What makes for an interesting adventure?

[Eltab]

Unless the players have a hard time making up their collective minds, offer them a few things to do.

Each quest they complete should give them something that will help against another potential quest.

Be ready / able to scale up each quest's opponents as the PCs level up.

Whatever they do last, leads them towards the BBEG who is behind the whole big complicated problem in the first place.

BBEG fight should be memorable (not just a big bag of HP in a white room; use tactics and terrain and a lieutenant or two) and a suitable climax to the campaign.

 

[pemerton]

I also see that you've decided to build some of the story around the player's ambitions (so that'll be something I've got to find out about my group)

Of the games I'm currently running, the longest-running started in Jan 2009. As part of the PC-gen process I told the players that they needed to specify two things about their PCs: something to which the PC is loyal; and a reason that the PC is ready to fight goblins (because I was going to run a module that involved the PCs defending a homestead against a goblin assault).

As the game unfolds, new loyalties and new PC motivations will become clear in the course of play.

My general approach to GMing is: put pressure on those loyalties, and set up situations that speak to those motivations. Then see what the players have their PCs do, and repeat the process.

 

[LegionError121]

The main thing I wonder at this point is "is it possible to make a campaign about the ireggularities in reality?". I don't want to say too much but my character basically has ways of coming back from death and I would like to create something that revolves around that idea. What do you believe is the best way to interest players with that sort of mystery that can potentially lead people in circles? I don't want people to become bored or insane from it but I also want the players to understand that things are happening in the world I set.

 

[aramis erak]

For me, GMing and playing over the last 35 years, the biggest, most important things are, in order:

1. Meaningful choices. If my choices have no impact on the outcome, I have no reason to be there.
2. Conflict. Doesn't matter if it's social, physical, or psychological, but side A needs to be at odds with side B, and have PC's on at least one of the sides.
3. a fuller story than just what the players see. Players can tell when the GM has a larger conflict in the background driving the various local conflicts...
4. Multiple methods of resolution. Really, this is an outgrowth of meaningful choices, but expanding it to include "How can we resolve the module's major issue?"
5. A good enough hook to pull players in.

 

[Lanefan]

Conflict. Doesn't matter if it's social, physical, or psychological, but side A needs to be at odds with side B, and have PC's on at least one of the sides.

It's even more fun if you can somehow end up with PCs on two or more of the sides!

A few things I've learned about what makes a typical dungeon crawl adventure more interesting from the nuts-and-bolts design side:

- if there is more than one vertical level to the complex make sure there's numerous ways to get from level to level - lots of stairways/shafts/elevators/ramps/etc. - instead of the all-too-common single staircase
- if there are more than two vertical levels make sure at least one or two vertical accesses bypass at least one intervening level (preferably in a way that doesn't make it obvious)
- try to have at least several entrances from/exits to the outdoors, and best if one or two of which aren't immediately obvious
- try to avoid "linear" room layouts where possible as the only movement choice they provide is whether to go forward, go backward, or stop - closed loops are your friend*
- pit traps are fun but get old quite quickly; chute traps that safely deposit their victim(s) on a different level and cannot be climbed are better
- mazes might seem like (and often are!) fun from the design side but after the first one or two they get really dull from the player side unless the maze is integral to the story e.g. the goal of the adventure is to take down a particular minotaur which is known to live in a maze...
- have some of the occupants use the vertical levels to their advantage, even if it's as simple as kobolds dropping rocks through a hole in the ceiling
- without overdoing it, make sure that you both put in and describe features and dungeon dressing that are no more than just features and dungeon dressing - sometimes a 10' diameter pool of water is just a 10' diameter pool of water. Not everything has to be dangerous or a threat.
- build in some rewards or benefits that an astute, careful, or just plain lucky party can take advantage of if found e.g. a pool of foul-smelling muddy water that once per day per character (or even just once, period) gives best-quality night vision for an hour if a cupful is consumed within a minute of removal from the pool - in my experience players love these sort of things

* - great examples in print to illustrate my first four points are L1 Secret of Bone Hill and the Judges Guild adventure Dark Tower.

Lanefan

 

[Nagol]

The main thing I wonder at this point is "is it possible to make a campaign about the ireggularities in reality?". I don't want to say too much but my character basically has ways of coming back from death and I would like to create something that revolves around that idea. What do you believe is the best way to interest players with that sort of mystery that can potentially lead people in circles? I don't want people to become bored or insane from it but I also want the players to understand that things are happening in the world I set.

Possible? Certainly. My current (non-D&D) campaign is a primarily investigative one resembling X-Files. The PCs are tasked with investigating seemingly anomalous events and determining what threat, if any, they pose national security. The best way to ensure player interest in such a campaign is tell them of the premise as part of the campaign pitch. Trying to coach interest during play without the upfront disclosure is a great way to build frustration -- either the DM when the players refuse to bite or drop the lead or the players as the DM keeps presenting hooks they are simply not interested in pursuing.

I am concerned by your phrase "my character basically has...". Please be mindful as the DM, your role is not to play a protagonist. A character with whom the DM strongly identifies is termed a DMPC as opposed to NPC. Such characters are often a issue during play especially if the character, as is often the case, has exclusive abilities and/or a power level the PCs cannot match.

 

[Eltab]

The main thing I wonder at this point is "is it possible to make a campaign about the ireggularities in reality?". I don't want to say too much but my character basically has ways of coming back from death and I would like to create something that revolves around that idea. What do you believe is the best way to interest players with that sort of mystery that can potentially lead people in circles? I don't want people to become bored or insane from it but I also want the players to understand that things are happening in the world I set.

If you are in a near-reality game world, the PCs (and lots of other Powers) are going to be VERY interested in a method to "cheat Death".
- Are you like the movie Highlander, certain people just cannot die / be killed except by a certain method?
- Reincarnation is an ancient religious concept, maybe there's more to it than we materialist scientific types thought...
- Do you keep the same body when you revive? What is the pseudo-science rationale for getting back up again (and again and again and ...)?
- Is your prior death(s) a 'blank spot' in your memory? Or do you remember what happened?
- Do you plan to never go through THAT again (it hurt too much)? Or do you have a disregard for pain because it is only temporary?
- Are you going to be psychologically so different that you cannot fit in to normal society?
- Do you prefer to be far away from other people, or just a self-imposed outcast in our midst?
- Do you take up the cause of other minorities / outcasts / oppressed persons, because you see a sort of your situation in them?
- Did you become 'deathless' by choice? By accident / circumstances not under your control? By somebody else's choice? By somebody else's choice against your own will?
- Can you ever relax and let down your guard, or must you ever be vigilant lest the KGB / CIA / MI-5 / S.P.E.C.T.R.E. / whoever kidnap you?

This character could become unworkable, or totally overshadow the rest of the game. I'm not sure it will fit well into group play. Are you up to the extra efforts?

 

[LegionError121]

Well, I guess I could put "Mariana" into words. She sort of exists as an odd amalgamation, an Anomaly. She carries the spirit of a Hero from a different world and to sum it up, He got to make a wish and it was "to be gone" which is an interesting term to use.

"Gone" is not "dead" or "non existent", it just means "no longer present". And so by logic, there must always be an existance of Mariana who is the newly defined and changed form of the "no longer with us" Hero.

After a Mariana is created, life shoe-horns "it" into existance and most often ends up with another Adventurer with an artifical upbringing that is "true" but "artificial". The odd occurances though would be when a Mariana is made within too short a time near the "current" Mariana and then they "meet".

Now depending on where a or how a Mariana is brought up, they could be town guards, peasents/drunkards lying in the street, travelling mercenaries in a different party, Assassins and pick pockets, merchants, timeless warriors who have escaped the pits of hell who act as a last ditch effort against evil, house wives or merchants or most strangley a true anomaly where a Dead Mariana somehow comes back and causes more anomalies within the fabric of existance.

Of course, these "other" Mariana's would be treat in a similar way to how some people make a new character so that they can rejoin in a campaign except . . . your party has a knowledge of this "new party member" but they have to "work them out" because they're different people.

If this all sounds like too much though, I would ok with coming up with a different character and forget about all of this.