Dragonslaying on a Timetable:

Running Tight 4-Hour Dungeon World One-Shots

With Zero Preparation
by John Aegard

INTRODUCTION
My literary background is in short genre fiction, so when I run a one-shot of Dungeon World, I want our game
to resemble a simple, traditional fantasy adventure story -- a story in which some characters travel somewhere,
do something, and in the end are all changed by the journey.

I also don’t want to do any preparation beforehand. I don’t want to show up with a setting or a scenario or a
situation. For one, that’s work, and I’m lazy. For two, I don’t want to be telling my story, I want to be helping to
tell our story. I want everyone to contribute ideas. I don’t believe that players have to always squeeze their
contributions through the narrow aperture of their character. I want all the important stuff about our game to
happen right there at the table, not in my head beforehand.

I’ve evolved some techniques that help me hit this mark pretty consistently. If you want to run tight Dungeon
World one-shots, these may be helpful to you!

In my experience, these techniques work for an absolute maximum of five player characters. At five, the
spotlight time is squeezed pretty thin, especially during fights. I think 3-4 is the optimal number.

TIMELINE OF THE GAME

Here are the milestones I want to hit in those four hours:

0:00 Intro. Talk about safety, RPGs, and so forth. Begin making characters and doing Q&A.
0:30 Q&A complete. Characters, setting, and premises set. First encounter begins.
2:15 1st and 2nd scenes done; take 15 minutes to level up and for bio break.
2:30 Final scene begins.
3:45 Final scene done, debrief with the players, thank them for playing.

INTRODUCING DUNGEON WORLD

Here's how I introduce the game and my philosophy:

"Dungeon World is a game of adventure fantasy. You'll play an adventurer in a dangerous world. Maybe you
fight for glory, or for profit, or for good or evil, or out of loyalty to your friends. You'll decide that here at the
table, and the adventure will emerge around your decisions."

"We're not going to play the origin story of this group. We're going to play through one of their adventures, so
we start with everyone knowing each other and traveling together to the same destination. We'll figure out the
dynamics of their relationship and the specific details of our journey after we create our characters."