How do you design your adventures?

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Curious how other gamemasters design their adventures and how they think about adventure structure (i.e. how do they categorize the various approaches--linear, non-linear, event-driven, sandbox, etc).

Personally I tend to focus on characters, locations and events more than mapping out a path for the PCs. I find this makes it easier for me to react fluidly to player choices and initiative during the game.

So I start out with NPCs (and power groups), their motives and how these could intersect with the PCs. Events and locations are really a natural extension of the NPCs or a product of the PCs.

I don't always use this approach, but it is how I typically run my modern games (and increasingly my fantasy and horror games as well).

What works for you?
 

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Well, I'm not sure what process I go through and if I have any "analysis". I just respond to campaign situations and build on what the PCs do.

Here's an example:

I created a bard/aristocrat a level higher than the PCs. She was in town dancing and hiring herself out as an escort at the nice in in the small town where the PCs are headquartered. The first time a PC met her, she semi-insulted him. Later, as the PCs watched her "show", pickpockets targeted the crowd. They have no evidence she was working with them, but made the assumption that she at least knew they were there.

One PC engaged her in convo, and another sneaked into her room and burglarized it. I was not expecting this, so I had to make up the content on the spur of the moment. He stole a small box that he couldn't open, as well as a bit of jewelry and some coin. And a candlestick, which seems to be a pattern with him...

Now the bard/aristocrat is furious. She wants her box and the magic signet ring it holds back! I realized that she could identify the rogue who burglarized her room (at least to the point she's fairly sure he was the grippli seen wandering the Inn's halls). There are only 10 grippli in town, so she waits until 2 are off by themselves on the river, and uses her charm wand to kidnap them. Adroit questioning leaves her certain that the party frog is "her man".

She then hires her pickpocket friends to assist her in running a kidnapping routine on the party. She offers to return the grippli in return for her ring. She honestly means to free the victims if she gets her ring back, but if they get hurt, she won't be too upset.

Stage one of this "adventure" was to create the 3 npcs and their interactions with each other. Knowing that the pickpockets are a pair of brothers and very tight, but that she's a sort of freelance semi-companion, and definitely the most brutal of the three was useful.

So, since the initial interaction blossomed, I've roughed out a location where the swap of ring for victims can take place. I know what each villain's role is, and how far he'll take his actions. I know what the prisoners think is going on. Etc...

What happens from there is up to the PCs.
 

First, I drop a bunch of hooks and see if they bite at any or if they have their own plans. Then at the end of the session, I ask what their immediate plans are. So, say they tell me that they're tired of dealing with the bandits in the forest messing with their nearby temple and they want to end that threat. We decide that sounds good for next session, and wrap it up. Between sessions, I write up an adventure around that concept.

I use TiddlyWiki as my means of preparation. I have subcategories for places, allies, enemies, encounters, monsters, etc. It's very useful!

The first thing I write is a synopsis of what they will find there, who their enemies will be, who their allies will be, and possible outcomes. I know my players, they want to eradicate the bandits! But, I want to give them options. I organize the bandits under a charismatic trio of leaders, make them ex-mercenaries who were never paid, and then put a tie to a deal one of the bandit leaders secretly made with the Winter Court of the fey.

The players are free to just slaughter their way through, but there might be deals struck. The bandits are tired of their life and, if the PCs play their cards right, they could hire them out as mercenaries to protect their temple! We'll see if they go for it.

I flesh out the NPCs. There's potential for lots of roleplaying. One of the bandit leaders will ally with them if they can pass a skill challenge. The one who made the pact will see them as a threat only. The other one is up in the air. I don't want to over-design. They might just kill 'em. So, I jot some notes, and move on.

Then I design encounters. What will happen when the PCs enter the bandit territory? I start off with a fey encounter. It sets up that things aren't straightforward here. Then a bandit attack. When they find the bandit camp, one leader asks for a parlay. This could be a diplomacy challenge or a combat, whatever they like. And so on and so forth. If they investigate, they find out about the fey connection, otherwise they kill a bunch of bandits and solve their problem. If they didn't find the fey connection, we have loose strings I can use in the future...

Then wrap up.

The last thing I do is go back over the whole thing and start dropping plot hooks in for future games. When they visit the temple, they meet an old friend who needs some help. One of the bandits turned mercenary helper knows the location of a treasure and offers to share the location with them. So on and so forth.

Looks good. Go over it again. Retweak monsters. Look for inconsistencies. Final pass.

That's how I do it.
 

I write adventure modules as a regional area for a simulation game, sort of like computer game level design. First, I get what I think is a fun idea or take one that the players thought up. Then I estimate the level or span of levels the module will cover based upon the kinds of challenges conceived of in the idea. The system I use pretty much denotes these, but there is some flexibility involved. Then I go about drawing and writing all the maps, the spatial maps, the monster maps, the mind maps, the maps detailing magic and treasure, etc., lastly making a key or description list for each.

The above is the rough draft. Next I need to playtest it to check for any unintended challenges, quick fix loopholes, and inconsistencies or even just stuff I missed or made an error on. If it's for a campaign I am running, I use the PC party stats to test it. It's not hard, just run them through like I was playing the module as all of the characters. It's playtesting, so I try both conventional and unconventional strategies.

Lastly, when everything is ready to be added to the campaign world I incorporate it somewhere that fits. Homebrew modules can easily be designed specifically for an area in the world, other modules need to be converted and even manipulated somewhat to fit. For example, say one was in a desert with an evil high priest leading a cult. If the terrain is largely irrelevant, I'll swap it out to something more applicable to the surroundings, perhaps something more level appropriate. If the cult's religion is irrelevant, I can substitute one already in the game - ditto for the high priest to an already named NPC. Though that last depends upon the background timeline of the module and the NPC.

Finally, after everything is embedded in the current campaign world, I generate the next session's scenario with the inclusion of the new adventure.

There are a lot of factors involved, but it is much easier than it may sound. Simply know your rule set and work on converting things quickly. Designing modules can be one of the most rewarding experiences of play.
 

My methodology shifts, depending on if it's the first adventure, a continuation adventure, or instigating new adventure.

In any case, I plan for about 4-6 hours of gaming. That way, if what I have isn't working or is "too railroady" I'm not over committed and can adapt the next session to closer to what the party wants to do.

For a first adventure, I look at what I have for a party, their motivations, and any known goals. Oft times, the players don't have a feel for their PCs and goals anyway, so I try to setup a situation that brings the party together against a common short term problem. I might start them all in the same town festival when trouble strikes (thus giving them a pre-combat chance to RP, then a sudden threat and shared goal to not die). If I'm clever, I'll make sure the source of the threat has enough interesting threads that the players will likely want to investigate or pursue. Thus giving me meat for more encounters to plan on as they try to solve the bigger problem (because most players don't get don't fending off an attack, and then go back to eating).

For subsequent adventures, if there's business to be continued, namely the PCs are in the middle of pursuing a goal, I write up the material I'd need to cover avenues they're likely to explore in pursuit of that goal.

At the end of each game, I find out what the PCs want to do next, their plan of attack. if their plan is to head south on horse, then I'll be writing material to support a trip south and the destination.

If the PCs have mostly wrapped things up (no big urgent goal because they beat the BBEG), I'll likely have some time elapse, and the game intro will mention how time went buy, and the PCs are doing well, until word of a new problem arises, or a new opportunity. This usually spurs them to action, and the elapsed time isn't meant to screw their PC.

For writing supporting material. I look at the places I'll need (goblin cave, bad guy forest base), and draw them up or generate them randomly with online tools. I'll usually use stock monsters or randomly generated NPCs (roll me up a level 5 human fighter).

If I need clues or information to get the PCs there, I'll plan those out, as well as any instigating encounters to hook the PCs into the material (you can't seek out the man who killed your father if nobody's heard of him, and you don't encounter anybody who has info or was sent by him to silence you).

without stat blocks or maps, my adventure notes are 1-3 pages long.
 

What adventures!?

I write encounters and events and create networks of npcs. Whatever happens in the game arises from the adventurers interacting with those.
 

I run campaigns so my advntures support the structure of the campaign. THe plot or reason for the adventure is always were I start. What do I want the PCs to accomplish with the Adventure? It could be exploration, finding an object, or to just get their ass handed to them.

Once I figure out the purpose I fram the adventure around that. I like to include items that foreshadow something down the line in the campaign as well as include items that connect to what has come before in the campaign. Or to one or more of the PC's backgrounds. Of course this is not always possible or makes sense so some adventuers are just islands within the campaign not connecting to anything except to the PCs since they went on the adventure.

One important thing I come up with is what happens if the PCs win and what happens if the lose. There are usually many ways to win and lose though with D&D the most common are going to be killing something or be killed.

I rarely have adventures that had to be done. I like the players to have control on what they do so if they change their mind and don't complete and adventrue for whatever reason I'm find with that. It doesn't mean the adventure goes away. Maybe someone else completes it or the bad guy gets more powerful or something.
 

At the time where I was at my strongest DM-wise, I usually fleshed out the general idea of where I wanted things to go and then I fleshed out the major NPC, their general plans and motives and how it connected to the setting and the PCs.

I then set up a crude list of plot points, without thought of how one would lead to another. I did this intentionally, because I had learnt from experience that my players would always take a path that I didn't think of, and I was much better at winging it if I didn't have detailed plans.

Then whenever I saw an opportunity to weave in one of the plot points, I would.
 

It varies somewhat for me, but I usually am hit with some storyline ("What if...?") or intrigued by a certain monster to feature as a centerpiece of an adventure. In rare cases, I might draft up a map, and from that start pondering on who or what lives there (My current project, Secret City, started out with an idea and a map - "What if the characters uncovered the city of Ry'loth?"). After listening to a few soundtracks to get ideas flowing, I generally flesh out a rough map and then start populating it based on the story/monster theme I started with.

I'm blogging the development as I build it, so if want a more in-depth analysis of the process, it's as good a place as any to start. ;)
 

I generally start with the style of session I want, then build to suit.

Last 2 sessions were noir. I had the players playing old friends from one PC's background, and I wanted to hit a lot of noir tropes, so I gave every player a one or two sentence description of their PC, and gave them a lot of options to chew scenery. Then I built a multi-layered, many factioned crime, threw one of the PCs' friends into the middle of it, and let them unravel it.

I wanted more atmosphere than usual, so all the NPCs and locations were designed to play up the Raymond Chandler angle. I even precanned a couple of "detective voice overs" to use as scene descriptions. Then the PC pretty much drove the action.

I've spent a good chunk of today designing the next session. The PCs' clan is pushing hard on another clan, and it's time to kick in some doors and kill some enemies. So I'm focusing a lot more on the actual encounters. I've got the map right, and a pretty good spread of foes. I have a few RP scenes planned out to frame the dungeon crawl (some before, some after) and some decision points in the middle to shake things up. But this session (it might take 2) is going to stand on the interest in the actual fights, which is something I've failed to get sharp so far.

PS
 

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