Writing an Adventure

[Sidmen]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if anyone has written an article of blog post that tells you precisely how to write an engaging adventure. And where to find it if it does exist. Tips and hints from y'all are also welcome.

Thing is, I don't write adventures - nor do I write campaigns. I write entirely too much about the world the players are involved in, and wing the rest. I'm told this style is called Sandbox, and that my players love that I can do this. But... I'm unsatisfied that there isn't a real story going on, and want to at least framework some sessions.

Any help would be appreciated,
Thank You.

[Gracht Grabmaw]

Part of having a fully developed world has to be the conflicts and problems of that world. I get that you don't want the character you've spent so much time creating and thinking about their relationships and functions to just look like complete morons who can't get anything done without player involvement, but the one requirement to a campaign hook is that there is a problem that the non-player characters can't sort out on their own. There's three ways you can do this:

1) It's a problem but only the player characters are smart and handsome and special enough to deal with it. The usual western narrative, everybody is scared of the local bad guys, bad guys shot the sherrif so there's no-one else to help, heroes shoot the gang, ride off into the sunset again. My personal least favorite.

2) The player characters and the antagonist(s) are in conflict right from the start, with reasons stated in their backstory. One side has an item or a piece of information that the other one wants, or they have a personal vendetta against eachother. My personal favorite to write but it takes a lot of effort and coordination to get all the characters mixed up in it.

3) Before the player characters showed up, everything was fine. Then they made some big mistake as players are wont to do and now they have to fix it. The classic atonement story. This one will take some time to set up though, you have to make sure the characters realize all the consequences of their actions in time so they still have a chance to redeem themselves at all.

[Yora]

Here is a great one on planning individual encounters.

This one is also quite nice.

And a bit about making things so the players can figure them out by themselves.

[Held]

Might I present an option 4)?

4) The local authorities have enough on their hands already that they cannot, or will not solve everything. They hire adventurers to complement their forces and do it in their stead. Think of generals who have a war to wage and cannot spare soldiers to deal with the brigands raiding villages.


A good way to framework an overarching story is to work out a general idea of events that will occur with or without the adventurers' intervention.

For example:

The PCs are citizens of Kingdom of A.
After 30 days of the adventure starting, the Kingdom of A will declare war on the Kingdom of B.
After 45 days of the adventure starting, Kingdom of A will be drafting citizens as soldiers, and they try to draft the PCs as well.
After 60 days of the adventure starting, Kingdom of A and Kingdom of B will begin hostilities in earnest, which results in a lower amount of able hands in the villages and hamlets, and reduced protection everywhere. Whatever the PCs do, they are more likely to encounter bandits, who grow more bold now that the military is distracted.
After 90 days of the adventure starting, Kingdom of B will make a breakthrough and seize part of Kingdom of A's lands. Perhaps the PCs are currently in these lands doing their own thing, when they are faced with the overarching war.

In this way, there's a story unfolding. The PCs decide whether or not they want to be a part of it. Even if they aren't, the events will affect them anyway, and certain things will still occur unless the PCs actively move to avoid it from happening. They can have their Sandbox, but at the same time, you dangle this storyline in front of their noses that you have, that they might just become interested in.