RPG Errata: Night of the Hogmen, and Single Stories

It would be easy to mistake Night of the Hogmen for a module, easily adaptable to any system or setting you’d like. It’s meant to be played in a single evening, encompassing a single event: a panicked run from a crashed carriage to a church, chased all the while by a swarming sea of ravenous hogmen.

But it’s not a module: it has its own small ruleset and premade characters. It’s Forged in the Dark, and while it is a part of a larger setting, it has no concrete connection to anything beyond its single run. It’s a One-shot RPG, similar to Lady Blackburn or Honey Heist.

One-shot RPGs are not just rules-light RPGs with only enough material to sustain a single evening; they’re games specifically designed to only be played once. Hack n Slash, for example is not a One-shot RPG. Neither are Clown Helsing or Flexorcists, two games which still might only last you an evening.

Looked at that way, you could call any short dungeon a one-shot. Were it not for the connective tissue of your characters and anything that happens before and/or after, the dungeon delve lasts only a single evening.

So I’d like to look at a different definition of one-shot. Not games, stories, or events that can be completed in a single evening, but specifically games and stories that are only expected to be played once.

Now you could, naturally, say that of any system. Modules and campaigns are only “supposed” to be played once. You can play them multiple times, but you’re not expected to replay Tomb of Annihilation again and again to see all the things you missed and get all the hidden collectibles. There is no 100% completion for TTRPGs.

But with a broader view; Errant, Mausritter, Liminal Horror, and similar RPGs are all games that you are supposed to keep coming back to. The stories are different, but the rules are the same.

Video games embrace the division a bit more openly. There are video games that are only really meant to be played once. They have a singular goal and structure that is more focused on a concrete narrative, rather than a core mechanical loop. These are games like Myst or Day of the Tentacle; Adventure or Puzzle games, where once you know the “solution,” the game itself is finished. You can play these games more than once, but there really isn’t a need to.

Other games are like Civilization or Doom. The game is less about a story made by the creators, and more about the play; you can have strategies or practices, but every playthrough is going to be different, and so the joy comes from constantly improving your skills. If there is a story, it’s the story that naturally evolves through the play: the meta-narrative.

If this seems like it falls neatly into the story/system spectrum I’ve banged on about for ages, you are correct, it does.

In the RPG space we could look at this as a One-shot vs. Campaign style of play. Or, you could draw the line between sandboxes and narratives. It really doesn’t matter where you draw the line, because we all recognize that sometimes we want to keep playing more, and other times we don’t. The game is done.

Knowing this, what can we say about RPGs?

Well, some are obviously one-shots, designed to be played and then forgotten about and possibly not even played again. Do you really need to play Honey Heist more than once? Well, you could. In fact, a game involving a band of bears making multiple heists in an Ocean’s Number style series sounds fun. It’s a lighter take on Blades in the Dark, really.

But then there are the games like Hogmen, which are expressly designed to be played once and not continued. Some games like Lady Blackbird are given such clear and delineated scopes that playing beyond a single evening feels like leaving the game behind, as if the system was little more than a tutorial for the sprawling campaign you are now free to create yourself. Some games, like Foodfellas, are based on such a singular and simple joke that even playing for a full evening feels like giving the game too much credit.

Part of it is the designer’s efforts to guide the story. In Hogmen, you’re supposed to start at the carriage and end climbing up the church steeple. How you get there might change, but the story being told will always follow the same beats: the farmhouse, the tree, the wagon on the cliff…

Lady Blackbird, on the other hand, has concocted such a clear and visceral situation that you can almost feel the expectations of the creator as you play. Characters have motivations, goals, and clearly defined skills that make sure if the Owl gets in trouble, the same people are going to solve the problems they are best suited for.

If you played these games again, would anything important be different?

Whereas if you play Mausritter again, you’ll be in a different setting, a different town, with different equipment, allies, challenges, and abilities. Even if you play the same module again — say, Traders Torrent — you can go a different direction, find different characters, solve the problem in an entirely different way.

In this framework, Honey Heist and Mausritter are more of-a-kind than Hogmen and Lady Blackbird. The former two do not have the same guide-rails and walls that the latter two do, which more or less means that they are easier to explore in. You are more allowed to go in strange and unexpected directions in games with fewer walls.

Is one better than the other? No, of course not. One might be better than the other, depending on the table’s goal; if you want to create a story with a specific ending, the more guide-lines the better. If you want to create a tutorial mission or a campaign hook, the fewer limitations on the players the better.

But how much is too much? What if it goes beyond just writing a story or pushing players towards a specific ending. What if you have something very specific and important you want to say?

Next time, I’d like to discuss a style of game that has flourished in the underground: the games that aren’t only designed for single play, they’re distinct, bespoke, and personal.