(Part of NextLevel)
| Shortcut |
| This is the core of what the main text describes for creating adventures: Pick a number of locations. Put a challenge (or more) in each of them. If the challenge is overcome by the player characters, they get a reward. Some of these rewards are tools, information, assistance or the like which allows the characters to get to scenes they could otherwise not reach, or even knew existed. These new scenes hold challenges and rewards, etc. At some point, they reach a final, climatic scene that allows them to finally 'win'. |
| To give them a reason for doing all of this, pick a plot. A plot is essentially: A wants to do X to B, but C wants to prevent that. Pick what A, B, C and X are. Player characters are either on the side of A or C (though C and B may be one and the same. Or A and B might be the same, though this is rarer). If they are with A, they do everything to make sure A's goal is achieved. If they are with C, they do it to ensure that A fails. Add interesting characters, events, items, discoveries and places to the mix, and you have an adventure. |
The average adventure, no matter what its form, has a very simple structure. When one does not know this structure, one usually ends up reinventing the wheel every time one writes a new adventure. that is not very practical.
The structure goes something like this: The player characters go somewhere, overcome a challenge, get a reward, and go somewhere else to overcome another challenge for another reward, possibly with the help of the first reward they got. For example, they kick in a door, defeat a troll and takes the big weapon it had so they can defeat the ogre behind the next door.
This is a very simple structure. Many entertaining adventures have been created by simply repeating it over and over again with the proper variations. So let's see what we can vary, shall we?
The combination of a location, a challenge and a reward is usually called a scene. Complex scenes may have more than one of either location, challenge and/or reward, as noted above.
Adventures basically consist of a lot of scenes that have a common story to them.
Let's have an example of a scene slightly more complex than the troll & ogre thing: Inside a church, the players must figure out why the priest keeps avoiding their questions clumsily. If they realize he refuses to speak because someone else is present, they may just root out this intruder and capture him. That will allow them to get some very good information from both the priest and their captive.
Pick location, challenge(s) and reward(s), and you have a scene. Now let's look at plot and structure.
Like scenes, the plot of an adventure contains a few elements that can usually be filled pretty fast. For future reference, we will call the four main elements Initiator, Complicator, Objective and Target.
An example: The local mayor wants to secretly rig the next election. His major opponent wants to avoid that. The mayor is the Initiator, his opponent is the Complicator, the election is the Target, and the rigging is the objective. Most game worlds have tons of characters, organizations, events, and so on that can be put into this core foursome.
| Motives |
| Making an adventure 'believable' usually involves, first of all, making the plot seem plausible. Scientific theory aside, the trick is to provide seemingly meaningful motives to any Initiator or Complicator that is capable of independent thought (a vulcanic eruption acting as a particularly nasty Initiator aiming to destroy a town rarely needs 'motive'). The good news is, it's not all that difficult. Greed or revenge are two motives that transcend all genres and characters, and can be used just about whenever needed. Different character types throw in their own angles on these, like an archmage being greedy for powerful artifacts rather than political power or money (though those may do fine, too). To provide surprising motives, simply scan usable Initiators and think what they may want. Then make them willing to go too far to get it. |
Unlike movies, plots need not be excessively complex in most roleplaying game adventures; player bickering and side-tracking (shopping and general rowdiness, mostly) will add quite a lot of action to most games, and social interaction between the players around the table will also be a big part of a game.
What the plot needs to do is first of all to explain why a lot of things happen; if two sides just start making life horrible for each other for no perceivable reason, things tend to degenerate into a mess quite quickly. The plot adds an explanation, even when the link is not entirely visible ("I don't know why they are out here in the junkyard at night, but it has to have something to do with that robbery"). In it's simplest form, a plot is a McGuffin: Someone wants to get something, or bring it to someone else, and someone wants to stop them. A quick explanation (blueprints, hostage, whatever) is quickly thrown in, and the characters have a reason for fighting each other. Often, no more is needed.
The plot can basically be seen as what will happen if the player characters never get involved. 'A' wants to hurt 'B' and 'B' wants to stop that ('B' is both Target and Complicator here; being both Target and Initiator is also possible, though less common. Being both Initiator and Complicator is very illogical). If it was just a story, either A or B would succeed, end of story.
Enter the player characters! But why do they enter, and for what purpose? To take the purpose first, in a simple adventure (as the Quick'N'Dirty ones tend to be), they are either on the Initiator's or Complicator's side. They may even be the Initiator or Complicator. Their motives need not be incredibly complex; greed (loot or paycheck), revenge, fear (of being killed, or for losing someone or something), or a host of other simple motives can do the job just fine. A bit of variation between these from adventure to adventure is healthy, or they may start growing numb to a particular motive ("oh Christ, not another plot to kill my sister. I think we should just do it ourselves and get it over with already"). Just remember: Whatever the motive, it should be aimed at both the players and their player characters! If it is not aimed at the players, they will not act. If it is not aimed at the characters, it will seem irrational and might upset the plausibility of the campaign.
Just find something the players want their characters to do, and allow them to do it through participation in the adventure. They want wealth and fame? Well, by saving the princess from the orcs, they may get just that.
The point of structure is to take the players from the beginning of the adventure, with no knowledge of who what and why, to the conclusion, with a good enough picture of events to understand why it had to be done. From A to B, essentially, and with the ability to look back and say "so that's why".
This is done by somehow making all the scenes in the adventure fit together somehow. This can be done through keys.
The term 'key' comes from the most logical form of this technique: the adventurers have defeated a challenge and been rewarded with, among other things, a key. This key will open a door that they could not otherwise get through. Behind that door, the adventuer continues.
Taking to its full potential, this simple idea can be copied using anything from a friendly tip to alien blueprints; all they really do is hand the characters a way to get to the right place. For example: In the example scene (see above), they grab the guy keeping the priest from talking. From what they can get out of him, and from what the priest tells them, they become aware of a small computer cafe in which the hacker they have been hearing about hangs out. Voila! they have a key to get into the location where they can continue the adventure.
So how to quickly build up an adventure structure from this? Start out with whatever scene you hope to see the player characters end up in (the climax scene, if using traditional writer's lingo). If you have multiple possible climaxes, pick one, and take the rest later. Now figure out why the characters cannot just waltz into that scene straight away. Why can't they just walk up to the Villain, punch his lights out and save the day? Well, maybe they lack some knowledge about where or who he is. Maybe they lack evidence. Maybe they lack the tools. In short, pick the key needed to enter that scene. Now figure out how that key is acquired. what do they need to achieve this? Knowledge, connections, tools, what? Again, you're picking what key they need to get to the key to get to the Villain. Continue this until you feel you have sufficient scenes for a full and entertaining adventure.
This, of course, is presented in a very simple way. Most experienced gamemasters do not want players to simply go from A to B to C to D and finally win at E. That is a linear adventure. It works if what the players like to do is simply screwing around in scenes, like doing combat or sweet-talking pretty ambassadors; it is very good for that. But if a slightly more complex structure is needed, the solution is simple: A) To enter some scenes, several keys are needed. B) Some scenes can be entered with different keys. An example of A) could be that the small computer cafe must first be known, then a pass must be acquired, and finally they have to find someone to actually take them there (it's in a rough part of town). That's 3 keys for one scene, making things a bit more challenging. Each key comes from a seperate scene; the church scene provided the information, another scene will provide the pass, and a third will bring about a ride, all scenes with their own little challenges.
An example of B) could be that they can, rather than get a pass and a ride, figure out a backway into the place. Maybe a player character knows the area well enough to find alleys to the back of the place, while another knows how to 'persuade' any would-be backdoor bouncers to let them in. Now they do not just have a goal, they have a choice. In a well-described game world, a lot of these choices need not even be written out specifically, the GM can simply pose the problem and let the players figure out their own way through, another form of a challenge. But they still need to know where to go, and why.
With a bit of insight into the game world, anyone can sit down and whip up a bunch of scenes, complete with challenges and rewards, and chain them together with a handful of keys scattered around the scenes that the player characters have access to first (and those keys allow access to other scenes with more keys, etc.). Soon the characters can run around collecting more and more 'keys', giving them more and more ways to progress.
A bridge scene grabs this web of keys and scenes and forces a single scene into it, which must be passed, like a bridge that must be crossed to get to the other side. This scene can be a small climax all of its own, granting passage from one part of the adventure to another. Example: The characters are hunting a megalomaniacal sociopath who has 'acquired' a lot of resources in shady ways. No one knows what they are for, but he does not seem like he'd use them for Good. During the adventure, they run around doing a lot of things to figure out where to find him. but at some point, they will have to capture one of the villain's more notorious henchmen, Kulock, because he is the only one within their posibble reach who knows where the villain's operation is based. They have to capture him and somehow get this information out of him before they can go on with the adventure, which will then go to the small Spanish village used as the villain's front.
The capture and interrogation of the henchman is a bridge scene; without getting to this scene, they will be unable to progress. And once they do, the whole adventure moves to another area, a pivotal change of pace.