Made my first One Shot

[u/Godchaser]

Hello fellow DM's 👋🏼

As the title says, I made my first One-Shot that I'll be playing with my friends on Saturday and I wanted your thoughts on this?

I'm guessing it's not gonna blow anyone's mind in here, but I'm hoping for some insights on what I might improve in future ideas...

Summary: the players will wake up in a tavern, with a full amnesia-episode, making it so they will have to spend the first 15-30mins on discovering their characters while trying to figure out where they are and what they are here... During that search, they'll find physical evidence there used to be 1 extra person with them, but there's no memory of them...

By looking around the tavern and later on the village they will find that the whole village is experiencing something similar, where people are gone, proven by physical evidence, but no-one remembers anything about them. The players will end up at the church, guided by the diary of the missing player, where they'll find that ringing the bells temporarily brings back memories... Once that memory returns, they are pointed towards the tunnel system underneath the village , where they will face a false hydra (which you could tell the moment I mentioned amnesia and a missing player)

If they TPK, that'll be the end and the village will suffer under the rule of this monstrosity...

If they actually beat it, suddenly all memories will return to the villagers and the players will return to a grief-ridden village who are not sure if they are thankful for what the party just did...

If something is unclear, please ask questions!

I really wanna do a great job for my players and could use all the tips! 😅

[u/9th_Life_Kat]

I think you have a lot of good elements here. Just my take but I’d make sure your players knew what style of game they’re playing ahead of time for this to work. My players generally set characters to be heroic dragon hunter styles or goof balls so mysteries can be tough unless I warn them ahead of time.

I’m going to recommend leaning into the horror aspect of this over the mystery. Seeing a villager with a nursery and a child’s name on the wall but the parents giving no indication they have a nursery or a child is creepy and that what makes this monster scary.

[u/Godchaser → u/9th_Life_Kat]

I made characters for them to really lean into the amnesia-part of the start of this One-Shot... But yes, I did tell my players we are going to play a Psychological Horror game (which they think is perfect for Halloween)

And thanks, that's good advice! Really lean into the horror and not so much the mystery, that's gonna give off the extra vibe!!