Creating adventures

So, I really love the challenge of creating a module and writing in general... 

One of the hardest challenges is to test your own Creativity and push it to the limits. Each module written for a convention was intended to be better, more creative than the previous one before it. I have created a few that were one adventure not designed to have a part 2 and then the really special ones decidedly got a part 2 and seldom a part 3. I also started the campaign module, designed for 8 hours of play and to have a new part at each Con I attended.

Ideas come from everywhere, I do not dismiss an Idea simply because it would be difficult

Here is a preview of one of my Convention games: AAAAHHHHH

Ideas could emerge form any where, and this one was really special. My Gaming group was watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail, specifically The Caves of Caerbannog scene.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEcvSq4SDkc

This game was inspired by Monty Python. The key is keeping everything hidden from the players and revealing it slowly so that at the end, they are surprised by the final hook


Songs, songs can inspire great games. I created one from a Queen Song "The Fairy Fellows Master Stroke"  That song was about the painting by Richard Dadd - see below

All of the Pre-generated characters and NPCs are taken from the song... as was the premise for the game.  While writing games, I always look up things to add and this was challenging as the setting was using names of Wisconsin counties so this ended up being a partially arctic based adventure 

Also, books are a great source for running adventures. I am pretty good at adapting anything to games. I took "The Sleeping Dragon"

The first book provided a great game for a convention. At conventions I was attending at the time, 8 was the max players and game masters were paid for each person at the table. This book had 7 in the main Persona list so I created an 8th character for the game and gave him a background. I will say I have never had to fudge a roll or force an action. 

For one game I ran at GaryCon, I took the idea from "The Lair of the White Worm" If you have not seen the movie, check it out.

For my own Campaigns, I use many different sources and have been known to recycle an idea or 2.   

In fact I keep a few note books of ideas for running games. Some of them have been done, some are still works in progress and some will make an appearance soon. 

• The Sun is dying, the players have to quest to figure out how to restart it
• An All Elven game
• Dwarven game involving Ale
• High Seas Pirate Game
• Political intrigue with an invasion from an advanced bipedal creature, featuring many side quests and challenges
• Adventure through Arctic Territory
• Working for a Crime Boss in a city
• Merchant adventures  
• Werewolf PC adventure world
• Develop a couple of my previous modules to Dragonscales 

• Game based on Karn Evil 9 (77 Lost Worlds)
• Game based on Logans Run
• Game based on Pirates of Dark Water
• Game where "Klaatu barada nikto" works everything

So, be ready and open to ideas that can come from anywhere, half the time I am just talking to people and an idea come up

We created the Arena of Chaos from one of those conversations..  it was a blast to run at conventions

It was a battle royal where people created  characters based on the guide lines given and then went at it on 4 boards until there was One... lots of prizes were given during the game.  

Sometimes just looking up something randomly on the internet will give an inspiration. 

DISCLAIMER: I do not subscribe to anyone telling anyone how to make a great adventure of how to write an adventure...

The best experience for writing any adventure is play in an adventure. There is an ART to writing an adventure and running an adventure. I urge you to discover your own voice and what works best for you. 

Three People can run a module and all three will have a different feel to them. It is not something you will find in a how to book. 

If you look for how to create adventures, go to....

APPENDIX A: RANDOM DUNGEON GENERATION

Mythos, Dangerous Journeys... 25 Years later

For GaryCon in 2018, I decided to bring one of the Master's games to life...

So, I started with a concept (The Hour of the Wolf) and began to write the adventure... Then I completely realized that I forgot so much about the game system

When it was released, I bought nearly everything for the system.

Then TSR at the time sued Gary Gygax and GDW to stop the sale of Dangerous Journeys..

Good write up of the issue (Click here)

I don't agree with his assessment of the system, but the lawsuit is summed up nicely

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Now I decided that I needed to create the characters because it could not be done at the gaming table.

So I started with the Non magic users, then moved to the "Partial practitioners" and on to the lone "Full Practitioner"

I love that this is such a skill based system. you really do not want to do much combat in this system at the lower levels. but after a while of role playing and adventuring, you can run some decent combats.


I started with a basic character generation but found that typing everything or writing on the sheets was not going to be practical, so I put together a database to make adding KS area, sub areas, weapons, armor, items and anything else easy to build and cut and past e into my character sheets

This cut out lots of time from base generation of characters.. I just select, add in the steep, then run a report. I can then copy past directly into the sheet

I select in this screen

Add the Steep in this step

Copy from this report

Paste into the Character sheet

After creating most of the characters (still adding some things to them) I can say that this is going to be exceptional, the completeness of the characters and background on the game will provide a rich texture for the plot and design... 

You can review the characters and the database at the link below

One drive folder

I knew that character creation would be tough as I am relearning as I go along and had to create modern tools that simply were not available. Nothing prepared me for the sheer amount of line my line input and updates that I needed to make this process smoother.

Now that I am well into the partial practitioners of Heka, I am converting spell lists for the different KS Areas... I have not tackled the large lists for the Magic Users until I have to. It requires me entering them in excel, then putting in the grade, the page and type, then copying to the database

As I am going through the process of creation, I am relearning what made this game great to me.

I love

• adventure games
• Games with puzzles
• Games with lots of interactions 
• Role playing over combat
• giving players 20 different options and seeing what happens
• creating a story line with multiple arcs and branches 
• being able to use skills in a meaningful way in the story

Now Dangerous Journeys works best with 4-5 players or less. I really think that 3 players is perfect for a JM (Journey Master) because of all that each character can do. This being said, because I am writing this for GaryCon, I want as many players to play as possible, the adventure is going to be a bit more straight forward then I would normally write but, every game of mine has an element that is unique. The plot for this one is so exceptional that the players are going to be either thrilled or hate it.... I won't know until the playtest

I will be adding a video of Character creation to this post in next few days for the few people who may find this interesting  STAY TUNED To this page please...