A night at the Circus: My 'intro to DnD' oneshot... and how it all went wrong

A Tabaxi Rogue, an Aarakocran Druid, a Gnomish Wizard and a Dragonborn Paladin walk into a bar.

No, it’s not the start of a joke. It’s the start of a one-shot I put together some months ago to introduce a friend to DnD. The idea was that the players would spend most of the session in a circus, in which there are a series of mini-games which demonstrate how things like skill checks, and attack rolls worked. There would also be the opportunity for some roleplay, and a story which would initially take a back seat to a more exploratory session, but would resolve at the end of the session, forcing the players to make a choice about how they wanted the story to end.

You can find out how the session is supposed to pan out here.

In reality, my players, not least the newbie who’d never played DnD before, decided to pick up what I was putting down and run several miles with it. It ended up being one of the most fun sessions I’ve ever DMed, and taught me a lot about improvising at the table. I have left the session I wrote largely untouched, apart from smartening it up a little, so anything I describe below which is not included in the document above, I had to make up on the fly.

The players gathered in the pub and introduced themselves. I usually open ‘soft-start’ sessions like this with a fairly innocuous question to the players, such as what brings them to the town, or what they have been doing since the previous session. This allows players to warm up into the roleplaying and get into character in a low-stakes way.

Then, one of the townsfolk burst into the tavern, proclaiming that the circus was in town! Taking the hook, the players set off to investigate. On the way, the rogue spotted a goblin watching from the trees and went off to investigate on her own. Fortunately, she had the sense not to get herself into any trouble and rejoined the group, but not before finding a sizeable Goblin camp not far from town. The players arrived at the circus and saw that it was just setting up, so they had a few hours before the circus opened. So far so planned.

Then they decided to break into the circus, because they were very worried about the welfare of the animals. So far so not planned.

It went about as well as you might imagine, which is to say that not long after, the Paladin was at the local manor talking to the local lord, while the other three snuck past the guards and into the circus. They managed to have a little look around before being spotted. Fortunately, they were able to talk their way into pretending that they were here to audition for the circus.

The wizard and the druid failed their performance checks and were asked to leave, which they eventually did and went back to the pub. Meanwhile the rogue with expertise in Performance aced it and had an interview with the Circus Master.

The rogue had decided at some point that she had previously been part of the circus, but had left after the Zebadiah, the Circus Master, killed her mother, so she was out for revenge. She slipped away from the Zebadiah and went to his caravan, killing the man guarding it, and stealing a precious amulet that she decided he had, as well as some paperwork which she hoped might incriminate him.

She escaped back to the pub, where the Paladin and the local lord were now drinking. Thel lord was understandably shocked at the theft of the circus ledgers, but instead of looking through them to find evidence of malpractice, he marched back to the circus to return them. Fortunately, the rogue managed to pass her deception check, so he was unable to conclusively pin the theft on her.

Finally, after several hours of play, the players returned to the circus as it was opening, and did the stuff I had planned.

When the goblins attacked the circus, demanding that the animals be released, the players joined forces with them. They thought the fact that the goblins wanted to free the animals was great, because they had arrived at that plan themselves, with literally no prompting from me. The rogue forced a confession out of the circus master and the wizard showed her violent side, by killing him once she heard the whole story. Meanwhile, the Goblins freed the animals and invited the party along for the ride.

It was a fun and satisfying ending to an enjoyable session.

This story, and this session, is a perfect example of ‘no plan survives first contact with the players’. They got as far as the circus arriving in town, then everything went to hell. This is partially due to how I’d planned the session. There is a gap between the players finding out about the circus and the circus opening, with nothing planned for that time. This is deliberate. Depending on what the players decide to do, you can skip forward to the circus opening, or follow their lead. Maybe go investigate the goblins some more, maybe explore the town, maybe break into the circus and try to destroy it before it has even been set up.

What they chose left me improvising. I hadn’t planned for a local lord, but the nobleman dragonborn wanted to speak to him, so I made it up. I hadn’t really thought about what would happen if the players tried to break into the circus, but there were obvious obstacles to put in their way, which required skill checks. Those skill checks had obvious consequences, pass or fail.

If you’re a reasonably experienced DM with reasonable knowledge of the different skills and abilities in the game, coming up with this stuff on the fly is not all that difficult, especially at level 1, where the players cannot really do much mechanically to surprise you. It just required the confidence to let the players lead you and reply to what they suggest by saying ‘yes… and’

Or ‘yes… but’, or even ‘no...but’.

‘Yes, and’ is a core tenant of improv, which is really what roleplaying games are all about. Sure there are rules, which make it a game, rather than just roleplay, but ultimately, you’re still improvising whenever things go off script, which they should on a regular basis, because the players have agency.

Reading the story above, you may think that the rogue went too far in establishing things about her backstory and the backstory of the circus that she had not discussed with me. I think this is true, and in an ideal world we would have had a session zero, or at least discussed backstories before the session, especially if this was the first session of a campaign. This was ostensibly just a one-shot, so it didn’t really matter that much, as I was happy to let her shape the story in her own way. I think it made the session more interesting and the story more dynamic.

It also clearly worked, because I think the new player (the rogue!) got a good understanding of how the game works, and enjoyed herself enough that we turned the one-shot into a whole campaign. Not only that, but the amulet that she stole from the Circus Master turned out to be a really powerful magic item that is integral to the plot of the campaign. That wasn’t the case when we started. The amulet didn’t even exist when we started the session. I built on the offer from the player. I said ‘yes’ to the amulet, and then said ‘and’ when I planned the outline of the campaign.

I think the circus one-shot is a lot of fun. There is the capacity for the session to go any number of different ways, with players making different choices depending on what they bring to the table, and how the situation is presented to them. I genuinely don’t think any two sessions would be the same, so please feel free to use it to get your friends into DnD!