So far, in this series of posts on creating a full adventure from an adventure seed, we’ve written down the adventure seed and asked ourselves questions about it, then answered the who and what questions of our adventure, now onto our “when” and “where” questions. Once we’re done with the questions, we’ll move into creating the actual events of the adventure.

[Photo courtesy of Orin Zebest via Flickr Creative Commons 2.0]

When Questions

When is this performance to take place?

How much time do we want to give our PCs to prepare for their assignment? We want to let them have some preparation time, but we don’t want to slow down the adventure by giving them too much time so that they run off on tangents. Lets give them a week. So, the performance is going to take place one week from the time the PCs get their assignment.

What is the current date?

This is the in-game date. If we’re hooking this adventure into a larger campaign, the current date can be significant. If this is a stand-alone adventure, we don’t really have to set the current date. But it might be useful for us to figure out how much time the princess has spent in seclusion already (two months–so she’s definitely ready to talk to someone from the outside world) and how much more time she has left to go (four months, which seems like an eternity to her at the moment).

How much time do the PCs have to prepare?

We’ve answered this question above, but we’ll restate it here: one week.

How much time do the PCs have to complete the mission?

They basically have as long as the performance lasts to get everything set up. They should plan on actually getting the princess out as soon as possible after the performance.

How long is the performance to last?

Two hours.

Where Questions

What is the nation is the princess from?

If you’re using an already created game world, you’ll want to make her a member of a nation that already exists on that world. But let’s assume that we’re creating this game world from scratch as we go along. So we’ll call the princess’ country “Sunfall”, and place it in the eastern half of our new game world (where the sun seems to set).

Is the PCs’ employer from the same nation, or a different one?

The same nation. He’s her younger brother.

Is it the same nation as the PCs?

For maximum impact, lets make the PCs from a different country and call it “Seavale”, a coastal nation. Seavale borders Sunfall, but relations have been strained between the two countries (yes, I am making this up as I go along 😉 ). Prince Alexei deliberately looked for people from Seavale, so that if something went wrong with the plan, he could claim that Seavale agents were trying to kidnap the princess for their own ends.

Where is the compound located?

Near Sunfall’s royal palace, which is located near the middle of the kingdom. The compound is close by, in case relatives want to visit and so that the king and queen can visit and more easily keep an eye on who comes and goes from the princess’ seclusion location. But let’s say it’s between the palace and the Seavale border, which means that the far side of the compound is going to be well-guarded by people the king can trust.

Where is the performance to take place?

Let’s interpret this to mean “where in the compound the performance will take place”,  since we already know that the performance will take place in the seclusion compound. We’ll schedule to performance to take place in the compound’s inner courtyard.

What is the adventure’s starting location?

The prince will want to meet the PCs somewhere where they can talk freely and he won’t be recognized. The first thing that leaps to mind is the very much overused seedy tavern, just inside the Seavale border. Trite though it is, this location does have a lot of aspects in its favor. For one, if we posit that the crown prince has kept a very low profile in the kingdom, so much so that few people outside of the royal family would recognize him, he should be able to come and go from from such a place without notice or comment (unless someone does recognize him…). People in these types of places are used to minding their own business. Depending on how competent we want our prince to be, he can either dress down to match his surroundings (the prudent course of action) or he can flaunt his wealth, attracting every major pickpocket and cut-purse in the area, which could create some wonderful complications to the adventure.

What is it’s ending location?

That will depend on if the PCs get the princess out or not. If so, the adventure will end at a “safe house” the prince has set up on the border of the kingdom. If not, the adventure is likely to end in the princess’ seclusion compound. Either way, we should have the safe house location prepared.

What other locations might be important?

The castle, the wizard’s tower are all possible locations, but the bulk of the adventure should take place in the princess’ compound, so that’s the location we’ll spend the bulk of our location preparation time on.

What are the languages, customs, and practices of the entertainers? Are they different from the PCs?

We could go hog-wild on this one and set them up with a different language and some really unusual customs, making them originally from a very different culture than the PCs. But I don’t want to spend time on that aspect, so we’ll make all of them–the PCs and the entertainers–from the same basic area, Seavale.

However, theatre people tend to be a superstitious lot, so we can have a little fun with the PCs by giving our troupe of players a few quirks, but not so many that they take over the game session. So, first, we can have the actors begin their day with offerings to whichever god in the campaign world watches over performers and traveling players, followed by a couple of hours of vocal and physical warm-up exercises. So unless you’ve got a party full of bards, that should help push the PCs out of their comfort zone somewhat.

The day would continue with rehearsals of the current performance, as well as some stage combat practice (less deadly, but just as demanding as real combat practice)., finally concluding with some street performances to bring in needed money. The PCs will be expected to take part in these, so that they can learn what they need to know to preserve their cover.

We can also give the troupe a couple of superstitious habits, based on real-world theatre superstitions, the primary one being the practice of never wishing “good luck” to someone going on-stage (hence the real-world practice of saying “Break a leg”). Let’s say that actors in this world say “Crack your head”. Also, having a black cat in the theatre house prior to performance is said to bring good luck and a successful play. Since ours are traveling players, they don’t usually perform in theatres, so let’s say they keep their own pet black cats who travel with them as companions and that it’s a very bad omen if one runs away or gets harmed.

Next time, we’ll finish up the questions with “why” and “how”.

Other posts in this series

• And *Then* What Happened?: Using Adventure Seeds/Hooks/Starts/Ideas
• Step By Step: Using Adventure Seeds/Hooks/Starts/Ideas, part 2
• Setting an Example: Using Adventure Seeds/Hooks/Starts/Ideas, part 3
• Answering the Questions: Using Adventure Seeds/Hooks/Starts/Ideas, pt. 4
• Questions Continue: Using Adventure Seeds/Hooks/Starts/Ideas, pt. 5

This is part 5 of our series on how to develop a full adventure from an adventure seed.

Last time, we began answering the questions our adventure seed suggested. We answered the “who” questions; today we’re going to continue with the “what” questions. As before, none of these answers are set in stone–we can come back and change them at anytime.

Now, onto the “what” questions:

What are the exact goals of the mission?

Players need concrete goals that allow them to know when they’ve succeeded or failed in their mission. Let’s say the princess is in the secured compound because she’s been betrothed to the court wizard, who’s also her father’s best friend and 30 years her senior. We’ll call him “Roman” and add him to our growing list of NPCs to create. And let’s give the kingdom a tradition where a bride-to-be spends time in seclusion with only her closest female friends and (in the case of nobility) maids.

Our PCs are going to be tasked with the mission of smuggling the princess out of her seclusion so she can marry her “true love”: Feodor (that’s what Prince Alexei will tell the PCs). We’ll go into more detail about this when we get to the “why” questions.

What is the performance the players are going to do?

They’re going to perform a play that’s been popular in the surrounding kingdoms, a romantic piece about true love, high adventure, and daring-do. Given the fact that most PCs have little to no performing skills, Kirill’s, our troupe’s leader, plans to use them as stagehands. This will also allow the PCs more room to fulfill their mission, as they don’t have to be on stage at any particular time.

What kind of performers are they?

A troupe of actors, who travel around performing plays at various courts and festivals.

What security measures are in place?

We’ll come back to this question later. Once we’ve answered the other questions, we may have a better idea about what resources the kingdom has to draw on to create the security measures.

What maps do you need to create?

As of this point in time, the only map we really need is one of the secure compound where the princess is serving her “seclusion”–that is, a time before her marriage takes place. But we’ll go into this more in our “when” questions.

What special items might the PCs need to succeed?

So far, we’ve got nothing to tell us that the PCs will need any special equipment, but we may come up with some as we further flesh out or adventure.

What does the compound look like?

Given the fact that this is for the princess, it wouldn’t be odd for the “compound” to be beautiful and comfortable. It would be filled with the princess’ favorite things and probably display the wealth of the king, her father, and of the kingdom itself. So think soft, comfortable furnishings, artistically painted walls, probably with murals, perhaps even an internal courtyard with a garden and a pool.

What group or faction does the national leader belong to, if any? What group or faction does the PCs employer belong to, if any?

Our adventure isn’t shaping up to include factions or groups, so we can safely ignore these two questions. If we change our minds, we can always come back to them.

What obstacles might stand in the way of the PCs succeeding?

Well, first and foremost, there will be the security measures we’re going to detail out later. Other possible obstacles could be Kirill, if he discovers the nature of the PCs’ mission and doesn’t like it. Another obstacle could be the princess herself. What if she doesn’t want to be “rescued”? What if she actually wants to marry the wizard. Of course, the PCs won’t know this at first–they’ll have been told by Prince Alexei that Fedor, Roman’s apprentice, is her true love. And if, despite her love of sappy love stories, the princess is extremely competent, she could pose a formidable obstacle, indeed, particularly since she knows the compound much better than the PCs do.

What will happen if the PCs succeed?

First of all, they’ll have made a enemy of the princess. But Prince Alexei will be willing to pay a rich reward for foiling the official wedding plans. This is where having knowledge of your PCs comes in handy. What reward would they wish? Perhaps Alexei, not being the most astute of princes, will allow each of the PCs to name any reward within his power to grant.

What will happen if the PCs fail?

The princess’ wedding will go on as planned and the PCs will have gained the wrath of the crown prince and possibly the wizard’s assistant, as well. If we postulate that the wizard himself doesn’t want the marriage to go forward (perhaps he sees the princess more as the daughter he never had), they could possibly be granted a reward by him. We’ll hammer out the consequences of success and failure as we go along.

Next time, we’ll cover “when” and possibly “where” questions, as well.

[Photo courtesy of Vikki-Lea via Flickr Creative Commons 2.0]

Other posts in this series:

• And *Then* What Happened?: Using Adventure Seeds/Hooks/Starts/Ideas
• Step By Step: Using Adventure Seeds/Hooks/Starts/Ideas, part 2
• Setting an Example: Using Adventure Seeds/Hooks/Starts/Ideas, part 3
• Answering the Questions: Using Adventure Seeds/Hooks/Starts/Ideas, pt. 4

Last time we set up the questions to our adventure seed-inspired adventure. This time, we’re going to begin answering them, starting with the “who” questions. This is where we start adding meat to the bare skeleton of the adventure seed. We’re still at the idea stage, so we can come back and change our answers at any time.

Who Questions

Who hired the PCs?

We’ve got someone who’s trying to infiltrate a high-security location. Normally, this would be a good point to back through PC backgrounds or past experiences in the campaign and choose an NPC from there. Do the PCs owe anyone a big favor? But in our sample adventure, we’re starting from a blank slate, knowing nothing about our PCs. We can think of this as the opening adventure to a campaign. In this case, I’ll come back to this question after I answer the next one:

Who is the national leader?

In a high-fantasy setting, such as we’ve stipulated, the most logical leader would be the nation’s king (Khan, emperor, whatever), but that seems too obvious for my taste. Instead, lets make this the kingdom’s eldest princess. Perhaps she is the oldest sibling, but the crown would fall to her younger brother, as the only male heir, much to her dismay. Let’s make her the most capable of her siblings–far more capable a ruler than her brother, the crown prince would be. Most of the court dismisses her because she’s female, but one king’s primary adviser–the court wizard–recognizes her ability and wants to completely discredit her so she has no influence over her brother.

Since I’m fond of Russian names, I’ll go back to my Beyond Fred: Russian Names list and choose one. We’ll call her “Darya”.

Who hired the PCs, take two?

Okay, given the little background we’ve cooked up above, the most obvious person to approach the PCs and offer them employment would be our court wizard, but that seems to obvious. I’d like to give the PCs to have to think beyond the immediately obvious. This would be another good place to call an NPC back from the PC’s past. But since we’re starting from the very beginning, we’ll have to come up with something “off the cuff”. How about the wizard’s apprentice, who we can give a crush on the princess to? It’s still obvious, but it’s one step removed. Or how about her brother, the crown prince? Perhaps the two of them, working together. Lets run with that idea.

First thing I usually do when creating NPCs is to give them names. I may change them later, but at least I’ll have some names to start with. Let’s call the apprentice “Fedor” and the crown prince “Alexei”. We still haven’t worked out why, but we can do that as we go along.

Who are the entertainers?

This we can bring back to the princess. What kind of entertainment does she enjoy? So far, all we figured out about her is that she’s politically very savvy. I want her to be an extremely competent character, all the way around, but it could be extremely useful to have the PCs underestimate her abilities. Perhaps she has a weakness for troubadour ballads. Lets make the entertainers the leading group of actors in the surrounding kingdoms.

Perhaps the current king doesn’t care for their repertoire and so has banned them from performing in the kingdom. That could make them all the more enticing for our young princess and explain why she would want them to perform in a high-security area. Let’s take it a step further and make the leading man of the entertainers a skilled bard (who could be a PC, if the party has one) and the play she wants them to produce a sappy story about forbidden love. Give the play a political undercurrent and you have a reason for it to have been banned.

Who wants the mission to succeed? and Who wants the mission to fail?

The logical choice for this would be the crown prince, Alexei, and the wizard’s apprentice, Fedor. But let’s throw another twist in there. Let’s say that Fedor actually wants the PCs to fail, which will throw an interesting hiccup into the prince’s plans. But then we come down to one of the most important questions: why? Let’s shelve this one for now and tackle it again with the “why” questions.

Who leads the entertainers?

We’ve already touched on this one a little. Lets make the lead of the entertainers a bard–a retired adventurer. We can even take it a step further and say that he was a companion of the current kings when both were adventuring in their youth. Perhaps the king actually won his kingdom during his adventuring years (we’ll figure out why and how if it becomes important to the adventure) and the two had falling out during that time, which explains why the bard and his troupe have been banned from the kingdom. Let’s call the bard “Kirill”.

Do the entertainers know about the PCs mission?

Not overtly, but Kirill is no dummy and has his suspicions. He’s been commanded by the crown prince to add this motley group of obviously adventurers to his troupe for the princess’ performance. It doesn’t take a great leap of thought to guess that they’re plants of some kind. He hasn’t come right out an asked the adventurers what they’re mission is. He’s enjoying the challenge of trying to figure it out on his own.

What does that leave us with right now?

We have several NPCs that need to be created:

• Darya: the extremely capable eldest child of the king
• Alexei: the king’s oldest son and crown prince who resents his older sister’s ability
• Fedor: the court wizard’s apprentice who has a crush on Darya
• Kirill: the bardic leader of the entertainers who had a falling out with the king when they were both adventurers together.

We also know that the king didn’t inherit his kingdom, but won it during his adventuring days; there’s bad blood between him and Kirill (we’ll figure out exactly what later); Darya would be the more capable heir to the throne, but being female, she excluded from the line of succession, and her younger brother resents her ability, putting them at odds; Kirill’s making it a point to discover the PCs mission.

Next time, we’ll cover the “what” questions.

[Photo courtesy of twbuckner at Flickr Creative Commons]

Other posts in this series

• And Then What Happened? Using Adventure Seeds/Hooks/Starts/Ideas
• Step By Step: Using Adventure Seeds/Hooks/Starts/Ideas, part 2
• Setting an Example: Using Adventure Seeds/Hooks/Starts/Ideas, part 3

In the last couple of posts we’ve discussed what adventure seeds are and outlined the basic steps to fleshing them out into full-fledged adventures. Today, I’m taking an adventure seed I found on a gaming forum and fleshing it out into a rough adventure.

The Seed

Your group is tasked to infiltrate a high-security national leader’s compound by traveling with some entertainers he has hired for a private performance.

This comes from the RPG Life Member Forums.

Write Down Questions

Here’s where we really get into turning this short idea into an adventure. When reading over our adventure seed, what questions come to mind?

• Which national leader?
• What compound?
• What nation?
• Where is the compound?
• Who are the entertainers?
• What is the performance they’re going to do?
• Why is the leader having the performance (what’s the occasion?)
• Who hired the PCs?
• Why does (s)he need the PCs? Why not hire someone else?
• What security measures are in place?
• Why these entertainers?
• Why does the PCs employer want them to infiltrate?
• Do the PCs know why?
• Why should the PCs go?
• What happens if they succeed?
• What happens if they fail?

Back to the 6 W’s

We can group these questions into our 6 W’s of Adventure Creation and add in some more standard questions that should be asked about every adventure:

Who

• Who hired the PCs?
• Who is the national leader?
• Who are the entertainers?
• Who wants the mission to succeed?
• Who wants it to fail?
• Who leads the entertainers?
• Do the entertainers know about the PCs mission?

What

• What are the exact goals of the mission?
• What is the performance the entertainers are going to do?
• What kind of entertainers are they?
• What security measures does the location have?
• What maps do you need to create?
• What special items might the PCs need to succeed?
• What does the compound look like?
• What group or faction does the national leader belong to, if any?
• What group or faction does the PCs employer belong to, if any?
• What obstacles might stand in the way of the PCs succeeding?
• What will happen if the PCs succeed?
• What will happen if they fail?

When

• When is this performance to take place?
• What is the current date?
• How much time do the PCs have to prepare?
• How much time do the PCs have to complete the mission?
• How long is the performance supposed to last?

Where

• What nation is national leader a leader of?
• Are the PCs from the same nation or a different one?
• Is the PCs employer from the same nation or a different one?
• If different, what nation?
• Is it the same nation as the PCs?
• Where is the compound located?
• Where is the performance supposed to take place?
• What is the adventure’s starting location?
• What is it’s ending location?
• What other important locations might be important?
• What are the languages, customs, and practices of the entertainers? Are they different from the PCs?

Why

• Why do the PCs need to be the ones to go on this mission (there should be a reason beyond ‘they’re the PCs’)?
• Why did the national leader hire these entertainers?
• Why is (s)he holding this performance (what’s the occasion)?
• Why is this mission taking place? (Why does the employer want the compound infiltrated?)
• Do the PCs know why?
• Why should the PCs go?
• Why are the entertainers taking this job?

How

• How are the PCs going to fit in with the entertainers?
• How might they prepare for this mission?
• How might they succeed?
• How might they fail?
• How are the entertainers going to perform?

Most of the time, you’ll be creating an adventure for an established campaign or you’ll at least have an idea of the kind of setting you’re going to use this in. Since we’re creating an adventure from scratch, we need to decide some additional details, such as what genre we’re going to create this adventure for. The seed itself seems imply a science fiction, superhero, modern day, or cyberpunk-style setting. Since I want to show you that you can adapt adventure seeds that may not seem to be a perfect fit at first, let’s not use any of those. I’m going to set this in a “standard” high-fantasy genre.

Next time we’ll begin answering the questions.

[Photo courtesy of Horia Varlan via Flickr Creative Commons 2.0].

Other posts in this series:

• And Then What Happened? Using Adventure Seeds/Hooks/Starts/Ideas
• Step By Step: Using Adventure Seeds/Hooks/Starts/Ideas, part 2

Articles Zemanta thinks may be related

• Beginnings, Middle & Ends (abstractxp.wordpress.com)
• Re-examining the Dungeon: Section, Factions and Fronts (critical-hits.com)
• Game Master Tool Illustrated: Plot Flowcharts (campaignmastery.com)

There are basic steps to creating an adventure from the adventure seed:

• Read the seed
• Write down questions
• Answer your questions
• Pull out events from the questions
• Put the events into a possible order
• Determine the outcome of success or failure

We’ll go over these steps in detail in the next post(s), where I’ll provide some examples to make things much clearer.

One note here: The adventure seed is just a tool to jump start your creativity. If, in the course of developing your adventure, you find that your plot bears no resemblance whatsoever to the seed you started with, that’s okay. As long as you’re happy with what you’ve created and you think your players will be too, go with what you’ve written. There are no adventure police to keep you on the straight and narrow. (At least when you’re running for your own group, this is true. Published adventures can be another story).

[Photo courtesy of pj_vanf via Flickr Creative Commons 2.0]

Previous articles in this series:

• And Then What Happened? Using Adventure Seeds/Hooks/Starts/Ideas

Related articles

• Beginnings, Middle & Ends (abstractxp.wordpress.com)
• Game Master Tool Illustrated: Plot Flowcharts (campaignmastery.com)
• Coloring Inside the Lines: How Limitations Can Improve Your Adventure Ideas from STUFFER SHACK (stuffershack.com)