I ran a blitz Tri-Stat dX one-shot with my coworkers a few weeks ago, and they decided they wanted something more “traditional”, and with combat. So this past weekend, we did a D&D one-shot. It was far less successful than the Tri-Stat game (unsurprising in retrospect), but folks still had fun and got to hang out in the context of roleplaying.

I had two hours to run a one-shot full of people who’ve never held dice outside of a Monopoly game. It started with the possibility of 7 players, but two had conflicts and one decided to just skip out. For some ungodly reason—when I thought I had 7 players—I picked Tri-Stat dX as the roleplaying system. I started a campaign in it a few years ago, and the flexibility of the system appealed for a high-powered fantasy game, like I was trying to do here. I wanted to play upon their interests in fashion, fame, and shiny things (and all the players were women), so I crafted a ladies-only party…