The best DnD one shots 5e

One of the finest ways to introduce folks to the wild worlds of Dungeons and Dragons, DnD one shots are single adventures that can be completed in around one to three sessions. They’re a good choice for DnD groups that struggle to nail down regular sessions, or Dungeon Masters looking for shorter setup and lighter running commitments. If you’re looking for 5e one shots and advice on running them, you’ve come to the right place.

Being smaller, Dungeons and Dragons one shots require less input both behind and beyond the DM screen. These short adventures are a hands-on way for players to try out different DnD classes, new DnD races, or fresh adventure themes. They’re also a fun way for DMs to toy around with new DnD settings – such as the dread domains of Ravenloft or the cosmic plains of Spelljammer.

Whether you’d like to work with a prewritten one shot DnD adventure, or generate your own one shots from scratch, there are options galore – so we’ve compiled this guide as your ideal starting point.

Here’s all you need to know about DnD one shots:

• Best official DnD one shots
• DnD one shot ideas
• DnD one shot generators 

Best official DnD one shots

If you want all (or at least most) of the hard work done for you, there’s plenty of pre-made DnD one shots out there. And with anthology books becoming more frequent, you can even choose adventures written by the in-house team at Wizards of the Coast.

These are the best official DnD one shots:

• 1. Affair on the Concordant Express
• 2. Shadow of the Sun
• 3. Death House
• 4. Tomb of Horrors 

1. Affair on the Concordant Express

If you’ve read our Keys from the Golden Vault review, you’ll know we didn’t love everything the 2023 anthology had to offer. But we adored Affair on the Concordant Express. As intriguing as it is hilarious, this is one of the more memorable one shots Wizards has published in recent memory.

The adventure takes place on the titular train, which is transporting a high-profile prisoner known as the Stranger. They have information that your party needs, so it’s time for a little breaking and entering.

The actual train itself is made up of a series of carriages that the DM can arrange and swap out as they please. This gives the adventure plenty of replayability. Plus, every option is a delight, offering comedic and wondrous encounters that’ll balance the tension of the main heist mission. 

2. Shadow of the Sun

We can’t recommend Journeys through the Radiant Citadel enough for fans of DnD one shots, and Shadow of the Sun might be the cream of the crop. It’s a dense, serious adventure filled with political intrigue, and each decision you make has vast consequences for the city you find yourself in.

Your party finds themselves in the city of Akharin Sangar, ruled by the angel Atash. A celebration is about to begin as you arrive, but all is not well. Anarchists butt heads with local law, while a peaceful resistance group struggles to stay out of trouble. Players can choose which groups they want to assist, with varied endings depending on their decisions.

Few one shots offer quite as much depth as Shadow of the Sun. This does mean it’s likely to become one of the infamous ‘one shots that’s actually a two or three shot’, but it’s well worth taking the time to explore this glorious city. 

3. Death House

Death House is infamous among the D&D players who’ve attempted it. It’s harsh, grim, and challenging almost to a fault. But with a bit of fine-tuning, it makes for an exciting slice of Gothic Horror that players won’t soon forget.

While it’s introduced as a beginner session for a Curse of Strahd campaign, Death House is easily detached from its wider context. All you need is a reason for players to rock up to this mysterious house and meet the two children standing outside. They claim a monster lives in their home, and they beg you to uncover the mysteries and cleanse the residence.

Of all our suggestions, Death House is the DnD one shot that needs the most work done to it. We highly recommend remodeling the house to fit your own purposes, adapting challenge ratings, adding more flavor to empty-looking rooms, or dropping more clues for your players. Alternatively, it comes with optional rules that make it even harder to survive. Do as you desire – you’re the master of the house. 

4. Tomb of Horrors

The original Tomb of Horrors module was created by Gary Gygax in the 1970s, but Wizards of the Coast has released an updated version for fifth edition. It’s still a mega-strategic dungeon crawl that’s very capable of killing you, though. And it’s still definitely worth playing.

Story isn’t much of a priority in this one shot, but the basic gist is that you’re delving into the dungeon to try and score some epic loot. Along the way you’ll face a range of monsters from the banal to the brutal, as well as some super unforgiving traps. For many people, the goal of Tomb of Horrors isn’t to reach the ending – it’s to see how far you can actually get.

If you’re mainly playing D&D for combat and strategy, this is an ideal choice. There’s still plenty of opportunity for roleplay and storytelling, but maybe don’t send your comfort character into the Tomb – they might not come back out. 

DnD one shot ideas

A great place to start looking for one shot ideas is existing D&D books. DnD publisher Wizards of the Coast has released several adventure anthologies that can easily be chopped up into short, single adventures.

Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel offers a kaleidoscope of colorful adventures set in places inspired by the authors’ cultures. You can find ripping magical yarns hidden between pages in the library of Candlekeep Mysteries, and daring robberies in Keys from the Golden Vault. Test your players with a dungeon from the Tales From the Yawning Portal collection, or embark on a pirate adventure from Ghosts of Saltmarsh.

More experienced DMs might want to pick a setting – such as the eternal war of Eberron, the mythical plains of Magic: The Gathering-themed Mythic Odysseys of Theros, or the space-faring reaches of Spelljammer – and craft their own unique one shot adventure there. All these books feature an introductory adventure to get you started in the world, which should throw up plenty of one shot ideas to work with.

Last, but absolutely not least, there are a range of free, purpose-written, official DnD one shots available online direct from Wizards, such as horror dungeon Death House or ice-laden mystery Frozen Sick.

Digital marketplace D&D Beyond is something of a gold mine when it comes to free one shots. In its archives, you can find ‘Encounter of the Week‘ blog posts that offer a wide range of one-off adventures. They also do seasonal or promotional one-offs, such as the free Vecna one shot that was released after Stranger Things season four, or this Valentine’s Day adventure.

In fact, holidays are a great jumping-off point for many one shots. Some of the most popular DnD one shots on digital marketplace DMs Guild are festive – just check out the Gingerbread & Dragons Christmas one shot or this April Fool’s Day one shot. You’ll need to pay for these adventures, but they only cost a few dollars at most.

The Old School Renaissance community is known for creating games based on or inspired by classic editions of Dungeons and Dragons, but it’s biggest asset is a huge community of people homebrewing game content. Loads of people create One Page Dungeons which are just what they sound like, a whole dungeon adventure on a single sheet of paper.

Dave’s Mapper assembles random dungeons from community-generated geomorph tiles, and is a great source of inspiration. Ram Sivaranjan’s Save vs. Total Party Kill blog has a great grab bag of links to enormous, community created hex maps – every hex is its own, one-shot hook. 

DnD one shot generators

If you’re looking to build your own one shot adventure from scratch, there are plenty of DnD one shot generators online. One of the keys to building an engaging adventure yourself is keeping things as succinct as possible, and setting up conflicts and goals quickly. That might include tactics like:

• Using a DnD character creator to roll up all your players’ DnD character sheets well in advance
• Starting your one shot directly outside a dungeon
• Spending as little ‘downtime’ as possible in the game getting to know each other’s characters

This unofficial Random Adventure Generator randomly generates one shot DnD structures based around theme, plot, goals, story hooks, villains and every other part of the structure you’ll need to set up a D&D one shot. Just refresh for a whole new adventure. The same site has even more tools, including a great random dungeon map generator.

To create a funhouse dungeon of random nonsense, Ram Sivaranjan’s Random Dungeon With X Rooms can generate numbered room descriptions which will populate a keyed map with chaotic fun.

The pay-what-you-want Wallet Dungeons and Wallet Monsters toolkits by Awkward Turtle on Itch.Io uses just a few cards and some regular DnD dice to generate a miniature dungeon location and a uniquely motivated monster. Check out Ithaqas Bane’s video walkthrough to get a sense for how they work:

If you’d prefer a more free-form structure, try the D&D one shot generator at Chaos Gen, which takes a looser approach. The Random Adventure Outline offers a more story-based approach, with less emphasis on hooks and plot points, and more on narrative inspiration.

Meanwhile, if you’re armed with a full arsenal of DnD dice, Rand Roll offers free ‘quick adventure’ tables for your DnD one shot ideas. These operate in a similar vein to the tables seen in official DnD 5e sourcebooks, in which numerous characters, events and goals are ascribed numbers, and you roll to randomly determine what you select.