Author: Tom Watkin

If you’ve been following this blog for a while you’ll know that I consider D&D to be a powerful way to develop teamwork, communication, and leadership skills. There is a great opportunity to use games like D&D in the workplace to upskill your team. However, as the old adage suggests time is money. Finding time to run a workplace adventure can be difficult. So, when you only have an hour, structure really matters.

That’s where the Play2Lead ruleset shines. Designed to be fast, focused, and built around teamwork mechanics like the Team Dice Pool, it’s ideal for short, high-impact sessions. It is just a ruleset. Where it really shines is in the scenarios played. In this post, I’ll show you how to write a tight, engaging 1-hour workplace adventure using a three-encounter framework that encourages collaboration and leaves players excited for more.

The 1-Hour Workplace Adventure Framework

Here’s the structure:

1. Opening Shots (In Media Res) – Drop the players right into the action.
2. Team Puzzle / Challenge – Test communication, collaboration, and creative problem-solving.
3. Exciting & Threatening Finale – Deliver a climactic moment with urgency and consequences.

This structure mirrors how stories are told in action-packed short fiction, and it works beautifully for limited time workplace sessions: start fast, build tension, finish big.

Key Design Goals

When designing adventures in the 1 Hour Framework consider the following design goals.

• Limit to 3 Encounters – Focus is your friend. Three scenes is the sweet spot.
• Use the Team Dice Pool – Give players moments to contribute, support each other, and spend shared dice to solve problems.
• Theme Around Soft Skills – Use metaphors for leadership, trust, or crisis management.
• Keep Time – Allocate about 15 minutes per scene and leave 10–15 minutes for debrief and reflection.

Some Example Workplace Adventures

Here are some examples to get you started. Leaning in to popular tropes can help players begin engaging with the game quicker. Everyone knows Zombies, superheroes or pulp adventures and what they entail. The more easily recognizable the faster players can understand what is needed from them.

Zombie Apocalypse Scenario

Title: “Extraction Point Echo”
Theme: Crisis leadership, teamwork under pressure

Inspiration: 28 Days later, Walking Dead, iZombie, Dawn of the Dead.

1. Opening Shots: “Trapped in the School”

• The team is barricaded in a classroom as zombies break through the hallway.
• One NPC survivor, a doctor, is injured, another panicking.
• Team must decide: fight, flee, or rescue?
• Team must coordinate escape strategies and save NPCs.
• Dilemma: who will they save?

2. Team Puzzle: “The Blocked Gym Doors”

• To reach the evacuation chopper, the team needs to open the sealed gym doors.
• Puzzle includes a broken generator, a keypad lock, and zombies thudding at the fence.
• Players must delegate tasks: repair, protect, decode.

3. Finale: “Last Stand at the Helipad”

• The evac chopper is delayed, and a wave of zombies is closing in.
• Team must defend the landing site, signal the chopper, or use environmental elements (fire, water hoses, barriers).
• Keep the pressure on. When the chopper arrives it doesn’t have enough space for everyone…

Underwater Adventure Scenario

Title: “Pressure Protocol”
Theme: Decision-making under constraint, trust, clarity in communication

Inspiration: Abyss, The Poseidon Adventure, The Deep, Jaws, The Meg

1. Opening Shots: “Flooded Research Lab”

• The team wakes up in a partially collapsed undersea lab after an earthquake.
• Water is rising fast, oxygen is limited.
• Decide what to salvage, who to carry, and how to reach the control hub.
• In media res—start with klaxons blaring and lights flickering.
• Provide too much equipment to be taken, some useful, some not. Each character can take one item. What will be left behind?

2. Team Puzzle: “The Pressure Doors”

• The route to the escape sub is blocked by a malfunctioning pressure system.
• One team member must navigate ducts, others solve a system override puzzle.
• Split the team but encourage constant communication.

3. Finale: “The Cracking Dome”

• Final room has the escape sub—but the lab’s glass dome is fracturing.
• An injured NPC radios from another part of the station begging to be taken, but time is tight.
• Players choose: who goes, who stays, what can be sacrificed.
• High tension, high stakes. Let them spend the last team pool dice for one heroic effort.

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Final Tips on Prepping a Workplace Adventure

• Prep NPCs with distinct roles or emotions (coward, loyalist, idealist), making it clear who they are, to prompt team dynamics.
• Track Time with a visible timer or countdown clock—it adds tension and keeps pacing sharp.
• End with Reflection – Ask players what choices worked well, what they’d do differently, and how it connects to teamwork at work.

Why It Works

Using the Play2Lead ruleset in a 1-hour adventure is basically a leadership workshop disguised as a zombie movie or underwater thriller. It’s short enough to fit a lunch break or between learning sessions, structured enough to teach valuable skills, and fun enough to make people want to play again.

Three encounters. One hour. One story they’ll talk about all week.