Every year I check and see which of the free one-shot TTRPG adventures on this site gets the most eyeballs. Obviously, it’s hard to tell how many plays each one gets (which is why I ask you to tell me!), but it’s clear some adventures are more popular than others.
This year it was a slower year for me with only 3 adventures published (although one, as you’ll see below, was a short campaign so that should count as something, right?). But I’m already well-underway on a new one in a brand new genre – a genre filled with fire and blood – so stay tuned!
Based purely on downloads, this year’s top five adventures were:
5. Thrusher Manor
Haunted houses are classic settings and work equally well in almost every RPG. I’ve played great haunted houses in Call of Cthulhu, D&D, Warhammer, and even Traveller. Thrusher Manor is a twisted and complex haunted house set in the Caribbean of the 1680s. Here, an exiled duke retreated to a private island where hedonism, black magic, and vice ran rampant. Years later, when contact with this island is lost, the PCs are sent to find out what exactly happened to the estate’s infamous guests…. Get it here or watch the video overview.
4. The Siren’s Citadel
Arrr, there be pirates in the top five… again! This isn’t terribly surprising since my most popular video on YouTube is all about building great pirate adventures and making sure they feel different from typical medieval fantasy games. And The Siren’s Citadel is a true, swashbuckling adventure, unique in that the entire plot spins around a romantic competition, and players can entirely use their wits, brains, and retorts, to win the day (or just draw swords and have at it). Get it here or watch the video overview.
3. Crown of Fetters
Okay, it’s not escaping me that ALL three of my pirate adventures are ending up on this list again. The polar opposite of the previous adventure, A Crown of Fetters is dark, terrifying, and dreamlike…. all originating from the fact that it’s a loose, spiritual reboot of an old Ravenloft module. A Crown of Fetters traps the players on a doomed, cursed ship and challenges them with vengeful ghosts, hateful pirate hunters, and worse. Get it here or watch the review of the original inspiration.
2. Gotham ’39
One of this year’s adventures crashes into the top 5. After watching HBO’s The Penguin, I was inspired to write a gritty, noir-ish thriller set in Gotham City. In Gotham ’39, the players aren’t superheroes, they’re just ordinary citizens who are drawn into a tangled mystery involving gangsters, underworld kingpins, and a new villain who claims to have discovered something unnatural. Gotham ’39 was one of the adventures I ran at Gencon this year, and the table had a great time unraveling this epic mystery… no help from Batman required! Get it here or watch the video overview.
1. The Beast of Black Keep
I’ve played some giant campaigns in my time (Enemy Within, I’m looking at you) but I always find that I have the best time with short campaigns… adventures that are nicely connected, allow for character growth, but are short enough that your players will actually see the finale after five or six sessions. The Beast of Black Keep is the first short campaign on this website, and challenges a group of heroes to venture into the cursed Black Woods to recover a missing duke. Deeply seeped in old tales and folkloric fantasy, The Beast of Black Keep features an open-ended sandbox for your players to explore. Get it here.
And more coming…
Have you played any of these adventures? Or do you have a different favorite adventure here? Will 1980s adventures make a comeback next year with the big Stranger Things finale? Let me know in the comments below!
Related: Favorite Adventures from Five Years Ago
Ahoy, Matey! I have a question for you about creating GURPS characters for one-shots:
What’s your philosophy for creating a character for a scenario of limited scope?
If I’m designing a one-shot Gothic horror thing, and I want to set it all in a mountain castle and attendant village in Bavaria in 1831 or so. It takes place in the space of one night, and it’s mostly about being chased by and defeating the monster, does the former army field medic-cum-physician REALLY need to spend points on stuff like Wealth and contacts and skills that he’d have but not really exercise in the scenario?
I can omit those, but then I’m either designing from a low point total or blowing out his necessary skills beyond realism. Or maybe I’m missing something.
I’d love to hear your thoughts!
One of the PCs could be a former Army field medic who is now a notable physician. So far so good, but not EVERY skill that such a character might know will be useful. So I can either limit the scope of his stats by giving him a low point budget, or I could aim for the 100 or so for a competent character and blow out skills like Physician
My general philosophy is to make characters feel authentic, but I’ve taken a few approaches here when it comes to character points.
If it’s really just a one-shot, then I don’t really care if some characters are higher or lower than others, although I try to keep them within 10-15% of each other to avoid player confusion. Then I can give my linguist more points to work with, because I know they’ll only speak two languages in that session, but they’ll still FEEL like a linguist. Ditto with the wealthy guy stuck in a mine, I’ll still give him Wealth, but give him a few more points to work with (though I’ll try to reflect that a bit in the character sheet… maybe he carries a very fine knife in his boot).
If I think my one shot might be used as a kickoff for a larger campaign, I tend to create them all on the same point totals, even if certain skills won’t come into play. Players are clever, and you never know when they’ll figure out how to leverage an ability in a weird situation. I’ve seen a player use Status in a dungeon when he convinced an orc that he was a high-status hostage who should be well-taken care of.
Oops. Didn’t finish editing that.