Tag: D&D

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The Joy of the One-Shot: Give it a Go

When most people think of roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons, they think of sprawling campaigns that run for months—or even years. Long-running campaigns are fantastic, but every now and then, it’s refreshing to step off the well-worn path and dive into something shorter, sharper, and wildly different: the humble one-shot.

One-shots are self-contained RPG adventures that begin and end in a single session (or two, at most – I’m looking at you Rich!). And while they might not carry the same narrative weight as a years-long campaign, they come with a kind of joy that is entirely their own.

A Breath of Fresh Air

The first thing a one-shot offers is a shift in tempo, style, and genre. If your regular campaign is a slow-burn epic full of politics, world-saving, and carefully crafted character arcs, a one-shot can throw all that out the window. Suddenly, you might find yourself desperately battling cultists in a forgotten temple, unraveling a noir mystery, or, in my case recently, trying to survive in deep space with something very nasty lurking in the shadows.

This change of pace keeps the roleplaying experience vibrant. It’s like taking a holiday from your main campaign—you’ll return with fresh energy and inspiration.

A Chance for Someone Else to DM

For many groups, the Dungeon Master role is filled by the same person week after week. A one-shot is a great excuse to swap seats. Maybe one of your players has been itching to try DMing but doesn’t want the responsibility of running a campaign. A one-shot is the perfect low-stakes playground to give it a go.

Even if you’re the regular DM, you’ll find it refreshing to step into a player role for once, rolling dice for your own character instead of a horde of goblins. Seeing the game from the players perspective gives massive insight into your own DMing, which ultimately benefits the whole group.

Testing Out New Character Concepts

One-shots are a brilliant way to try something you’d never risk in a long campaign. Maybe you’ve always wanted to play a reckless barbarian, a scheming bard, or a wizard with a terrible personality flaw. A one-shot is your opportunity to experiment—if it works, great! If it doesn’t, no harm done.

Because the stories are short and sweet, you get to test-drive character voices, quirks, and playstyles without committing to them for the next three years. I played a character in a recent one-shot who I gave an Irish accent. I soon realized that maintaining the accent for a whole campaign might be stretching my roleplaying skills. Fun for the one-shot session though.

Turning the Danger Up to Eleven

In a campaign, character death is often something to be carefully weighed. Players invest in their heroes, and DMs don’t want to wreck long-term plans. But in a one-shot, the rules shift. Characters are often more expendable, and the danger levels can be pushed much higher. Suddenly, every choice feels riskier, and every encounter has real tension.

It’s really liberating knowing that not everyone is guaranteed to make it out alive.

Great ruleset for One-Shots!

My Own Example: Into the Dark

In my long-running D&D campaign, a couple of regular players recently couldn’t make a session. Instead of skipping the week, I decided to run something completely different: Those Dark Places.

I’ve written about this game before, but in case you missed it, this game, heavily inspired by Alien and other sci-fi horror classics, is all about mystery, survival, and the unknown. I ran The Ed-Ward Report, a scenario written by the game’s own author (Jonathan Hicks), which you can grab for just a couple of bucks on DriveThruRPG.

Character creation takes five minutes flat, and then it’s straight into the thick of things. The rules are quick, the setting is tense, and the danger feels very real. Running this kind of game is a total change of scenery from D&D’s fantasy realms—it’s claustrophobic, unsettling, and sci-fi in all the right ways.

The adventure had the players investigating an space station where all comms had ceased. Their job was to get the station back up and running. What the corporates weren’t telling them was the type of research being undertaken there and what had gone wrong…

For both me and my players, it was a thrilling palate cleanser before we dive back into swords, sorcery, and dragons.

Why You Should Try a One-Shot

If you’ve never run or played a one-shot before, give it a try. They’re fun, fast, and flexible, and they often leave your group buzzing long after the session ends. They can:

  • Refresh your group with a new tempo and genre
  • Give new DMs a chance to shine
  • Let players test out wild new character ideas
  • Crank up the danger for maximum tension

And best of all, they remind us that RPGs aren’t tied to one system, one world, or one style of play. At the heart of it, they’re about gathering together, telling stories, and rolling dice—whether you’re slaying dragons, surviving alien horrors, or anything in between.

So next time your campaign takes a break—or you just feel the itch for something different—line up a one-shot. You might just discover it’s the most fun you’ve had in ages.

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Session Zero and Leadership: Setting the Tone for Success

When you start a new Dungeons & Dragons campaign, there’s a piece of advice that experienced Dungeon Masters repeat over and over: “Run a Session Zero.” This is the meeting before the adventure begins—the chance to talk through what kind of game you’re playing, what the players can expect, and what’s expected of them.
Done well, it prevents mismatched expectations, unnecessary conflict, and disappointment down the road.

And here’s the thing: if you’ve ever stepped into a leadership role in the workplace, you’ve already run something like a Session Zero—or you really should have. Taking on a new leadership role requires the setting of expectations as early as possible.

So, Whether you’re gathering your adventuring party or leading a new team, the principle is the same: Set expectations early, clearly, and collaboratively.

What’s a Session Zero in D&D?

Session Zero happens before the first dice are rolled and before any characters are created. It’s where you cover things like:

  • Game tone – Is this a gritty, survival-focused story or a lighthearted romp through the realms?
  • Table etiquette – How do we handle disagreements? Phones at the table—okay or no?
  • Content boundaries – What topics are off-limits to keep the game safe and fun?
  • Player goals – Do they want deep character arcs, tactical combat, or puzzle solving?
  • Your role as DM – How you’ll run the game, your style of storytelling, and how flexible you are.

The point isn’t to lecture—it’s to make sure everyone knows how the game will work, what they can bring to it, and what they’ll get out of it. Players also play a role here, and a good DM will aim to incorporate their expectations into the session as well.

Why Leaders Need a “Session Zero” Too

When you step into leadership, your new team is looking for the same types of clarity. They want to know:

  • The mission – What are we working towards?
  • The culture – How do we operate together day-to-day?
  • Boundaries – What’s non-negotiable, and where is there flexibility?
  • Your style – How do you make decisions? How do you give feedback?
  • What you expect of them – Effort, communication, collaboration, deadlines.

And just like a DM, you’re also telling them: Here’s what you can expect from me.

That might include:

  • Transparency about decisions.
  • Support when things get tough.
  • Respect for work–life balance.
  • An open door for concerns or ideas.

This conversation has to go both ways and a good leader will aim to understand their new team members expectations also. Without this up-front conversation, teams can quickly run into “mismatched game” problems—where some think it’s all about speed, others think it’s about perfection, and no one’s sure which one will get rewarded.

The Mutual Expectations Loop

As alluded to above, in both D&D and leadership, expectation-setting isn’t one-way.
It’s not just “Here’s the list of rules.” People at the game table or the boardroom table will turn off at that.

Instead, it’s a two-way agreement, for example:

  1. You share your expectations of them.
    • Players: Be on time, respect each other’s spotlight, communicate your goals for the character.
    • Team members: Collaborate, meet deadlines, raise risks early.
  2. They share their expectations of you.
    • Players: “I’d like more roleplay than combat” or “I’d rather keep sessions under three hours.”
    • Team members: “I value regular feedback” or “I work best with clear priorities.”

This loop ensures no one’s surprised later. In a D&D game, it means fewer awkward “That’s not the kind of game I signed up for” moments. In a workplace, it means fewer frustrations, missed deadlines, or most importantly disengaged employees.

The Session Zero Payoff

When everyone is on the same page from the start:

  • The game flows better.
  • The team works more smoothly.
  • Challenges feel like shared puzzles to solve, not personal obstacles.
  • Trust builds faster.

A Session Zero in D&D might only take an hour, but it can save a whole campaign from crumbling. Similarly, a “leadership Session Zero” might take a single team meeting, but it can set the foundation for years of collaboration.

Final Thought:

When using Session Zero’s in both D&D and leadership, you’re not just setting rules—you’re setting the culture. Your Session Zero, whether at the table or in the office, tells everyone:
“Here’s how we’re going to succeed together.” Effectively setting your game or team up for success right at the very beginning.

Below is a quick reference sheet to help guide your Session Zero, whether at the game table or at work.

DnD at Work Session Zero ChecklistDownload

You can download this and other resources here.

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Team Building Through Shared Storytelling — Why D&D Might Be the Ultimate Trust Exercise

When people think about team building, they often picture ropes courses, awkward icebreakers, or nerve-wracking trust falls. But what if the most powerful tool for creating real team cohesion wasn’t physical activity or corporate exercises—but storytelling? Enter Dungeons & Dragons, a tabletop roleplaying game that thrives on shared storytelling. It’s a game where players build imaginary worlds together, solve problems as a group, and embody characters who grow, struggle, and triumph as a team. And while it might look like fantasy fun (and of course it is), D&D also offers a surprisingly deep model for how to build strong, psychologically safe, high-performing teams.

Let’s look at how D&D’s narrative structure creates team bonds—and how you can use these lessons in your workplace, classroom, or community group.

Shared Storytelling = Shared Ownership

In D&D, the story doesn’t belong to one person. Sure, the Dungeon Master (DM) might guide the world, but the plot evolves through the choices of everyone at the table. Players decide how to approach challenges, who to trust, and what kind of characters (or leaders) they want to become.

That shared narrative builds shared ownership. When a mission succeeds, the whole group feels it. When things go wrong (and they almost always do), the group adapts together. This sense of co-authorship is powerful: it creates a team culture where every voice matters.

In the workplace, this mirrors the difference between top-down directives and collaborative strategy. When the story is presented from the top, buy in can meet significant resistance. However, when team members help shape the story—of a product, a project, or a goal—they’re more invested, more creative, and much more committed.

Psychological Safety: Failure Is Part of the Game

One of the greatest strengths of D&D is how it normalizes failure. Characters miss attacks, fall into traps, or make poor decisions—and the story doesn’t end. It gets significantly more interesting. The consequences of failure become narrative fuel, not a source of shame.

This culture of playful risk-taking builds what Google’s research famously identified as the #1 trait of high-performing teams: psychological safety. In a psychologically safe team, people feel comfortable speaking up, taking risks, and being vulnerable without fear of ridicule or retribution. By playing D&D together, teams rehearse this kind of safety in a low-stakes setting. They learn that mistakes aren’t fatal—they’re part of the fun. And that mindset carries over into real work.

Building Empathy Through Character

In D&D, players take on personas that often differ wildly from their real-world identities. A quiet analyst might play a boisterous half-orc bard. An outspoken manager might become a timid elven healer. As they explore these characters, players inhabit new perspectives—and watch their teammates do the same.

This roleplaying builds empathy. It invites players to step into someone else’s shoes (or boots, or hooves), wrestle with emotional dilemmas, and support each other’s fictional struggles. And in doing so, it strengthens their emotional intelligence in real life.

Empathy isn’t a soft skill—it’s a critical leadership trait. D&D gives teams a safe way to build it naturally, through play.

Tips for Encouraging Shared Storytelling

You don’t need to be a master Dungeon Master to encourage better storytelling in your game. If you are running a game at work or using roleplaying to help impart experiential learning, consider using these tools to deepen the shared storytelling experience:

1. Paint the Scene Questions

Instead of describing everything yourself, invite players to contribute. Ask things like:

  • “What does the ruined temple smell like?”
  • “What’s the one thing about this town that makes it feel like home?”
  • “What do you see on the battlefield that makes you hesitate?”

These questions invite creativity, distribute narrative control, and reinforce the idea that this world belongs to everyone.

2. Ask for Flashbacks

Let players add history to the world:

  • “What memory does this cave bring back?”
  • “Tell us about the last time you faced something like this.”

Flashbacks connect characters more deeply to the story and build emotional investment.

3. Spotlight Sharing

Make space for each player to shine. Don’t let loud voices dominate the session. Encourage quieter players by giving them openings:

  • “Hey, Mira, what does your character think of this?”
  • “You’ve been watching from the shadows—what do you notice?”

4. Celebrate Narrative Wins, Not Just Combat

Don’t let the game revolve around dice rolls alone. Praise creative problem-solving, emotional roleplay, and team synergy as much as battle strategy.

5. De-brief After the Game

After each session, take a few minutes to reflect:

  • “What was your favourite moment tonight?”
  • “What surprised you?”
  • “What do you think your character learned?”

This builds reflection and reinforces shared memory—essential for team bonding.

Every Team Has a Story

Your team already has a story. The question is: are you telling it together, or is it being written without them? Dungeons & Dragons shows us that the act of co-creating a story builds connection, empathy, and trust. Whether you’re sitting around a game table or a boardroom, the principle holds: when people feel seen, heard, and included in the narrative, they give their best.

So maybe next time you’re planning a team-building session, skip the ropes course. Grab some dice. Sit around a table. And start telling a story—together.