“Every
new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.”
— Seneca
Everyone holds an opinion about roleplaying game
adventure design, some quite vehemently, some quite inflexibly, some
by ease of writing or preference for play outcomes at their own
tables. Certain games encourage a particular format to which,
understandably, writers try to adhere whether writing for the
publisher or simply creating something familiar for fans. In the
50-year history of roleplaying games many adventure formats have
emerged and evolved, sometimes tied to the ever-changing style of
such games. Designing adventures can offer a somewhat displaced
challenge; one essentially writes a kind of instruction manual for
someone else to run
themed action
at the game table, a kind of toolkit
to enabling a gamemaster
to evoke a particular
experience with players
and their characters. Some
prefer a step-by-step approach through encounters, others like a more
free-form “sandbox” arrangement. Adventures require some degree
of preparation from a gamemaster, even if it’s simply familiarizing
themselves with a published game world...or jotting
down notes of their own.
I’ve done my share of
designing and writing adventures, some for publication, others just
for friends; lately I’ve been toying with different techniques, as
I’ve mentioned before. Sometimes
for games —
as in other aspects of life —
it helps to look at history, to see how others approached challenges,
for insight on issues we face. I
looked to roleplaying games’ pre-history, back in the days when
wargaming slowly emerged from a Europe ravaged by Napoleon’s
armies. And the idea of
the scenario tied to a “General idea” seems core to designing an
adventure serving as
gamemaster resource for greater player agency.
