Writing An Adventure

[Zalphon]

Anyone have any advice for writing an adventure to last 4-8 sessions for a party of 4-6 people? I'm wanting to write a roleplay/investigation heavy adventure for my group to play through. Anyone have any advice for length?

[Talion]

When I first started DMing I had mixed results with my notes. I erred on the side of caution, so sometimes I ended up skipping parts of an adventure due to time constraints. A lot of it depends on your writing style as well. I had a speech written out for one specific section, but for the most part it was point and click notes for "The general plot" and "If they do such and such a thing, proceed down this route."

That being said, it was a combat heavy route, so my 4 or so pages plus villain speech and encounter stats lasted a good 6-8 hours (it's been a while) with some items skipped, but also with no breaks. I would definitely err on the side of caution, in case the party comes up with an especially good short cut through what you had expected to be a major time eating encounter, but 4 to 5 pages of solid notes with loose play requirements could suffice for a session. If you intend to have more things written down properly, as might be seen in a published adventure, you'll probably end up with double or more than that. Especially if you include a couple of small side quests to slow things up in case of excessively quick progress. Fortunately, as a roleplay/investigation heavy game things could be held up quite a bit due to a simple character misunderstanding, half truths, and misdirections, which should eat up as much time, or more, as combat normally would.

The good news is that, since you're trying to do this over multiple sessions, the first two or so will give you a good idea of what you actually need to prepare for the game. You may need more, or you may need less. In my scenario it was my first time DMing, but the group was also relatively inexperienced and I only needed enough for one session to give the regular DM a break. We also learned a lot about the system in that particular session, as well as generating some useful in-game world building. But as I'm starting to ramble...

Again, as my final note, I would stress the need to be prepared for the player's ingenuity and ability to leap past what you may consider a legitimate challenge for them.

Edit*: As an example note, I would have something like "Party encounters X Boss entity, see page X for stats". "Party arrives in friendly town and is allowed to recuperate before it is attacked."

[Zalphon]

What I'm thinking is this.

The adventure is set in the Planescape-setting and is based around the mysteries and deceptions of Sigil and the tenuous political geography of the Factions.

The Main Arc is about finding an information broker who has come across some unsavory information about each of the Factions. Information that could greatly upset the balance of power within the City of Doors. The players are tasked with finding and handling this information broker, who himself, is an enigma. They are tasked with this by someone who is equally enigmatic who offers a reward worth far more than material wealth can ever hope to capture.

I'm wanting to have Side Arcs branch out that are of varied importance to the Main Arc.

Some being paths that lead to additional pieces of the puzzle and others being ways to immerse the players into the many eccentricities of Sigil.

I'm wanting this to be an adventure that holds the plot and the setting in equal accord.

I want the plot to advance their immersion into the setting and the setting to push them forward in the plot. Does that make sense?

[Talion]

I am not familiar with Planescape, but on the whole the campaign setup looks pretty good. At a glance, nothing seems too out of place logically and it sounds like it could be pretty fun. I will say this much though: I don't know how your group operates, but I would hazard a guess that the campaign will probably need to last towards the end of your estimate, if not a bit longer, to truly appreciate its intended magnitude and scope. That being said, I must wish you luck in this.

[Zalphon]

I am not familiar with Planescape, but on the whole the campaign setup looks pretty good. At a glance, nothing seems too out of place logically and it sounds like it could be pretty fun. I will say this much though: I don't know how your group operates, but I would hazard a guess that the campaign will probably need to last towards the end of your estimate, if not a bit longer, to truly appreciate its intended magnitude and scope. That being said, I must wish you luck in this.

'Tis greatly appreciated, Talion.