How do you go about creating an adventure?

[Crothian]

First I figure out what the plot is going to be. TRhey I figure out order of events or possible scenerios that can occur. Third I figure out lesser encounters and things that really don't fit into this plot but can fit into other plots or serve as red herrings. THen I fill in the details as needed.

 

[Emiricol]

I don't have time, sadly, to pregen everything. So, I come up with a "wouldn't that be cool" idea, like Barsoomcore does, and then wing it Mostly, I view D&D as interactive storytelling, with the players helping me tell it. The rules of the game are just the framework we use to build from.

Sometimes, if the mood strikes me, I come up with three or four mileposts for the adventure, like "first the goblins gather, then they move on the village, then they attack, then they slaughter the refugees that don't run quickly enough." That could span a month or two of adventures

I also rely heavily on online generators I have bookmarked. I mostly play online with virtual tabletop software (specifically, OpenRPG) so the players don't have to wait for me to walk over to the PC everytime they ask the barmaid her name hehe.

 

[Buttercup]

I generally start out by considering what level the PCs are, and what talents they have. Has everyone had a chance to shine lately? If not, I try to come up with something for the character who has been in the background. Then I consider all the dangling plot threads, and decide whether or not to advance one or more of them.

At that point, I put together a location, or perhaps several. For example, on Monday my players are going to arrive at a border fort. They're going there to speak with a wizard, but also because the grandmother of one of the players served at the fort in the past. So I've thought up plot hooks that relate to the various NPCs at the fort. I've got encounter tables. I've got a few large plot threads to start, if I want to, and a few existing plot threads that I have thought about enough that I could pull them into the story. I also have a town near the fort, populated with NPCs and shops. I know what is carried in each shop, and I have some plot hooks relating to the town. During the session, I'll wing it with the material I have prepared. I'll roll some dice to see if there are any combat encounters, and of what sort. I'll roll some dice to see how the major NPCs react when the PCs come calling on them. I know enough about the surrounding area that I'm covered if the players go exploring.

This is as close as I come to writing an actual, linear adventure.

 

[pogre]

I start with an influence - usually historical or occasionally from literature. The influence is either an interesting situation or an interesting place or both. I write an outline of the adventure including groups of events and encounters.

Next, I create maps for encounter areas that need them. I follow this by statting the npcs and monsters. I can run the adventure at this point if I have to, but I prefer to fill in all of the descriptive text and give as rich a background as possible.

I double check my E.L.s and then send the whole thing off to a dear friend who is an editor in New York. My friend checks my grammar, structure, and so on, but just as importantly, makes suggestions. I reread the adventure and try to ask the question, "how can I make this cooler?"

I try to prepare for as many player choices as possible - this may include something as simple as creating some generic name lists if they go way off the map. It's important for me that the players determine the plot and not guest star. They must effect the world or at least the small slice portrayed in the adventure.

We then play the adventure and I listen carefully to my players to see what they enjoyed most and try to build off of that for the next scenario. I also try to create a variety of opportunities for varied skills, but always throw in some combat - because my group and I love the fight.

 

[Psion]

Do people generally write out complete adventures with backgrounds, adventure plots, detailed site and room descriptions, stat blocks, etc., or do they just wing it?

Generally, somewhere in between.

Usually, it's not worth all my time to write out everything nice and neat like a published adventure. Further, my adventures are too random to write out "plots" or fixed events. I do generally try to have the basic background facts, events I want to occur during the adventure (otherwise I typically forget...), stat blocks for important combat encounters and NPCs (minor NPCs I just wing), and suchnot.


As far as conceiving adventures, usually I start with major NPCs and power groups and consider their MO, resources, and goals and try to figure out things they are doing that would be cool for the players to trip upon/get entangled with, and then work in plot leaders and events. As locations for adventures become obvious, I work those out, usually vaugely on paper.

Putting things on paper takes time. I usually only put stuff on paper if I really need to refer to it during the game (combat stats for someone I know will be getting into combat) or I think I will need it later. Things like room descriptions I can ad hoc and rarely need later.

 

[Desdichado]

I totally do not design plots -- I design scenarios. I come up with some locations, some NPCs and give all of it some motivation, and give the NPCs some plans. Then I throw the PCs into the mix and see what they do. The NPCs' plans generally go forward unless the PCs get in there and change them. I'm a fan of sorta "winging it" rather than preparing lots and lots of detail, though. I want the PCs to be making the choices, and too much preparation tends to lock the PCs into only being able to do what I prepared.

 

[simmo]

At GenCon the editors for Dungeon magazine gave a seminar on how to write adventures for the magazine and I've been using their process since then. If I remember correctly the steps to creating an adventure are as follows:

1. villain, the main bad guy that the PCs fight at the end
2. agenda, all good villains have a plan - something that the PCs are supposed to thwart
3. lackeys, these are the lesser bad guys that the PCs interact with earlier in the adventure. Often it's good to flesh them out quite a bit as the PCs interact more with them than the main villain. They can also be good for injecting a bit of comic relief.
4. lair, where are the adventures going to take place? These are the places that the PCs encounter the villains, gather clues and find treasure etc
5. dungeon logic, whether it's a haunted castle, Abyssal tower perched on the edge of a bottemless ravine, sunken spelljamming vessel or other location - the creatures, traps and other things in each location should be planned with some common sense.

For example:
Villain - Merchant Sorcerer
Agenda - secretly hunt mermaids for use in creating addictive potions
Lackeys - Captain of shipping fleet and cleric of Sea deity.
Lair - Dock warehouse, temple dungeon and Mansion belonging to Merchant Sorcerer
Dungeon Logic - The dock warehouse has secret doors leader to an underwater prison. The temple dungeon has tunnels leading to the docs and the graveyard is used to get rid of the bodies. The merchant sorcerer's house has several water filled rooms to restrict access to parts of the house.
Plot synopsis: The fishermen of a village have been turned against their mermaid neighbours by the cleric of a Sea deity. The fishermen blame them for the drop in number of fish caught and have begun to trap mermaids in their nets. The captain of the shipping fleet has told his men that the mermaids will be held hostage until the ship stocks have been replenished, but is secretly handing them over to the merchant sorcerer. The sorcerer uses the mermaids to create potions that give wondrous dreams of travelling underwater, but the potions are also addictive. The cleric gets rid of the bodies and uses the tunnels under the village to transport them.

I often have long term story-arcs and involved plots with lots of background information that are revealed slowly over the course of a campaign. But experience with my current group has shown that the players are more interested in dealing with immediate issues (i.e. short adventures) than convoluted plots that take months to unravel. Thanks,

Simson

 

[Voadam]

So, in this case, I started with a module, and then another, and then built up a huge story around it, modified some things to suit me, and then expanded it out.

That's how I run things, but I have a bunch of adventures and options ready to go so the players can usually drop one thing and move on to something else if they want to and it happens pretty seemlessly.

I'm a big fan of collections of short adventures, and even more of episodic ones that have links but take place at different times and levels.

I also try to throw in one new thing (monster, magic item, spell) into each adventure to keep things varied and to get use out of my various books. I'll think about how to work it in beforehand and that will sometimes shape the whole night's adventure.

 

[der_kluge]

"Wouldn't it be cool if they got sucked under a sand dune and found this crazy buried city full of crystal golems?"

Hey, that would be pretty cool. I might have to use that!

 

[der_kluge]

I've found that the more detail and plot someone tries putting into a campaign, the more tendency they have to try to railroad the PCs, or force them into a linear adventure. Most of the suggestions are spot on - build locations, and build NPC agendas, but avoid having fixed events, or rely too heavily on the fact that an NPC has to survive. I've heard horror stories from convention games where DMs flat-out would not let the PCs kill his BBEG because it would screw up his long-term plans. Bad, DM. Bad; no biscuit.