We're having plenty of game here at the Wargate! And no visible shortage of it, either! This is great - we'll get a chance to play several different games, experience several different stories and Game Masters, and share our own stories with our closest friends through the interactive medium of tabletop gaming.
However, it's not always easy to get the game you want out of a system. Sure, the story is in your head, but the players have no idea about anything...sometimes it can become a serious hassle to keep "player information"(that what a player knows about the scenario), "GM information" (that what the GM knows that the players do not) and "character information" (that what a player's character knows about the scenario) separate. Multiple plot threads come flying around and unwound due to PC actions, and sometimes you can see your carefully crafted adventure go straight down the tubes, all because one of the players really really, really, really wanted to hunt those buffalo.
I'm going to share with you a few methods for building adventures I picked up along the way to the Wargate. Take these few rules of thumb to heart, keep them in mind when designing your scenarios, and you'll reap the benefit of a smooth running, fast paced game.
So, what's an 'Adventure'?
Sometimes you hear them called by different names. Sometimes they are called Stories, or Modules, or Scenarios...by any name you call them, RPG scenarios will always be "adventures" to me. I like that name...it really says what it needs to be. An adventure...an exciting scenario for your players to roleplay through.
An adventure can be as long as it needs to be, spanning multiple play sessions or character levels. For the purposes of this article, an adventure is simply a single portion of a campaign...or one chapter in a story.
For an adventure to be successful, it is dependent on a number of things. Basically, these are simply the elements of a story linked together through the medium of the RPG, which is like no other form of storytelling because of the open-ended nature. This is the most important aspect - if the story is not open ended, with several possible outcomes, it becomes GM Railroading. This is a term used to denote where a GM attempting to run a scenario does it too rigidly, or doesn't allow for enough player choice in the scenario.
Throughout the article I will be providing specific examples and even show you how I generate adventures with my tried and true 10 point Adventure Method (patent pending), wherein you basically make an outline for a term paper or short story for creative writing class. It's very original. The key here is that you establish the three things that every story needs for your adventure - that is, a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Above all, do NOT let your players "sandbox" for very long. This stagnates the game and players begin to drift away when you play to their whims.
Finding the Story
The first thing you, Adventuresmith, must do is uncover your story. You may have a premise, but it's the meat of the story that counts. When writing campaigns, I'll often have a story arc built into a certain number of sessions (say, for example...ten) with notes about the general plot of the adventure. We're not going to focus on campaigns this time, but if you have a story for your campaign, the stories for your adventures should occur quite naturally.
An adventure has several elements that you should not ignore as a writer or GM. I cannot stress this enough - you must spend time preparing. In fact, the Game Master is the person who must actually devote time to preparing the game. This is his responsibility, and by taking up the mantle of Game Master you are telling us you are ready to handle it.
To that end, it truly pays to come prepared for more than you'll conceivably need so that you can access new information on the fly. Also, writing things down tends to cement the thoughts in your head. If you know the story, how the NPC's will react to certain stimuli or what will happen when the characters decide to go off-course there won't be any room for plot holes or inconsistencies. It also clears up instances of ret-conning due to inattention or strange actions by the players. It is for this reason that games that are run mostly "by the seat of one's pants" tend to run out of steam or collective purpose. The very same applies to "sandbox" games. Without any direction, your players will wander - perhaps even away from the table.
When writing a new adventure, I always start by writing a short synopsis of the plot. The synopsis should include at least two possible outcomes to the scenario (success and failure). Once you've written this part out, you should have a really good idea as to the tone of the adventure, and can begin to write in earnest.
Once you have your synopsis, you're ready to add character hooks. Character hooks are the starting points of the adventure - they provide the player characters with reasons to do the things you want them to do in the scenario. It's not a good sign when the hardest part of the scenario is getting the players to work with each other and to pursue the scenario goal. Simply having someone who outranks the players command them to do something they would not normally do is alright for some scenarios, but it can quickly become bothersome if used excessively (unless that is the gist of the campaign). If your campaign features player characters that are not military oriented, do not create military adventures - it's a lot of hassle that could easily be avoided by writing an adventure more suited to your player's characters, or by decreeing that player characters need to be military in concept.
Options are always better, unless the players have warranted being commanded (Quest-ed) by the NPC's by way of their own actions.
Usually character hooks are easy, but sometimes it takes some conniving to make it fit where you want it to in your story. There are many methods to hook a character, but the easiest is to show him that something he wants is at the end of a particular course of action and let him decide to engage it. Heavy handed methods include arresting player characters, drafting them, placing a Geas spell upon them, or simply murdering their family. Hooking characters is hardest at the beginning of a campaign, but in some cases you can snag characters with a hook that binds them to the entire story of the campaign in the first adventure.
Example: My adventure is about trolls from Dollytown eating all the township of Springburg's cabbage. In this adventure, players will travel to the hamlet of Springburg, where they find a famine brought on by this lack of cabbage. Character hooks include basic sympathy for the plight of the people of the village, or perhaps a village elder offers the player gold, renown, a magic item, knowledge or any other critical item that could provide a reason to do the extreme things adventurers do all the time. If the players are successful, the people of Springburg will be rejoiced and throw a festival in their honor, but if not, most likely they were eaten by trolls.
Beginning, middle and end.
Adding Encounters
In the early days of my youth, I got my learnin's at the Dungeons & Dragons School for Beating Player Character Ass. Tuition was steep, but I got my degrees in Dungeoncraft and Game Theory, as well as finishing my minor in RPG History. I took some courses in Gygaxism as well, but like all those ancient philosophers he wasn't right about everything.
The term encounter comes from that game, but I have used it for every game, ever. It's useful. It's basically just what the original RPG game used to denote different sections of a scenario. Encounters weren't codified with ratings until the YEAR 2000, with 3rd Edition's release. So don't worry...you can still use encounters in other games.
An adventure simply consists of several Encounters put together in a chain, though you probably got this from your old Dungeon Master's Guide. Of course, an encounter is a portion of the adventure where your players interact in some way with other characters or with the game environment. Setting up these encounters and timing their execution is critical to sustaining the "fun-factor" of the game.
So what goes into an encounter? What do you put in it? How do you start it?
There are two main methods for beginning encounters. When you create your adventure, you must decide how many encounters will be site based and how many are event based. A site based encounter happens when the characters arrive at a certain point (usually a dungeon room or some other fixed location). It happens whenever it is triggered (such as the door opening or the alarm is raised). Event based encounters happen whenever some event occurs in game, regardless of where the party is. An example of such an event would be one day after the characters emerge from the dungeon to regroup and heal, the General of the Empire will arrive in the city with two hundred fresh troops. This happens no matter where the players are, but sometimes an event happening miles away can trigger another encounter, or even change the descriptions of site based encounters.
So now you have a couple of ideas, but you really need to get started. Let's get out our pens and composition pads (I'm old fashioned) and simply make an outline. You know, like they taught you to do in high school when you had to do that nightmarish term paper (or had to pay someone else to do it). I begin populating my adventure with encounters by drawing a small, numbered list from 1 to 10. In those 10 points, I write down where in the pacing of the adventure that I want my "key events" to take place. Once my "key events" are in place, I can then build the rest of the encounters around them safe in the knowledge of when and how each particular encounter can occur. These key events define those things that the story MUST have: a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Example:
- Arrival in Springburg (the pc's arrive and become involved)
- ?
- A Big Ass Hole (the pc's negotiate a yawning chasm to find trolls)
- ?
- Encounter with Trolls (the pc's find trolls!)
- ?
- ?
- Battle for the Cabbage Fields (only force can drive out the trolls!)
- ?
- Celebration in Springburg (Rewards handed out)
Here, I have mapped 5 encounters. These are the encounters that must occur if my story is to come to completion, thus they are the key events. Now I can add flavored encounters or encounters that address plot threads woven by the players that don't fall within the strict parameters of the key events. Let's say I have a paladin player, and he's totally about to fall out with God. I could alter my encounter list to include an encounter specific to this storyline. Or you can create new ones. I figure we can do both...
- Arrival in Springburg (the pc's arrive and become involved)
- ?
- A Big Ass Hole (the pc's negotiate a yawning chasm to find trolls)
- The Devil Wears Owlbear Skin (demonic servant approaches paladin)
- Encounter with Trolls (the pc's find trolls!)
- ?
- ?
- Battle for the Cabbage Fields (only force can drive out the trolls!)
- Ol' Crippy (one legged man tells the story of treasure in the land beyond Dollytown)
- Celebration in Springburg (Rewards handed out)
What else can we do? It's a good idea to mix random or optional encounters into the mix that don't necessarily have anything to do with the rest of the story, and do not have to be completed or executed in any way, like optional encounters. This is to maintain a sense of verisimilitude - that is, that things are happening in the world the pc's are in. It makes the game feel more alive if you can breathe that into how your encounters are sequenced.
- Arrival in Springburg (the pc's arrive and become involved)
- Big Gay Al's Magic Wand Superstore (players encounter wizard npc in town)
- A Big Ass Hole (the pc's negotiate a yawning chasm to find trolls)
- The Devil Wears Owlbear Skin (demonic servant approaches paladin)
- Dances with Trolls (the pc's find trolls!)
- The Frog Caves (giant frogs in a separate cavern near the trolls - site encounters)
- Oi! The trolls are coming! (pc's can warn outlying farms of incoming troll attack)
- Battle for the Cabbage Fields (only force can drive out the trolls!)
- Ol' Crippy (one legged man tells the story of treasure in the land beyond Dollytown)
- Celebration in Springburg (Rewards handed out)
These new encounters don't have to be ran at all, but are extra content that your players can earn or find if they manage to. They are non critical, but nonetheless relevant to pc interests...giant frogs always have piles of loose change and magic swords. One encounter is an npc encounter whom the players may eventually earn as an ally, who can also perform magic for the player group...for a fee.
I have included another small dungeon within this adventure! The Frog Caves are just that...inhabited by giant frogs, but it's very close to the troll lair...unwary pc's might even mistake it for the troll lair. In this instance, I would map a small frog cave, label the areas as you would any dungeon map and jot it all down in my book under the section labeled The Frog Caves. I usually include mapped areas simply as encounters all their own - though technically site based entries like these might actually contain several more encounters depending on what exactly suits your needs.
The third encounter is sort of a bonus. If the pc's are good, or just worried about their own skin, they may attempt to gather the families of the outlying farms into the defenses of the town proper. This is sort of a bonus round...extra awards may be given for a significant number of townsfolk getting to safety. Conversely, if this were an evil adventure, you could replace this encounter with something diabolic, like luring the trolls straight to the mayor's house.
Remember also that encounters do not strictly have to take place in the order they are originally ordered, due to any number of events brought on by active player characters. For example, if the players didn't go down the south road (or whatever) after the Battle for the Cabbage Fields (encounter 8), then perhaps Ol' Crippy doesn't see the characters until the Celebration in Springburg...if even then. Everyone could be dead by then, you know?
Note that 10 encounters is by no means a hard and fast rule, but rather a starting place to find how many encounters you need. Encounters can be as long as they need to be in order to address what they are designed to address. Encounter 10 can only happen if encounter 8 is successfully completed, and if encounter 5 goes bad it may also affect how encounter 8 is executed, even if only by altering the number of enemies, representing the trolls regrouping after defeating the players. A failure on any encounter that is critical could alter the title of the last encounter to "Sorrow in Springburg".
Now, we have us a proper adventure that can entertain the entire group for an entire evening. Preparation rules!
Rewards of Adventure
So, now that all the trolls have been defeated, what do the players have to show for it? Lots of cabbage? It's unlikely the townsfolk have piles of gold to part with, if anything at all. The players in this example adventure will probably get a pittance of coins, free room and board until healed (which is likely quickly) and some extra rations on top of experience points. Why so little for so heroic a deed?
Rewarding the players for their actions is actually a very tough job for a Game Master. You have to balance risk vs. reward or something, right? If you're new at it, it can be tempting to dole out craploads of everything in an attempt to please your audience. I could wax lyrical about the whole deal and address every side of the story, but since this is my blog I'm only going to seek to promulgate my own philosophy on the subject. The secret is, the teeter-totter of player satisfaction is actually tilted in the Game Master's favor. The players are not satisfied with extra treasure or skills, but rather the game itself. Therefore, for the vast majority of adventures the players will get only what they need to continue the campaign (and maybe just a little more) in terms of rewards.
I have always seen the campaign as a game with a climbing difficulty. That is, it gets harder as you go on. Giving out too many rewards clutters the future adventures with extra crap. Also, sometimes players tend to forget they used things, and you might forget they used them...especially with tons of notes of equipment and coins. It is critical that the game remain in the control of the Game Master, and depriving the players of ridiculous gains of money, power and influence can help you direct future adventures and encounters to develop along the lines of your story. Not that players cannot direct the story...rather the extra bonuses you have given them will not.
However, it is important to make each adventure a stepping stone for the next, harder adventure. In general, expended menial resources like food or water should be taken care of, even if it is in the form of enough coin to bed down in the next town's inn. In general, if the group is small, 1 upgrade can be given to each player. In larger groups, you need to be stingy - the players already have an intense advantage in numbers. The more players there are, the more tactics they can execute. That said, if you know the party will need a certain amount of magic (or satchel charges, or power armor, or political influence or whatever) then make sure at least one or two members have the opportunity to gain the needed item.
The basic rule is:
Don't give more than what they need.
Ever.
Linking Adventures
Where to next? This is an important question...if you can give hooks in one adventure, the next session doesn't seem so forced - in fact the transition will come quite naturally. You don't have to do a song and pony show about how the players get to the next town, because last week they would have told you they were going to get the treasury Ol' Crippy talked about.
If you do it right, it might be hard for the players to distinguish where one adventure ends and the next begins, especially if you never reveal the titles of your adventures to your players (thereby denoting them as separate stories). The players will be walking along doing their own thing.
While I make notes about future adventures, these are subject to change. I knew a Pastor once, who wrote his Sunday sermon every Saturday night. He had a book of notes, of things he had thought of to talk about someday...and when Saturday night came he would retire to the den with a cup of tea, take his "thought-book" along with a plain orange pad, and write his sermon. The reason he did this is so he could make sure his topic for that Sunday would resonate with the Congregation.
I'm not deliberately comparing our Sunday meetings where we all gather to listen to one of our number talk passionately and loudly about something we all care about to going to Church. Rather, I learned something from this man I once knew, and he happened to be a Pastor. That thing is to never write your adventure until the last adventure has been completed. Kind of a long way to walk for that piece of advice, but let me tell you, it is gold.
If you don't write one adventure until the last is completed, you can work and rework the gist of the adventure to take on any story developments that previously occurred and thereby achieve yet another level of verisimilitude. More importantly, it allows you to control encounter composition and difficulty.
In Conclusion
If you reduced this article to it's basest points, I really only offer a couple points. First, plan your crap out. Second, make the crap hard. Third, don't make the crap a straight line or a squiggly line, but a line with a couple of squiggles instead. Fourth, don't give your players crap. Fifth, make sure your players have plenty of crap to do. That's it.
Sorry for the long, long post guys. I hope I made all my points clear, and would love to further discuss adventure design with anyone who is going to be running a game! Of course this was just a basic primer that basically just showed my method for creating an adventure, and I'd love to hear how the rest of you cogitate your games!
If there is a point anyone wishes to examine further, don't hesitate to send me a shout out!
Awesome post - You are definately a poet in the world of dungeon and adventure crafting.
ReplyDelete