The 12 basic quests

[Remathilis]

There are only 2 plots:

1: A man goes on a journey.
2. a stranger walks in the door.

Joseph Campbell would boil those down to one basic one...

Hero learns his quest.
Hero Resists going
Mentor gives him token power
Hero leaves on quest
Hero confronts challenges
Hero Learns the Truth
Hero Copes with Truth
Hero faces his nemesis
Hero returns home changed/Hero sacrifices self to save others

There might be other steps, its been a while since my 1,000 faced journey.

 

[grodog]

Much more useful than Campbell would be Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folktale. I wasn't able to find a listing of this folkloric elements online in a quick search, but did find a summary @ http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=r...s/wordtemp/propp3.doc&ei=OKsDQ5vHLJbyYOn6lcwI
and the book itself is @ http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/promor.html

 

[Psion]

S. John Ross is my basic adventure formuleer of choice:

http://www.io.com/~sjohn/plots.htm

 

[LostSoul]

That's a nice list, Psion. Merci.