Writing your own adventures

[beldar1215]

Hello All,
I know this has probably been asked before, but I thought I would ask again. Does anyone know of any web sites or good articles about how to design your own adventures. I've been using pre-fab modules and would like to try my hand at createing my own. Thanks for any help.

Beldar

 

[Mark]

Two rules I try to follow for a "tailored" module...

1.) 14 encounters at an average CR of the group for whom you are designing it (with 4 characters of equal level)

2.) An even division of combat, roleplay, traps/puzzles

For a "status quo" location (not tied to group levels)-

1.) Start with a reason why it is threre, and always keep that in mind.

2.) Build from the strongest, and middle of the location, outward to the fringes of the location

Adjust those to suit your group and their preferences and you should do well. Hope that helps!

 

[Meds]

Hmmm, I can't think of too many websites or articles.

The guidelines in the DMG are excellent. Those in Call of Cthulhu/d20 are even better IMHO, and apply equally well to D&D.

The Dungeon magazine submission guidelines also contains some good generic advice (interspersed among the magazine-specific requirements):
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dungeon/submissions

Monte Cook has some great advice for the special challenges of designing high-level adventures:
http://www.montecook.com/arch_dmonly16.html

 

[Wicht]

I find that if I make sure to include all the aspects of the adventure required by dungeon magazine the adventure seems a lot more polished, even if its just for my own personal use.

 

[ced1106]

Highly recommended:
* Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering, Steve Jackson Games
* NPC Essentials, RPGObjects.com

See also Roleplayingtips.com


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^

 

[eris404]

Question

I find _Johnn Four's Roleplaying Tips Weekly_ to be very valuable. You can sign up for it here (it's a free e-zine):

http://www.roleplayingtips.com

I think there are archives there as well.

Specifically, are you looking for ideas or help with game mechanics?

 

[Drawmack]

Hmmm, just posted this in another thread but anyway here is what I do.

1) Concieve of a cool climactic battle or dungeon crawl. What makes it cool? What makes it different? When the players talk about it a year from now what wil they remember? Think of movies you've seen and books you've read. What made those fight scenes and dungeon crawls cool?

2) Design your BBEG, stat them out, do up their history, know them as well as you would know a character you were going to play at their level. If it's a monster really know them, dumb monster's generally don't work well for the BBEG.

3) What's your hook? Come up with a couple that sound unrelated this way you can fallback on them.

4) Now you design everything between the hook and that climactic battle/dungeon. This will be easy once you've done the other stuff first.

5) Write up the adventure as if you were going to submit it to dungeon for publication. You're PCs will be a lot less likely to take you off guard if you do this.

6) After it's playtested go ahead and submit it, what can it hurt and it only costs the price of postage even less if you submit it to someone who accepts email submissions.

 

[KenM]

What is BBEG?

 

[s/LaSH]

BBEG = big bad evil guy/girl.

For my part, I've got a very structured campaign, so many of the adventures just write themselves. I know what I want to happen, and what I want the PCs to experience, so I set up encounters and such on a large-scale basis to reflect that. However, many of the adventures were simple side-tracks on a theme relevant to the area of the world where they find themselves (they have a quest); for example, there was the time they had to take on an army of gnolls, not because the gnolls are their enemies in the grand scheme of things, but because they were guarding a prisoner they wanted to rescue from local justice. (My gnolls were a little more civilised than usual.)

So yeah, adventures that make sense on a campaign-level are important to me. The rest of the advice here is pretty good, tho. I know I always write up adventures as professionally as possible (I've got a BMP on my computer that's just an empty grid so I can draw layouts onto it quickly).

 

[maddman75]

Here's a few tips from my experience

- Plan loose. The players undoubtedly WILL think of doing things a way you haven't forseen. THis is much easier to dal with if you just go with it rather than fighting it.

- Get them involved. The advantage of a homemade adventure is that you can have it directly tailored to the adventure. One of your players a paladin who hates undead? Rumors of a building undead army will send him charging off.

- If you stat it, they will ignore it.

- If you don't stat it, they will attack it.

In general, I'd just have an outline of where you want the game to go. Have the eventual goal in mind, and the next 4-5 adventures outlines. Prepare the first adventure. Proceed as you go. After all, someone might lose a character or the campaign may take an unexpected turn. Don't try to force it into a certain mold, they are organic.

HTH