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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5301437" data-attributes="member: 2067">In a stereotypical D&D game, you have a dungeon, which is an in-world location consisting of a series of rooms, connected by corridors. In each room is some challenge or feature (or not - some rooms are just decoration), and then allows you several choices about which way to leave the room. Sometimes, you get to change paths in the middle of a corridor, too. This kind of layout, when you zoom out, is the same as "here are two options that lead you to two different places with two different options each."So, when I enter the dungeon, I can pick between a North path and an East path. Each of those paths lead me to different rooms, and those different rooms have different options I can take (if I go North, maybe I come to a room with a few orcs and three other locked doors; if I go East perhaps I come to a place with elementals, and only two doors, one of which is locked by the other isn't). Or, when I'm trying to find the murderer in a murder mystery plot, I can pick between the two most likely suspects. Say, the victim's bitter ex husband, or the victim's current boyfriend. Each choice leads to different options (if I talk to the bitter ex husband, maybe I then I can talk to his new wife, or the old couple's mutual friends, or the old mother in-law; if I talk to the current boyfriend, maybe I find the owner of the bar that they frequented, and the drug dealer who sold them something a little strong). This is the same kind of organization, there's just different things in the "rooms" and the paths represent not literal trails, but directions of evidence to follow.This organization applies to anything you want to make a game about. It gives the players options, without being too artificial about it (there's still only one exit to the dungeon, there's still only one place the treasure is buried, there's still only one solution to the mystery). The concept is really powerful. You can go to any random dungeon generator (1e DMG!) and pull a very interesting plot out, just by turning a choice of paths into a choice between options. In FFZ, I'm melding this with a narrative structure so that the dungeon changes over time. Once you choose to go left, you might not be able to go right. Once you decide to talk to the ex-husband, the boyfriend might disappear. Doors close over time, so if your early choices aren't right, you might need to do a lot of things to get back to finding the right answer before you loose it forever.</blockquote>

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