non-linear, non-site-based adventures - your thought process?

[GlassJaw]

One of my never-ending goals when DM'ing is to try to create an a feeling of "openness" for the players in the campaign. I think I've run too many modules and dungeon crawls though because every once in a while, the players inevitably end up going to Ye Olde Dungeon to find the sacred McGuffin for the wizened old man.

So what is your thought process for creating adventures, especially for a new campaign? How do you get away from the site-based or linear adventure? Is there anything you do or don't do specifically to capture that "open" feel? How do you try to avoid rail-roading the players?

 

[Umbran]

One of my major tools is information from the players. I try to keep myself aware of that the characters are thinking and planning and hoping to accomplish. I use that information as the seeds for my adventure creation. Because, honestly, the basic difference between feeling "open" and feeling "railroaded" is choice. If the player chooses to go down a road of their own volition, they don't generally think about the fact that the DM had to create the road for them.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Here's one I do sometimes:

Instead of building a quest, build a situation. Now build a bunch of NPCs and organisations who are interested in the situation and let them loose and see what they do. Then have the players find out about the NPCs' actions and interact with them, changing the results. Repeat, as the plot twists and thickens!

 

[Psion]

Well, my recent One missing piece of the puzzle thread has a pretty significant expose on my thought process, but some of the things you ask about here aren't really handled there, so I will amplify.

Most of my plots revolve around machinions of intelligent beings. My best way to remain flexible there is, for each significant power group or other significant NPC force is to define their:
1) motives
2) methods
3) resources
4) knowledge
and then simply try to treat them just like another character, for example, asking myself questions like "what would I do if the PCs messed up my plans in this way."

Another thing I do is conceive likely junctures or events that the PCs may experience. That may initially sound linear, but the thing to keep in mind to keep things non linear is to consider different paths into and out of each juncture. For example, in the above thread, I discuss how one PC stands a chance of getting captured and corrupted by the villain. There are several ways into that juncture, several ways out of it, and several possible resolutions.

You can't prepare for every possible eventuality, but it is a good idea to flesh out some of the more likely ones and some of the more immediate ones (as the closer in the future the event is, the clearer picture you will have of how the PCs can get there if they are likely to get there at all.)

 

[S'mon]

My usual plan is to develop the NPCs and their motivations and just run with that, the adventure develops organically, from the interaction between the PCs & the NPCs, and from NPC-NPC interaction, with nothing plotted in advance. It really helps if the PCs have motivations too, ie are pro-active rather than passive.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Here's one I do sometimes:

Instead of building a quest, build a situation. Now build a bunch of NPCs and organisations who are interested in the situation and let them loose and see what they do. Then have the players find out about the NPCs' actions and interact with them, changing the results. Repeat, as the plot twists and thickens!

Create timelines for each of the organizations, compaing them after all are finished to see if there are conflicts - but do not remove the conflicts, resolve them.

Create key events, important events on the timeline that the party will either experience or hear about afterwards. These are the ones that will suck they players in.

Make sure that some of the key events are personal - if they have struck up a friendship with the toymaker finding out that he has been arrested by Ralph the Minion and Town Constable may get them curious about Ralph.

Keep an area for notes on the sheet, the PCs' actions will change the timeline. Evil Necromancer Bob Skull cannot send Minion Ralph to capture the princess if Ralph is dead and the princess has left the country at the behest of the heroes. Keep the timeline fluid, don't let yourself get nailed to it.

Do set up sites, sooner or later the party will check out the action at Bob Skull's Pit o' Doom (Children under 12 half price). Players will check them out when they get there.

And as always, have plans for your NPCs, will Bob stay and fight, or send his thugs while he slips out the back door in the funhouse? Where will he go?

The Auld Grump

 

[Odysseus]

As Umbran says choice, and character motivations are important factors.
The thing I would add is time to the background. The world continues spining. As long as you have a time element in the game site-based and linear adventures are full of choices. If the party don't complete the adventure within a certain time limit x happens, if they do y happens.The linear adventure, then becomes part of a bigger chain of paths. With site based adventures , what is happening in the site while the party are crawling around. Have the monsters moved about? Has another party come in and looted all the best treasure ?
As to openess. You can also be too open. I've played in games where DM would let us go whatever direction we wanted. But without a choice it was very boring. Its very important to give players a path to follow. The openess is allowing them the choice to follow it or not.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

I don't like spending a lot of time fleshing out NPCs and organizations. Too often, the party will do something really off-the-wall, and it ends up being a lot of prep time for nothing. I tend to lay out big-picture plots, and then provide more detail as the party gets closer (kinda like object detail in video games -- just blobs when they are far away, fully fleshed out when you are interacting with them.)

I've found that if I try to run the world like it exists in the absence of the PCs that I spend way to much time on it, and get annoyed when they don't appreciate the brilliant subtleties and creativity that went into it Or I start railroading them to follow my plot.

 

[carpedavid]

I'll quote from a judgment I wrote for the IronDM Fall 2004 tournament:

In general, I'm a fan of the "simulationist" form of adventure writing: creating an interesting environment where interesting people are doing interesting things, and then letting the PCs come in and muck it all up in the way that only PCs can do. The key to writing a successful adventure of this sort is setting the stage so that events will occur even if the PCs sit back and do nothing (pretty darn unlikely), and then carefully considering what the NPCs will do, and how events will change once the PCs do start interfering.

That's pretty much my philosphy of adventure design. I'll add that the most successful adventures of this type are those where the "PCs do nothing" outcome is one that the PCs will be diametrically opposed to. Voila, instant hook.

To illustrate, I'm attaching my IronDM-winning Summer 2004 run. I think all of the adventures illustrate this principle in one way or another. Oh, and if anyone wants to run any of these, or gets any sort of inspiration from them, I'd love to hear about it .

 

[EricNoah]

This isn't my strength so I'm going to be watching this thread carefully for ideas.

My style is fairly linear in the sense that I expect the heroes to take the bait, try to solve a problem, etc. I don't really have sessions where the PCs are just wandering around wondering what to do next. I think my adventures have freedom within them (i.e. once you go through that "choke point" and enter the "adventure" you can do whatever you want). And I'm trying to build in more time during and between adventures to let the PCs do crafting, info gathering, running a business, or whathaveyou.