A one-shot introducing a big setting

How do you introduce a big setting in a one-shot? You clearly can’t fit it all in, so what are the core features to include? This came from a Vampire: The Masquerade question so I answered it in Vampire terms.

I’ve always struggled with this. Introducing players to the World Of Darkness is straightforward enough with mortals, but there’s a lot to learn with Vampire and the other supernatural types.

One approach is to start with uninformed abandoned neonates. (The first edition quickstart Alien Hunger does this, as does the first edition Vampire: The Requiem introductory chronicle.) It’s a good introduction, but being clueless and threatened isn’t necessarily fun.

Another plan I’ve used has a coterie with a strong premise following another kind of story while showing the powers and drawbacks vampires have. For example I’ve run an introductory one-shot with a gang made up of young vampires robbing an elder’s front company, a pretty standard heist story except for what the characters could do. They could defeat a lot of the mortals on the premises easily, sneak past security guards with Obfuscate, shrug off bullets when shot at and the like, so they got a taste of the characters’ power, and got to see what it was like on the other side when the elder came for them at the end.

That’s a very long way of saying to work out what you want to showcase.

I also linked to this advice from Darker Days.