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View Full Version : DM Help How do I write a plot?



Trekkin
2016-07-12, 01:22 AM
I have everything I need to write my next campaign except the plot and characters.

By which I mean this: I know, in broad genre-level strokes, the kind of story my group wants.
I also know the specific kinds of encounters they'd like to deal with.

What I don't know, and can't get by asking them, is how to write an arrangement of the latter into the former -- or, equivalently, how to pick just one story out of all the ones I could theoretically tell.

So how do you turn a very general plot type into a specific plot?

And how do you turn short descriptions of the tropes a character should fulfill into an actual entity with a name and relationships and so forth?

Sorry if this is too general, but I'm not sure how to be specific without presupposing one way or another of doing what is probably a very idiosyncratic task.

Gastronomie
2016-07-12, 01:45 AM
Set a goal for the adventurers. Or have them come up with a common goal. This helps both the PL and the DM a lot - the characters know what to do, and since they generally stay on track, the DM suffers from less plot derailing (some derailing will be still inevitable - this is table-talk).

Next, think up ways to achieve the goal. Present them as required.

Also think up factors that prohibit the characters from achieving their goal immediately. These are the antagonists. Present them. Have them fight, giving out clues of "what to do next" on the way.

Done.

Don't think up too much in advance. Focus mainly on the next one or two sessions. Most plots don't survive contact with the PCs anyway.

Craft (Cheese)
2016-07-12, 01:52 AM
Glib, useless answer: Don't.

Unsatisfying but more useful answer: Well, don't. "Plot" implies that you have a sequence of events already in mind. The problem with plots in tabletop games is that the players never do what you expect them to. And even if the players do cooperate with your plan, the dice may not. This is not a problem to be solved, but a virtue of tabletop gaming to be embraced: Players or the dice wrecking your plans is what makes DMing fun and interesting. Otherwise, you're directing a movie where the actors don't know the script. They'll be frustrated, you'll be frustrated, it just won't work out. Instead of creating plots, create interesting situations and see how the players react.

Addendum: A fixed plot adventure *can* work, if the players all know the script and agree they want to play it in advance. For this kind of game it's still best not to nail down too many specifics, and instead treat your "plot" as a list of bullet points that must be met for the story to advance, but the players have flexibility in how they want to achieve it. This probably isn't what you had in mind though.

Trekkin
2016-07-12, 02:28 AM
Glib, useless answer: Don't.

Unsatisfying but more useful answer: Well, don't. "Plot" implies that you have a sequence of events already in mind. The problem with plots in tabletop games is that the players never do what you expect them to. And even if the players do cooperate with your plan, the dice may not. This is not a problem to be solved, but a virtue of tabletop gaming to be embraced: Players or the dice wrecking your plans is what makes DMing fun and interesting. Otherwise, you're directing a movie where the actors don't know the script. They'll be frustrated, you'll be frustrated, it just won't work out. Instead of creating plots, create interesting situations and see how the players react.

Addendum: A fixed plot adventure *can* work, if the players all know the script and agree they want to play it in advance. For this kind of game it's still best not to nail down too many specifics, and instead treat your "plot" as a list of bullet points that must be met for the story to advance, but the players have flexibility in how they want to achieve it. This probably isn't what you had in mind though.

I quite agree that trying to plan out the players' actions is entirely counterproductive, so "plot" may have been a bad choice of words, but every adventure I've read has three things that I'm not sure what else to call but "plot-like":

1. some sequence of events that will (or will not) happen without the PCs' doing something, providing them a reason to do things
2. entities who, by virtue of their stake in these events (not) happening, provide opposition to the PCs' actions
3. some mechanism for pointing the PCs at an awareness of 1 and 2, ideally with some sense of pacing...which won't survive the first session, but still.

and it's these that I'm shaky on how to write. I'm all for players wrecking my plans, but I need plans for them to wreck.

Or, put another way, interesting situations are better than plots, but how do I link them together in some way that isn't blatantly episodic?

KillianHawkeye
2016-07-12, 02:28 AM
I agree, don't write a "plot."

Instead, come with a situation or scenario: Bad guys are at location A trying to accomplish G. For that outcome, they need to do P and Q. Now just aim your PCs at that scenario and let THEM figure out the X, Y, and Z of stopping it all. D&D is all about cooperative storytelling, after all, and your players almost certainly won't follow the course you expect them to in any case.

hymer
2016-07-12, 02:42 AM
I agree, don't write a "plot."

Instead, come with a situation or scenario: Bad guys are at location A trying to accomplish G. For that outcome, they need to do P and Q. Now just aim your PCs at that scenario and let THEM figure out the X, Y, and Z of stopping it all. D&D is all about cooperative storytelling, after all, and your players almost certainly won't follow the course you expect them to in any case.

I'd suggest having V and W worked out in advance for a given scenario: Ways that could work. The PCs don't have to use these methods, but now you know it's possible.

All this said, I'd suggest not getting too specific too far ahead of time. If the foul moonlanders intend to invade earth by landing the moon, you don't need their precise landing site or campaign plans yet. For now you need to have moonlander agents working to find out stuff that will be useful in the invasion, both geogrpahical and political. And you should have the basic reason the moonlanders are invading in place, too. The moon is a wasteland, and the earth is nicely green, could be as simple as that.
Then you construct the details as you need them, or feel inspired to do them. You feel like involving mindflayers, and it turns out they have been working with the moonlanders for decades or centuries. They intend to have the moonlanders start their invasion, and when the surface world is busy fighting off the moonlanders, the mindflayers will screw everyone over.

Craft (Cheese)
2016-07-12, 06:24 AM
I quite agree that trying to plan out the players' actions is entirely counterproductive, so "plot" may have been a bad choice of words, but every adventure I've read has three things that I'm not sure what else to call but "plot-like":

1. some sequence of events that will (or will not) happen without the PCs' doing something, providing them a reason to do things
2. entities who, by virtue of their stake in these events (not) happening, provide opposition to the PCs' actions
3. some mechanism for pointing the PCs at an awareness of 1 and 2, ideally with some sense of pacing...which won't survive the first session, but still.

and it's these that I'm shaky on how to write. I'm all for players wrecking my plans, but I need plans for them to wreck.

Or, put another way, interesting situations are better than plots, but how do I link them together in some way that isn't blatantly episodic?

Ah, alright. I misunderstood. In that case, what you need are three simple ingredients: Motivation, Escalation, and Intersection.

Motivation is your antagonistic force and what they hope to accomplish by their actions. Malachai the Blackscar wants to wipe out all the dwarves along the northern border so he can resettle the place with humans. Queen Arianne wants to displace the legitimate heir and put her bastard son on the throne instead. Sur'kshii, Lord of All Hatred, wants to drag the mortal world down to the lower planes to make it into a layer of the Abyss. The antagonistic force can also be an unthinking, natural occurrence, like a plague or an earthquake.

Escalation is the timeline along which everything gets worse assuming the players stay out of the situation. A drought causes widespread crop failure and famine. The King signs an unfavorable and unpopular trade deal with the hated elves to the east to bring in food to relieve the famine. A racist religious fanatic assassinates the king and takes over, rallying the humans behind the idea that the drought is a punishment from the gods, and that the rains will return when all the elves are exterminated. Genocide is carried out against the elves in the cities and an army marches east to conquer the elven lands. When another year passes and all of the elven blood shed still has not brought rain, society collapses entirely. The fanatic is killed by an angry mob. The chain of command breaks down in the army, and the soldiers desert and become roving bandits, slaughtering and stealing from humans and elves alike. The nobility hide in their castles and mansions and starve to death. The peasants abandon their farms and villages and head to the safety of the hills, where most die due to exposure when a harsh winter rolls in. The cities are looted, their plunder and riches carried off to be sold elsewhere. All trade and traffic stops. A previously prosperous kingdom has devolved into a barbaric wilderness, populated only by the bandit groups that haven't given up and moved on to greener pastures. And all the fleeing refugees and incursions of bandits into nearby countries has caused crises there as well...

The key to escalation is, look at your current situation, and ask "what could possibly make this worse?" Be sadistic!

Intersection is what gets the players involved: A direct connection or confrontation between the players and the antagonistic force. "The party is hired by a third party to investigate and deal with the problem" is a quick, easy, and universal solution, but it's also impersonal. You should tailor the intersection to be personally tied to the PCs in a way that would make each character passionate about resolving the problem. This means you need to know your characters and tailor the situation toward them somewhat.

A good trick that's surprisingly effective? When doing character creation, lay out the initial situation to your players (though not how it may escalate), then ask them "So why does your character care?" They'll do the work for you of intersecting the characters with your plot, and best of all, they'll be more attached to it because it was their idea.

Thrawn4
2016-07-12, 06:58 AM
Or, put another way, interesting situations are better than plots, but how do I link them together in some way that isn't blatantly episodic?
Episodic does not have to be bad, but I think you mean it in the sense of arbitrary or contrived?!
Well, all you you have to do is to provide reasons why your episodes are linked. Alternatively, you could make up the big evil scheme and define the important steps. Every step equals one adventure, and there you go.

Cluedrew
2016-07-12, 07:41 AM
I'm not surprised you already know the problems of preplanned adventures.

Anyways another source of plot is to have the characters with long term goals given to them by their players. Most of the same theories as other kinds of planning also apply, but you get something a little more character focused and you are almost guarantied that the players will care about what is happening because they picked it.

Just give them some setting information (let them add to it if need be), see what they come up with and then roll with it.

Demidos
2016-07-12, 08:58 AM
The best advice, hands down, that I've ever recieved on this account comes from one of my former DMs --

Come up with a list of 10-12 "movers and shakers" in your world, that is to say, people that you expect to have a deep and abiding impact on the campaign world. Common US examples might include Tesla or Edison, one of the robber barons, a steel or oil monopolist, a slave-owner turned freedom-fighting president named George Washington, or a nobody clerk who ended up giving us the framework for modern physics. The person doesn't have to start (or end!) necessarily powerful in a conventional sense (see the impact hobbits have on the fate of Middle-Earth), but their existence and plans must somehow be important to the future of the world.

Next decide on what those plans may be. Continuing with US history, Tesla had ambitions to provide free electricity to the entire country, and was working on a variety of devices throughout his life. If in your world Tesla will achieve free electricity within three months, and then defend the freedom of this energy from evil capitalists by building giant mecha defenders over the next year, then plan out the dates over which each of these plots will come to fruition, and here's the key idea, if nothing interferes. Of course, the movers and shakers may interact with each other -- see Tesla vs. Edison.

The PCs are controlled by players, not you, so their hopeless bumbling has many ways of interacting with these plans. Perhaps they destroy a steel factory providing the raw materials for Tesla's Mecha, or "accidentally" set some important library documents that Tesla needed on fire as part of an unrelated adventure. This might push back Tesla's plans by weeks if not years, and this would provoke interest from Tesla himself. Of course, this might be positive interest, if they defend the library instead of setting it on fire, thus prompting him to have a good reason to hire them.

In this way, you have a coherent, but ultimately flexible storyline. Don't feel tied down to the initial movers and shakers, and feel free to de/re-promote people from the list, based on who the PC's interact with or like. Perhaps the throw-away shopkeeper who the PCs love becomes the undercover revolutionary leader, thus keeping the PC's solidly in line with current events. Perhaps he doesn't, and the PCs hear after the fact from a third hand source about the revolution that toppled the oppressive/benevolent monarchy. It's your world to build.

Herobizkit
2016-07-13, 05:26 AM
Think of your villain/organization and how it rose to power to get where it is. Really think about what steps said villain had to make in order to achieve their ultimate goal.

Assume that these events/goals succeeded because the Heroes (PCs) didn't succeed in stopping them. What do they do with all this power and influence? How does it affect the world around them?

Now, enter the heroes.

If they are trying to bring down said organization (or prevent the villains from succeeding in their ultimate goals), there needs to be some kind of activity from said organization to counter. This activity also affects people somehow - how?

Your best 'plots' will come from strong NPCs and from players feeling like they're becoming more important/influential in the world around them versus "beating dungeons" alone. You set up the situations for them - let the PLAYERS decide how they're going to tackle them.

kyoryu
2016-07-13, 10:22 AM
I quite agree that trying to plan out the players' actions is entirely counterproductive, so "plot" may have been a bad choice of words, but every adventure I've read has three things that I'm not sure what else to call but "plot-like":

Bolding mine.

Yes, some kind of plot or linear sequence is going to happen in every published adventure. That's the nature of published adventures, and isn't necessarily the best template for doing adventures for your own group.

Koo Rehtorb
2016-07-13, 10:37 AM
I've always liked this section of the Dungeon World book. Might be helpful.

http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/srd/dungeonworld/14-Fronts.html

trikkydik
2016-07-14, 04:56 PM
I, just like every DM i'm sure, had this same problem when starting my campaign.

-make a map. (go buy one of those game boards that's essentially just a 64x45 grid of 5 foot squares.) on the back side is hexagonal shapes, i used that to make a map from scratch. its not finished, because the campaign hasn't gone that far, but it has one continent with subtle hints toward what else is out there.

-Don't forget natural features. (Like lakes, forest, mountains, volcanoes, etc.) (That can help building conflict, because natural resources are sometimes precious.)

-Put your cities in. (Most cities/villages/kingdoms are built where rivers flow)

-Make the infrastructure for one city (The king, his posse, the politics, religion, things that are unique to that specific city.) because lets face it, there are certain aspects that are ubiquitous with every city, that shouldn't require much thought. (Pubs, Inns, shops, houses, catacombs.)

-Dont forget the races. (Make a list of races that are common, uncommon, and rare.) Also think about things like RACISM and BIGOTRY toward other races, because that sort of stuff is real life, which makes for an emotional and powerful story.

-Make more NPC's than you think you'll need. The more NPC's you make, the more interactions the PC's can have with your world.

-If youre looking for inspiration, google images of fantasy warriors, wizards, gunslingers, necromancers, paladins, clerics, rogues.

-Google imaging will give you more creative juice than you could ask for.

-READ THE DM's GUIDE on campaigns. there is A LOT OF ESSENTIAL INFO in it. It discusses branches, and how to avoid "dead branches"

-Make several conflicts, that way The PC's can pick and choose what they want to get involved with. (Plus you wont have to get into such gruesome detail until you are CERTAIN THE PC's WILL TAKE ON THAT CONFLICT.)

Inspirations for conflict:

Racism, natural resources, natural disasters, territory, religion, sheer evil, twisted minds that "think" theyre doing good, but are actually evil. (People like hitler, conservative terrorists, Stalin, the list is endless.) Genocide, Divine intervention and GOD(s) playing with lives,


Things my campaign uses:

There exists 8 godly artifacts (weapon, armor, boots, helmet, 2 rings, amulet, psi-crystal.) And certain End Boss Antagonists, have one or two of the artifacts in their possession.

The church has majority control over the continent.

Inside city walls, people live in conditions that range from wealth to poverty. But outside the city walls, its like "ATTACK ON TITAN". (If you haven't seen it, its amazing i highly recommend it for inspiration.)

There exists several guilds/groups that wish to rebel against the Empire/Church.

The main guild, "Anthrax," advertises themselves as rebels against the church, but they secretly carry out the church's will.

-Antagonists: Half dragon king, psionic/vampiric monk, Custom humanoid that absorbs powers, Planetouched demi god, and a few others (dont have the character sheets on me, sorry.)

- 2 cities are involved in an eternal war over natural resources

- Almost every city is at war with the natural environment

- Almost every city has an ongoing, internal conflict

Each conflict hasn't been thoroughly crafted, once the campaign visits those places, i will craft the conflict when it is ready to be discovered.

(But the main ongoing conflict is that the Vampiric monk and the humanoid, who absorbs powers, are collaborating with each other to gather the remaining artifacts. Thus they are making aggressive moves towards other cities, and creating more havoc.)

Again my world was tailored to the requests made by my players. so its possible none of my suggestions will fit your campaign, but i still think the first portion has a lot of good points for you to consider when building your world.

I'm excited to see what you come up with. Please share once you've figured it out.

Good luck buddy.