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Advance Your Adventures!
20 Plays4 months ago
It's time to kick off a new series focused on the art of adventure design. Adventures are pivotal segments in larger campaigns, and designing them thoughtfully ensures they drive the story forward while providing exciting, memorable experiences for the players. This episode covers key considerations such as linking to previous adventures, creating impactful encounters, and developing revelations that shape the broader campaign. Learn how to make each adventure relevant to your characters, whether using modules or building from scratch. Tune in for practical tips on crafting compelling adventures that engage and challenge your players!
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Transcript
Introduction to Imagination as a Superpower
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against the forces of evil as a Marvel Comics superhero.
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unleash the power of your imagination.
Meet the Hosts of Tabletop Tune Up
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All right, we are back for another episode of Tabletop Tune Up. I'm your host, Ben Dyer, here with my compadre, Mark Lehman. Hey-yo. How you doing, Mark? Pretty good. Let's not make AO a ah regular thing. No, no. Who says that? Well, you do. How you been? I'm good, man. I am excited about what we have for our episode
New Series: Adventure Design
00:01:13
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to date. We're going to actually start a new series. Mark, you remember we did that whole series on world building. Oh, yes. It was so long ago, Ben. That was like a whole like 10 episodes ago. I was feeling like a lifetime.
00:01:24
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It does. It does. But worlds are the places in which we set our adventures. And now it's time for us to do a sequence on adventure design. And so we're going to have a few episodes where we talk about how to design adventures and what to do. Today, we're going to talk about it at a very high level, kind of a 10,000 foot level, as they say sometimes. And we're going to get into how to think about the broad stuff. And then we're going to get into the details later on in other episodes. I'm terrified, Ben. 10,000 feet. That's a long way to fall.
00:01:53
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Well, we're not going to let you fall, Mark. You're going to soar. OK. The wings of the eagles. OK, so what do we got today for adventure design?
Defining Adventure in Campaigns
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Well, so here's what we want to start with. Let's just get clear about what we mean by adventure.
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There's a big difference, though, Ben, when I say I'm going to have an adventure and Frodo says he's going to go on ah an adventure. That's very true. Let's get clear on terms for a moment. So when we talk about adventures, we're talking about segments within a larger campaign. If you want to think about what the parent concept is, the larger thing that adventures fit into, it would be a whole campaign. If you're playing D and&D, this might be levels 1 to 10 or 1 to 15 or 1 to 20 or however long your whole campaign is.
00:02:32
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within that you can have segments where certain stories or parts of stories take place and wrap up that's what we're talking about we're talking about those segments beneath this are sort of the things that adventures are composed of is there composed of sessions and sessions are composed of a series of encounters.
00:02:48
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We're looking at these adventure designs. We're talking about things that might take several sessions to play through. They could be milestones, things of that nature, right? Sometimes people talk about them as story arcs. And so I
Length and Level Progression of Adventures
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think that's a good term too. But we're just going to use the term adventure. We said we're going to do this at a very abstract level today. So let's think about the considerations behind how you're going to design an adventure. So first of all, think about what threads already have begun.
00:03:14
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If you started your campaign and this is a sequence inside that campaign what story elements happened just before now what prior adventures have you guys been having and if you spend some time already with that. What story seeds from the earlier steps can you now start to unfold and start to make a larger story out of.
00:03:34
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Another thing to consider, Ben, is like how long do we want to have this adventure? Are we going to be playing this for weeks, months? If you're like playing something like Dungeons and Dragons, how many levels do you want this to to be? Because if we're thinking about this adventure within the construct of an entire campaign, and you have structured levels, you might want to think about, like boy, how many levels do I want my characters to advance in this adventure?
Understanding Tears of Play in D&D
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Yeah, and it's worth saying because D and&D already maps this stuff out on what they call Tears of Play, where it's like from one to four and from five to eight and so on. This isn't the same as Tears of Play. No. Tears of Play is really about how influential your characters are in the world. But what this is about is what's happening that advances them from say level three to level 10. And if your game doesn't have levels like that, we're talking about advancing the story. How is the story being advanced within the confines of this adventure?
00:04:31
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Yeah, a lot of times when we're doing that, we'll be thinking about milestones. As you said, use that word a moment ago. There's going to be sort of big set piece adventures, big revelations. You talk a lot about visualization, Mark. One of the best things you can do in D and&D or in other games is thinking about what kinds of experiences you want to key up in those encounters as you go.
00:04:51
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So what are the highlights? Can you create a list? Whether you're visualizing that or whether you're just sitting down with a notebook and writing out a bulleted list of in the heart of an active volcano, the players will this or that. There will be an exotic casino above the Arctic Circle where they will meet the villain.
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or we're going to find a planet where there was a crash-landed ship. Whatever those things are that you need to have, that's how you start to set up the encounter sequences. You remember we've been playing Traveler. In the Traveler game, I've got a whole series of these very punctuated experiences that you guys are having. You guys have already met a ship that was abandoned and full of parasites. You had a different experience where there was a malfunction with a message drone. These are all different milestones that are shaping that journey for you guys.
00:05:35
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As we're playing, we're thinking about that campaign and the overall story. These adventures should reveal something to the characters along the way. So what revelations will this adventure unfold for the table? What are the implications of these revelations to the overall campaign? Start thinking about those things and matching them up to some of these set pieces that you want. And you can start to see a structure
Character Relevance and Story Seeds
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emerge.
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Well, we're also like thinking about the characters individually. you know When I look at these adventure design, one of the things I'm always looking at is how can I make this particular adventure relevant to the characters? And it might just be one character within that group, because I'm going to have other adventures along the way, and maybe they're more relevant to other you know maybe some of the other players or characters.
00:06:19
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So think about your your campaign, your overall story, and when you insert these adventures, also keep in mind, how can I make these personal for that player or character?
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Just because you're layering in these character elements doesn't mean it has to be for this particular adventure, this particular segment of your campaign. It could be that you're laying in seeds and other things for later adventures within your same campaign. These are all seeds for kind of planting. They're going to pay off later. All these things that you're doing now earlier in the game are going to be paid off. And depending on where you are in this adventure design, maybe these are some of the payoff.
00:06:56
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Yet when you're thinking about your list of these high points, these milestones, these big encounters, and then also the character revelations that are occurring, these could be things where you are paying off something that's already been laid down as a seed or a developing plot thread, or you could be setting up things for the future and revealing something that then leaves the players with more questions than
Choosing and Adapting Modules
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answers.
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so Ben, one thing I do know you love to use you love to use modules, and I like modules too. I mean i think they're they definitely serve ah they can serve a purpose in a game. Whether you're a homebrew or not, let's talk about adventure design and module use. How how does that work for you? Almost like kind of rocks across a pond. you know You could step from one module to the next.
00:07:37
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and stitch together an entire campaign out of modules if you wanted, or even out of parts of modules. right We've talked in the past about how you can use different parts of modules and things like that. We'll talk about that more in a moment, but the very, very first thing you need to do is think, do I even use this module in this campaign? As you're looking at different modules out there that may inspire you,
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you want to be able to answer, does this module advance the campaign story in some way? Or can I use it to? Are the villains there? Are the motivations and conflicts and maps and other things that I need? Do I have the ingredients in this module to make the story moves and the character moves that I want to make in the campaign I'm going to run?
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Yes, one of the things you do really quite well, Ben, is is is adapting these modules into an overall story that you're trying to tell and just making little changes within the module. They may seem little on the GM side because the module is doing a lot of you know lifting, but they're major changes for us, the players, where we're enjoying this as part of a different overall story.
00:08:36
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You can use a little of the module, a lot of the module. You can use it in it more or less as it is, or you can start really structuring and restructuring its encounters and and how everything works. I will say that the more you are inclined to change it, the more you should probably read it and make sure that you're not screwing up something in chapter one that is going to be paid off in chapter five.
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So Ben, and I remember you ran a module for me and some friends a while back, Dragon Heist. Yeah. And, you know, I'd be honest, not a big fan of the module as it as it is. There's some fun elements within it. I don't think it's one of their strongest works, but I loved Trollskull Matter.
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yeah like i just There's something about Troll School Manor that I really enjoyed. and I actually took that out of that module, introduced it into another game. so Just the idea of like you can take things that you enjoy out of modules and spark some element in your game that you want to use. you know so Don't be afraid to do that.
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In the past, I've used the example of some of these northern games we've played in this kind of Arctic experience. I stole very large pieces of Rime of the Frostmaiden from D and&D for that, and I still, to this day, couldn't tell you what Rime of the Frostmaiden is about, but it had some great maps, it had some great NPCs, and I wrote my own story that that pulled all that together in a way that
Integrating Character Elements into Modules
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helped me.
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Let's bring it back to the characters really quickly because when we're looking at these modules, like how are they going to advance the character stories individually or collectively? How do you layer in character relevant information and events and NPCs to advance the character stories? A lot of this is that where the homebrew kind of comes in. Ben, you ran Forge of Fury. that The two of us were running the game.
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I asked you to do if you could run for jury so that we can kind of like work on the overall campaign during that time and you wonderfully weaved in new story and new lore into the forge tell me a little bit how you did that and tell us what you were hoping to kind of get out of adding all this new elements in.
00:10:40
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Yeah, you're being very kind to me today, Mark. And frankly, you deserve some of the credit for this, because that very character-centric approach was how you start this thing, right? Is you look at who's in your party. We had a dwarven cleric in this party. OK. Well, when we looked at Forge of Fury, this is a dwarven kind of encounter. I mean, this is a dwarven fortress that's been dispossessed. And there's a bunch of orcs in there now.
00:11:02
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What happened to those doors are they related to the maybe one of the doors in our party and so one of the first things i did was i created some doors to go around and start seriously canvassing trying to find help people that could maybe donate to their cause they would tell their story to people in towns and they would try to get the support they needed. And folks, none of this none of this is in the module. No, yeah. And then that's right. And what what would happen is that then that would be when they would cross paths to the PCs. And all of a sudden, our dwarven cleric is going, wait a minute, I know you guys. And they're going, oh, it's you. Now the players are really hooked because, of course, this dwarven character in the party, he's got family connections that are dispossessed. He's got people he cares about. And so now they've got a real reason to go out there.
00:11:44
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So Ben, we have this module that you've been running and and now we got the players kind of into this module. And how do we segue to the next adventure of the campaign? Like how do we split off that adventure into another one? Yeah. So if you're thinking about that kind of stepping from stone to stone analogy, right? Is how do you step to that next stone? The first thing is be prepared to modify encounters and villains and modules if they don't start and stop at the same levels or roughly at the same places.
00:12:13
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It matters less in some ways if you're in a non-level based system, if you're not playing D and&D. But you remember we were talking a moment ago about how when you're planning out an adventure segment, you're going to be thinking about those milestones. You're going to be thinking about how to pay off story threads that came before and how to set up new story threads. They're going to pay off down the road. Well, whatever story threads you set up in this encounter, pay off some of them, pay off half of them yeah in the next encounter, right? You've now got a list of those threads. Start thinking about what kinds of highlights, what kinds of set piece actions, what kinds of milestones might pay off those story threads. And then if you're doing a module or if you're doing homebrew and you can alternate, you can use a module and then do your own homebrew stuff and then use another module later. But however you do it, have that pay off some of those earlier story threads in the next module and then repeat that process.
Aligning Modules with Campaign and Characters
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One of the tricky bits though is going to be the transition. So if in the transition from one to the next, it turns out that one module leaves off at level eight and another module picks up at level five, then you're going to have to up level some of those early encounters in the new module that are lower level than where people left off. Or conversely, if there's a gap at level five with a one adventure ending, but then the next one starts a little late, what do you do? You've got to put in some filler.
00:13:36
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Yeah, that's where the Homebrew comes in, I guess. yeah or Or you just adapt the the next module to to the level that's appropriate, right? Yeah, you can downscale some of the encounters. You can change up some of the elements. So there's all kinds of choices you can make. The trick is just to find that way of making things fit.
00:13:56
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We're not a stranger to adventure design here in this podcast. We've talked a little bit about it. So I just want to touch on some of the things we have talked about in past episodes.
Recap of Adventure Design Topics
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We've talked about villains and factions, beginning your campaign, sort of the adventure starts, character development. Randy, our our interview with Randy, the GM, he talked a lot about how to develop your characters within the confines of this campaign. What are the things that we discussed, Ben?
00:14:21
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And another one would be that whole world building series we did. That's going to give you the world in which you want to set your adventures. And if you've done a good job with world building, you should have some story seeds, some open questions, some factions, as you said. Take a look at the interview we did with Tad Lekman. Tad was really great at talking about listening to your players. So I would say he's a masterclass right there. And then when we talked about preparation, practice, to borrow that phrase from my person.
00:14:47
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all of the preparation and improvisation you're gonna do there is gonna be something that has gonna pay dividends when it comes to prepping your adventures and as we say there don't prep too much don't over prep right have a ah good plan for the session you're in and maybe the next session after that maybe get down to bullet points if you go too much further than that.
00:15:07
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And like we are saying at the top, this is gonna be a bit of a series. We'll probably do several episodes on this this very topic of adventure design.
Future Focus: Encounter and Set Piece Design
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We're gonna be talking about encounter design as well. That's where we're even zooming in a little closer to the action. But these are all things that are gonna serve that adventure. So coming up in the weeks to come, we're gonna talk about building and balancing your encounters.
00:15:30
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Set pieces how to wow your audience with a set piece for this action to take place in and storytelling with these intentional encounters. These are not random encounters we're talking about these are intentional story building encounters that will progress your game.
00:15:48
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We're also going to talk about how to end in an adventure sequence. What do you do to put in a great climax or to reveal a big twist or to finally lay all the cards on the table and all the players can see what's been going on after all this? What happens after? Is there a victorious celebration where you're you know singing and dancing in the Ewok Village? Is this a stinging defeat where you've got to get your hand replaced and watch as Landed Calrissian goes off and searches for On Solo.
Listener Question: High Charisma NPCs and Mind Control Effects
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What are you going to do to set up for that next adventure? And speaking of setting up for our next adventure, Ben, let's set up for our next tune up.
00:16:30
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Yeah, that's Segway. That was a pro segway there, wasn't it? Yeah. Wow. That was good. All right, the question comes to us this week from one of our listeners. How do you handle high charisma NPCs or even mind control effects when they are applied to player characters? On the one hand, this can seem kind of railroady, but also shouldn't NPCs and villains have the same opportunity to persuade the PCs that PCs have with everyone else?
00:16:55
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Yeah, that's that's this is a tough one. I gotta be honest with you, Ben. Let me fill this to you do you. Do you have any quick thoughts while my brain is spinning in the mud? This is really challenging, you're right, because on the one hand of this, the railroady aspect of this, as the reader says, is you don't want to be playing the player's character for them. Yeah. You don't want to be saying, well, you fill this way so you think you're going to have to do this or that.
00:17:18
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On the other hand, I've also played a lot of games where, you know, you would throw the horror of 10,000 years coming from the crypt of blah, blah, blah. And the player would just be like, well, I'm going to draw my sword and I'm going to go kick his ass. And you're like, seriously? Like that there's no emotive response. What you got to do on the one hand to avoid the mind control thing, to avoid playing people's characters with them is give them a sense of how their characters feeling, but don't tell them what their characters think or what their characters are going to do. You can say,
00:17:48
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You feel the the icy terror of this deep tomb, but you don't tell them what happens after that. I'm kind of inclined to break this topic almost in the two parts, Ben. Okay. I'm going to talk real quick about the high charisma NPCs. Now, a high charisma NPC, it's up to you as a as a GM to play that high charisma. you know If you're playing an NPC, you got to write stuff out in advance. You got to make it compelling. That's a tough one to do. Now,
00:18:16
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Mind control is almost a different thing altogether. If you're using a spell or something that would might control their mind, maybe it's like such sort a sci-fi parasite or something like that, this is actually even a more fun encounter. Because if you just slide over to your your player a little note and say, hey, you've been mind controlled, have fun messing with your fellow players. And what player isn't going to have a blast with that?
00:18:39
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I love that you're sort of turning that from you're playing my character for me to, oh, I've got a chance to do something a little off script for my character now. I think that's really clever. I think the players would like that. I think the high charisma NPC is a little bit more of a challenge, honestly, because you have to role play that as a GM. And sometimes you just don't have the energy in you. You know, you've been played a long session and now you got to play this character. That's a real challenge. The trick here is when you're talking about this level of influence,
00:19:06
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You know, if it's like absolute influence like mind control, then like to your point, you're essentially you can give the
Engaging Players in Mind Control Scenarios
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players something. But when it's influence, that's less than that, as you say, you don't determine for the players what they do.
00:19:18
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You can also kind of explain it in ah in a way that like, hey, you know imagine this guy's Sam Rockwell. you know He's trying to sell you something. This is guys, you can even just say it a little bit out of character. You can just say he's got charisma in spades. you know Players should be able to pick up on that a little bit and kind of go with it. if they're If they're playing their character, they can maybe realize that maybe you as a GM don't have a charisma of 18, whereas the the NPC that you're trying to role play does. It's a similar kind of problem to what happens when you're playing characters with much higher intelligence than you have. Yeah. And you've got to then get everybody to kind of buy into it a little bit. And so, yeah, I think that's one answer. Friends, we don't have like the perfect answer to this. I think the best I've been able to do is to say, here's how your feelings are. And then it's up to you, the players say, what are you going to do with that when it's sort of softer influence.
00:20:06
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This one is a real ah struggle. I'm going to be honest with you, Ben, but that struggle is made so much easier with players who get tied to story you're trying to tell and they they can relish and they can enjoy that. yeah So lean on your players. If you have great players, lean on them.
00:20:22
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Maybe one little footnote here I'll put in but to wrap this up is just to say, remember when we were talking about femme fatales as a type of villain? And it was like, I don't necessarily want to try to seduce my players, right? But I can have them seduce NPCs. And similarly, you could have high charisma characters being influential to people around the players. It's when that villain is charismatic and kind of owns the room that maybe the PCs are going to go, oh, OK, well, so he's being influential here. and And I've got to then at least calculate things from that, man. Good luck on this one. Jim's really good luck. And eight, let us know how it works out for you. I want to know, I want to hear maybe your tips and tricks on this. I was going to say, you can tell friends that we're not super proficient in this one. This is a real challenging question for us. We'd love to hear what you do with the high charisma and PCs that are influential, but not mind controlling.
Feedback and Next Episode Teaser
00:21:17
Speaker
Again, send us your ideas for tune-ups to tabletoptuneupatgmail.com or put some comments on our YouTube channel. And we'll look forward to reading those and coming back to you next week with our next sequence on, what's our next episode on, Mark? We're talking about balancing your encounters, Ben. We're going to continue this adventure design series and hopefully we can tune ourselves up to 11 for the next session. So, hey, we appreciate all you guys out there and our our parents who listened to our podcast.
00:21:47
Speaker
You are appreciated and we'll see you guys next week. Keep those dice rolling!