Wondrous One-Shots: The Siege of Notebookia (Patreon)

"The Siege of Notebookia" is a concept for a one-shot scenario for a ttRPG with tactical rules or a wargame. It works best with pregenerated characters or units that exactly match some of the coolest miniatures you have on-hand. The concept is system-agnostic, but is presented with ttRPG terminology.

Every PC awakes to discover they are standing on a vast smooth plain. There are grooved indentions filled with dark stains. These are letters roughly the height of each PC.

The letters spell out how important a set of ideas are to their creator, and how much succor the author gains from them. They then begin to describe a campaign world.

About then, a voice tells the PCs that they should step aside, and allow the words to be destroyed. If they refuse, the voice warns then that their entire existence is fleeting, compared to the voice. It will destroy them.

Then put an open notebook on the table. Place the PCs’ figures on it. They are literally fictional characters described by a young gamer, and they are standing on the notebook that has all the gamer's favorite ideas. Some force wishes to destroy them. They are RPG miniatures brought to life, they are one inch tall, and some force in the room wishes to destroy this young gamer’s hopes and ideas.

Attack them with anything else on the table. This can be other miniatures, or some pencils, soda cans, and dice. Use appropriate monster stats, but grab apparently-random objects.

(Toys? Gothic décor? Stuff from the junk drawer? Throw it all at the players.)

Eventually let the PCs determine that something like an old Jack Chick tract is the source of the force that wishes to destroy the gaming notebook, and it is animating the things the PCs fight. It’s also somewhere in the room, and the PCs characters are free to jump off the gaming table (with appropriate skill checks) and search for it. (SOmething like Microsized Adventures might be helpful for some of this.) It keeps throwing challenges at them to stop them.

But when the PCs find the malevolent force, and see how ridiculous it is, it loses all power. The PCs save the young gamer’s campaign notebook and ideas forever, and they will be grand heroes of legend or demigods within the setting in the notebook. The scenario ends.

For bonus fun, do this just before launching a ttRPG where the greatest gods and heroes are the pregenerated characters the players ran in this scenario.