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#adventure design
dailyadventureprompts · 7 months
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Drafting the Adventure: To the dungeon!
Recently I worked out a framework for running exploration based adventures , and while a lot of people seemed to like it, a few folks wrote in asking how it might work in practice. I’m only too happy to provide an example, as it will likewise give me the chance to demonstrate how to combine a wilderness adventure with a dungeon adventure, which is something I wanted to do anyway. 
Background: the party is sent off to seek an arcane mcguffin contained in an ancient ruin, with the caveat that no one really remembers where the ruin might be. As such they’ll have to explore a stretch of wilderness looking for signs of old habitation before getting to delve the dungeon itself.
Setup: In addition to gearing up The party might want to talk with some locals to get information about where they're going, which will allow you to drop clues about further places they cam explore. Any Entry marked with a (G) can be hinted at in gossip and research, providing them a hint about where to go.
FIRST ZONE : The Ancient Plains
"Cool winds steal the warmth from your cheeks as your party steps into the wilderness, your goal and the mountains far in the distance and a vast rolling grassland before you. This place was the site of a great battle that nearly destroyed your home, but is now quiet save for the murmur of the tallgrass and your own footfalls.
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Design Note: The party can either choose to head to one of the locations they've already heard about/discovered, or spend time trying to find a new location with a perception or survival check, with you rolling a die to decide which one to point them at first. Once the random encounter is unlocked, add one die to the pool every time they travel to an area, and two die if their searching for a new area falls below a reasonable dc.
SECOND ZONE: The Forgotten Foothills
"Like the fingers of a grasping titan, the roots of the mountain-range pull at the earth giving rise to steep ascents and sudden valleys. The trickle of pure glacial melt runs in small streams over this uneven landscape, giving you a refreshing if bonechilling respite from your long travels."
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Design Note: Now rather than making simple progress, the party needs to actively hunt for the location of the ruins, with the understanding that taking a surface look at different locations is going to bring a random encounter or two down on their heads REAL fast.
Also shoutout to Yithini, my homebrew goddess of ascension in all its forms.
THIRD ZONE: The Cascading Ruins
"It was no wonder it was so hard to find this old fortress, as the waters pouring down from the cliffs above seem intent on wiping it from the mountainside. The noise and the crush of endless water rumbles in your bones as you make your approach, up a slick half eroded stair that might've been part of the structure's battlements. Most of the structure is lost in the pool of rushing white water below, but a few stretches of old fortification still manage to withstand the siege of time. "
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Art
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mindstormpress · 2 months
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Illusory Sensorium ran a game of Barkeep and their writeup is one of the clearest signs that the hard work we put in was worth it.
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Here's the recap. I genuinely was laughing out loud a few times. Highly recommend: https://illusorysensorium.com/b1-wand-of-embiggening/
If you want to delve into the design theory of Barkeep, keep reading! ⬇️
When we were working on the book, we came up with a sort of mantra for the encounters: Is it sticky? Is it toyetic? Do the NPCs have means, motive, and opportunity? Is there information, choice, and impact?
That's a lot of jargon, and it's been synthesized from across multiple sources. Prismatic Wasteland summed it all up here:
Sticky means that the encounter isn't something the characters can avoid. It sticks to them.
Toyetic came from false machine as well, but also from a post now lost to time from Rebecca Chenier. Basically—will the players and GM want to pick up and play with the encounter?
MMO is just a way to conceptualize NPCs in a simple, understandable form.
ICI is from Bastionland. We can't make informed decisions without information, and there's no point to making decisions if our choices don't matter.
Building the encounters meant looking at each of them carefully and considering those foundational elements. Not EVERY encounter needed every single thing. In fact, with the way WFS wanted to write the book, each encounter had to be relatively short and packing a punch.
A really really sticky encounter didn't need to be as toyetic, and a really fun and interesting encounter that the players would NEED to investigate didn't need to be all that sticky. Everything is a gear of a different size that turns the whole engine.
Illusory Sensorium thinks that they ran the game "wrong" and I disagree. They used the tools provided by the book and had fun! Mission Accomplished!
But one thing they point out very early on is how they "trusted" the encounters in the book as written. The very first one they got is quite simple: 54 skeletons in a conga line, labeled like playing cards.
Incredibly toyetic, not sticky. But the players immediately joined in!
They could have moved on, but that situation was too tantalizing to skip. The rest of the game unfolded from that first encounter, and was filled with shenanigans. The work we put in—hand crafted encounters—worked out!
I'm incredibly proud of the work everyone on the team put into Barkeep, from the writers, artists, and fellow editors. I'm especially proud that people are playing the adventure and having fun. People playing the stuff you've worked on and made is the best feeling as a creator.
Thanks for reading. There's a lot of links in this thread, because I love tracing the history of things. It's no surprise that blogs are the home for so many of these ideas—word of mouth and common practice are easily lost forever when not documented!
The bloggies, a celebration of rpg blogs, are happening now! I've got a post in the running, and I'd love it if you voted for it. My competition is FIERCE (and I recommend all the nominated posts as reading material!)
Vote for RANSACKING THE ROOM today!
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poisoned-salami · 3 months
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Been thinking about impermanent victories in TTRPGs, especially after last night's post about the ghost ship. I think more adventures should have them. Especially when weird supernatural things are involved, it should be a bit of work to win for good.
A vampire won't die for good. A demon will rise from its sulphurous ashes. An alien queen can regenerate from a single cell. Kill a famed assassin, and one of her apprentices will take her name and MO. The ghost ship will rise from the depths again.
The trick is allowing the players to get the permanent victory be being clever, or doing their homework beforehand. Maybe a clever player comes up with a workaround, or maybe their character studies the problem before facing it.
The vampire is destroyed for good by staking its heart. The demon can be banished by dousing its ashes in holy water. The alien queen can't regenerate from wounds caused by cold. The assassin's fame is dispelled by nonlethally humiliating the next in line. The ghost ship's curse must be suppressed by a shaman before the vessel is sunk.
There's a trap here too, though. This can't be overused. And it's easy to use badly. Let your players have their wins most of the time, but keep this in your back pocket. It's a nice way to add a little spice to your games.
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frog-and-rat · 6 months
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The Shattered Tower (102)
I am Playing ShadowDark with my kids, in the mini campaign setting of The Gloaming from Cursed Scroll #1.
Hex (102) “The Shattered Tower” has a short blurb about a ruined keep with a trap door leading to a cistern with something slithering in the murky waters.
Time to flesh this out:
The Thistlewood Keep is centuries gone, but a rumor remains of a priceless diadem, never recovered. The legend varies widely and no detail seems to remain the same from one re-telling to the next, save for one. The Princess of Thistlewood Keep, moments before destruction, took her family’s most cherished possession and hid it away. Though the enemy razed the keep, the treasure was never found! Much speculation has been made, and many a young adventurer has often dreamed of finding the treasure!
More recent generations have used the keep as a sort of initiation or hazing ritual, much like a snipe hunt. Young adventurers have often been sent by their older siblings to go find the treasure and prove their worth. After a trek of adventure, or boredom, the children are lucky to return with an odd button, or a piece of a broken plate from the keep.
And more recent still, a few months ago, there has been a report of a pair of monstrous birds nesting in upon the ruined tower. Their bodies are like giant eagles with the head of a mighty stag! Their talons and antlers are iron hard, and razor sharp! Hunters have warned all the townsfolk and all the children to avoid the area and STOP these hazing rites, for this monsters will most surely kill and eat anyone who disturbs it’s nest. There have been a few failed attempts to kill these monsters ending in the death of several hunters each time. For now, hunters are avoiding coming too near the area.
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Elsewhere in the Gloaming, a camp of Outlaws led by Grieves Redthorne. Recently, a group of goblin bandits attempted to waylay some of his men, but quickly surrendered and begged mercy, and to make it up to Redthorne and join his group. For this crime, the group was offered a quest to atone for their transgressions. “Bring back the Thistlewood Diadem!” The goblins, unaware of the monstrous birds made haste to appease this Grieves Redthorne, grateful for this uncharacteristic offer of mercy!
When my players arrive, there is a chance the perytons will be present at the nest, but I hope to get them into the cistern where they will meet the goblins. Sinred, the now leader of the goblin group will explain how they’re all surely doomed! Because the perytons have killed 2 of their group and won’t let them leave the cistern! And even now, lurking within the cistern, a giant snake which has eaten another of their group! Sinred will beg the PC’s for help, and even offer the treasure if the party helps them escape! Sinred claims that before Dink was swallowed whole, by the snake, he had clasped in his hands, a small treasure chest! Sinred and Urn, the remaining 2 goblins, were too afraid to fight the snake on their own, and after it’s meal, the snake slithered away and ignored them, as they did not attack it.
If my players defeat the snake, they will indeed find a goblin and a waterlogged chest containing the diadem. Sinred will attempt to betray the PC’s and steal back the diadem if given half a chance.
The perytons are a great threat to the PC’s at level 2. And I will give the PC’s ample warning to not stick around to fight them.
The PC’s will find another exit, a crack in the wall of the cistern, that will lead into a vast cave system. I have some tables ready with content from Veins of the Earth, and the ShadowDark core rules. I want to open up the idea of cave exploration, as we have not yet done this, and also have some possible shortcuts, throughout the Gloaming.
Peryton
AC 14, HP 30, ATK 1 talon +5 (2d6) and 1 tail +5 (1d8), MV double near (fly), S +2, D +4, C +0 , I +2, W +0, Ch -2, AL C, LV 6
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dndsettingsinfo · 1 year
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The Call to Adventure by Helpful NPCs
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gulistan-blog · 7 days
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㋡🥀
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cansu-m · 1 month
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gravitycoill · 6 months
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lil comic i’ve had in my head for a bit
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lapinelantern · 6 months
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I’m me again, feels it’s been years.
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mityfresh · 7 months
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gm
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brightgoat · 1 month
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I HAVE DRAWN ALL OF THE (main) STANDS
These are the designs I'm gonna be using for my Standverse AU (this is a link) where all the stands get trapped in a 'purgatory' without their users and are forced to be sentient.
CHARACTER BIOS HERE
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dailyadventureprompts · 11 months
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DM Advice: More Than You Can Chew
Time and again I’ll have folks write in with a really solid idea for a big picture campaign concept or third act twist with a request to help bridge the gap between the low levels/start of the campaign and the thing they’re excited for. I love helping these folks, but as someone who looks for structural answers to problems it’s made me think there might be something lacking in how we’re teaching DMs to tell stories.
If I had to break it down into pure fundamentals: The constant guiding theme in any and all adventure or campaign writing is that whatever the party happen to be doing, whether it be hunting monsters, protecting an ally, exploring a ruin, or planning a heist, It’s only a piece of a far larger story. This larger story operates at a greater scale than the party currently has a means of dealing with, initially making them feel like small fish in a big pond and providing a great sense of achievement when they finally do manage to take on the larger threats.
 On a Campaign Basis:
When plotting a story arc you should start with a goal, something difficult but conceptually achievable that the party can throw themselves at with cleverness or daredevil bravery. Rescue the Heir, Save the Village, Avert the Disaster, Steal the Jewel. The task is not impossible, but the solution is not obvious requiring them to explore, be crafty, and get inventive. It’s best if they’re invested in accomplishing this goal in some way, so make the stakes personal and resonant with the characters and their desires.
In the background however you’ve got something else cooking, a larger story that the party are only pieces in, a conflict between individuals and forces far larger than they’ve previously dealt with that’s been going on unseen. Start with how the party achieving their initial goal will affect the world: who’s it going to piss off? what tenuous balance does it disrupt? What had to be done to keep that balance in place? Do any of the power players in this arrangement see the party as their opportunity to make a move and so throw their support behind this seemingly innocuous goal? What prices do they extract?
Villains are generally going to be your primary link between the small and large scale stories, but it’s important to set them up correctly; the villains are acting/reacting in relation to the larger story and their actions trod on the lives of the party/the people the party care about. In trying to correct this injustice (if only for selfish reasons) the party gain the villain’s attention/the attention of that villain’s enemies ( though whether they be allies or villains themselves depends on the story) and suddenly find themselves caught up in the events of the larger narrative.
While it’s a good idea to plan the goal based adventure as something the party can objectively “win”, I prefer setting up the background scenario as a delicate sort of jenga tower: things were inevitably going to fall apart but there’s no way to predict how. That’s because your players a) are chaos agents b) have agency, and it’s all about seeing how they choose to act/react in the face of an overwhelming scenario. 
The small scale story is about the lives of the heroes/people, where as the larger scale story is about the outcome of ideas/the world.  You do the small story first because getting your audience to care about themes and lore is best done through getting them to care about characters first, and then using their plights and passions as a lens to see the bigger picture.
Advice on using this technique on specific adventures under the cut:
You give your party an idea what they’re supposed to be doing, likely in line with the central gameplay pillar. Again, challenging but achievable, they can guess at the steps they’ll need to succeed even if they need to do some prepwork
Be sure to mention specific risks or unknowns that go along with this task, inviting them to take countermeasures or go off the safe path for potential gain.
Figure out some plothooks and emotional appeals: sympathy, greed, amusement, power, fear. Figure out the notes your party best responds to and learn to alternate them between adventures. Playing the same note too many times makes your party not want to bite the plothook.
Do some worldbuilding, whether tying it into existing lore or spinning up some new ideas: Why are things happening this way, why now?
Now figure out the twist, the thing that’s going to happen someway along your adventure that’ll shift the party from predictable challenges to unpredictable ones. Hired to protect a merchant’s valuable cargo along dangerous roads (combat)? Turns out its an enslaved sentient creature destined for a terrible fate, which the party could free at great personal cost ( ethical). Delving the ruin so the local wizard will kit you out with gear (exploration)? Woops, you’ve come back to find his petrified body smashed to bits in what just might be a magical assassination ( mystery).
Flipping the challenge on its head in this way is what makes an adventure memorable as it gives your party that “oh shit” moment that kickstarts their brain into alertness. A twist that’s predictable isn’t a twist, which is why so many “shadowy employer betrayal” adventures fall flat. Likewise, giving them a somewhat predictable challenge at first gives them material to improvise solutions to emergent, unpredictable problems.
It’s always a good idea to figure out what failure looks like for this adventure. Killing the party off is likely to be unsatisfying, but making them live with their mistakes is what makes a campaign into an actual story. Set up npcs who’s lives will be ruined, have the party’s enemies grow in strength, make them lose out on potentially valuable treasure. These not only give weight to your player’s choices but they act as their own plothook later down the line when you give the party a chance to undo what they’ve done.
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thirdchildart · 10 months
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Get in losers, we're having a TAZ renaissance!
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oopsallbangersart · 4 months
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Ploppin’ a doodle
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time-woods · 5 months
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someone asked for my interpretations of the characters prismo and scarab wouldve made at the end of fionna and cake,
so here we have Sīdus the Fallen star and The Carmine Cavalier (also regarded as Carma (like karma))
im proud of scarabs character name simply cause cavalier used as an adjective can mean someone who doesnt care for others. also really proud of his sickle thing- its like the mandibles of a beetle but it acts like a guiding weapon rather than attacking, so he can just hook people and completely displace their movements but it can also be used for punching like brass knuckles
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kingofooo · 6 months
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Fionna Campbell concept art by Tom Herpich
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