This is going to be the pettiest, bitchiest pile of Random Bullshit I’ve ever ranted and I’m sorry but I’m not sorry. I really am just going to vent my spleen today. But I make you two promises. First, I promise this sets the stage for something helpful, useful, and productive. Second, I promise this will be short.

Hey! Get back here! I’m serious. It’s already written. I’m doing the Long, Rambling Introduction™ last this time around. I clocked this whole thing in at under 3,000 words. That’s nothing for my regular readers.

So what’s this shit about?

Well, the topic was chosen by the Baader-Meinhoff twins who gamers of a certain age might remember from their gum commercials in the eighties. But that’s neither here nor there.

This is one of those topics that came up a few times in rapid succession in a couple of different places. It showed up in my Ask Angry inbox, it showed up in my Discord, and I spotted a couple of discussions about it on social media forums I lurk on.

The topic is one-shot adventures. Kind of. Not really. You’ll see what I mean below.

Funnily enough, all that Frequency Illusion crap came at a propitious time because I’m about to shift my True Scenario Designery series into a broad section about Scenario Structure which is a big, complicated subject that covers narrative structure, gameplay structure, challenge progression, thematic progression, map design and, above all, completeness. Which is the specific issue I want to deal with. A few people in various channels have raised the question about how it’s even possible to use my True Scenario Designery approach to make a complete adventure that fits into just a few hours of play.

But as I started to draft this shit out, two things happened. First, I recognized that it would be much better to address this question after I introduced the ideas of structure and completeness in True Scenario Designery. Second, I recognized that there’s a lot of ambiguity in the term one-shot and that I was actually incredibly pissed off about that and how the people in the discussions chose to deal with that ambiguity and, more generally, how gamers deal with any ambiguity in any terminology at all and, most generally of all, how people choose to scream at me about terminology.

Today’s Random Bullshit rant is the result of that second realization. It started with me just trying to provide some clarity in advance of a useful discussion and ended with me screaming my head off at Internet gaming dumbasses. Meanwhile, in a couple of weeks, after I’ve laid a sort of Introduction to Structure groundwork, I’ll return to this issue and address how True Scenario Designers can make single-session adventures without resorting to Mere Adventure Building crap.

Enjoy.

What Means One-Shot?

I’ve seen a few different discussions play out over the years on the topic of one-shot adventures. Most recently in my own supporter Discord server. All of them — every last frigging one — always end up in the same place. They always end up with a bunch of pedantic asshats arguing about what counts as a one-shot adventure. Because, in the biz, there are two different commonly accepted definitions for one-shot.

To some, a one-shot adventure is an adventure with no campaign around it. No ongoing game. It’s a one-and-done. When the adventure’s over, the characters go away and the world goes away and no one looks back. Well, maybe the world comes back in some future game, but there’s no specific reference to the previous adventure beyond sometimes a vague assumption that the adventure happened.

To put this more precisely — and more usefully — that view holds that one-shots are limited in continuity. They’re isolated chunks of game with no connection to past or future games that the group has or will play. Once you add any sense of continuity at all, you go from running a one-shot to running a campaign or an adventure path. Or you just say, “I’m running a game…”

To others, a one-shot adventure is an adventure that fits into a single session of play. No matter what, the game will never, ever get more hours than it’s been scheduled to fit into it. Convention games and event games and many pick-up games and some introductory games all fit here. Obviously, pick-up games and introductory games don’t have to fit into a single session — I usually give newbies two or three sessions of introductory goodness because I’m awesome — but they can and lots do.

In other, more precise words, that view holds that one-shot adventures are limited in time. They’re time-constrained. Of course, most time-constrained one-shot adventures are also continuity-constrained. After all, if you’re running an ongoing game and you can always count on there being another game session, there are very few reasons to constrain a particular adventure to one session. I’m not saying there are no reasons — I can think of a few — but they’re pretty rare.

Regardless, the point is that, in the second view, the defining feature of one-shots is that they’re time-constrained. They are also necessarily continuity-constrained, but that’s not the defining aspect. And, by the way, if you’re running a constrained adventure as part of a campaign — like a flashback wherein the players play out a historical event as it’s being related to their characters so you can turn exposition into an adventure — you should call that a one-off not a one-shot.

So, which is correct? Which is the right way to talk about one-shots? Well, that brings me to two different rants. In one, I’ll tell you exactly which view is correct. In the other, I’ll tell you why you’re an asshat for disagreeing or even caring enough to disagree and why I hate you.

Rant the First: One-Shot Continuity

Let’s start clear as glass…

A one-shot adventure is a continuity-constrained adventure. That’s the correct term and the correct meaning. Even if the adventure is spread over multiple play sessions, if the continuity ends when the boss is dead and the town is saved, it’s a one-shot adventure. If you disagree with me right now, you’re frigging ignorant. If you still disagree with me after I fix your ignorance, you’re a complete fucking moron and I don’t want to hear from you. Shut up your moron face-hole and get out of my comment section.

Both continuity-constrained and time-constrained adventures exist. Both demand special treatment. We need terminology to differentiate them. I’m not denying that. What I’m saying, correctly, is that one-shot is the right term for the continuity-constrained adventure and it’s down to a matter of overlapping modifiers, nouns, adjectives, and efficient, already existing terminology.

Time-constrained adventures, as noted, are almost always continuity-constrained adventures. In the exceptionally rare times when they’re not, they don’t actually need special treatment because the time constraints are actually more like guidelines. Besides, you already know what to call non-continuity-constrained, time-constrained adventures because I already told you. You call them one-offs.

So we actually need a term for a limited continuity game and then we need a way to modify that term to also highlight the time constraint. Well, guess what, numb nuts, there’s already a way to do that and I’ve already been doing it. You can have a one-shot and you can have a single-session one-shot. You can even drop the one-shot from the second and just say, single-session game or you can specify it’s a convention game since more specific kinds of single-session games have other, more special planning issues.

See? That’s super simple. Meanwhile, there isn’t already a super simple way to signal a game that’s continuity-constrained already in popular use. One-shot is the only phrase we’ve got to fit that bill.

So, for clarity and efficiency of language and for the broadest understanding, a one-shot adventure is a continuity-limited adventure and, if you need to signal an additional time constraint, you do so by specifying it’s a single-session one-shot or just say it’s a single-session adventure since that implies the continuity constraint.

Now that I’ve explained clearly and logically why this is really the only approach if you care about clarity and efficiency of communication, I’m sure no one will fight over this ever again. And if a frog had wings, he wouldn’t bump his ass hopping. Look, I am not naive enough to think I can fix all the dumbassery across the entire gaming sphere, but I damned well can fix it in my community and on my site. If you’re in my space and you cling to the idea that one-shot is a time designation, you’re not just wrong, you’re being stubbornly, obstructionistly, willfully ignorantly wrong and I will tell you so. If you prefer to use one-shot for single-session games, then you prefer inefficient, unclear communication which is a stupid-ass thing to prefer.

Stop it. Get some help.

There’s No Three-Session One-Shots or Four-Session Anythings

I’ve got to throw in a little note here even though I’ve already explained a lot of this shit extensively in the past but I know someone’s gonna bring it up…

There’s no such thing as a time-constrained adventure that’s longer than a single-session adventure, so there’s no need to discuss terminology for that shit. I mean, theoretically, you could have a two-session adventure, and then you could call it a two-part one-shot or some shit like that — see how easy it is to actually speak right ֫— but once you hit three sessions, your time-constraints don’t matter anymore. A three-session one-shot is just a one-shot.

Why? Because as everyone who has been reading my work knows, anything more than three sessions is an actual game. If it passes the three-session mark, it’s no longer continuity-constrained because it’s its own continuity now and it should be treated as such. A four-session one-shot is actually a shit game.

Are we clear?

Rant the Second: You’re an Asshole for Caring

While I’m spitting facts, let me spit this one because lots of y’all need it spit in your faces. Or, at least, you need something spit in your faces. If you ever find yourself in the middle of a discussion explaining your own terminology preferences, you are almost definitely acting like a completely useless asshole. Your role in the conversation could be filled just as effectively by one of those little fart noise machines with a pile of really ripe-smelling dog crap keeping the button permanently depressed.

Let me explain even though I know I’m totally wasting my time because most people on the Internet are assholes. After all, they prioritize scoring points and winning the smartest dude in the room contests over being productive, being helpful, or being liked.

Yeah, yeah, save your comments. I am an asshole and I am the smartest dude in every room I’m in and I don’t prioritize being liked, but I am always helpful and productive and I have a vast body of evidence to that effect. If you want to compare receipts, then you can call me a hypocrite.

Besides, asshat, being a hypocrite doesn’t make you wrong, and claiming it does is a form of an ad hominem fallacy.

Anyway…

One of the discussions that touched off this rant involved a person saying, “I need help running a one-shot.” Actually, it was closer to, “Based on all of Angry’s helpful and productive advice provided in his True Scenario Design series, how would I run a complete one-shot?”

I was not involved in the discussion. I’m rectifying that now. This ranting screed is the first of my rectums and a special feature in two weeks will be the second — and more productive and helpful — rectum. But I already explained that in the Long, Rambling Introduction™ above.

Anyway…

Obviously, there immediately arose some confusion about what means one-shot. Which is fair enough. As I noted above, there are two different definitions of one-shot floating around and I hadn’t yet established clearly and correctly which one was right. Continuity-constrained adventures and time-constrained adventures have different needs. Or rather, time-constrained adventures have all the needs of continuity-constrained adventures plus some more.

Had I been involved, I would have asked “What do you mean by one-shot,” just like the other folks involved did. Before you can provide a useful answer to a question, you have to understand the actual question.

The original poster explained the question was about adventures of the time-limited variety and repeated the question. What do you think happened next? Do you think everyone said, “With that clarification, we can now proceed to have a productive and helpful discussion about how best to build time-limited adventures because one of our own has asked for our help and that would be the kind thing to do?”

Of course they didn’t. Instead, they proceeded to bury the question under a mound of verbal diarrhea as they debated whether one-shot adventures had to be just one session long or not and who preferred which term and why.

This kills me. This honestly fucking kills me. It really does. It infuriates me. It makes me want to start punching and never fucking stop. It makes me hate gamers.

In any isolated discussion about anything actually useful and productive — like game design or game mastery — the second you understand the idea being discussed, you stop bitching and whining about proper terminology. If someone asks you a question and you’re confused by the question, you absolutely should clarify their meaning. But once you understand what’s actually being discussed, all further discussions about how the question was asked and what terms should have been used are over. If you continue to debate or berate the use of terminology beyond the point where understanding has been established, you’re an egotistical, unproductive, obstructionist asshole more concerned with proving yourself trivially right than being usefully helpful.

And I will tell you so. Every frigging time. And then I will start punching.

Lots of gaming terms are ambiguous. That’s because all this shit happened organically. People borrowed terms from other media or just invented their own. Other people started using them in different ways. It’s a giant mess. It’s called language kids. That’s how it happens. It’s descriptive, not definitive, and the only point of language is clear communication. Once the communication is clear in the context you’re in, the language did its job and you can move on to the actual useful, productive shit.

“But Angry,” I hear you saying, “you spend thousands of words arguing about terminology. How is that not the same thing? You literally spent half this article ranting about why your preference for one-shot is correct.”

First of all, screw you. Second of all, it is correct and so am I. Third, screw you. Fourth, do you not understand hyperbole? But fifth, people read this shit because they want to learn from me and many of them even pay me to write this shit. Though, given today’s post, they’re probably regretting that. I’m going to be reading a lot of Patreon exit surveys the day after this goes live, I’m sure.

The goal is clear communication for the context. If someone asks a question, you need to understand the question they’re asking. Once you do, you can proceed. If someone is teaching a concept or providing advice, you need to make sure they understand the concept or the advice. I spend a lot of time talking about terminology because I am fully aware that most roleplaying gaming terminology — hell, most gaming terminology — is ambiguous. Meanwhile, I analyze things down to component-frigging-atoms. I am trying to help y’all get a deep understanding of some very complicated ideas and everything I write builds on every other thing I write. Mostly. Nothing’s building on this shit.

It’s always the advice-giver or teacher or helper whose got the burden of understanding and being understood. I spell this shit out clearly so we’re all on the same page. So that no one has to ask, “When you say one-shot, do you mean a single adventure with no continuity or one that fits in a single session?” When I use the term one-shot, y’all know what I’m talking about. If that term ain’t your preference, fine. You know what I mean, now, so you can make the mental substitution. Meanwhile, if you’re talking to me and I’ve spelled out clearly for all and sundry what the term means, using your own preference is just confusing the communication. The only reason to do that is to assert intellectual dominance. I’m not even kidding here.

Even when I do launch into a terminology rant — as above — there’s almost always a productive point behind it. Note that, in screaming about one-shots I also very clearly highlighted what, specifically, were the defining features of constrained games. What shit’s important? Why have terms at all? And what can we learn about building constrained games simply by identifying the constraints? Which, as I noted above, I’ll get to. I don’t pick terminology carelessly or frivolously. If something’s worth me weighing in on, you can bet your ass there’s a very good reason for me to even give a crap about it and you can bet your ass I’ve examined the issue from more angles than you even knew there were.

The truth is, for all my ranting and raving and my egotism and my insults, I am motivated, first and foremost, by helping anyone who wants my help to run the least worst games they can possibly run. Which isn’t to say this is just a persona. Shit like this genuinely does piss me off. Watching professional designers make stupid-ass decisions and charge people $50 a book for them pisses me off. Hearing people say to me, “I always wanted to get into roleplaying gaming but I had no idea how and it was all so complicated and expensive and there was too much to read,” genuinely does piss me off. I am hyperbolic and bombastic for entertainment purposes — and I have piles of feedback on both sides of the question of whether it works — but I am also honest. In fact, I’m scrupulously, screamingly, furiously honest.

Terminology fights are stupid. They’re useless. They’re totally unproductive. I’m making fun of them every time I launch into a screaming rant about how my terms are the right terms. The only reason my terms are the right terms is because it’s my website and you’re here to learn from me and because clarity and consistency trump all.

Except that’s not true. The real reason my terms are the right terms is because I really am the smartest dude in the room.

Meanwhile, unless you specifically started a specific discussion to specifically debate terminology and to analyze the ideas underlying the terms we use, stop fucking fighting about which terms are right. Because I really am going to start punching.

Now, come back in a couple of weeks for a productive discussion about how a True Scenario Designer builds a complete single-session adventure.