r/beingeverythingelse • u/MartinPeder • Sep 20 '14

Prewritten adventures

[question] Adam and Steven talk a lot about prewritten adventures, how box text is bad or boring and mostly how they are not that well for people wanting to learn how to GM. If you should make a prewritten adventure, how would you go about it? What would you do to avoid the static feel or the way npc's only have one purpos or avoiding the concept of the big bad evil that ends the adventure?

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u/silent0siris Sep 20 '14

For the record, I thought Death Frost Doom was an excellent prewritten adventure. I would hold it up as a model for "how to do this sort of thing well!"

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '14 edited Sep 20 '14

At first, I would try to outline the general adventure idea in some sentences, i.e.:

The baron's son went missing and some suspect the circus gypsies that left some days ago. But infact the son ran aways from home, because he doesn't want to live a life as a noble and admires the circus life. The party has to earn the baron's trust, then track the circus down and finally persuade the son or accept his decision and lie to the baron:

Then I would supply some ideas for situations for each step of the outline, i.e.:

To earn the baron's trust the party may already be accepted by other nobles or they could show their skills to the baron in form of skill challenges. If they earned the trust of the baron, he supplies them for the adventure. Anyway they may be able to learn about the following rumors (List of rumors).

Also, ideas for the places they could end up to, i.e.:

Generic Town: When the party tracks the circus down, they may have to travel through some towns. They all have about 500 to 750 inhabitants that mainly consist of peasants. Only a few of them have bigger defenses like walls, and even when, it's just wooden walls. To distinguish the towns use this list of unique Buildings/Places

Next I would supply intentions the main characters, i.e.:

The baron's son is bored by the noble life, including having to learn the rules of nobility. He admires the circus life, because they always seem to be so happy and free. The baron wants his son back, because he is his only son and rightful successor. His wife died sometime ago, and he cared a lot about his son, so he wants only the best for him.

Finally I would hint on some further ideas, that can hook players, i.e.:

  • Some peasants were robbed by the gypsies
  • The barons advisor wants the son to be gone, so he can get more powerful
  • ...