The One-Shot Show

We're joined by new co-host Paddy Carroll, who you may remember from the 'Concept Campaigns' episode!

This week we're picking up right where the 'Failing Forward' episode left off to talk about what y…

You may have heard of 'Failing Forward', the art of keeping the story going in spite of things going wrong.

There's more than one way your games can reach a fail-state though! This week we're breaking…

There's an art to incorporating player backstories into your campaigns. This week we're going in-depth on all the ways to go about tying all those stories together!

We're joined this week by guest Hen…

We all show up to our D&D sessions to have a good time, but when we sit in the GM's chair often it feels like we're responsible for that Good Time. This week we're talking about managing that pressur…

There's nothing wrong with playing evil characters, so long as you're good at it. This week we're breaking down the dos and don'ts of playing evil characters!

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Ever wanted to play an 'Oops all bards' traveling troupe campaign? This episode we're talking all about running those 'gimmick' campaigns (or 'Concept Campaigns' as we call them), and how your approa…

If all your combats are 'The party and the monsters hit each other until only one side is left' then things are going to get stale very quickly. This week we share all kinds of techniques for making …

Burnout is a very real thing that most if not all GMs face and it's an instant campaign killer (and fun killer!). This week we're going over the many ways you can actively avoid burnout so you can ke…

When you're in the GM's chair there's a lot of pressure to make all your characters sound unique. We share our best tips and tricks for how to do that, even if you can't do accents!

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If you've ever thought about leaving D&D5e we're here to tell you that it's ok to feel that way. Matt and Mock are here to show you how to leave 5th Edition behind, how to find something new, and how…

As a natural follow to our episode that talked about memorable NPCs, how to create them on-the-fly, and how they might lead in to deeper plots, this episode talks about creating those very plots enti…

We get into some of the tricks of the trade when it comes to creating NPCs that will stick with your players. This includes how to plan great NPCs, and how to make up unplanned ones!

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Matt's got another one locked and loaded, this time tackling why 'Realism' isn't really what people want more of in their games. Mock gets to talk too sometimes.

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We're joined again by Brad Thompson as we get into how you as a player can make your GM's life easier and level up your own enjoyment too!

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'Railroading' is a bit of a dirty word in TTRPGs. We try to clean up its image a little and talk about why it can actually be a useful tool for your games.

If you like tuning into The One-Shot Show, p…

There's a lot to be said here. 'Yes But, No And' is a literary structure you may find a lot of use in for your campaigns. We'll hopefully talk more about it but in the meantime people much smarter th…

We're joined this week by Brad Thompson from Cutting Words to break down what we mean by 'Production Value', easy ways to increase the production value of your sessions, and why you might want to do …

In this episode we share all the wisdom we've developed around how to run the first session of your campaigns and where to go from there to give your campaign the best start possible!

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In this episode we define what we mean when we say 'GM Style', how to develop your own style, and what impact your style has on your games.

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You might have heard about people paying GMs to run TTRPGs for them. In this episode we talk about how to go about becoming one of those paid GMs, why you might want to do it, and why you might not w…