Build an Original Adventure Part 2

In Part 1 of this series, we outlined our process for creating an original adventure. Now, we’ll go through each of the steps and do them in order. For what it’s worth, I’m working backwards on this: first I went through the process of building an adventure, then I made an outline of how I did it, and now finally we’re breaking it down piece by piece according to the outline.

Write your premise. We’re gonna go for a classic scenario where the players are in a small to medium size town and there’s a cult that is up to no good. Let’s say they’re kidnapping villagers to sacrifice in a summoning ritual. When the stars are right (that’s now, or pretty soon - say, in a few days), they’ll kill all of these victims to call some darkness into the world.

Identify key elements. There’s a town, fairly idyllic or whatever, no major threat to its existence. There’s an abandoned abbey nearby; it has the remnants of some fortifications but it’s run down and a lot of the buildings are partially destroyed. There’s a cult that’s up to no good, kidnapping villagers to sacrifice for their summoning. The main narrative is the players hear about the kidnappings, investigate the cult, and try to stop the sacrifice.

Explore each of your key elements. Now that we’ve identified our key elements, we want to explore each one. Let’s start with the cult since it’s probably the most interesting and it’s what is gonna get the players moving, it’s the dynamic piece of the puzzle. What do they do? We’ll stick with a classic here since we’re just doing an example build; the cult are kidnapping people to sacrifice in a summoning ritual. The victims are imprisoned at the abbey; they’re still alive because the cultists need to wait until the stars are right for their summoning.

Ok let’s go to the town. This is where the cult is getting the people that it’s kidnapping, so people are getting worried and looking for a solution. We have a couple of obvious elements to start with here: who is missing, and who is concerned about it? Cultists always go for one of the mayor’s kids; his daughter was a party girl and was the first person to go missing. The mayor is clearly concerned. A prominent business person is also a good target and someone that it’s easy to have the PCs be in contact with. The innkeeper is our second victim; her husband was kidnapped and now she’s having to hire part time help to replace him as well as being worried about his absence. A third high profile target will really get the town worked up; let’s go after the young priestess at the town chapel. Now there’s no one to hold services, and she was well-liked, so our citizens are all kinds of worked up.

Thirdly we need to address the abbey. This is a dangerous area inhabited by the cultists and their pet monsters. They have the obvious undead horrors - a horde of zombies, a couple of skeletons - maybe a wight or two. Then we add something weird, like an owlbear or a cockatrice. Draw a little map, put your encounters on it, maybe about 5 major encounter areas. Think here about the fact you’re running a tabletop RPG and don’t design this for a video game. You want to have an eye towards a couple of key things: one is how much time each encounter is going to take, and the other is you want to make sure combat doesn’t become a monotonous slog. Combat is a fun part of RPGs but too much of it in a row gets boring. Break up your combat encounters with pieces of story, clues that give the players info on what’s going on with the cult, lore about the world, or something they can talk to or interact with.

Next: Building your hooks, timeline, and information stream.