Hey all you lumpy headed shield wallers. I just had a fantastic night of gameplay last night and I wanted to share it with you all in case it helps someone else. My regular group couldn’t all meet due to being adults… it sucks, but it’s understandable. A couple of the usual gang did make it, and my friend brought her sister who had never played an rpg,but was curious due to all of the ridiculous stories she was told about them from our campaigns.But I digress.
I didn’t want to run our normal campaign and leave over half the group in the dark, so a 1 shot was a natural choice. The problem was, I had nothing prepared yet for the concept they wanted (to fight giants in my Viking inspired arctic wasteland). So I had an idea. I dumped out all of my modular craft pieces and told one of the players “ build me a dungeon”. His face lit up and about 10 minutes later he was finished. After looking at the features that were created I used the Rolodex of room design in my brain (and in The ICRPG book) to figure out what I could do to mess with the characters, making sure to highlight big spaces he obviously spent more time on. The pinnacle of the night was that he stacked two archways to make a circle which naturally became a circle for summoning giants from their hall. Lots of epic loot rolls and a couple of character deaths later the lone survivor was my friends sister who had never played before, earning her title of “the final james” (she played a male birdfolk priest named James).It was a blast and now I send the challenge out to all you out there in Runehammeria. Let your players build you a dungeon and roll with it!
Improv 1 shot concept
Dude thats an amazing idea!! Why haven’t I thought of that before? Haha anyway sounds like a great night of gameplay.
What a wonderful way to share the creative process. Prep as play! This is why I love having drag-and-drop content in my Rolodex.
That is a great way to put it. Prep as play. That one is goin in the old vocab bank for sure. Now I just have to figure out how to get them involved with the rest of the preparation process and I can just kick back and watch lol
Oh really? That’s rad. I have listened to a bunch of the mainframe episodes, but i must’ve missed that one. I may have to go back in the catalogue and re listen to a few of them!
Awesome Game there, buddy! Thats how a you get a new player to the Hobby. Just great. Now i know how my next “what should we play” Night will end 
Thx for the inspiration 