Playing some TTRPG One-Shots for Charity!
I’ve talked about the benefit and power of saying no to things as it relates to overbooking myself and wanting to do a lot of creative things, TTRPG streams especially. However, every now and then, a window opens up in my schedule and I tap out a tweet while feeling pretty good at happy hour…
You know what they say about tempting fate, but in this case, I really was available for generally 2-3 hour periods here and there, on a weekend evening. Being in a charity TTRPG one-shot when you’re already a streamer isn’t that tough. For me, it can mean a longer day of being on camera and online, but I usually get a break between my own stream and the one-shot, so it’s not too bad.
This past month, I was in 3 one-shots to benefit National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s Quest Accepted 2024, the first one the day after getting home from a short trip to California as Vee took us to BB’s Place, her amazing hub for all manner of fun D&D adventures.
For this one, she incorporated a mysterious blue box and a strangely-garbed character who always seems to show up uninvited to fix trouble, or sometimes cause more chaos. My character Sylvester got to talk to an ostrich, so I consider that a win. Fun was had all-round.
Then about a week later, our party of adventures was consigned to hell… or were we? Tanya ran us through an Infernal Goose Chase where our characters were assigned to deal with your classic “dragon menacing a village” problem.
Unfortunately, our particular blend of characters meant that things did not go as planned shortly after we started, and rather than being incinerated by the dragon and sent to Avernus, we instead started to explain to the dragon the concept of sustainability and nurturing the local economy so that they could better acquire the food they wanted without destroying the supply. And then we also fought some geese. 🪿
I had a nice two week break before another weekend of games, and first up was a game with my Wookie Cookies stream teammates as we raised money for World Central Kitchen and Diane led us through a D&D game in the 5e compatible Dark Matter setting. It was my first time playing a truly sci-fi game using D&D rules, and the additional elements in the Dark Matter sourcebook were a lot of fun to incorporate into a new character.
I hadn’t made a Warlock before, and it had been a long time since I was going by the book to make a character as opposed to clicking buttons on D&D Beyond, but thankfully other players had added a lot of the elements as homebrew, so I was able to have my virtual character sheet and dice just fine. Dark Matter is a vast departure from the usual fantasy settings, however our team was able to work together to respond to a distress call, and… everything was just fine. Just… fine. 😳
And then the second game of the weekend was back to a more classic D&D setting, but a far wilder premise thanks to Holly who set it in The Grease Pit in the Hive Ward of Sigil. However, my character Sylvester (yes, again) had been there previously for an unforgettable bottomless brunch.
Our motley crew of adventurers, salesmen, food-motivated canine, and idle rich felines ended up snacking on some rather interesting pies that we then had to deal with the after effects. When I asked what the tone of the campaign would be, I was told “silly” which is my favorite for one-shots and oh boy, did we have a romp. There may have been more than a few references to online content creation that cut to the quick, so be warned when you watch.
They were all a lot of fun, and we were able to bring attention to some good causes and raise some money, however… there’s always room for more, so if you’ve made it this far, maybe you wouldn’t mind clicking on some donation links and helping out?
- National Multiple Sclerosis Society – Quest Accepted 2024
- World Central Kitchen – #ChefsForThePeople
I’m still willing to do some one-shots ahead of PAX Unplugged, but I think I’ll be a little smarter and try to restrict it to just one or two a month, and not one or two on multiple weekends! 😅
My tweet from the start of this post still stands, and it doesn’t have to be D&D, it just has to fit into my schedule, satisfy my TTRPG checklist, and I’m down to play! Anyone got some horror-adjacent games happening in October that need a seat filled? Hit me up!
