How do you plan out your adventures?

[fba827]

Just a random question that has no purpose other than satisfying my own curiosity.

The majority of the time, how do you plan out (or not plan out) your adventures?

Different things work for different DMs/Groups, and I'm sure time available to prep adventures also plays a big part of this answer, so there is no right or wrong answer, just my own curiosity-driven question.

This is a multiple choice poll since you may do more than one of these things for more than one group -- but still try and limit it to what you do the majority of the time.

 

[Phaezen]

What I tend to do is prepare the plots, major NPCs and the basic structures of the adventure/s before unleashing my players upon it. I have learned long ago that as a DM I need to be able to adapt to the sometimes unpredictable things that players get up to. I tend to favour short dungeons if needs be, using the Underdark or planar travel for longer dungeon crawls.

I also borrow encounters from Dungeon Magazines and published adventures when they appeal to me and are appropriate to the campaign.

Phaezen

 

[Voadam]

I read modules about the right level for the group, pick one that appeals to me, then modify to suit my tastes. This can mean tailoring for the world, interweaving with other campaign events/plans/past events, swapping out monsters, adding in elements I like, embellishing aspects, etc.

 

[Jeremy757]

Well basically I design villians, their motivations and what they want and are trying to accomplish. A basic outline of their goals and the time table they wish to accomplish this in. I design the setting they are doing this in and I write out the very first adventure the players become involved in the villains schemes. After that it is all on the fly. I keep a stock of NPCs and locations ready to fill out the sessions and world as needed.

 

[Edgewood]

I normally take a sort of backward approach to creating an adventure. I usually start with the ending and final conflict and then write backward to the beginning. I find it easier to keep track of any side plots and you don't wind up with any loose thread. I also create events that aren't tied to a specific locale. The events or encounters can happen anywhere, making my adventures somewhat organic in design. I steal quite a lot from different sources including published adventures, campaign sources, novels and the almighty internet.

 

[El Mahdi]

I'll determine a theme for my campaign first; overall plot line, recurring villians and characters, etc. I'll also try to work up a continuing sub-plot for each PC based on their background story. Then I'll pick individual published adventures I want to run, as I need them, but I try to always have two ready (the one I'm running and the one I'm running next). I'll take each adventure and add in 1 or 2 things to foreshadow or link to the next adventure, and 1 or 2 things linking it to the overall plot line. I'll pretty much use locations and encounters as is, except for minor changes to accomodate my campaign plot line. NPC's, NPC backgrounds, and "pre-scripted dialogues" however, I will twist, change or outright replace to suit my purposes.

Published adventures are just too good an asset for me to not use. The really good published adventures are just so much better than I could ever write on my own. I'll also throw in occasional random encounters to vary things a bit (the old AD&D Decks of Encounters are awesome for this - I still use them).

 

[Aristotle]

Hard one to answer. I don't think I've ever run two identical campaigns. I've run one that was totally player driven, one that used published adventures pretty much as written for the missions the characters went on but with lots of side stories in between them to expand on character concepts, and my most recent one for 4e is really just a list of monsters I want to use. I've divided them into factions and level ranges and have a number of minor plots set up for each. How it all unfolds will be up to the players: a straight railroad if they don't take much interest, or mostly player driven if they do.

 

[Kzach]

The first and most important thing I do for a campaign is work with the player to develop a character's back story. This gives me ideas for dozens of side-treks that affect each PC in a direct manner and can sometimes be combined to form an over-arcing story in addition to a main plot.

I also fashion a plot that I feel will interest the players at the table and get them wanting to move forward in the game, not just because their characters would do it.

However, I do this all very loosely and in a way that doesn't force me to adhere to one element or another to continue the plot. Player decisions, whilst sometimes predictable, are often out of left-field and I like to accommodate that so I'm not left stranded.

So although I'll have a general idea of what I want to happen in a session, I don't bind myself to it like glue, and run the entire session mostly on the fly with just a few prepared notes to remind me of what general direction I want to go in, what major players might be involved, potential treasures, etc.

This is one of the reasons I'm really loving 4e. Simply knowing the XP value of a challenging and overwhelming encounter lets me quickly build fun encounters on the fly with only minimal page flipping. Now I don't have to spend days and days in preparation, fussing over every minor detail and can just rock up with a PHB, DMG and MM and PLAY.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I am very improvisational.

I might plan out scenes or moments or even one full plot thread, but I only put these elements in any recognizable order during the session.

This allows me to customize to players' characters, styles, and moods on any given day.

I've never run anything like a published adventure. Another DM in our group tried it once. Didn't work. Never gave it another thought.

 

[Umbran]

I don't have a single set method I use all the time, and instead use different methods for different games/campaigns.