A couple of friends outside my normal Errant group want to check out Errant. I figured I’ll run a oneshot, and kick together some pregens… so… a good time to talk about building pregens which is a little different than the usual “just make a character”. This is, of course, for games where we’re talking tactical combat, since the pregens you do for a narrativist focal thing are more about making good motivations that intersect in interesting ways.
70% optimized
Generally, if I’m running a one shot for people new to a game, I build the characters to be “70% optimized”. They have to be good at what they do, but not hyper specialized because usually if you do that, it drastically limits the players’ options AND they don’t learn the system really.
If you do run a oneshot with the expectation of experienced players, you can be more specialized, then, because the players will have a good idea of how to work the more basic systems when they need to adapt outside of their character’s focus.
Play to type, not against
Make it very clear how the character is supposed to be played. Think of how fighting videogames try to telegraph to you what this character is about and how they play. Usually the small characters are fast, the big characters are slow but powerful. If you see a character floating with energy glowing, you figure they have some kind of ranged attacks, etc. In the same sense, make the characters fairly straight forward in what their role is.
This doesn’t mean they can’t have a secondary ability or skill to cover a weak point or give variety, it’s just make sure most of what they do is clearly set up. Since you should be only optimizing 70% of the way anyway, you can usually set up builds with some secondary tools as well.
If you get character art for your pregens, might as well get images that also reflect the type so people can latch on quickly.
Give basic strategies
Write it somewhere on the character sheet. “This warrior is good for getting direct into melee.” “You will do best darting in for your touch attacks then getting distance.” etc. Note that you can also include a bit about the secondary options I mentioned above – “Don’t forget you can use your minor Arcane ability to do some ranged stuff in a pinch” etc.
It also helps to give some basic strategies specific to this system: “Always try to Help each other to get extra dice”, “When your armor breaks, ditch it so you have more inventory space.”, “You can use your Push action to get enemies grouped up for your Big Swing or one of your allies’ AOE attacks”, etc.
This can usually be like 2-4 bulletpoints, enough someone can scan it and get the idea, or, between turns, remind themselves of generally good ideas for the way this game flows.
Extra Rules Notes
Since I play a lot online, I like to put direct links in the character sheets to specific rules or quicksheets of the rules that matter to the characters. Or I’ll just screenshot the section of the rules and drop in the image file right there.
In person, I would make and print front-and-back quicksheets so players could just look at those during the game.
If the character sheet has space, literally include some of the most important rules if you can. It’s one fo the best things I’ve seen going way back to Dogs in the Vineyard, and one of the bits we lose a lot in online character sheets.
Time is a premium
For a oneshot, more than anything, time is a premium. You don’t want to spend time having people trying to look stuff up in the book, having trouble navigating their character sheet, on top of everything else.
A key part to one shots is remembering they’re a one shot; it’s a teaser, a demo, not the full experience. When you try to jam the full experience into the short time of a one shot (for games not already built to do that), it’s like trying to watch a movie at 4x speed. You’ll get… some of the movie, but you’re definitely not getting the full experience anyway.
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