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Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 6267565" data-attributes="member: 3192">One idea is to go as far from D&D game design principles as possible and only afterwards attempt to stat up the work. How do we include searching for a lost love? This is more than save the princess, but playing out the relationship, the loss, and reuniting. The key is not to script the event, but aim the design so their is a likelihood of future events to occur in this direction. A love-seeking young man or woman of well developed personality and in a situation the players can learn and engage with if they enter into a relationship, the start of which is the hook. (Maybe they like the adventuring type and seek out famous ones?) The larger situation is the love is attempted to be kidnaped once a deep relationship has formed - whatever the reason. Perhaps control over a fortune would be lost, if they were to wed? And search and rescue by the PCs or NPCs is a common enough design.Another idea is to head right at D&D rules and exploit them as the basis of adventures.Design the dungeon with constant loud noise, so sleep deprivation sets in if PCs attempt to rest there. (No rest, difficulty verbally communicating, short term deafness if stays are prolonged, and so on). Dark dungeons are a classic for those afraid of grues. All to many PCs can see in the dark now, but that distance is usually radically small. Use blinded creatures like bats (or bat-men) to take advantage. Deserts already have many standard resource difficulties. Heat can bake the PCs. Dehydration can shrivel them. Lack of food can starve them. Lack of landmarks and mirages can get them lost and confused. Poisonous non-combatants become environmental threats which must be guarded against (scorpions). Territorial ownership is often left unguarded and unmarked, so the joy of discovering a water-filled well later leads to being hunted by its nomadic owners. Memory is a fun one when players don't map or remember what occurred before. A staple of course is an underground dungeon with shifting walls, but any high court intrigue requires players to know who's who, who wants what, and what the supposed alliances and hostilities are. Being well regarded, famous, rich, and even titled & landed (with local power) are less safeguards against the game playing of reputations in courts across the land, than they make one a target. Alignment is default basis for all of this, but if the PCs are going to have friendships, even be well regarded among family, they need to pay attention to how they treat others. That means if they are aided without cost by allies they won't be well regarded if those same allies come under threat and the PCs do nothing. Associates drop off, henchman leave in the night, hirelings renegotiate, sellers charger higher prices, and fewer individuals with power and authority are as likely ally themselves as readily or significantly as otherwise.</blockquote>

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