Learning to write adventures

[ronpurvis]

I am looking to learn how to write scenarios that are better than the ones I can currently write. Even though I have had a number of articles published in the past, they were all non-fiction computer or business related articles. I have no experience writing anything fictional, let alone writing adventures. My goal is to write something good enough that it could be used in a convention.

To get to that point, I would like to take some online classes dealing with creative writing. Since many of the people in this forum do this for a living, I decided to ask for advice here. It would need to be an online class as I can't physically attend classes due to my health. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I'm afraid someone else will have to help you with the online classes. The only classes I ever took were actually on a college campus.

In answer to your overall question, though...

The best way to learn to write better adventures is two-fold.

1) Read adventures. Lots of them. Then read more.

2) Run adventures. Constantly.

I'm sure some people will disagree with me, but in my experience, people who can't design a good adventure for their own group cannot design them for other people.

If you do the above, and pay attention to what makes the adventures you're reading work, you should be well on your way even without taking actual creative writing classes. (That's not me putting down such classes; I majored in CW in college, and I learned a lot. I'm just saying it's not the only way to go.)

 

[Insight]

Nothing will teach you more about writing adventures than creating your own and running it with a group of your friends, or better yet, strangers. I would put reading published adventures just slightly below that in terms of importance.

While it's very important to read what others have published, you aren't going to learn more about your own voice than by just doing it. Keep pushing the envelope, trying new things, trying more difficult and challenging things. That's how you get better at anything.

And I'm going to have to disagree slightly about creative writing classes. Any coursework that examines plot development is going to help you as an adventure writer. There is a huge difference between writing a novel and writing an adventure however, and this is actually a much broader topic, probably beyond the scope of this particular discussion.

Basically, novels are written with a beginning, middle, and end. The plot is complete (at least within the novel itself - obviously with trilogies and such, the plot may continue beyond one novel). With an adventure, you are only setting things in motion. The writer may have a middle and end in mind, but there needs to be some flexibility built into the adventure to allow for players to make decisions. Characters in fiction do not need this - they do whatever the writer has them do.

 

[DSC-EricPrice]

Insight and the Mouse both make some good comments. I'd like to reiterate the need to review what others have written. Make notes about what you like, about what worked and what didn't. Running adventures is an excellent way to write better adventures. Personal experience can't help but provide you with insight on matters of format latter on. The way that information is included and provided to the DM is the difference in my mind between an ok adventure and a great one.

That said, good story telling is what I consider to be paramount to an interesting adventure. Some of the most popular adventures to grace the pages of Dungeon magazine for example are ones that have a major thematic story. The anti-paladin/paladin story from a couple of years back still sticks firmly in my mind. Contrary to Insight I believe that adventures have a beginning and an end, if only in the author's mind, as he commits them to paper. As the writer you have some idea of how you EXPECT the storyline to go. That doesnt mean the players who ultimately play it wont wreck it, but its a place to start.

I havent seen any courses offered online by industry leaders since Robert Wiese of the RPGA tried hosting adventure writing classes on the WotC chat forums. The program never really got off the ground but in those brief few weeks I learned a lot. While were on the subject of the RPGA I personally think it is a great place to hone your writing skills. Of course, with the advent of pdf publishing maybe thats less true... I'm not sure. A few other articles have surfaced around the web over the past couple of years and I think there is a workshop that pops up on EnWorld every once in a while too. Good luck in your writing career and I look forward to seeing your byline in the future!

 

[DaveStebbins]

For more formal adventure creation help, I can offer two professional products.

TSR put out the DM's Design Kit for a previous edition of the game, but I have heard several people praise it. It is a 96 page supplement available as a PDF for $5 at RPGNow.

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=1055&SRC=EnWorld

and Troll Lord Games recently released Gary Gygax's Insidiae: the Brainstormers Guide to Adventure Writing, which I have also heard positive things about.

http://www.trolllord.com/insidiae.htm
http://enworld.rpgshop.com/product_info.php?products_id=35411&

 

[Warden]

...I believe that adventures have a beginning and an end, if only in the author's mind, as he commits them to paper. As the writer you have some idea of how you EXPECT the storyline to go. That doesnt mean the players who ultimately play it wont wreck it, but its a place to start.

Agreed, but there is also the matter of adaptability and this part is two-fold.

One, your adventure has to have enough versatility to play with a wide variety of player types, unlike anything that you may write for yourself. Some players might like a monstrous encounter thrown in with any physical description, other may like to have some puzzles, that kind of thing. While this can all be done with a solid theme in mind, adding some extra spices for each group/GM to pick and choose their way through is important.

Second, you have to be able to provide the GM with as many possible outcomes as you can. Because if you think that your own players can thrown a wrench into your plans, just imagine what 100 other groups could do as well. And this is the major difference between fiction and adventures -- you're guiding the story, not determining it. This is probably why dungeon crawls are the most frequent adventures, since they're a basic "in-and-out" storyline. Any adventure that involves NPC interactions and heavy roleplaying that still works are commonly found to be classics, but rare.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

An old martial arts of mine once said "practice does not make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect". In other words, it's pretty stupid to DM for DM'ings sake if you find yourself in a rut that you want to break out of.

So here's a quick list of things I could think of to make sure that when you DM (and you should if for no other reason than to playtest) you are challenging not just your players, but yourself:

1) Don't be afraid to use Encounter Levels that are "too high" or "too low". I think this is a big flaw with a lot of old-school DMs. They got used to just adding whatever monster felt right and didn't worry about giving a guage that was "inappropriate". You can still toss a Troll Barbarian-4 at a first level party. You just have to mark the encounter as EL 9 and give the reader notes on how to avoid or parlay with the beast. Likewise, if you throw a pair of orcs at a ninth level party, you have to expect they'll just pimp-slap them into the afterlife unless you give the DM suggestions on how to run it as a role-play encounter.

2) Build encounters that use skill checks. You can have a hidden orc archer guarding the opposite side of a partially colapsed stone bridge to make sure the party uses Spot and Jump. Give the party enough clues to solve a puzzle but give them more if they make a Knowldge check. Put the bad guys up on a small ledge for Climb checks.

3) Avoid encounters where a character essentially has to make one or two d20 rolls to avoid death. That's just anti-climactic.

4) Conventions. Conventions are always looking for DMs. You can DM different groups of people and get a better idea what a broad variety of people like. You'll probably also get some kind of discount or freebie.

5) Railroading. You can get away with about one railroad ("the party must do so-and-so") per adventure. Avoid it if possible, of course.


Happy gaming!

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

If you're going to take creative writing courses, I'd go for ones in writing screenplays or dramas - both because I think good adventures often have a three-act structure, and because you'll get a more sympathetic perspective. If you go to the average short-story or novel-writing class with a melodramatic storyline in which good clashes with absolute evil and produces a lot of gore in the process - i.e., a good adventure - you'll have to wade through a lot of useless "write what you know" advice. If you go to a drama class with this and say you want to write a Jacobean or Grand Guignol play, you're likely to get some great advice & classics you can rip off for inspiration.

 

[ronpurvis]

Thank you for all the advice. I will go ahead and purchase the DM's Design Kit. I have also looked at the offerings at tp://home.universalclass.com/i/subjects/writinggenre.htm#6142. I think that it might offer a little help, but I am still looking for some better offerings.

I would love to hear anymore suggestions that the group has. I especially would love to hear about specific scenarios that you would suggest as a good example to learn from.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Blind playtest.

Give the adventure to someone who has never played in it and ask them to run it. Getting back a bunch of questions about what you wrote can give a better idea about what is wrong than any number of times going over it yourself.

The Auld Grump