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Making an adventure whole-cloth out of a novel?
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<blockquote data-quote="OnlineDM" data-source="post: 5588790" data-attributes="member: 90804"><p>Yeah, this is more what I had in mind. It would be ridiculous to try to have all of the conversations from an actual novel be worked into an adventure, of course - the protagonists in the adventure will be a random group of adventurers rather than a single, well-defined character. But I could very easily see the following outline:</p><p></p><p>Scene 1: The adventurers are called to the scene of a murder. They investigate and discover the following possible leads. They meet the following NPCs (which they could ignore, befriend, distrust, etc.).</p><p></p><p>Scene 2: The PCs may come to this scene based on some of the leads in Scene 1. They find this particular den of bad guys, who attempt to intimidate them rather than fight, though a fight could break out. Here are the NPCs. Here are their stats in case a fight does break out (along with a description of the terrain for the fight).</p><p></p><p>Scene 3: The PCs may come to this scene based on leads in Scene 1 or Scene 2. Details here.</p><p></p><p>Scene 4: While the PCs have some down time, they are contacted by NPC X who asks for their help with situation Y. They can follow up on this and go to Scene 5, or they could ignore it and do some independent investigation on the threads they picked up in earlier scenes, which could either lead them to Scene 5 all the same or to Scene 6, depending on the results.</p><p></p><p>And so on, until we get to Scene 15, which is the climactic battle sequence with the BBEG that all roads ultimately lead to.</p><p></p><p>This particular book struck me as being well constructed to provide Scenes 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, for instance. If it were converted into a published adventure, those scenes could be taken more or less as-is from the book (same NPCs, same settings, same plot hooks). However, given that any particular party may take a different path, the conversion author would have to provide Scenes 3, 7, 8, 11 and 12 to explore alternate paths that ultimately lead to the same conclusion.</p><p></p><p>So, following the footsteps of the novel protagonist would be a path available to the party, but some branching paths would be out there as well, though they all end up in the same place (as is the case in general with published adventures).</p><p></p><p>It's more than just taking some NPCs, monsters and plot hooks from the novel, but it's not a "faithful railroad" either. </p><p></p><p>And it sounds like the answer to my question is, "No, this sort of thing is generally not done." That's fine - I was just curious. I'm still relatively new to RPGs, so I don't know what's out there.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="OnlineDM, post: 5588790, member: 90804"] Yeah, this is more what I had in mind. It would be ridiculous to try to have all of the conversations from an actual novel be worked into an adventure, of course - the protagonists in the adventure will be a random group of adventurers rather than a single, well-defined character. But I could very easily see the following outline: Scene 1: The adventurers are called to the scene of a murder. They investigate and discover the following possible leads. They meet the following NPCs (which they could ignore, befriend, distrust, etc.). Scene 2: The PCs may come to this scene based on some of the leads in Scene 1. They find this particular den of bad guys, who attempt to intimidate them rather than fight, though a fight could break out. Here are the NPCs. Here are their stats in case a fight does break out (along with a description of the terrain for the fight). Scene 3: The PCs may come to this scene based on leads in Scene 1 or Scene 2. Details here. Scene 4: While the PCs have some down time, they are contacted by NPC X who asks for their help with situation Y. They can follow up on this and go to Scene 5, or they could ignore it and do some independent investigation on the threads they picked up in earlier scenes, which could either lead them to Scene 5 all the same or to Scene 6, depending on the results. And so on, until we get to Scene 15, which is the climactic battle sequence with the BBEG that all roads ultimately lead to. This particular book struck me as being well constructed to provide Scenes 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, for instance. If it were converted into a published adventure, those scenes could be taken more or less as-is from the book (same NPCs, same settings, same plot hooks). However, given that any particular party may take a different path, the conversion author would have to provide Scenes 3, 7, 8, 11 and 12 to explore alternate paths that ultimately lead to the same conclusion. So, following the footsteps of the novel protagonist would be a path available to the party, but some branching paths would be out there as well, though they all end up in the same place (as is the case in general with published adventures). It's more than just taking some NPCs, monsters and plot hooks from the novel, but it's not a "faithful railroad" either. And it sounds like the answer to my question is, "No, this sort of thing is generally not done." That's fine - I was just curious. I'm still relatively new to RPGs, so I don't know what's out there. [/QUOTE]
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