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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 2198477" data-attributes="member: 99">I think this is an interesting question and many good points have been made in this thread that I won't try and restate.  But I'll underscore one point that I think is important:  Eventually the PC's are going to go somewhere and do something and at that point the adventure probably becomes either site based or a series of related events (linear) to one degree or another.So, in my opinion, we're not really talking about different kinds of "adventures" so much as allowing enough flexibility that the PC's don't have to tackle these adventures in a particular order or on a particular time frame.  If you are skilled at making site based or linear adventures then you're well over half way to the goal.Here's three adventure ideas:Defeat the kobold spider cult of the Black Woods. (site based)Liberate the slave miners from their evil masters. (site based)Investigate the series of grisly murders in town. (linear)Now you could run these in succession by simply stating to the players that "this is your next adventure" or even by putting in good plot hooks that involve their PC's (which you'll hopefully wind up doing anyway).  But you're trying to give choices.  So you instead say,"You arrive in the small town of Woodhill to find the mood grim.  Almost everyone you see is armed and wary.  After doing some chatting at the local tavern you find that they are beset by a host of problems.  The Spider Cult of the Black Woods is a constant problem for the town's logging industry.  To defend themselves they are more and more purchasing weapons and armor from the unsavory Slavers who run the nearby iron mines.  As if that wasn't bad enough, people are turning up murdered at the rate of about one per month.  Things in Woodhill are desperate and the town council is talking about sending for help from the Duke."Now in that circumstance, most players are going to decide to address these problems but they'll be the ones deciding what they do and when.  They're making the choice and you're not forcing a particular direction.  What you've got to do is to remain flexible.In the above situation what I'd do is almost nothing.  I would prepare a Kobold/Spider encounter, one more wilderness style encounter and have a decent handle on a couple folks in town who might know some clues about the murders.  Then I'd sit back and see which way the PC's went and be prepared for them to say, "This town is doomed!  We're outta here!"  Now my players would almost never say that but they will call your bluff once in a while and if they do then you just drop the little bit of work that you've put in and move on.Assuming that they go along with one of the leads you've tossed out then you run the "random encounters" to round out the session and use the prep time prior to the next session to actually flesh out the lead they've picked.  You also think about ways that you can advance the difficulty of the other plotlines so that they'll be appropriately challenging when the PC's get to them.  Make a few notes about this but avoid doing much more than that until they commit to that plotline.Voila!  You do a minimum of work and the players have a maximum amount of choice.</blockquote>

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