Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D is the game always stocked in our pantry at home.

Whether its at a convention, when you want a change of pace from your regular campaign, or you want to introduce new players to a fantasy RPG, compelling one shots can be an important tool for you to have at your disposal. We’re revisiting the topic of one shot games, put them in context of the history of RPGs, and give you some tools for making them work for you at your table.

The Tomb of Horrors may be one of the most talked about adventures in the history of D&D, but what sometimes gets lost in the discussion is that it was originally created as a one-shot. There has been a lot of focus on how Gary Gygax designed it to humble players that were a little too proud of their characters, but even in that capacity, it was never meant to be inserted into a regular campaign. When the adventure was first run at the first Origins in 1978, it was run as a competitive event with many disposable pregenerated characters. The lethality and “unfairness” of the adventure weren’t hidden, they were features. But Gygax still designed it like he was Riddler heckling Batman while death traps are trying to cut his head off.