Every so often, you just have to run a one-shot. It can be a nice palate cleanser from your ongoing campaign, a commitment-free way to introduce new players to the game (or old players to new RPG systems), or a way to keep playing when half your group can’t make it one week.

If you’re like me and like to weave a variety of world-shaking secrets into your campaign worlds, you might have a lot of stuff you can’t wait to reveal to players. Rather than wait until the appropriate moment in your current campaign to reveal these secrets, why not dropt them in a quick one-shot set in the same world?

Even better, why not run a sort of side-campaign of one-shots with recurring player characters? This is the concept behind what I’m calling “the campaign interludes.”

Interludes in Fiction

This isn’t a new concept. Fans of Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive will be familiar with the interludes he injects into various points in the massive 1200+ page novels in this series. These interludes often have very little to do with the main plot, and at times it’s hard to even see how they’re even related to the setting itself. They all seem to hint at little secrets here and there, and they serve to flesh out the world, making it feel richer and more complex.

It’s a cool concept, and I kind of want to use it for my current campaign.

Interlude Campaign

The idea of an interlude campaign is that each session is a standalone scenario. That way, you can have a different cast of player characters in each one, making it great as a break from a mainline campaign when half your group can’t attend. At the same time, the fact that it occurs in the same world means you can have some characters pop up again and again. Player characters can level up and find treasures that will carry over, giving each session stakes, all while demanding very little actual commitment from your group. If you want to add someone in for a week or two, it can be a great way to involve them without creating continuity challenges for the rest of your campaign.

You might consider having something to tie all these random characters and their one-off adventures together, such as being members of the same secret organization or treasure hunters at a specific location (a la West Marches) or even individuals with similar goals. However, this isn’t mandatory.

What excites me the most about this concept is the fact that it gives me an opportunity to reveal cool secrets to my players in a meta sort of way.

My Interlude Plans

The concept I have for my interludes will involve a being called The Broker. He’s a sort of enigmatic creature who lives on the edge of the universe and makes deals with the dead: in exchange for a portion of their souls (mechanically, one experience level) and the occasional favor, he’ll regenerate them upon the world where they died. Those favors usually involve gathering information for him, which makes it a great way for me to hint at cool stuff for my players to pick apart.

This is also a great way to play with an incomplete or somewhat rearranged group for a week or two while the main campaign is on hiatus (as tends to happen in a college town during holidays). The Broker can call upon any collection of people in his debt for a given task, making it pretty flexible in terms of players. At the same time, it allows for continuity between one-shots, potentially engendering more investment from my players.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

The Astral Wanderer is brought to you by an inviting call from the edge of creation where reality itself splits and frays, curling back on itself to reflect the past, present, and possible futures of all things. If you like this post, share it with someone who enjoys RPGs. Alternatively, share it with someone who hates RPGs. Your call. All proceeds go toward mining world-breaking secrets from deep, forgotten places. Really.