How do you create adventures?

[King Nate]

How do you come up with inspiration for creating adventures? I’m looking for things to kick start adventure ideas, adventure styles, or anything else?

I am creating a binder with printed out collection of ideas so I can easily open while lying in bed or sitting on the porch and come up with inspiration for adventures when writers block occurs. Also to remind myself of sources or adventure styles I may have forget about (I am old after all).

Some of the things I found on the internet have been…

The Big List of RPG Plots
Sudoku Dungeons
The Five Room Dungeon
The 6 W’s of Adventure Writing
The Mind Map
Using Flowcharts
Using Timelines
Using newspapers, magazines, and TV for inspiration.
Numerous Adventure Generators (I’ve picked my favorites for my binder)
Numerous Top 100 Adventure Hooks (or the like)

 

[Piratecat]

I start with a cinematic image: the PCs fighting their way up a huge waterfall. A ring of standing stones underneath a baleful sky. A huge demon looming out of a small chest, standing toe to toe with a wizard. An auditorium of undead scribes, each writing their life story with a sharpened fingerbone.

Then I interpolate from there to try and figure out how the group gets to that scene. I figure out bad guys, discern their plans and motives and (most importantly) personality/voice, figure out their allies and enemies. And I juggle those pieces in my head, shuffling them like puzzle pieces. When they all connect there's actually an audible "thunk." I love that moment.

 

[Will Doyle]

I usually start with a general theme: intrigue, murder mystery, exploration, etc. Then I start on a brainstorm diagram: just writing concepts down on paper, and then drawing lines off each to add connected ideas. Not a map of the adventure per se, just a way of getting all the ideas down.

For example, I may write down: "foggy quayside", then off that I'd write "prison ships", "pickpocketing urchins", "beggars under the jetty", "people moving on stilts in the mud", etc. Then, each of these may have their own connected lines of ideas.

Once I've got enough ideas down in this form, I start thinking of challenges: How do they learn about this? How do they get to here? What happens if they miss this? That's when I start thinking like a game designer rather than an author.

In practice, unless I'm writing something that's intended for publication, I usually keep things fairly loose. Keeping the ideas diagram at hand during play helps a lot too.

 

[Loonook]

I like working from a standpoint of "Where are we going" and "How are we getting there?". Usually I get a bit of feedback from my players, watch a couple of movies or TV shows, drink a couple of beers, and then wait...

Percolate a bit and go from there. I also have a bit better discussion of this on my blog in my signature, and some ways to sort of go with the flow and get out alive . There are also a few others who can help you withthis from Monsters and Manuals to Nitessine's World in a Handful of Dice, blogs are a great source that is usually a bit better location than posts as they allow individuals to flesh out their ideas in a friendly manner.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[Cor Azer]

I have two approaches:
1. The cool scene idea, like PirateCat described
2. The motivated NPC - I like having tons of NPCs running around behind the scenes, doing their own things. When stuck for a hook, I review all their goals and ask: how can they rope the PCs into helping (wittingly or not), and how can the PCs foil this plot (wittingly or not). Those answers usually form a rough idea of an adventure.

Add polish, and we're off to the races.

 

[delericho]

How do you come up with inspiration for creating adventures?

I've always found ideas easy. Basically, whenever I watch a TV show or movie, whenever I go someplace new, whenever I'm just idly dreaming, I usually end up with one or two ideas for adventures. Most of them are rubbish, of course, but the rest get filed away for later use.

Where I have difficulties is in fleshing out those ideas. Combining "Star Wars" with "Mirror Universe" makes for an interesting adventure concept... but turning that into actual encounters and a semi-coherent plot is rather more tricky.

I’m looking for things to kick start adventure ideas, adventure styles, or anything else?

Steal from everything. Lift a plot from here, a character from there, a motif from the next place. Put it in a blender, and then drain away the dross. And keep a notepad (or text file) somewhere with all your rejected ideas as well - you may not use them now, but they may well come in handy later. Be sure to recycle any adventure material that your PCs manage to avoid (intentionally or otherwise). I have a crime-boss called "The Velvet Glove" who has shown up in three different campaigns in three different settings, simply because there have been three different groups of players (with no possibility of overlap).

One other thing I've found - a lot of fantasy novels/movies/TV shows tend to have a good premise but a lousy execution. That makes them ideal fodder for a "cover version" - take the concept, fix it up, and do it better. My campaign "The Eberron Code" has benefitted from this technique, and I would imagine a "Terra Nova" campaign could likewise do well.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

Adventure ideas come at me from a number of sources.

Sometimes like Piratecat said it a cool scene.

Sometime its a villain.

Sometimes its a location to explore.

Sometimes the PCs have something they want to do.

Sometimes I read something (fiction or non-) and think "this would make a cool adventure!

Sometimes in an overarching campaign I know that X needs to happen before Y can, so I make an adventure for X.

 

[kitsune9]

I start with the end fight and goal.
Then I go pick a map of what will be the environment for that end fight.
I then write out a synopsis of the adventure.
I build each element of the synopsis to flesh it out.
I then take each element and place them on a flow chart. This way, I'll move it around or add paths to avoid it looking linear (unless my adventure is going to be really short in which linear serves a good purpose).
I'll then write out each piece in full detail starting with introduction, encounters, notes, stat blocks for monsters and traps, etc.
I'll then double-check my XP calculations and gp placement to ensure that the players are getting enough for their risk.
If I have time, I'll go back and pretty up the handouts.

 

[Doug McCrae]

How do you come up with inspiration for creating adventures?

1. Create NPCs, organisations, locations, events or other 'bits' that I think are cool.
2. Select a small subset of the coolest.
3. Form connections between these to create an adventure, and give the PCs a reason to go on it.

Step 3 is the hardest.

 

[David Howery]

back in my DM days, I stole adventure ideas from all sorts of places... books, movies, history, warping other published adventures that I didn't want to run as is, sometimes just a single picture or painting would do it. Hints from the sourcebooks of your campaign world (if you use a published one) are handy (Greyhawk was always handy for that, with its vague and cryptic descriptions). Nowadays, I suppose you could add computer/console games to the list...