let the party wipe
Most one-shots treat a total party kill as the end of the evening. Everybody shrugs, someone orders food, the GM apologizes a bit. It's the dreaded fail state.
I ran a western one-shot a while back where the wipe was the second act, and it worked better than anything I'd made before. The trick is two-fold and will apply to most games and it starts with a dungeon lair.
Phase 1 - Every death feeds the thing you're fighting
This is the setup. There's something at the bottom of the dungeon that's waking up, and it eats whatever dies in there. Player characters, hirelings, NPCs, the horses. Each one makes it stronger, and you say so out loud whenever it happens.
Keep the count out in the open for players to see. A tally on an index card is plenty, it just needs to stay in view. The players will start doing the math about their own hirelings, as hesitation and tension builds.
Cowabunga - The town has more people, and the players spend them
When a character dies, that player doesn't have to sit out. They can make someone else from the same town and ride out, funnel-style. Second wave. You only have so many sheets, so town holds a finite number of people willing to go. The party is deciding, in effect, how many neighbors this is worth.
When handing out townfolk, let them know they can also stop. If they decide the last two are on their own out there, let that happen, keep the choice real.
Phase 2 - When they all die... hand out different sheets
This is the special sauce.
The party wipes, they decide to throw the towel in. You let it land for a second, perhaps a short line about the few townfolk sheets left on the table. And then you deal out a new set of character sheets but they are not cowboys. Pick a curveball, a full register out of theme and a jump in power-level.
I chose Time Police. They have ray guns and pressure suits and devices they don't explain. Theyre the Men In Black, the TVA. They have been watching this whole mess from somewhere else, and now that the local containment has failed, they're authorized to come down and handle it directly.
Its the same dungeon, the same monster, fat on townfolk and horses the players crammed into the dungeon, and the gloom the players felt wiping out fuels the shift. They feel it, the difference in their toolkit and abilities, the spark of hope... of revenge. The post-mortem becomes fresh and fun.
Pocket Aces - Deal them face-down
One refinement I tested out: hand the replacement sheets out face-down, and let each player read their own in private.
You would be amazed what that does to a table. Nobody is certain what anybody else got. The player who was a cowboy an hour ago is now something with a clearance level, hidden stats and agendas, and the others have to work out how much of that they're being told. The second half becomes a conversation instead of a re-run.
What's actually printed on those cards I'm keeping to myself for now, making notes on what worked.
If the Time Police die too, send more. Repeat until somebody is satisfied. The dungeon lived twice in one sitting and players got their chance at redemption, and things got weird. Those are all wins to me.
Phase Shift - They don't get the same ending
The two groups treat the threat differently, so make your ending and win conditions special to the switch-up.
In our game the cowboys were trying to survive, but the Time Police were trying to file away the anomaly. When they win, they don't ride into the sunset — they take the thing back to base for processing:
Roll for what the paperwork says when they get back to base
| d6 | Disposition |
|---|---|
| 1 | Imprisoned. It gets a laser-cell and jumpsuit with a number on it. |
| 2 | Fed into a black hole. Someone has to sign for this. |
| 3 | Rendered down for fuel. It goes further than you'd think. |
| 4 | Rendered down for food. Nobody at base asks what's in the sausage. |
| 5 | Returned to its enclosure. It has been out before. |
| 6 | Kept. Somebody at the office was cleared to have a pet. |
That table did more for the ending than any speech I could have written. The players didn't need a bigger resolution, never had to ask whether they'd won and started arguing about what they were authorized to do with it.
That's the whole package. Please steal it. If you run it, tell me what your table did with the monster at the end.
I want to know how often it becomes a pet.