The Mighty Fall Down to Size in the Temple of the Tortoise

Adventures are perilous and uncertain activity for any to be involved in. It's easy to be swept up in the activity of searching long forgotten places and rummaging for treasures beyond the wildest dreams of avarice. That said, the dangers of monsters and madness can take their heavy toll on these heroes.

Over the long life of an adventurer, they can gain a great deal of power and expertise in their travels. This is represented in game play terms by experience and levels. Those who have been around a long time have mastery over their powers and abilities. The more experienced and veteran adventurers may be pretty heavily reliant on their own skills and experience, so when they face a time when they're away from their full suite of powers and equipment may harm them as much the monsters and hazards of adventure.

We here at Apotheosis Studios love to build rich and long adventures for an entire campaign, but not all adventures take a character across the world and span a lifetime. Sometimes an adventure can be a day in a single place. Working out what the One Shot is trying to do and how it works is key for making this feel as fun and developed as possible.

Building a One Shot

The One Shot is a very popular format for adventure. Most players of any table top role playing game are familiar with it. The idea of an entire adventure is boiled down and run as efficiently as possible in one single session. It's an ambitious thing, and not as easy as it sounds.

What could possibly go wrong in the running and management of a One Shot? I'd recommend it for a Game Master who is incredibly familiar with the players they're working with. If you're bringing in newer players or unfamiliar friends, there can be an even greater level of unforeseen randomness that can drag the story out.

A party always has much to discuss as a DM has much to plan - you meet in a tavern by zoltan boros

Next, the One Shot needs a remarkable amount of additional planning. With ongoing sessions, at least in my own experience, you're able to run a fairly cohesive narrative with a few lines of play of what the player characters may want to do. Those who are particularly adept at improvising may work with even less, but those who need more structure can plan a great deal in preparation for their sessions.

One Shots need a very concise level of planning to ensure that the beats of the story you want to get told don't take up more time than you have allotted. This may involve a little rail road style of direction on the part of the Game Master, but this is one of the few times keeping your players on a subscribed story path is acceptable.

There are many ways to keep your party of adventurers on course with the micro adventure you want to tell. The one I implement the most, and one I use to keep things on track in an ongoing campaign as well as my One Shots, is being vague. Most players will pick up on the cues you weave as a Game Master. Even ones you don't intend to drop. If you give a lot of detail, a player may think that you're implying that something is interesting and want to unpack it; to investigate it further. If you deliberately describe only things that don't relate to the concise quest you want to tell in your single session adventure.

Now we know how to keep a single session adventure on course, we should probably ask ourselves how to even plan or run a One Shot. It's never as tricky as building sessions and arcs for entire campaigns, or multi part adventures. With One Shots, it usually comes from a single idea. One clear idea running through the whole adventure is usually enough to build from a concept to an entire mini adventure.

I myself usually run long and ongoing campaigns, but I've had the fortune of playing in some wonderful games in my time. Memorable encounters include a literal pay to play adventure with a bait-and-switch ending and the visit to a wizard's house, only to find that we had gone somewhere we think is incredibly far away. I won't go into too much detail about what those adventures were like, as they weren't my own. Not exactly fair of me to share another Game Master's excellent ideas.

Once we have an idea, and we know how to guide them along, we can bring it to our players. Usually they bring in a whole new character for a story like this. Sometimes they want to tell a contained story too, and sometimes they want to test a certain combination of classes and powers. The One Shot is a very free form way for everyone at the table to just play.

Temple of the Tortoise

Though I won't talk about my friends' ideas, I will gladly share my own. An idea for a One Shot intended for incredibly powerful characters would be a very fun experiment for players who are already invested with who they play and how they play them.

This is a one shot intended which could easily be run as an off beat episode or session for an ongoing game, or for players who want to recapture their lost love for characters gone by.

The treasure in the dungeon is all the more rewarding when it’s already your own - inner sanctum by kudos productions

The party arrive at an immense gateway carved into the side of a cliff face or mountain side. The doors glow a faint blue, and open easily despite looming well over them and being made of solid stone. As they enter, a single staircase continues upward, suspended by nothing. The area under this cavern extends in all directions endlessly. As they approach a central platform, a white gnarled tree dominates the space. As soon as a character goes to interact with it, there's a great flash of light. As the players recover, you the Game Master take in all of their character sheets, and hand them back versions that are devoid of all their abilities and gear. A great voice will fill the chamber.

“Trespassers cunning enough to enter this place must earn the skills which brought them here. All moves slowly in the temple of the tortoise.”

The party have all been reduced back down to level one.

Then, you the Game Master may populate this dungeon with as many or as few chambers as you wish. After each one, the players gain a little more of their levels, prepared spells, gear, and ability score improvements to bring them back to the levels they were previously.

In each chamber, I encourage you savvy Game Masters to use a mixture of puzzles and combat encounters that would have been very easy for them if they were at max power. If a spellcaster relies on a particular damage spell, using a monster that has vulnerability to it, but resists all other things will be a way to make them reminisce on how useful it was, and wish for it back. A Rogue who didn't take their Thieves' Tools expertise at level one may truly struggle with a lock that would have been simple before, as they fumble with the files and picks. The Paladin used to a certain aura ability may struggle in the face of enemies that would easily fumble in their holy presence.

When laying out this dungeon, there may be a sense of satisfaction where they compete against the difficulty wall in a long, corridor style structure, regaining items and levels by overcoming the struggles in each chamber until they find which ever final presence that stole their grandeur. It may make the entire dungeon a grand puzzle if its laid out in a grand maze, where they need to go back on themselves to find certain abilities they've lost that would otherwise be impossible to pass once they regain certain skills. It also opens up to the interesting possibility that they may leave some of their old powers behind once they leave...

This is a challenge that a lot of players may truly struggle with. After such a long time of playing, they may be fully invested, and so familiar with their characters and their many powers, that this hard reset would be a true fish out of water moment. I enjoy testing my players in every way I can.

I have my own ideas for how and why their powers and items may be taken, but I'm again choosing to leave these vague so that if your players enter the Temple of the Tortoise, they may face whatever enemies your twisted imagination can generate.

Now we want to hear from you. Where would the temple of the tortoise be found on your world? Which heroes would test themselves, being sent back to square one? Let us know in our discord server or in the comments below.

Adam Ray contributes much for adventurers here on Apotheosis Studios. As co-founder of fantasticuniverses.com, they write all kinds of gaming press, while they write news about the League of Legends Card Game on RuneterraCCG. On Youtube, they can be found game mastering for No Ordinary Heroes, or editing the antics on The Hostile Atmosphere. Find where they dwell by climbing their Linktree.