Types of Adventures

[Bosh]

An attempt to categorize the kind of adventure's I've seen.

Task, Simple: The PCs are given a task to accomplish that has one obvious solution. Example: there's orcs in those hills, go kill them.

Task, Open-ended: The PCs are given a task to accomplish but there are many ways to approach the problem. Example: military leader tells the PCs go behind enemy lines and disrupt the enemy army in any way they see fit.

Problem, Simple: The PCs encounter a problem that they must deal with, however the problem is fairly straight-forward. Example: zombies want to eat your brains, what do you do?

Problem, Open-ended: The PCs encounter a problem that they must deal with, however the problem is complicated by a number of factors and there are a number of ways to deal with the problem. Example: DM rips off the plot of Prison Break.

Situation, Simple: The PCs are thrust into a situation that can be dealt with in a variety of ways, there is no obvious problem to focus on and nobody is giving them a specific task (or at least that's not the focus of the adventure). However the number of factors the PCs have to deal with is limited. Example: PCs enter an area with two warring factions. PCs can attept to go about their business, broker a peace, help one side destroy the other, etc.

Situation, Complex: The PCs are thrust into a complex situation in which there are a large number of NPCs with conflicting plans and plots. Once the PCs get involved they can have all sorts of different roles in the situation. Example: A half-orc has just become the military leader of the PC's home city, causing a great deal of controversy. DM then proceeds to rip off the plot of Othello and adds in a few more characters with their own agendas for added fun. Who the PCs help is up in the air.

Sanbox: What do you want to do today?

The plot twist: The PCs think they're on one kind of adventure, but something entirely different is really going on.

I've run a variety of adventures, but I've probably had the most success with the "situation, complex" since that has made the PCs feel like they're in charge of the story. Also I'm not very good at dungeon/location design so my task-based adventures tend to get boring quick.

What do the rest of you mostly run?

[Viscount Einstrauss]

An excellent list. I think I'm more a fan of the sandbox and situation: complex varieties. I like options.

[Glyphic]

It's along a similar vein, so I'll post a sight that can sometimes kickstart my dm engine...

http://www.io.com/~sjohn/plots.htm

[Shhalahr Windrider]

That list is surprisingly comprehensive thanks to the broad categories. I like it.

Been trying to do more open ended stuff lately. Problem is, my group doesn't get together often enough. As such, there's this attitude among my players that we don't have time to dink around on anything that doesn't contribute to overall campaign plot advancement. As such, they try to be helpful and look for the most straightforward solution, assuming the situation is in the Simple Task or Simple Problem categories.

Which, of course only makes things more difficult when I'm trying to set up any of the Open-Ended types.

[Alleine]

I'm definitely a fan of open ended things. My group is in a campaign where there is a vague goal, but we can basically do anything we want since the only city on the place is lawless.

I like the list, too.

[Bosh]

An excellent list. I think I'm more a fan of the sandbox and situation: complex varieties. I like options.

Yeah, when I play I can enjoy well-crafted encounters but I'm not the best at making them myself. The most fun ones I've GMed all seem to be ones in which the PCs manipulate/screw-over/frame a wide variety of NPCs in a creative fashion. Situation, complex seems to work best for that :)

http://www.io.com/~sjohn/plots.htm

Ooooooh, thanks looks good.

Which, of course only makes things more difficult when I'm trying to set up any of the Open-Ended types.

What sort of open-ended adventures have you been running? In my experience a good way to get more creative play is to have a lot of unexpected consequences come up, not things that screw the plays over just things that result from their actions that make things more complicated and interesting.

What's interesting is that right now I've just started reading Nueromancer, and although its fun its bizarre how much the beginnng is reading like a very railroaded (task, simple) RPG :)

[drawingfreak]

So far, I've managed to pull off railroading while convincing the player's that it was all their idea. MUWAHAHAHA!

[Bosh]

So far, I've managed to pull off railroading while convincing the player's that it was all their idea. MUWAHAHAHA!

How the hell do you pull that off? Mine come up with ideas like giving the goblin street gang that their enemy was using as cannon fodder against them enough money to turn them into a paid spy network for the PCs...

[Shhalahr Windrider]

What sort of open-ended adventures have you been running?

Well, so far it's mostly been a matter of trying to introduce open-ended concepts into adventures that are closer to the Simple Task and Simple Problem scenarios. I try to give a hint, "This might be a good time to go off and do your own thing." Unfortunately, they've usually decided "their own thing" is "defeating the most obvious BBEG." And then they get frustrated if there's nothing obvious to do.

They also have a tendency to be overly self-reliant. For example, of looking for an NPC spellcaster in the big city the party was staying in, the paladin felw on his giant eagle mount all the way back to the party's home base to have a cohort cast the necessary divinations.

Even then, I had to give them an explicit suggestion to use divinations to solve the problem, as it wasn't presented as an explicit element in character.

Though the paladin's player might have come up with it on his own if I gave him the chance. I think the main problem is that most of my player's are only casual players. They aren't particularly familiar with a number of concepts I might take for granted—such as using divinations when up against the wall. (None of the PCs use divinations, so the thought just doesn't occur to them.) And there's also that self-reliant streak. They try to look at what tools they have to solve a given problem and never look for NPCs to help them.

Unfortunately, they are correct to a certain extent about our limited time requiring a certain number of straightforward elements. So, I don't particularly feel I can try to totally switch tracks and to a full out open-ended adventure. There's a BBEG that needs defeating, and we gotta make sure we're progressing towards that if Good is to triumph over Evil.

[Crow]

Self-reliant players are hard to work with sometimes.

I can't count how many times I've told my group:

"There's a wizardry shop at the east end of the promenade. You can smell various herbs that the breeze carries past the place, and passing by, you spy hundreds of rolls of parchment neatly organized on the shelves. Inside, an old man with a folded-over pointed cap pours over a musty old tome."

Still, they insist upon walking around with nearly a dozen un-identified and partially-identified magic items!

[Wraithy]

the private adventure, which you will tell no-one about when you leave the room... no-one!

[blackout]

I love the Sandbox style games. Their always a blast. Give us a campaign setting, we'll run around, look for local rumors, and then see if we can find someone willing to hire us. My group always goes the soldiers-for-hire route for some reason, when it comes to DnD.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

I can't count how many times I've told my group:

"There's a wizardry shop at the east end of the promenade. You can smell various herbs that the breeze carries past the place, and passing by, you spy hundreds of rolls of parchment neatly organized on the shelves. Inside, an old man with a folded-over pointed cap pours over a musty old tome."

Still, they insist upon walking around with nearly a dozen un-identified and partially-identified magic items!

Oh, man. That's my group. I have a massive cheat sheet so I don't forget what it is they're carrying.

[Bosh]

Well, so far it's mostly been a matter of trying to introduce open-ended concepts into adventures that are closer to the Simple Task and Simple Problem scenarios. I try to give a hint, "This might be a good time to go off and do your own thing." Unfortunately, they've usually decided "their own thing" is "defeating the most obvious BBEG." And then they get frustrated if there's nothing obvious to do.

They also have a tendency to be overly self-reliant. For example, of looking for an NPC spellcaster in the big city the party was staying in, the paladin felw on his giant eagle mount all the way back to the party's home base to have a cohort cast the necessary divinations.

Even then, I had to give them an explicit suggestion to use divinations to solve the problem, as it wasn't presented as an explicit element in character.

Though the paladin's player might have come up with it on his own if I gave him the chance. I think the main problem is that most of my player's are only casual players. They aren't particularly familiar with a number of concepts I might take for granted—such as using divinations when up against the wall. (None of the PCs use divinations, so the thought just doesn't occur to them.) And there's also that self-reliant streak. They try to look at what tools they have to solve a given problem and never look for NPCs to help them.

Unfortunately, they are correct to a certain extent about our limited time requiring a certain number of straightforward elements. So, I don't particularly feel I can try to totally switch tracks and to a full out open-ended adventure. There's a BBEG that needs defeating, and we gotta make sure we're progressing towards that if Good is to triumph over Evil.

Sounds like you're trying to get them to do more sandboxy adventures than anything else. If what they like to do is find bad people and tear them apart, let them do it just make it a bit more complicated/interesting.

Possible examples:
-NPC Ally dies with the PCs while they're on an adventure when they take his body back to his family they find out that he's written the PCs into his will and there's a lot of money at stake which the PCs need for something or other. The NPC's family is angry at the PCs for letting the NPC get killed so they go to court to try to blame the PCs for his death and get the inheirtance for themselves. Do the PCs piss off the family enough for them to hire thugs to rough up the PCs? Do the PCs attack the family? Do the PCs let the family have the money? Which family members? Do the PCs try to collect evidence? Do the PCs try to bribe/intimidate the judges?

-PCs are taking part on a military campaign in which the general is a half-orc who has hired a company of orc mercenaries as shock troopers. While in battle against enemies that the PCs hate the orcs are good allies but they're rowdy and cause all kinds of problems while not in battle, but the general goes easy on them. How do the PCs deal with that without pissing off their leader and hurting the war effort against nasty bad guys? What do the PCs do if the third in command of the army tries to hire them to frame the second in-command for sleeping with the general's wife in an attempt to get the general to murder both of them and get removed from command?

etc. etc.

Maybe less:
"Well, what do you want to do now?"

and more:
"Well that's what is happening, you're in quite the situation and bad stuff will happen if you sit on your hands. What do you do about it?"

For the kind of group you're GMing.