# Forum > Gaming > Roleplaying Games > D&D 5e/Next >  Help Planning a Bachelor Party/Wedding Themed One Shot

## gagelish

Howdy all,


One of my best friends is getting married, and his bachelor party is coming up. We actually met when I volunteered to DM a group of mostly new players who didn't really know each other, and we all spent two years playing a homebrew campaign I wrote set in Eberron. Since Eberron ended ~4 years ago I've pretty much exclusively been a PC with my friend who's getting married DMing. I thought it'd be fun to get him back on the player side of the screen and run a wedding/bachelor themed one shot on one night of his bachelor weekend.


I'll give you a summary of what I've got so far as well as areas I'm most looking for help on, but any thoughts, ideas, critiques, input, etc. on anything at all would be greatly appreciated.


I want to jump right in, so the story will open up in a giant chapel, my friend who's getting married up at the altar about to be married against his will to a (monster? demon? vampire? hag?) disguised as a beautiful woman. Despite the disguise, he knows she is not who she says she is, and does not want to marry her.


The rest of the party will bust in (or sneak in, or fly in, or whatever plan they come up with) and disrupt the wedding, then they'll have to escape the castle while solving riddles/puzzles and fighting/evading guards before a final confrontation where the identity of the BBEG is finally revealed and they have a final confrontation before (hopefully) getting away and living happily ever after.


If you remember The Princess Bride from the beginning of the wedding to the end of the movie you'll have a pretty good idea of the vibe I'm going for, though obviously the evil bride will be a more formidable opponent than Prince Humperdink, so challenging her to a duel to the pain probably won't work.


Like I said before, I'm open to absolutely any thoughts on any aspect of this, but the areas I'm most curious for advice are:


1) Does that sound like a fun little adventure? Anything you would change, add, subtract, etc. to make it more enjoyable?


2) Making sure it stays "one shot length". I've played and DM'd dozens of one shots over the years, and I think I've actually finished maybe three of them in one night. We all love D&D, but we've got lots of plans for the weekend, so this really needs to be doable in ~4 hours. To that end I'm hoping to keep things moving by:

a) Jumping straight into the action, no meeting in an inn, no gathering intel, they know their objective, and the enemy is in hot pursuit, so they won't have a ton of time to **** around.

b) Level 3 PCs. Every class has a few fun tools at their disposal, you're a bit less likely to TPK super easily, but we won't need to pause to look up how a bunch of mechanics interact or worry about preparing a spell list 20 spells long.

c) Relatively straightforward map design. There will be a few forked hallways, but generally things are going to funnel them from one combat, puzzle, point of interest, etc. to the next.

Do these seem like effective measures? Do you have any tips or tricks to estimate how long things will take? I've designed puzzles that I thought a group would solve in a few minutes and it took them hours, and vice versa, and I know to some extent it's just a matter of how things play out in the moment, but do you have any tips or tricks to keep things moving along when the pace is stalling? Ways to cut short a combat encounter that isn't just transparently an attempt to move things along?


3) Wedding and/or bachelor party themed riddles. I've been looking around for riddles and puzzles that are at least tangentially related to weddings or bachelor parties, and I've got some ideas, but are there any that you've used in the past that you loved? Any that spring to mind that can be easily adapted to be wedding themed? Also interested in any riddles that have good hints, where if they're having trouble I can point them in the right direction and keep things moving along without just giving them the answer.


4) What's a fun BBEG? This is a pretty savvy group of players, so I'm not afraid to throw something more challenging than usual for a level 3 party. It'd be great if it also tied into the wedding/bachelor party theme, and I'm not opposed to buffing up a hag with some extra abilities and lair actions, but I do want it to be a fun and memorable combat.


5) ALSO BBEG related! I have been toying with an idea where if the party can determine the true identity of the BBEG before the final combat it'll give them some kind of advantage. I've done that kind of thing in a campaign before where you have a lot of time to leave breadcrumbs, but never in something as short as a one shot, so if anyone has thoughts on a way to cleanly incorporate that into a one shot I'd really appreciate it. Bonus points if you can think of a way to incorporate it that also dovetails with the puzzles/riddles they'll be solving along the way.


6) Magic items and loot. I think one of the fun things about a one shot is that you don't have to worry about screwing up the combat balance of a campaign because you're never going to play these characters again. You can give out fun or weird or OP stuff that you don't normally see in a campaign because it'd be hard to work with moving forward. What are some of your favorites? Any stuff you could see easily reflavoring to be wedding or bachelor party themed?


7) Any fun, funny, amusing wedding related jokes, references, points of interest, sight gags, etc. you'd personally enjoy seeing in a one shot? Think: the priest in The Princess Bride or having Ye Olde Wedding Singer crooning Boy George in the back of the cathedral. Just anything you think you would enjoy. I will say, I don't want to include anything that equates weddings to the end of a man's life or bride's to a ball and chain or whatever. That stuff has never been funny, and it's especially not funny when the bride-to-be in question is an awesome person who is also my friend. Other than that, I'm open to anything.


Whew, I know this got long, so if you've read all (or even part of) it and have any thoughts to contribute I'd really appreciate. Thanks in advance for all of your help, and I hope everyone has a great day!

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## meandean

I don't have any particular ideas, but I think this is a really nice thing for you to do on your friend's behalf, and I'm sure everyone will have fun just because of that.

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## Angelalex242

A succubus is the classic monster for this.

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## gagelish

> I don't have any particular ideas, but I think this is a really nice thing for you to do on your friend's behalf, and I'm sure everyone will have fun just because of that.


Thank you!

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## gagelish

> A succubus is the classic monster for this.


Yeah, good call, it seems a little on the nose for a BBEG, but could make a fun miniboss/henchman/whatever.  Thanks for the suggestion!

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## kingcheesepants

The ordering seems really weird to me. They start off meeting the main villain (who they for some reason know is the bad guy despite a disguise), leave with the friend, do some puzzles and then confront the bad guy? If anything you should have the friend at the altar not know what's going on until the group busts in and saves the day at the climactic showdown at the chapel at the end after doing the puzzles and minions. 

As for riddles, there are a number with a love or marriage theme, for example "I hurt the most when lost, yet also when not had at all. Im sometimes the hardest to express, but the easiest to ignore. I can be given to many, or just one. What am I?" *Spoiler: answer*
Show

Love
 or  "What can fill a room but takes up no space?" *Spoiler: answer*
Show

Love
 and another "I am endless, and once you have me you are bound for life. What am I?" *Spoiler: answer*
Show

Marriage
 and one more for the road "It connects two people, yet it touches only one. What is it?" *Spoiler: answer*
Show

A wedding ring
. 

In addition to classic riddles you can do one of those how well do you know your spouse type games. This may require the help of the bride to be. But essentially you have a quiz time where the groom has to answer questions/notice things about their bride in order to determine if the person before them is the real deal or an impostor. Things like noticing what color things they choose or offering them their favorite foods etc etc. Do some brainstorming with the bride to be to get some ideas. This could very easily be tied into the determine their identity in order to gain an advantage. Perhaps they can lay a trap/poison the things that aren't the bride's favorite and that could lead to the bad guy starting with some damage or bad conditions. 

I like this idea overall, and will think some more on it.

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## follacchioso

That's a great idea, I am sure your friend will be very grateful for organizing it.

Some thoughts:
- Keep it short, at most a couple of hours. You will have lots of stuff to do, and many distractions. Have some character sheets prepared, or allow your friends to use existing characters. 

- Could you do this as a Live RPG? Can you hire fake swords and costumes somewhere? It may be difficult to implement, but it could be much more fun, as you won't have all guests sitting at a table all the time, but rather doing things around.

- Google "List of questions for stag party" online. This is the time to ask fun, impertinent, private, but also serious questions to your friend. "What is your partner's favorite food?" "How did you meet?" "Would you like to have kids at some point?" "What do you like/not like about your partner?" "Why are you marrying her, and not me?"
Can you fit this type of questions into the adventure? Maybe have the other players ask them during the adventure? At a stag party I was, we put the groom on a wall, asked these type of questions (we had a paper sheet that we passed around), and throw water globes at them if we did not like the answer. Could you do this in a D&D way?

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## animorte

Watch the Arby and the Chief episode: Wedding. That was pretty funny and one of the 3 episodes I recommend if somebody doesnt know that show.

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## sandmote

> I want to jump right in, so the story will open up in a giant chapel, my friend who's getting married up at the altar about to be married against his will to a (monster? demon? vampire? hag?) disguised as a beautiful woman. Despite the disguise, he knows she is not who she says she is, and does not want to marry her.
> ...
>  I will say, I don't want to include anything that equates weddings to the end of a man's life or bride's to a ball and chain or whatever. That stuff has never been funny, and it's especially not funny when the bride-to-be in question is an awesome person who is also my friend. Other than that, I'm open to anything.


 I feel like "you're about to get married and we're here to rescue you" falls a bit too close to the "bride is a ball and chain" thing. I would either have the plot consist of rescuing the bride-to-be (possibly with prerecorded voice clips; I'm assuming the bride isn't at the bachelor party) from being forced to marry the monster, or have it consist of the monster trying to stop the PCs from getting inside the chapel. 

Items:
A Ring of Protection or Ring of Warmth the PC can give to the bride when the storyline concludes.Armor of Gleaming for the Suit. See also the Clothes of Mending to keep everyone looking wedding ready.If you go with your original plot idea, have the monster hide a dagger of poison in her bouquet.A puzzle which lets you identify a pair of Tankards of Sobriety. Then in a later situation drinking some guard under the table is easier than fighting them.Chromatic RosesSomething Old: An item that returns to you as a bonus actionSomething New: Have the PCs craft something as a reward, and then they can choose its type (a potion or maybe an elemental gem)Something Borrowed: A enemy faced early on flees, dropping an item. Later the party has a chance to return the item, after which the enemy lets them borrow something more powerful for their task.Something Blue: anything made the scales of a blue or sapphire dragon. 
For clues about the nature of the final boss, maybe make something like the Dragons Wrath Weapon from Fizban's, and have it increase in power each time the party does...some plot relevant thing. Maybe throw in items the bride-to-be likes (favorite flowers, items sorted by color, that type of thing) and the item is strengthened each time you sacrifice one such item to it. The  final boss (or their minions) in the final fight are then either vulnerable to the item's damage type or are resistant/immune to most other damage types but not the one the weapon deals.

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## firelistener

> I feel like "you're about to get married and we're here to rescue you" falls a bit too close to the "bride is a ball and chain" thing.


I agree with this. For my own bachelor party, my groomsmen also ran a D&D game. They gave me a premade fighter character and the story was rescuing my fiancee from a wizard that kidnapped her. My buddy tried to role play as my fiancee at the very beginning before she got kidnapped, and it was laughably cringey to me because he did an absolutely terrible job, which is understandable because he didn't know her the way I did.

The fun parts to me were just getting to fight some monsters and do some puzzles, so if you really feel the need for it to be themed, I recommend staying away from role playing anyone that represents a real person you know IRL. For plot, I think maybe just having him wake up late and need to fight some monsters to get to the wedding on time would be good. Maybe they van have objectives along the way like:
1. Go pick up the rings that were stolen by goblins.
2. Deal with an ambush where the road is blocked.
3. Fight off the BBEG who blocks them when they're close to the ceremony.

The stuff in the OP did sound fun to me though. I would just tread carefully around anything you role play that could be construed as "marriage=bad" or role playing people from IRL. Grooms can have a lot of nervous emotions around that time frame lol.

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## Nidgit

As a brief idea, the party can accidentally stumble into a celebration of woodland and fey creatures. An actual stag party, if you will.

As far as whatever parallel you have for the real bride, I strongly suggest making them helpful in some way instead of just a damsel in distress. Maybe they were captured but broke out attempting to rescue the groom in turn, or maybe they're some powerful magical patron who gives him advice and a dope magical item right before the final throwdown. Your boy's the hero but his real bride-to-be isn't just some responsibility, she's here to care for and support him equally.

I'd also suggest having each player establish how they know the groom's PC either beforehand or as soon as they show up. It'll give everyone a chance to establish a stronger character dynamic while also riffing on their real history.

My last note is one for general puzzle-making, particularly for time-sensitive one-shots: when there's a specific solution required, create layered hints you can add or reemphasize whenever the party gets stuck. There's an additional feature that can be noticed with a decent Perception/Investigation check, or a good Nature/Arcana check reveals some important inconsistency. If the party seems stuck, recap what they know about the situation. It's much better to have them moving too fast than idling without direction.

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## MosasUsufan

It sounds like you have a fun and creative idea for a bachelor party/wedding themed one-shot D&D adventure! To make it enjoyable, consider adding character-specific challenges or opportunities. To keep it one-shot length, aim for the final confrontation around the 4-hour mark and set a time limit for puzzles/riddles.

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## da newt

Yeah, I'd steer clear of the bride is the BBEG too - it's a little risky, you never know if someone will take offense.  The plot hook of the adventure should be something more positive - I'd think the mad dash to get the groom and party to the church on time while overcoming obstacles, foes, riddles etc would work well.

I prefer level 5 for things like this.  It's still simple, but allows the players to be a bit more heroic.

It sounds like a blast, and I'd definitely try to theme it light and cartoony (Princess Bride feels are perfect), more beer and puns than dangerous or dark and gloomy.  The more campy the better.  

ENJOY.

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## truemane

*Metamagic Mod*: Consider some (Thread) Necromancy for an extra special event!

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