on D&D Adventure Design
Last night I began running the adventure that I suspect will end the school year for my gaming group. What makes this noteworthy is this represents the first D&D Adventure I’ve written since the early 90s. I’ve been adapting published adventures and expanding dungeon delves mostly, but it’s not the same. @gamefiend asked me what my process is, so I figure I’ll write it down. It’ll probably look ridiculous to me in a year (all the more reason to commit what I do today). I’ll be using this adventure I’ve written, but since it’s currenty ongoing, I’ll be vague at points, please forgive that.
[Edit: If you do something different, let me know. If you think I'm could do it better, let me know. I'm doing this to improve, so I want to hear what you do, and what you don't like about how I currently do it.]
I usually start by making a list of the characters, both player and non player, and think about what they want, looking for something ‘grabby’. This gave me some missions for the PC’s (I’m a bit of a jerk, so I made sure that doing either one well would make the other harder)
At this point, I hit the area map. We’re playing in the Nentir Vale from the DMG, and after I found out what a Fen was (it’s a swamp), I had a bit of a flood of set-pieces I wanted to see.
After looking through my monster manuals, pulling out monsters that would be appropriate for both the setting and the adventure level, I started adding some meat to these encounters. For example, I wanted something to happen at a site that was used as a mass grave (fallen soldiers from some battle), so, skeletons fit the bill.
Be aware, at this point, my ‘mission’ was pretty much, this guy wants this maguffin from this place.
As the combat encounter ideas fill out, I was able to put together a story of what happened here, letting me fill out some details a to what the job is, and also sprinkle some new twists.
About now, I start thinking about skill challenges. How this mission could be made easier or harder depending on character competence. I made the exact location unknown, and the challenge be a research project/journey, with the outcome hinge on whether that have to wander around in the swamp looking, or can piece together the location of this ‘lost’ outpost (I didn’t know it was lost until now, at this stage, I try real hard to hold ideas loosely)
From there, I switch to thinking more about numbers than story, set encounter levels, and exactly who’s fighting where and why. XP budgets and all that jazz.
I iterated from these two approaches until I felt I had a fight pacing that felt good, and a story that made sense
Playing by the book, I checked what treasure parcels were due to be dropped, put them in a pile, and sprinkled them throughout the module based on what makes sense and when the items will be most useful for the characters. (I take the advice saying it’s okay to combine parcels a a pass to split parcels as well)
Being an outdoor adventure (mostly), I didn’t bother doing encounter maps till the last minute, aside from noting features I wanted. I’m pretty lo-fi about that sort of thing, so maps are quick work.
That’s about it. Bounce around till I find something to grab onto, come up with some scenes and how they link up, work the numbers and wing it.
