Plot Templates

[gamerprinter]

You could also do something even better and provide no plot at all and instead provide them with a big, fleshed out world with several events in the making and let them decide if and how they want to get involved.

Additionally, I like to create multiple factions with agendas, then based on PC party interactions with various factions, plots are born, rather than needing a plot in place before the players find and put it into motion.

 

[Yora]

Plotting out the whole story in advance is possible, but greatly ignoring the great potential of the roleplaying game medium. Retelling a novel or movie in an rpg campaign is only scratching at the very surface of what an RPG can do, while barely making use of any of all the many great options that only RPGs can provide, that are not possible in any other medium. And the key is interaction. Or if you want "true interactivity".
Placing mines in a videogame or chosing dialog options is not interaction. It's still just chosing from the pre-planned options with no effects beyond the current scene. But in an RPG, the antagonists and allies of the PCs also have to react to their actions. Everyone gets to improvise, because someone from the other teams upset their plans. Players can chose not to assault a castle but disguise themselves as guards and with some trickery walk right up to the villains chamber to assassinate him or steal his magic artifact. Or they may chose not to go to the castle at all and instead fortify their own base and set a trap when the villain will make his attack.

They key to doing this is to plan what factions there are in the campaign, what they want to do, how they plan to do it, and what resources they have.
My current campaign looks a bit like this:
- Big Bad reads old book about artifact. (Before the game starts)
- Someone discovers the artifact and turns into a monster. (PCs might find the artifact, but it could also remain in its secret chamber.)
- Big Bad learns about the monster and goes to the dungeon to look around. (And either find the artifact, or pick up the trail of the PCs.)
- Big Bad will go to an old library. (If the PCs ever go there, he may or may not have already been there and took the book with the info on the artifact with him.)

At another point, two factions are fighting over an imprisoned monsters and want it to tell them its secrets, and the monster wants to escape. The PCs can chose to help any of these three or none at all. It's a bit unfair, but regardless of which of the three gets away with the information in the end, they will have another villain faction to deal with in the greater things of events. But the players don't know that it's a situation in which they can't win, but they know that this could have only happened because of the choices they made.

 

[GMMichael]

Additionally, I like to create multiple factions with agendas, then based on PC party interactions with various factions, plots are born, rather than needing a plot in place before the players find and put it into motion.

Factions, and even just villains, who act on their own are great problem creators. GM needs a problem? Just let your antagonists run loose and see what they come up with. But this thread is about "plot". . .

Plotting out the whole story in advance is possible, but greatly ignoring the great potential of the roleplaying game medium. Retelling a novel or movie in an rpg campaign is only scratching at the very surface of what an RPG can do, while barely making use of any of all the many great options that only RPGs can provide, that are not possible in any other medium. And the key is interaction. Or if you want "true interactivity".

Let's look to Call of Duty here. The developers of this game know how to program enemies, create their backstories, equip them, put them in factions, and give them nefarious plans. And the game's engine has all the physics (and non-physics) models that it needs to calculate every bullet fired, every jump attempted, and every heavy-rolling tank. Put it all together, and you have a good game.

But the CoD designers want more. They want a good story. They recognize that this doesn't always happen organically, so they write in some plot, and narrow the player's choices a bit. Prime example: you're the main character, and you're on a battlefield. You see a path that would allow you to flank the enemy to the left, and destroy him from behind. You'd succeed, but then you'd miss the epic helicopter shootout and comrade-death scene. So they force you to flank to the right. If you try to go left, you automatically get shot.

They're not plotting out the whole story; they're adding a level of plot that increases the drama of the game. You can still choose to throw grenades or pick up enemy weapons, but it must be down the right flank. This is what I mean by adding plot to my campaign. The PCs still have agency, but to avoid the mechanical use of the rules to succeed, they're encouraged to take the dramatic route to the goal - and have a more memorable experience in the process.

 

[Derren]

[...]
You'd succeed, but then you'd miss the epic helicopter shootout and comrade-death scene. So they force you to flank to the right. If you try to go left, you automatically get shot.

They're not plotting out the whole story; they're adding a level of plot that increases the drama of the game. You can still choose to throw grenades or pick up enemy weapons, but it must be down the right flank. This is what I mean by adding plot to my campaign. The PCs still have agency, but to avoid the mechanical use of the rules to succeed, they're encouraged to take the dramatic route to the goal - and have a more memorable experience in the process.

Take a step back and read that again. What you are describing is not a plot, it is a railroad.
Besides, using Call of Duty as an example for anything even just remotely related to good storytelling is a sin unto itself.

 

[Janx]

Take a step back and read that again. What you are describing is not a plot, it is a railroad.
Besides, using Call of Duty as an example for anything even just remotely related to good storytelling is a sin unto itself.

I can agree with that.

From the point of storytelling merged with RPGs, it would have been better if the GM recognized that when the players do go flank on the left because they had a good idea, to then make THAT be interesting as a story. That might involve re-using some parts the GM had planned for what happens when the flank on the right, or it might involve making up some new stuff.

It's not a crime if the GM didn't think of flanking on the left as a possibility. It's more a sin to thwart a valid attempt by players when they try to do something that the GM didn't think of.

 

[gamerprinter]

But this thread is about "plot". . .

Aside from agreeing with others that pointing out how Call of Duty work is a geniune railroad, and no plot at all, my solution is not a hard plot and I never include one. Instead I'll have a loose plot in place, but something that the PCs can (and usually will) turn on its head, so the plot is never very concrete. Having detailed factions with agendas in place and understood helps make the fluidity of PC actions work no matter what they do, and no matter what a particular faction intended to do. As I said, and I meant, plots create themselves. Knowing what the NPCs are doing or want to do, mixed with interactions by the PCs might cause some alterations required by the faction to accomodate the PCs actions - the PCs are what makes the story happen. Having a pre-written layout of all upcoming actions in the form of a plot is often not the way things fall in place, and if you force the pre-written plot anyway - it becomes a railroad and the game session fails.

Even in published adventures I am involved in, there is always an out (a different way to handle encounters and storyline based on PC actions). If an encounter is planned for some village at the end of a particular road, but the PCs opt to not go down that road, or leave the road altogether - this has to be expected and the planned encounter skipped, because the PCs have changed the story. I always include options to how best to continue the adventure if the party does X instead of Y. The main story arc doesn't change, but how it plays out is only determined by PC actions.

 

[GMMichael]

Well. I guess I'll refrain from using examples in the future.

Even in published adventures I am involved in, there is always an out (a different way to handle encounters and storyline based on PC actions). If an encounter is planned for some village at the end of a particular road, but the PCs opt to not go down that road, or leave the road altogether - this has to be expected and the planned encounter skipped, because the PCs have changed the story. I always include options to how best to continue the adventure if the party does X instead of Y. The main story arc doesn't change, but how it plays out is only determined by PC actions.

Outs - a GM fact of life. Come up with the best plan, and PCs will always find a way to completely miss it.

By the way, if you're interested in raising your plot's dramatic impact, you can segregate location from your important encounters. That makes it easier to drop that plot twist on the PCs no matter what direction they go...

 

[Hand of Evil]

Another point to remember is "for every action, there is a reaction". During games, there are a number of actions the players take that can become plots with a simple; what if. The DM just has to note them, again, most will become back story, in game gossip and rumors, the added benefit is that players may become invested in the game world.

Example:

Players are running from the henchmen of the big bad and decide to blow up a bridge as they are crossing it. Because of this action, goods now have to take a different route, a village down the road depended on this bridge/road for income and now has to repair it or slowly die. The DM notes the bridge is gone and notes a new path around. Next time the players are in the area, they hear the story, they hear that people are looking for the bridge destroyers or they might meet an NPC on the way to the capital to try and get the bridge rebuilt, they have to go around.

This can be taking out more over time. Say, six months to nine months bridge is being repaired...gold is found, the whole area booms.​

All that just by taking the time to do a what if.

 

[delericho]

Plotting out the whole story in advance is possible, but greatly ignoring the great potential of the roleplaying game medium. Retelling a novel or movie in an rpg campaign is only scratching at the very surface of what an RPG can do, while barely making use of any of all the many great options that only RPGs can provide, that are not possible in any other medium. And the key is interaction. Or if you want "true interactivity".

This is very true. While I think there is a great deal a DM can learn from more general storytelling techniques, I'm also very wary of DMs who talk in terms of 'plots', since the danger is indeed that the DM is telling a story, rather than the group telling that story.

They key to doing this is to plan what factions there are in the campaign, what they want to do, how they plan to do it, and what resources they have.
My current campaign looks a bit like this:
- Big Bad reads old book about artifact. (Before the game starts)
- Someone discovers the artifact and turns into a monster. (PCs might find the artifact, but it could also remain in its secret chamber.)
- Big Bad learns about the monster and goes to the dungeon to look around. (And either find the artifact, or pick up the trail of the PCs.)
- Big Bad will go to an old library. (If the PCs ever go there, he may or may not have already been there and took the book with the info on the artifact with him.)

This is all good stuff.

Another thing that I've found helpful with RPG 'plot' design is the Narrow-Wide-Narrow structure:

At the outset of the campaign the party is created according to some fixed premise - "you're kids off the farm about to head on your first adventure", or "you're agents of the Empire hunting down rogue Jedi", or "you're all pirates" or whatever. And, because there's a known starting point, because the players have fairly limited information about what's out there, and because the characters have limited influence to change things anyway, the 'plot' is necessarily quite Narrow - although the players have choices, the range of things they can choose (or, at least, the range of things they're likely to choose) is fairly small.

As the campaign progresses, those initial conditions naturally fade - they're no longer at the known starting point, they have much more information, and the characters have acquired power/contacts/money/fame that allows them much more significant influence. Therefore, it's a good idea for the DM to prepare a 'plot' that is necessarily Wide - provide lots of factions, lots of plot threads, lots of mysteries, and let the players tackle them as they see fit. (Generally, I find it useful here to sketch out a bunch of stuff in advance, and only fill in the details about two steps ahead of the party's progress - I can usually predict player actions reasonably well that far out.)

Ultimately, though, those Big Bads are going to need to be dealt with, one way or another. Sure, the PCs don't have to stop the Evil Cult from destroying the world... but it's a fair bet that they're going to try to. And so, as the campaign comes to a close it's not unreasonable to start building towards a fairly fixed climax - the 'plot' once again becomes much more Narrow. There may well be diversions along the way, not to mention all the stuff that the players should be introducing themselves, but there are probably at least some fixed points you can prepare for quite a long way in advance.

(Of course, this assumes the campaign has any sort of ending in mind. It is, of course, entirely valid that the campaign might be entirely open-ended, in which case Narrow-Wide-Wide is probably the better structure.)

 

[delericho]

But the CoD designers want more. They want a good story. They recognize that this doesn't always happen organically, so they write in some plot, and narrow the player's choices a bit. Prime example: you're the main character, and you're on a battlefield. You see a path that would allow you to flank the enemy to the left, and destroy him from behind. You'd succeed, but then you'd miss the epic helicopter shootout and comrade-death scene. So they force you to flank to the right. If you try to go left, you automatically get shot.

Perhaps unintentionally, you've just captured the thing that is wrong with so many modern published adventures. Because of the need of the story, players can't be allowed to choose, because if they are then they might make the 'wrong' choice. So, they get railroaded into the 'right' choice. (Here, it's done by auto-killing them if they go the 'wrong' way. In "King of the Trollhaunt Warrens", it's done simply by not giving any alternate paths - you just follow the sequence from one encounter to the next. Other adventures offer 'choices' that all end up in the same place. And many Paizo Adventure Path volumes, for all that I actually quite like them, tend not to offer a choice of which option to take, but rather which option to take first.)

The better way to structure this is to provide a good story if the player flanks right (he gets the epic helicopter shootout and the comrade-death scene), and a different good story if the player flanks left (perhaps his own right wing collapses and his love interest is captured, or some such). That way you get a good story either way, but you still get meaningful choice.

Of course, it's impossible for a video game (or published adventure) to support every possible choice. And therein lies the big advantage of the TT RPG - the presence of a human GM who is capable of reacting to player actions and dealing with the unexpected means that they can.

(And, incidentally, published adventures can help the GM in this regard - there's no reason an adventure can't consider the most likely course of PC action and then discuss some likely PC deviations from that course. And, indeed, present the various NPC factions in a more-or-less standalone fashion so that if the PCs go well off the beaten track the GM is equipped to improvise. But, alas, all that takes space, and limits what a 64-page adventure can contain.)