Adventure Crafting - how do you start, how do you organize?

[treehouse]

The title says it all, but I'll extrapolate. How do you craft your adventures?

Hypothetical: You get a strong bit of inspiration for an adventure while doing something else. What's the next step? Do you sit down in front of your computer and freewrite a plot? Or do you get right to the gritty stuff (NPC character sheets, random encounter tables)? Do you start with a map and work your way out?

And while you are at it, how do you organize your work? Is it just a hodge podge bag o' ideas that you sift through? Do you create outlines and graphs? Do you play tricks with your mind to keep your own interest?

Right now, I'm working on an Eberron adventure that begins play in two weeks, and I've started doing two things differently that have turned the project from a chore that I 'get around to' into something that I literally spent my entire Saturday in front of a computer working on, because I was having a lot of fun:

1) I created a blank 'adventure template' in Microsoft Word that helps me keep all of my ideas organized

2) [get ready for some superficial BS] I started using a really pretty font called Blackadder ITC, and a textured background that looks like papyrus. Weirdly enough, this helps me be more creative. -shrug-


So, share your adventure-building process with everyone, if you will. Maybe we can all get some good ideas from each other.

[Linklegacy77]

Basically, I start with a campaign idea, such as: No magic, but psionics exists(this game is currently running). Then, I basically brainstorm ideas that sound interesting, and then go into worldbuilding. After about the 2 weeks I spend on greating basic sketches of information about the entire world and it's people, economies, relations, and backround/likely future, I then start detailing everything and coming up with a plot, which is probobly already generalized due to my brainstorming. All my games are very open-ended. I start it off with a nudge or two in a direction, and the party may choose to follow it, but from then on, it's just clues and whatnot, not real nudges. The party makes the decisions. This makes it harder for me, as I have to come up with lots of NPC data, and keep track of the world at large. (basically who is doing what, and when are they doing it.) So if the party decides to wait a month while their magic items are being built to go to the cave to fight the beast, it's possible and likely that the rumors that go the PC's interested interested another adventuring party to go and slay the beast and get the treasure, so it isn't there when the PC's go.

[Xaden]

Something I have taken to doing recently is not to design an adventure so much, but kind of what Link does, is I'll think up the major shakers and movers (NPCs) in the "adventure" (I use that in the loosest sense of the term) and think of their motivations, backgrounds, why they're doing what they're doing and who they might have to help them do it (and why those guys are helping). This way, when the PCs do something that affects one of these NPCs I just think about how they would react to that and change his course of actions accordingly. As I write this out, it almost seems obvious, but I guess what I'm trying to get across here is that instead of my adventures and campaigns being event driven, or time-lined out, they are NPC driven. If the PCs foil some evil plot by an NPC (which often isn't just black-and-white evil) I think about what the NPC would do next depending upon his current resources, motivations, background etc. My adventures are NPC-centric.

One of the main reasons I do this is because if I have event-dirven stories or timeline based things I have a tendency to straight-jacket myself and try to force the chracters down my "event path". Which in my opinion is very bad because role-playing should be more cooperative between DM and PCs, and that's why I try to keep things down to just NPCs and their motivations (why are they doing things that provoke the PCs into action). Yeah.

[nightinverse]

I usually put it in Campaign context and edit the concept down to fit. Then I work up a skeleton of text, and pick up random encounter tables. I usually plan some strategies for prepared encounters, develop some NPCs and let the rest flow on the spot.

I don't pre-roll treasure, incidentally.

[LynMars]

I tend to have a rough idea for plot, generally based on either the setting or a major NPC. I give my plkayers a real rough idea of what I want--setting, the bare-bones basics of why they'll be together (random chance/hired by the same guy/prison break/etc), and see what concepts they come up with, ask for some basic NPC descs from their background.

Then I sit down and, if it's a game I'm still learning myself (and even if it's not) create those NPCs as if they were PCs (with slightly less points, unless a villian a lot of times), decide on traits and plot hooks and personalities and all that fun stuff. Having a rich and detailed supporting cast for the party to interact with regularly does it for me. Also a familiarity with the setting I'm using, if it's a published one. Rules are rather a last consideration for me.

I tend to use rough notes, starting with freestylish writing of "Okay, what to do tomight? There's this, this, and this, last week this happened. So, logical progression from that..." or "Hrm, haven't touched on this plot point yet/for several sessions let's drop it in there..." My outlines are very basic and flexible, having certain points I want to hit on, and multiple ways to get there. Since Players destroy plans utterly in almost every case. Although the times they fall right into it wholly by accident due to characters reacting to something I did is always a great time.

I need to GM something again soonish, actually. I just like being a player too much.

[hedgeknight]

I'm probably repeating a few things mentioned by others thus far, but here is how my current email campaign got up and running:

Determined setting for an adventure, not a campaign, just an adventure. Decided upon a small port town that wasn't a typical "good" town. It is a pirate town where just about any manner of person and/or thing can be encountered.
Created a map and the NPC's in town. This was the most fun of all - I divided the town essentially in half with the "good" folks living in Old Town and the "bad" folks living in New Town" - with a scattering of each throughout the town for flavor. This created a dozen roleplaying possibilities for the players and also allowed me to come up with possible scenarios that might put NPC's in conflict and ultimately the PC's. And the government of the town? Well, that's an adventure all by itself! ;)
Fleshed out the surrounding area - this port town was near a swampy area which had its own inhabitants, lizardfolk and wild halflings. There is also a pack of gnolls in an abandoned (?) dragon's lair. Sahuagin and sea elves off the coast, and then there are the pirate ships that frequently dock in town with various goods - spices, coin, stolen goods, and slaves. And the captains of the ships have their own personalities and agendas too.
After fleshing out most of the town, I contacted my players and told them about the setting and what kind of characters would be acceptable. I even opened the door for monster characters based on the region - one of my players (burlyjr) runs a massive Lizardman Warrior!This game has been running since last October and I'm still fleshing stuff out and gaming "on the fly" - that's the fun of it for me as a DM. I toss out a nugget of info and turn the players loose. Sometimes they miss clues and hints, but that just allows me to toss them in again if I want.

I have few notes, relying primarily on the map and NPC's of the town to plot and plan - with those bare bones, I can do just about anything and create loads of adventures for my players.
-g-

[Mercutio]

I'll get a spark of inspiration (or else create one by writing a ton of crap and tossing out all but the best ideas). I'll free-write what I intend to happen, generally not more than a few paragraphs. Then I'll go to my template, which I also have in Word, and start filling in blanks. My ideas always have an end culminating event to cap off the adventure and hook into the next ones. Once I have the basic hook down, and then end event, I'll work my way through the adventure, adding in NPCs and other encounters. I'll determine what EL I want and what kind of creatures will be fought. Then I'll go through and stat out the creatures and NPCs. I rarely use the core monsters from the books, and my NPCs that I intend to keep around are given the character creation treatment I use when I make up my PCs. The others get a stat block and a few lines about them.

The last thing I do is go through and write in the XP for each encounter. My goal is to have characters level up once a session between levels 1 and 3; once every other session from 4-6, and once every 3 or 4 sessions between 6-10. To that end, my adventures are typically geared to meet that, ie the first adventure should be able to be finished after one play session, the seventh one after 3 play sessions. I'll build in mini-events that I use as stopping points for the adventure.

Anyway, it's not as complex as it sounds. For my next adventure with my F2F group, I haven't done much of anything apart from statting out NPCs. I want to try a more free approach, and since it's an adventure story to Xen'drik that doesn't really tie into my overarching plot, I feel like I have that kind of latitude.

[hedgeknight]

Hey! Hook a brother up with these Word 'adventure templates' :)
PM me or drop me an email.
Please? Purdy please?
-g-

[treehouse]

Sure thing, but let me finish it first - I just started it on Saturday and I'm still writing up my first adventure on it, so I haven't worked out the kinks. The moment I'm done, I'll ship it your way.

[Mercutio]

I'm at work. When I get home I can.

[treehouse]

Oh hey, I somehow missed in your post that you use a template too. Maybe we could trade? I started this thread to get ideas on how to keep myself organized (and also because I'm curious about how other people do this; I find it fascinating), and I bet you do some things with your template that I haven't thought of.

[akiko]

Now now tree. No I'll show you mine if you show me yours. Just show it and be prepared for ridicule based on size. You guys and your nutty 'templates' ;)

[treehouse]

Don't be snarky, akiko. We're both your DMs now :evil:

As a side note, I believe I've been through five different titles in the past one hundred posts. I was a Nightwing, a Nightwalker, a Gravecrawler, a Jahi and now a Deathbringer. That's a lot of title changes!

[Mercutio]

I don't even look at the titles. They don't mean anything to me. Never have.

That said, I'd be happy to email you the template I use when I get home. I don't know if you saw the adventures I wrote for my Aundair campaign, but that's pretty much what I use.

[treehouse]

Catch and Release? Yeah, that was a cool adventure.

[akiko]

Figuring that you guys are my DMs and actually titled a deathbringer now I will back off. No use in getting Calor killed before his first arrow can be shot. :)

On topic. I don't GM. So I don't prepare. I just make up the ultimate coolness and prepare to cause havok on my unsuspecting GM.

GM: She wants you to follow her to the right fork.
ME: I go straight.
GM: There is only left and right forks.
ME: I START CHOPPING DOWN TREES!

[BigRedRod]

I think one of my problems as a DM is that I don't think in terms of adventures. I just look at the game as a whole and attempt to cut it into rough chunks (which are chapters in my PBPs).

Generally what I do as game prep is just do one of those spider diagram thingies in one of my note books to work out plot ideas. Sometimes I'll make it a flow chart if I'm fairly sure I can predict what actions my players are likely to take (Although time and time again I'm proven wrong here).

From that I then tend draw maps with all the relevant info. Everything tends to look like a map for some reason even if it isn't. And often I'll go off on pages of tangent about stuff which my players wander past.

The example which springs to mind comes from 7DS, the first tournament that the players were involved in was up against a team consiting of four or five members. I'm fairly certain they were knocked out in round one. Every single trainer and team had a personality, backstory and little relationship thing. Some were just a line, others were little paragraphs. Still, it wouldn't have been fair to just let them win, I prefer them to feel that victory is bloody hard work. I may see if I can find that notebook and scan the page, although given I write in pencil it tends to smudge.

[itches]

I'm fairly certain they were knocked out in round one.
Round two.

[AbusePuppy]

How I design adventures depends a lot on what kind of adventure it's supposed to be. For example, some campaigns are plot-driven, which means you have to find out what's going to happen first and then determine who, where, when, etc. Conversely, a PC-driven plot will rely heavily on their interactions with each other and with the NPCs, meaning you need to familiarize yourself with their backstory and personalities (both in and out of game) before proceeding.

Your most important thing when creating an adventure is the hook(s), the part that gets the players interested in what's happening. These can be practically anything and usually need to be tailored heavily to your group's playstyle and characters; a good combination of carrot and stick will usually do the trick, whether in-game rewards (like items/money), roleplaying opportunities (meet interesting people, further their character's backstory) or simply challenges (no one could possibly break into there).

My campaigns tend to be written extremely out-of-sequence, actually; I keep enough material on-hand to run the next session, but aside from that I just work on everything that needs to happen throughout the campaign as a whole. Generally I have the overarching plot drawn up in my head already, but the sequence of events I usually have to hammer out over the course of weeks or months to get everything in its proper place. And, of course, the players always do unexpected things, which requires revising some sections of the plot, etc. I rarely draw up full sets of stats for NPCs except for repeated, major players; the rest of them get only the relevant block of numbers (HP/Body rating, combat bonuses, etc) for the role they appear in. On the other hand, I'm a very improvisational GM so I don't have any problem making things up on the fly; some people don't like doing this, and for them I suggest writing things out ahead of time.

@BRR:
Most of the time large chunks of your prepared material will never be relevant in the game, in my experience at least. For every dozen NPCs you toss into the world the PCs will only have a chance to interact with a few of them and it's hard to tell which ones they'll choose; better to be prepared by knowing enough about everybody than have too little and end up with a bunch of "cardboard cutout" people. Oftentimes I find I like a particular NPC enough to bring them back for another appearance; not only is this easier on you as a GM but it also lends a sense of continuity and familiarity to the game, the "oh yeah I remember him" effect.

I'm not nearly as meticulous as some of the people here appearantly are; I don't have any templates and half the time I don't even write anything down. My players are often free to actually look through my notes during many games because there simply isn't anything of use to them there, just scratch sections for combats-in-progress and things to remember that happened in earlier sections. Basically everything is kept inside my head, short of actual full-on stat blocks, which are a little much to keep track of. Admittedly, this is easier to do with most of the systems I GM (Shadowrun, BESM, WoD) than some others (D&D, Rifts, CoC) but I've found it's something I tend to do no matter what.
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[Mercutio]

Here's my template http://www.geocities.com/jendarl/DandD/Template.doc.

Examples of it in use can be seen:
http://www.geocities.com/jendarl/DandD/AundairCampaign.doc
http://www.geocities.com/jendarl/DandD/AundairCampaign2.doc
http://www.geocities.com/jendarl/DandD/AundairCampaignProp.doc

[Benicus]

For writing adventures I tend to have trouble, I add WAY too much stuff. Usually...
Like this last F2F adventure I was doing, I threw almost everything in the MM at this small town...needless to say some people I showed it (on the Giants forums) asked me "How are there still people here?"

Though usually I just go with the bare bones of what I need, some NPC's, a BBEG, a plan for said BBEG, maybe a dungeon or two, a town or two, and some random things going on and some motives for the NPC's.
Usually turns out good, though nowaday's im starting to write a WHOLE lot more into my adventures and campaigns and it looks so so much better.

[hedgeknight]

Here's my template http://www.geocities.com/jendarl/DandD/Template.doc.

Examples of it in use can be seen:
http://www.geocities.com/jendarl/DandD/AundairCampaign.doc
http://www.geocities.com/jendarl/DandD/AundairCampaign2.doc
http://www.geocities.com/jendarl/DandD/AundairCampaignProp.doc

Thanks a bunch! I love these type of DM helps! :nod:
-g-

[LeadPal]

Like BRR, I don't really think in terms of "adventures". Generally, I start by writing up three or four villains that I think would be cool, and dumping them where the PCs are. I then imagine how their evil schemes would interact with each other. After some imagining, I decide how their conflicts will pan out over time, assuming that the PCs do absolutely nothing.

Then, I let the PCs do whatever the hell they want. They've got plenty of incentive to fight the villains, since they'll certainly be up to no good, and as the PCs grow more powerful the villains will start to pay more attention to them, but regardless, their choices are their own.

Beyond the overarching (but flexible) plot, I also flesh out the surrounding areas in case the players want to explore, and write a little bit about small, minor encounters that I can use when I feel them appropriate for the pace of the game ("Timmy's fallen in a well! In ogre territory! Could you rescue him in time for the festival?") that don't mean anything in the long run. Throw in some aggressive random monsters if I need to stall for time (usually because the players ignored everything that I threw their way, thankfully a rare event), and I've got myself a session. And for the next session, I can just refresh my minor encounter list and take the villainous plotlines a little further.

[itches]

First thing that happens is that I come up with an extremely vague idea for a game (Band of Bards? Brilliant!). After that I'll come up with a slightly less vague idea for a single adventure/chapter (the group is performing at the Feast of Karthes by the baron, only the baron is really a vampire and they are both entertainment and food), and work out a way to interject the band into it (they were hired).

The next step is to come up with some details about a couple of what I think will be the major NPC's (the vampire baron, his human lackey, the scared inn-keeper), detail them out a little bit, work out a rough time-line and then I'm set.

I tend to take advantage of the slow nature of a pbp to plan thing out in more detail as the game moves along, which gives me the benefit of being able to go down paths and have things happen I didn't even consider at the start (they get visited by the ghost of a previous victim).

It seems a tad bit disorganised at first, but it works pretty well for me. It's not that the game is just me making things up on the spot; it's that I only plan in detail for the immediate future, a bit vague for the medium future and even vaguer beyond that.

As the chapter draws to an end and I've got a better feel for the characters, I'll start tailing things to suit their personalties and strengths (Timmy has fallen down a well! oh if only there was an acrobat around who could climb down and rescue him), as well as start coming up with plans for an overall larger plot, which I'll also plan out in more detail as time goes in similar to how I do individual adventures/chapters.

The larger plot tends to be vastly unimportant on the self contained chapter-by-chapter basis, as I'll only throw in one or two things each time about it. The reason for this is that I don't really believe that we'll ever get around to dealing with it. But it's nice to have something there and on the off chance that we do make it by the time I'm 80 years old it'll be awesome.