Yesterday I wrote a L2 one shot for my party of seven.

If I move forward with it, it’ll be with a co-DM. He knows 5e battle mechanics better than I do. But I’m better at story puzzles than he is. The problem is, I can’t use him for a test, because he is also one of the players and cannot know all of the details of the puzzle.

One goal in this one-shot is to help the new players discover (and reveal) more of their unused character sheet options.

What would be the best way for me to test my one shot before going live? Keep in mind, I have the party char sheets, but I only have one week to run a test. So I don’t have the time to recruit eight players and a DM.

What would be the best way for me to test my one shot? 

To run it with players.

Quote from IamSposta >>

To run it with players.

 How would you recommend I recruit eight players + a DM with so little time?

If you wrote the one-shot, you should DM it. And you won’t have time to test it, so you will have to do what DMs have been doing for over 40 years: test in on your players. It probably won’t be “ready” until you’ve run at least 3-4 parties through it. I have some adventures I wrote back in the ‘90s that still haven’t seen 4 plays-through yet.

Quote from mayagayam >>

Quote from IamSposta >>

To run it with players.

 How would you recommend I recruit eight players + a DM with so little time?

 Play on-line and test it with strangers (lower the number to 4-5 players though). Platforms like roll20 have easy tools to find groups, there are plenty of people out there that would love to play one shot :)

Quote from mayagayam >>

What would be the best way for me to test my one shot? 

 What are you testing?  I am working on a website where you can test all your battles so you can get a sense of if they are competitive fights, push overs or certain death.  But thats going to be a while to finish.

But what else would you test?  Just read it over several times and imagine them going through it and what issues might arise.

The OP is supposed to run their group through it next week. That gives them half a week to find a group, onboard everyone and test it so they have a half week for rewrites before game night. Does anyone have any suggestions for them that would specifically cater to their expedited timetable?

Hey brother/sister maybe I can offer some advice,

tl/dr: be flexible and find things you can adapt on the fly to change the difficulty level or give information to advance story line.

I've ran a couple one shots for my group when we need something fresh or simply a break from our current campaign. My first one shot was a valentines day special where it was on tracks and a limited dungeon crawl. Here's what I need you to do, start here and go down the tunnel until it's over. Of course I had combat and puzzles and OF COURSE I was nervous and concerned I was going to embarrass myself and need to leave with my head hung low!

So how did I get through it? Well I had a co DM as well that helped with some of the technical parts that I wasn't as familiar with but I also changed things on the fly if I had to. I had my encounters built and set by using the encounter builder here on DND Beyond. From there if the fight was too easy or too hard I may smudge the HP on my big boss baddy for that encounter. Or instead of the room boss using all of his spells and abilities perhaps he doesn't use them to make the fight fare.

My second one shot I had wrote and designed with a ton of effort. It was a forced mining camp ran by Gnomes who enslaved orcs, minotaurs, goblins, and halflings into mining gems. There were fewer set paths that my PC's had to take but it was still somewhat on rails so I felt comfortable with it. We had a late edition first time player join us and I accidentally gave him an overpowered broken character that threw a bunch of things out the window. Well crap what to do now? I again tweaked encounters to increase the difficulty level. I upped DC's and hit pools to make things more difficult. I didn't have NPC's hold back and play fair. Not cheating as a DM but allowing the NPC's to fight to their full potential using their abilities and tactics.

Lastly, in both one shots I had things in place to encourage the PC's to move forward. If they got into paralysis by analysis I would roll a d20. Hit a DC. BAM! Random encounter. Misses the DC? That's fine the DC simply goes up and I'll roll again if they are still talking about what to do. After the second roll I'd tell them "Hey, you guys have been talking for X minutes about what to do. The longer you stay the more likely you're going to be caught in the open by the big bad guards."

So what is my point in all of this? Be flexible. Find a few areas where you are comfortable tweaking your one shot to make things harder or easier on the fly. Have a couple NPC's in mind that can literally give your PC's everything they need to progress if they get lost. Heck even have a magical stick of cheat code that makes the given encounter harder or easier. 

> "paralysis by analysis"

XD this is very much like our party, how did you know?  

NPC for giving hints when needed - check.  Yep, added in ways to flex-flow with the encounters to balance them.  Even created 2 possible finale options so that it wraps cleanly no matter how the players do.

Your reply both gave me ideas, and helped confirm that some of the tactics I've planned in will help.  Thank you so much for the added confidence :) :) :) 

I've even posted a thread here to invite folks to test my One Shot on Tues.  So far, no takers :D  But I'm feeling better about it thanks to all the replies here.

Thanks again!

 I don't think I'll be able to test it (timing constraints), but if you could send it over somehow I could look over it??? I am not an incredibly experienced DM or player, but I've ran some 1-shots and can help you analyze it?

I don't think I'll be able to test it (timing constraints), but if you could send it over somehow I could look over it??? I am not an incredibly experienced DM or player, but I've ran some 1-shots and can help you analyze it? 

P.S. running combat isn't that hard

P.P.S. some players don't like having pre-made characters forced on them

I'm glad that I was able to assist. If you care this much and put in the effort on the day of you should be fine.

OrtanFang:  Thank you for the offer; what I need is the practice DMing it, and tracking the various pieces.  I have made a chart to run through the analysis part, but I need to actually experience the progression.  This isn't me seeking to run a one-shot for the public.  This is me seeking to practice my own response to things I have set up for my 7-person group that I meet with weekly, who will experience my one-shot for real the following week.  So if people don't want chars 'forced' on them, they should look for a one-shot that was meant for the public.  Thank you though.

Hickstar, thank you so much :)

It seems like you are pretty well prepared, but for some additional thoughts:

Encounter balance doesn't end at initiative. If your party starts steamrolling things, add HP or resistances. If they are riding the struggle bus, reduce enemy attacks and damage.

Puzzle CRs are a bit harder, especially if they can just redo attempts. For level 2 characters, I usually use a modifier of +5 for something a character is good at, and would do a DCs of

• Trivial: DC 10 and lower: anyone can do with 50% or greater odds, almost not even roll
• Easy: DC 11-13: must be proficient or have natural aptitude for >50% success chance
• Moderate: DC 14-16: more likely than not a failure unless you are good at it
• Hard: DC 17-19: <50% success chance, even if good at it, but not terrible so
• Very challenging: DC 20+: even if good at it, still a <25% success chance

And usually add a limit to the number of attempts they can make, some ideas are:

• time pressure: each attempt risks alerting guards
• damage: each attempt causes a trap or some other mechanism to deal damage
• increasing DC: a person can only be persuaded so much, or each attempt damages the thing until its unusable.

Houligan: great ideas, thank you!