A simple checklist for writing awesome adventures

Mike Shea has a great article over at Sly Flourish on writing adventures. In it, he digests a number of excellent books and articles about adventure-writing and consolidates the key principles into bullet points. Do go read it.

I’ve been thinking about the advice therein, and thought it would be cool to have a kind of flowchart or checklist to help DMs design adventures around its principles. So: I made one! I’m focusing here on site-based adventures (ie, dungeons) but it could probably be adapted to cover event-based adventures without much difficulty.

1. Brainstorming

What are your main inspirations for this adventure? Think about films, TV shows, video games, books, artwork, even other adventures! You could even make a mood board to get you thinking. Artists steal and all that.

Think about the PCs. Why would they risk life and limb to go on this this adventure? Why would they care? Make it personal if you can. To paraphrase Wolfgang Baur, most characters will go on an adventure because they want:

• to discover something
• to stay alive
• wealth and/or power
• to help others and/or do what’s right
• to get back at someone

If you’re stuck, pick one of those.

2. Warnings

Before you get too invested, two tips:

1. Minimal backstory. Only include it if it’s brief, interesting, and there’s a way for the characters to discover it. Otherwise, focus on what’s happening now.
2. Don’t prep plots. It’s so tempting, especially for new DMs, but it’s not what RPGs are about. Set up situations and let the story unfold from there. (I’ve always like what Chris Perkins says about this: that our job as DMs is like putting a load of toys on the table and watching our players smash them up.)

3. Fundamentals

A good news article starts by addressing the five Ws. A solid adventure needs to address just three:

1. Where. Probably your starting point. What is the setting of this adventure? Some sub-questions here:

• What makes it fantastical?
• What makes it fresh?

2. Who. Who is the main antagonist? Some sub-questions:

• What do they want?
• How will your players find this out?
• For depth, could they have multiple layers of motivation?
• What makes the villain compelling and memorable?
• How will the villain respond to the characters?

3. Why. Perhaps the most important principle of any writing is ‘make me care.’ So: why would your players (and their characters) care about this adventure? See ‘Think about the PCs,’ above.

4. The Map

It’s taken me a long time to truly appreciate this, but in many ways the map is the adventure. Think how you feel looking at the map for Treasure Island or The Lord of Rings. That’s storytelling right there.

Two options here. Easy option: find one! Many people start at Dyson Logos, but there are so many great cartographers out there that you’re spoiled for choice: Dungeon Baker, Mike Schley, Fernando Salvaterra, Francesca Baerald . . .

Harder option: make one! Either way, try to tick off the following features if you can:

• A dungeon which is itself a puzzle.
• Flavour and atmosphere.
• Multiple entrance points, including at least one which is hidden.
• An early glimpse of the final room, even if it’s not accessible yet.
• Something that cuts through the whole dungeon (a rift, a stairwell, etc).
• Loops and connections
• A hidden path.
• A hidden room.
• A trap (and a way of finding it—this is what most players actually enjoy, after all!)

Bonus points for a map that could change or evolve over the course of the adventure! Flooding, cave-ins, rotating chambers . . .

5. Encounters

So far, you’ve got a premise for the adventure and, hopefully, a map. Now you’re stocking those empty spaces with fun stuff for the players to do. Here’s another checklist:

• Start strong. Give particular thought to the first encounters of the dungeon as they will set the tone for what follows. What makes them fun, fresh?
• Give the players meaningful choices. Consider multiple ways an encounter could go, not just ‘winning’ or ‘losing’.
• Dynamic design. Justin Alexander is big on this. Make a list of enemies, but don’t fix them to a particular location. Have them move around in response to what’s happening in the game. Static setpiece encounters should be rare.
• Lean easy. A corollary of the point above (and again, Justin Alexander is big on this). Combat will be quicker, characters will rest less, and encounters can become more flexible and dynamic. For the main inhabitant of the dungeon, I would suggest CR ⅛ for 1st to 3rd level, CR ¼ for 3rd and 4th, CR ½ from 5th, CR 1 from 7th, CR 2 from 11th, CR 3 from 16th, and CR 4 from 18th.
• Include factions. Dungeons come to life when there are multiple groups with conflicting aims. This is also a great way to create roleplaying opportunities! Consider how the players will be able to tell the factions apart visually, how they are different from each other thematically.
• Flavour and ecology. Choose enemies that make sense for the environment and create atmosphere. Consider how enemies might interact with each other. Consider the dungeon’s history if relevant.
• Use the environment. You don’t need to do this for every encounter, but think about how the area itself can make an encounter more interesting. I have some ideas for this here.
• A bit of silliness. Don’t take it too seriously. Think of at least one encounter that will put a smile on your players’ faces.
• Familiar but fresh. Both are important! If every encounter feels new and alien to us, we don’t have a frame of reference to imagine it; if every encounter is familiar and well-used, the adventure feels cliché or stale. Include familiar favourites but with a fresh spin.
• Cool rewards. What are the characters going to find here? You can roll this randomly, pick something from a player’s wishlist, or add in items that make sense for the environment. (I wrote about this recently.)

6. Review

You’re nearly ready to go! Some final questions:

1. What are you missing? Go back through the lists above to check.
2. What can you cut? Less is more!
3. What needs testing? Boss fights are the big one here! That sweet spot between ‘too easy’ and ‘too deadly’ is hard to get right.
4. Is it clear? Read descriptions aloud. Check your formatting. Have someone else look over it.
5. Is it fun? It’s easy to get bogged down in minutiae, so step back and consider whether you would like to play or run this. If not: why not? Maybe go back to your mood board and get re-inspired!
6. What’s the endpoint? How might things turn out?

What have I missed? Let me know in the comments below!

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