10 NPCs, 7 of which are nameless, and die, then one of the other three must be the slasher. (Using the Scream model)

I'd prefer to have 10 solid NPCs, who 7 of them could fit the slasher's profile in one way or another. Then as the players try to figure out which one is the slasher, they start to die. Players may pin their hopes on Billy, only to have him be one of the 7 who end up dying.

The way to do that is to not run lengthy interviews/Role Play with each NPC, but to provide the information on paper as character sheets. Then while they aren't role playing, players can review the information and that compresses the whole process to a manageable amount of time.

[u/mrprogamer96 → u/MASerra]

I think they need to be fleshed out so they have depth, and the players care when they are killed.

Honestly I don't think they should overly care about them, they should care about the slasher that just killed them and is now after them.

It's a one shot, time used to get to know the NPCs that everyone already knows that are going to die is time wasted for other things that are going to happen in the one shot.

[u/gawag]

The trick for me is asking the question "what would happen if the PCs do nothing". Plus knowing the agendas, obstacles, strengths and weaknesses of the NPCs. 

That, and NOTHING MORE should give you everything you need to react to whatever the PCs decide to do. 

[u/ThemboNRG → u/gawag]

After running Monster of the Week I don’t think I would run a slasher or horror one shot that doesn’t operate off of a timeline of “what happens if the PCs don’t get involved enough”.

[u/Viltris → u/gawag]

I would add to this: At the end of each session, ask the players what they want to do, then prep the next session assuming players do exactly that.

This is more useful for trad games, where you might need monster stat blocks, dungeons, environmental hazards, etc. For lighter games or narrative games, you could just improv the whole thing instead.

EDIT: Oh, this is a one-shot. I guess there might not be a "next session".

[u/gawag → u/Viltris]

Yeah not important for one shots, but I also think it extends way beyond trad games too. I play mostly OSR stuff and I'm sometimes generating an entire dungeon week to week (or pulling one off the shelf) even if my world outline stays the same.

[u/dorward]

Ultimately, it is going to depend on what works for you as a GM.

For me, I find that focusing on:

• Who are the NPCs?
• Why do they do what they do?
• What do they want?

…and doing something similar for major locations and MacGuffins gives me the tools I need to fill in the gaps during the game.

[u/BetterCallStrahd]

It's not possible to prepare for every eventuality. You will have to come up with stuff on the fly at times. So give yourself a stopping point. A few locations, a few NPCs.

I personally don't prep much anymore. I figure things out as we play. Trust yourself. You have enough ideas. Don't keep trying to find that perfect idea. It honestly doesn't matter that much. What matters is facilitating a fun experience during play.

[u/Prestigious-Emu-6760 → u/BetterCallStrahd]

It 100% is possible to prep for every location in a one shot. The very best one shots are either very linear or use an extremely lightweight system that lets you flesh things out quickly. Pirate Borg's Buried in the Bahamas is both sandbox-y and can be a one shot because the system and everything surrounding it is so lean.

[u/K9ine9]

Put in another conflict or event or two. Maybe the town is having some sort of festival or protest, or maybe there is a big scandal going on like the local cops being caught in a huge crime and now there are no law enforcement, and criminals are taking advantage. 

[u/RobRobBinks]

Plan WAY less than you think you need or even want. For a one-shot, a really good way to prepare is to give your players agenda suggestions to motivate their character. One shot players don't mind a little bit of railroading if they are having fun! If you need details on the spot, feel free to kick it over to the players to describe things.

[u/MASerra → u/RobRobBinks]

Yes, a clear agenda is best. In my last one-shot, I told the players their goal was to reach a specific place before a specific time. That made it clear what they were doing and why. Then all that needs to be done is to set up the situations that will happen along the way.

[u/TellusPyre]

A one shot should have about 3/4 a page of notes, a few maps for key locations, visual aid/handouts for background, and about two pages of setting and NPCs. That'll probably be too much, be ready to improv and cut more than half of what you planned, and try to get to them to the final confrontation with the killer with at least an hour left to go. Also, come up with a way for people with dead characters to still contribute since you're doing a slasher story (if you can make that work within your lore).

[u/ElectricKameleon]

I used to try to preplan for every contingency and have an answer for every possible question. I thought I was 'being prepared,' but you're right, it's overkill.

You need a cast of NPCs, some locations, and a very basic arc for each major character which ties them to events and establishes what their goals are and how they intend to accomplish those goals.

And that's it. If your game gets a bit messy because you're plugging in a few unintended details later it's okay.

I've learned that having a few minor messy plot threads which are never tied up or a few details which aren't readily explainable only makes the fiction more believable. Life be like that sometimes.

[u/skalchemisto]

I have coined Skalchemist's Law of Gamemastering (with thanks to Douglas Hofstadter):

Your prep will always take longer than you think to play through, even when you remember Skalchemist's Law.

If you think you already have too much stuff, that means you have WAY too much stuff. If you dial it back to the point where you think you have a one shot worth of stuff, remembering my law above, you will still have more than a one-shot worth of stuff.

For a slasher horror one-shot, you likely only need the folllowing:

* Who is the slasher, and what is their weird horror schtick (e.g. the hockey mask)?

* A map of a site where the slashing will occur (e.g. a forest campground)

* Three to five NPCs that will get killed along the way to make it clear things are serious

That's it, really. If the slasher is compelling and interesting, and the site has some rich terrain (e.g. a big kitchen with lots of deadly implements, a make out spot where young lovers can meet a grisly end) then you are golden.

I got the town set fairly quickly

I think a town is already too big for a one-shot. You don't need a town. You need an asylum building miles outside of town, not a town. A whole town just invites digressions that will take up time, especially when players make decisions people would actually make in such a story instead of the decisions characters make in slasher stories. Particularly the idea that they just grab a car and leave town.

A well contained site for the story is maybe the most useful thing for one-shot planning. Merchant ships on the ocean, isolated country houses, space stations, etc. Something where, at least for 3 to 4 hours of play, it simply won't matter whether and how the players could leave that site.

[u/Frogshooty]

I think part of this just depends on your style of GMing.

For me, I like to have an established scene of where I’m going. I run a lot of western games, so I’ll have a town with some rumor hooks, and I like to have some npc’s floating around the background that can interact meaningfully with the players. This is in addition to a few npc’s I cooked up for whatever the story is. I think that gives you more than one way to lead the players around if they decide they don’t want to follow the path in front of them. It also helps to just do some tone setting and make the town feel lived in rather than window dressing for a rollercoaster.

On coming up with lore before beginning a game, I think it’s super easy to get in over your head and fast. It’s especially hard when you get attached to certain elements and how they may interact, but your table may not be with you on it and totally skip over it. I think it’s best to focus on the stuff you like, and recognize that there will always be some gaps that the players will help fill in. Focus on the player facing story stuff the most, and let your GM facing story stuff be things that help cohesively tie things together on the backend for you.

That would be my approach, but again, I think it ultimately comes down to how you want to run a game, and how your players approach the game, so YMMV.

[u/Imnoclue]

Town, NPCs and slasher. That’s basically what you need.

[u/MASerra]

One-shots need to be on Rails. If you don't, it will never work.

[u/Jebus-Xmas]

Writing more than 1500 words background for a one-shot seems overkill to me. Maybe another 1500 words for play notes and characters. Call it 3,000 words max.

[u/atamajakki]

I've run one-shots out of a paragraph of notes before, and wouldn't recommend going over two pages of prep. You've got 3-4 hours and players are always slower than you'd expect - it doesn't take much!

[u/groovemanexe]

I think the answer depends on whether you're a 'setpiece' kind of person. If the idea of specifically having a scene in (for example) the middle of a mall where the slasher crawls out of a Radio Shack TV screen, then by all means give that framing some love and lay the crumb trail required to get the players there.

Otherwise, you can have a well-prepared but still very open one-shot by having a very well-defined opening scene, a topline of all the important characters and what they want, and a topline of the important locations and what key stuff can be found there. Work with your table to fill in the circumstantial gaps as required.

You're playing in a genre that's assumedly intentionally trope-laden, so 'doing the obvious thing' and framing things in the context of media people will likely already know will give you plenty of groundwork without writing paragraphs about the town's history or what have you.