D&D One Shot Monsters and Other Childish Things

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Becoming a game master in my own D&D campaign is a recent goal of mine. Last Saturday, I was fortunate to be included in a one-shot campaign using the rules from Monsters and Other Childish Things. Players take on the role of children whose best friends are monsters as they play through a custom story about surviving the school day. Ironically, our story didn’t even occur on school grounds instead our story took place at a sleepover at my character’s house. This campaign can be adapted into a longer campaign or a one-shot which is what my group did on Saturday.

One-shot campaigns are campaigns that begin and end on the same day. Most D&D campaigns I have heard of continue for weeks or months. I like that one shot is short because if your schedule is as chaotic as mine is, it’s difficult to carve time for a D&D campaign weekly.

[Image is a children's drawing. At the top it says "Mr. Waffles" with a cat and an exclamation point right after. Below there are two images. One is an orange cat and the second cat is a lion creature with a sword]
I was required to draw Mr. Waffles, so this is what I came up with.

Ellie Ferguson is the character I created myself. She’s a sassy 7th grader living with her dad, little sister, and her monster. Unfortunately, her mother passed away when she was young, so her dad struggles to put food on the table. This circumstance has influenced Ellie to be overprotective of her little sister. Ellie’s monster is named Mr. Waffles who is an orange tabby cat when he’s happy. If Mr. Waffles is threatened, he turns into this raging orange lion monster complete with a sword. Mr. Waffles also has menacing claws that when he scratches his opponent, an ooze leaks from his claws that causes his enemies to hallucinate.

[Image is a character sheet. At the top it says "Permanent Record" and it lists my character's name, birthdate etc.]
My character sheet for Ellie Ferguson.

Over the course of the story, Ellie’s father starts dating a woman who turns out to be a witch. The big conclusion to this story is when Mr. Waffles is fighting her in the house, Mr. Waffles constantly scratches her head causing her to hallucinate because of the ooze that leaks from his claws. Also, Mr. Waffles can breathe fire so the house burned away ultimately collapsing on the evil witch, and killing her.

D&D is a way I can express my creative side by envisioning Mr. Waffles walking alongside Ellie. Monsters and Other Childish Things can be found at a local game store that carries D&D handbooks. Otherwise, the book can be found online in paperback and PDF format. Hopefully, the more experience I get role-playing, the more comfortable I would be in being a game master.

6 thoughts on “D&D One Shot Monsters and Other Childish Things”

  1. One shot games can be a lot of fun, as players tend to be able to get into their characters more easily, playing them to their fullest as in a longer campaign, which can take weeks, months or years (longest I was in was 2 and a half years to complete), players become a bit risk averse as no one wants to lose their character. Marvel Heroic is a good system for one shots, though sadly they don’t make it any more due to licensing issues. I wish you success in your GM’ing of DnD. It was daunting for me the first time, but it is an amazing experience. Have you had a look at any of my recent posts in a series called “The Quest for the Perfect Game”? They are intended to help games masters and you may find useful stuff there if you haven’t already

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  2. Dungeons and Dragons is such a great game of which I have a lot of great movies. Unfortunately these days I have trouble finding ganers to play with, but it’s still a lot of fun. This one shot story though sounds really cool and original. A well thought out idea, and very fun to play I think. Thanks for sharing this and bringing back some memories 😊

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