The Default Adventure Skeleton

The Default Adventure Skeleton

by Mike Shea of Sly Flourish

Original Article

We've talked about the importance of pacing but this is a hard concept to understand at a practical level. How can we worry about pacing when we have a pile of friends on their way over and need to keep them entertained for four hours?

Simple tools and checklists can give us a lot of leverage when running our RPGs and we can use such a checklist as a basic guide for maintaining an interesting pace during our next game.

This article contains one such checklist in the form of an adventure skeleton.

The adventure skeleton is a simple outline that can fill out a two- to four-hour gaming session. It builds in pacing throughout and maintains enough flexiblity to support a wide range of interesting adventures. It's a dangerous tool, though. Use it too much and all your games start to feel the same. Still, when nothing else is working quite right, this is a good way to build some solid pacing into your game before you begin.

In short, here is the adventure skeleton:

Start with a battle.

NPC interaction that sets the stage for the rest of the adventure.

Exploration.

Another fight.

More exploration or interaction.

The final battle.

A conclusion.

Step 1: Start with a Battle

We know how important it is to have a solid start and there are few more gripping starts than a good battle. D&D combat gets everybody rolling dice and focuses on the strongest pillar of the game—combat. This battle also serves as a good way to introduce the PCs to the problems they may face. This battle might even LEAD to their problems. Perhaps they killed the Wererat kingpin's only son or cut down the king's favorite mercenary lord. Sure, he was a jerk, but he was the king's jerk.

Step 2: NPC Interaction

Next jump into interesting NPCs and some useful conversation. After the battle is over it's time to bring in our helpful questgiver who steers the direction of the PCs. Maybe this is a good person or maybe it's a scumbag, but someone needs to help the PCs navigate the rest of the story and point out the interesting locations.

Step 3: Exploration

Next comes our scenes of exploration. This might be an investigation into some sort of crime. It might be the exploration of an ancient ruin. It might be a series of interviews with other NPCs to understand the full scope of the situation. However we play it, this is the scene where the players get to do LOTS of non-combat sorts of stuff. Uncovering clues, disarming traps, manipulating the corrupt town guard to learn of the criminal underpinnings, that sort of stuff.

Step 4: Another Fight

Time to bring the pace back up again with another good solid fight. This one shouldn't be too hard. Maybe slightly less diffcult than the first and certainly less difficult than the final fight. Keep in mind that most fights should give the PCs some clue about the overall storyline going on. Pepper in interesting clues all throughout the game. This fight could be less about monsters and more about an interesting environment. Are they hanging from the side of a cliff? Are they fighting on the remains of a crashing airship? What's the environmental hook in this fight?

Step 5: More Exploration or Interactions

Depending on the type of adventure going on, this is a great time for the PCs to tie up any loose ends. This is where the big reveal occurs. It might be the lowest level of a dungeon, a secret chamber in the castle, or finding out that the queen's attendant is really an ancient sorceress in disguise.

Step 6: Final Battle

Near the end of the adventure our heroes come face to face with the true villain. This should be a nice challenging fight with interesting terrain and other interesting variables that make it an exciting batle. This is your big set-piece fight if you're using cool maps or 3d terrain.

Step 7: Conclusion

We don't have to leave a lot of time at the end but we should leave some time to tie off the loose ends and give the PCs some closure. Usually, by the end of a big final fight, players are packing up their dice and starting to check their watches. A little extra time to describe the impact of their actions usually ties off the game right.

A Blunt Instrument

This outline isn't perfect and it shouldn't be used all the time. In particular it doesn't work for more standard serial adventures where, in many cases, stories will be broken up across multiple sessions. Still, a good balance of interaction, exploration, and combat helps keep the beats of pace going.

As a tool to get you started building a fun adventure, you could do a lot worse than an outline like this one. Like all of our tips, try it out and rebuild it into something useful for you.

High Level Swarms in D&D 5e

Original Article by Sly Flourish

Even with the fast combat of the 5th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons, we might still need some tricks up our sleeves for running large piles of monsters against a number of PCs. Luckily, 5e D&D has already given us an idea about how these swarms of monsters might work by giving us lower level critter swarms such as the Swarms of Bats, Swarms of Rats, and Swarms of Quippers (yeah, I had to google that one too).

But what if we want swarms of goblins, swarms of zombies, or swarms of ghouls? What if we want to challenge our high level PCs with dozens of monsters? Yes, the flat math of 5e makes that possible but who wants to roll fifty attack rolls? What if, instead, we treat swarms of skeletons the same way we treat swarms of bats?

Reskinning a Hill Giant into a Swarm of Bullywugs

Say our 12th level band of adventurers gets attacked by swarms of bullywugs. Instead of actually counting out dozens of bullywugs, we can take the stat block for a hill giant as our base statistics for a swarm of ten bullywugs. Four hill giants would turn into four swarms of ten bullywugs each. All of the attacks and defenses would stay the same. As far as the player knows, the two attacks of a hill giant were actually the aggregate of a number of different attacks from the bullywugs. The size of the swarm is actually huge instead of the large size of a hill giant to accomidate all of the bullywugs.

This swarm of bullywugs likewise gains the effects of other typical swarms. Here's a list of the swarm traits:

• Swarm. The swarm can occupy another creatures space and vice versa. The swarm can't regain hit points or gain temporary hit points.
• The swarm inflicts half damage when reduced to half its hit points or fewer.
• Condition Immunities charmed, frightened, paralyzed, petrified, prone, restrained, stunned.

Smaller swarms also have one additional trait:

• Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, slashing.

You might decide to not add this swarm effect since medium-sized creatures in a swarm would be just as suseptable to that as they would individually.

Normalize around Hit Points

How many monsters are actually in a swarm? You can figure that out by dividing the hit points of the creature you reskinned by the number of hit points in the original monster. If a normal bullywug has 11 hit points and a hill giant has 105, that's about ten bullywugs in a single swarm (105 divided by 11).

You can create larger or smaller swarms by picking higher or lower CR monsters to reskin. When reskinning a monster into a swarm, pick as generic a monster as you can find. Instead of using the effects of the base monster, use the effects that the smaller monster would use. Giants, in particular, are great monsters to reskin into swarms because they're so straight forward in their mechanics.

It works best if you use two or three monsters rather than just one big swarm. Three swarms of ten bullywugs (actually three reskinned hill giants) is better than one huge storm-giant-sized swarm.

Ruling On Additional Effects

There are a lot of things players what to do with high-level swarms. What if a clerics casts turn undead on a swarm of skeletons? In general, single target spells won't have much of an effect on a swarm. Things like Turn Undead are best ruled on as they happen. What about a fireball? Shouldn't it do a lot more damage against a horde of bullywugs? You could rule they are vulnerable if you want but generally speaking you can describe how some of the bullywugs got the brunt force of the attack while the rest managed to escape. The full force of the fireball will still take off a bunch of hit points.

In general, go with whatever sounds cool.

Alternative Approach: The Hit Point Pool

There's another technique for running tons of lower CR monsters that goes back many years and is even codified in the 13th Age game system. Rather than track separate hit points for a pile of monsters, you pool all their hit points together into a big pool. Ten bullywugs would have 110 hit points in a pool. Every 11 damage, another bullywug is killed.

When they attack, they would still attack with a bunch of d20 attack rolls but you could do them with a handful of dice and just use the average damage in the Monster Manual if they hit. If these monsters get hit with an area attack, apply the full damage to the pool and count off that many kills.

For some groups this might be a lot more realistic than a horde of bullywugs that actually feel like a hill giant.

However you run them, these techniques for running swarms of monsters are great ways to get that feeling of many-on-few battles without spending a ton of time on bookkeeping. Give them a try, see if they work, and, if they do, use it as another tool for running fun and fantastic 5e battles.

How to Create Non-Combat Encounters

How to Create Great Non-Combat Encounters

by Tony Medeiros

Struggling to create great non-combat scenes in your game? Non-combat encounters can be just as memorable and dramatic as a good, meaty fight. The best non-combat encounters are inspired by the bigger story of the adventure, and create excitement and dramatic tension in the scene.

One of the best ways to create great non-combat encounters is to start with campaign or story seeds, choose one or two types of classic non-combat encounter types, and connect them together. You're about to learn how to do this and then practice your newfound storytelling talents.

Identify Story Seeds

Campaign Seeds by Robert Ferency-Viars and Johnn Four tells us there are four key ingredients to creating a memorable, immersive campaign. The same advice holds true for all the mini-stories – adventures and encounters – within the grand arc of a campaign.

To create a great non-combat encounter, let's first identify the adventure components you will draw inspiration from. From Campaign Seeds, here are four of the best story elements to identify:

Villain: Rat Bastard with a goal.

Milieu: Interesting setting with a cool name, a great concept for adventure, and 2-3 notable NPCs who will stir the plot.

Stakes: PC goals and what happens if they fail? Make it personal.

Left Hook: Knock'em off their chairs.

Villain

First, identify and understand your adventure's villain. What are his personality traits, goals, connections, strengths, and weaknesses?

Make a note of each characteristic in clear, one-sentence summaries.

For example, Rayne speaks plainly, if not sarcastically. Rayne's goal is to become leader of the thieves' guild. She knows almost every arms and magic dealer in the city, and is an especially talented burglar with a weakness for high-profile art.

Milieu

Next, identify the adventure's setting. What is the iconic theme, flavor, or feel of your adventure? Similar to last month's Puzzles as Story feature, skim the adventure for clues. General or specific, one or multiple, pick as many as you'd like to work from to create non-combat encounters in the next section. Basic themes are easier to work with, as they're usually just one word.

For example:

Horror

Mystery

Romance

Imprisonment

Betrayal

Revenge

Murder

Or you might want to describe your adventure's theme with slightly more layers from the start. As with villain qualities, stick to a one or two-sentence summary.

Focus on a Problem => Action => Factions.

For example, "Fighting crime and corruption in a lycan-infested port city." Or, "Fighting back the undead plague while avoiding or preventing the Church's extremist response."

Stakes

Next, what are the stakes of the adventure? What must they accomplish? What happens if they fail? If the party is killed or captured in the adventure, who is harmed most and who benefits most? How exactly? What specific tragedies, losses, wins, or advances do the key people of your adventure experience?

Think about the NPCs, places, and things the party cares about, and their connections. Think beyond death or destruction. Think change in quality of life. This makes it personal. Do the same for your adventure's villain.

For example, a plague sickens the workers of the party's benefactor, who can no longer safely keep his shelter for the poor open. The villain uses this distraction as an opportunity to send his best burglars to the benefactor's home to steal his latest delivery of precious paintings.

Left Hooks

Finally, in Faster Combat, we show you how twists are vital to great encounters. Think of the left hook as a surprise story punch. What secret knowledge or major event significantly changes how the party views the rest of the adventure – its villain, milieu and stakes? For example, the NPC helping the party fight the corrupt officials of the city is secretly the scorned child of the Lord Mayor, after vengeance and power far more than justice.

The best part of identifying the left hook of your adventure? Non-combat encounters are the perfect way to deliver epic story punches.

Choose Classic Non-combat Encounters Types

To create great non-combat encounters, focus on exploration and interaction sequences in your adventure. Consider this your go-to short list of memorable and engaging non-combat scenes:

Exploration - Search for Information - Find Clues or Evidence

Interaction - Influence NPCs - Interrogate, Negotiate, or Threaten

When exploring in an adventure, what is the best information to look for? The kind that solves an important story question or mystery. Whether the party searches for clues as to who constructed a solid gold sarcophagus hidden behind the Church's smallest city temple, or is looking through a ledger to find inconsistencies to implicate a politician in a human trafficking ring, solving these questions or mysteries are game-changers. The party learns something critical, something important to key people or factions in the adventure. This leads to more burning questions and meaningful actions based on this new information.

For example, now that the party has determined the golden sarcophagus was crafted by the stone giants to the north, will the party question the clerics about the stone giants' involvement in the sarcophagus' creation? Or does the party decide they don't trust the Church to speak the truth on this and head for the mountains to confront the giants themselves?

When socially interacting in an adventure, there are three major ways to deal with NPCs: interrogate, negotiate, threaten.

Think of interrogation or asking questions as a neutral approach, where the party still searches for information (see example above).

Negotiations and threats are best when the party already has a specific or damning goal in mind. They've learned enough or feel strongly enough to influence an NPC's response. The party wants something and will make a reasonable deal with the NPC for it. Or, the party has learned a vulnerability of the NPC and threatens what the NPC values.

For example, the party questions the stone giants and manages to convince them to help the investigation. The party learns Astinus Cane, the Plaguebringer, cannot be killed due to some miracle – or curse – from the gods. But, centuries ago the last Plaguebringer was successfully sealed away in the Golden Tomb. The party also learns the current Plaguebringer is heading into the mountains to bring plague to the giants next. The party decides to make a deal with the giants. The giants agree to let the party borrow the sarcophagus' keystone, which defeats its wards and releases it from its magical anchor. In exchange, the party agrees to distract and prevent the Plaguebringer from heading into the mountains to spread the plague to the giants.

If Then

Finally, a great way to get comfortable with your first search and influence non-combat encounters is to use if-then statements to summarize them. Create story branches, paths, twists, or turns – think Choose Your Own Adventure books.

For example, if the party questions the stone giants, then the party learns Astinus can't be killed, but he can be sealed away in a golden sarcophagus hidden near one of the city's temples.

Match Seeds to Scenes

With your story seeds identified and your non-combat encounter type selected, it's time to match them up and create specific non-combat encounters. Much like Puzzles as Story, create logical, thematic associations. Your goal is to bake or reinforce story elements inside the framework of your non-combat encounter.

Here are example lists of seeds and non-combat encounter types and how they might connect, inspired by Dead Men Walking in the Campaign Seeds book.

Story Seeds

Villain: Astinus Cane the Plaguebringer.

Milieu: A war-torn, plague-infested world of undead soldiers and the extremist Church.

Stakes: The party must survive the plague, undead, and the Church's attacks. They must get the cure from Astinus Cane's Book of Dreams before the plague kills more crops, animals, and people, or worse, brings the fallen back as undead.

Left Hook: The Church hires a special agent known as The Accountant to deal with Cane and the undead horde. The Accountant sometimes cooperates with the PCs, and unintentionally complicates their efforts at other times. Ultimately, he betrays the party and the Church, as he is secretly employed by Cane's master, Golganth, arch necromancer and the original owner of the Book of Dreams.

Sample Story Seeds and Non-Combat Encounter Types

Interaction: If the party questions the acolytes of the most run-down Church temple in the city, they learn that years before he became the Plaguebringer, Cane used to visit a grave behind the temple.

Exploration: If the party explores the small graveyard behind Temple Dawn, they discover a gilded sarcophagus buried underneath the gravestones of the Cane family. If the giants directed the party to the sarcophagus, then the party can use the keystone to release it and search it. If the party doesn't yet have the keystone, then by studying the gilded sarcophagus they identify it as stone giant crafted.

This is how you create and connected story seeds and non-combat encounter types. Also note how exploration and interaction sequences can flow smoothly in and out of the same encounter or lead to related encounters.

Activity: Rewrite 1 Seed, Create 2 Encounters

It's time to practice this approach. Let's continue to work with Dead Men Walking from Campaign Seeds.

Review the following two questions, read the full seed excerpt below them, and then post your responses here for comments and feedback.

1) Review the four classic story seed ingredients in the Match Seeds to Scenes section above. Choose one (villain, milieu, stakes or left hook) to rewrite. What changes did you make and why?

2) Create one new Exploration encounter and one new Interaction encounter. Refer to the information in the Match Seeds to Scenes section and the full Dead Man Walking seed below. If you get stuck, use more if-then statements.

Dead Men Walking

Astinus Cane, apprentice to the arch-necromancer Golganth, has stolen one of his master's grimoires, The Book of Dreams. He intends to raise his own undead army and set up a power-base on the northern coast.

The PCs, serving in the military, have just engaged in a battle between two kingdoms. Having been incapacitated during the fray, they wake to see the field littered with thousands of dead. A black-robed figure moves among the dead, chanting, as corpses rise to serve their new master.

The PCs are infected with a deadly plague, a side effect of Cane's dark magic playing over the battlefield. Those who succumb to it will rise as undead. The only cure lies within The Book of Dreams.

The Church activates a renowned witch-hunter, The Accountant, to deal with the mess. Golganth sends the Unholy Five to kill Cane and retrieve his book.

More Non-Combat Missions

There are many other opportunities to create exciting encounters with zero combat. Once you get comfortable with the classics, here's a sample of non-combat-friendly mission options from Faster Combat you can experiment with.

Note the common threads of exploration and interaction throughout.

Acquire

Break or Destroy Item

Commandeer a Vehicle

Deliver

Distract

Escape Destruction

Establish Truce

Force Surrender

Infiltrate

Reach Before Enemy

Seal Away

Seal Off

Steal

Stop an Event

Survive

Trap

Trick

Need more encounter design help? Check out the 12 Design lessons in the Faster Combat course or ebook.

No Time for Fighting

You're now ready to create story encounters in your game! You've learned how to identify and connect story elements and classic non-combat encounter types to create engaging encounters in your adventures.

A Villainous Plot

A Villainous Plot

Design Reversal: How to Build Adventures Using the Villain's Perspective

By Perry W Rogers

I like to run all sorts of adventures types. Linear adventures, where A leads to B, leads to C, are my least favorite of these, because they railroad player options. Mysteries are fun, because the players explore and follow clues freely, which leads to more roleplaying opportunities.

In general, I prefer to run these more organic feeling situations. By organic I mean a situation that morphs as things happen. A moment that feels alive to everyone at the table. Players love it when they feel like their actions are actually affecting what happens in the world. As GMs, we all recognize this, it is what I strive for when I design adventures.

The key to this adventure is to write it from the villain's perspective. It is his plot, and this story is all about him— like the Batman movies of the 90s.

He might not have contingency plans. He might not have an escape plan. But he does have his master plan.

The players will try to figure out what is going on, and thwart it.

As the GM, you will allow them to proceed with their investigations, attacks and other actions.

Your job is to adjudicate the reactions of the villain as the players begin to insert themselves more and more into his schemes.

Treat the villain as a living person who is in the moment, just like the players. He still believes he can succeed, and will act accordingly.

Create the Master Plan

To start, I like to create the villain, his environs and his plans. I put in a lot of energy creating those elements before I proceed to hooking the characters.

I do this because I will be doing a lot of improv GMing as the adventure develops, and more effort here pays off later on. Once I have designed all of that, I thrust the players into the middle of it to see what happens.

Here is the template I use to design this sort of adventure.

Design Template

A person, a deity or monster has set a plan in motion to accomplish some vile goal the players find out about and must foil to save....

1. Who Is The Villain?

The first step is to develop the villain. Because this adventure is completely based on his ability to plan and react, you need to know a lot about him. The more you know, the better. Consider the following:

1. Who is he/she/it? Race, class, gender, quirks, mannerisms. Go deeper than the stat block and create a full profile.
2. Where did he come from? His history and background including his rise to power.
3. How does he act and react? What is his personality like?
4. What does he desire? Power, money, revenge, world domination, lost love.
5. How far will he go to achieve his desire?
6. What will he not do? This can be more important that it seems at first.
7. Where is the money coming from? What is the villain's source of resources to make this plan come together?
8. How much local support does he have? Local villagers, monsters, mages, police, military.
9. Who is his sidekick/familiar/pet which is at his side at all times?
10. Who is his partner/lieutenant/right hand man? This is his most important henchmen in the field.
11. Who are the rank and file lackeys?
12. Where does he do most of his planning and dirty work? Where does he spend his down time? Lair, hideout, headquarters, laboratory.

Roll out your best NPC design skills on this guy. It will pay off when you see the reactions of your players as they learn about and deal with him.

2. Create The Master Plan

This is where you write out the villain's master plan from beginning to end - the whole thing.

The most basic plan will assume everything goes off without a hitch.

I prefer to write it out as a timeline.

The villain might have contingencies for things to go off the rails based on his intelligence, and anticipation of oppositional involvement.

The better the villain, the better the master plan. Keep it 'real' based on his personality, intelligence and resources.

Treat this plan like a recipe. With the villain's desire in mind, list out the steps he can take to actually achieve that desire.

Then figure out what ingredients he needs to accomplish each step.

Then go back in your plan/timeline and add actions that involve acquiring the ingredients.

Tailor the plan to the villain's personality and abilities.

For example, a villain that can fly or who has minions who can fly will plan more flying type actions. A villain who uses poison will plan more social actions. A villain who fears water will make land-based actions (or use water as his ultimate doomsday weapon).

3. Put The Plan In Motion

Most likely before anyone - including the players - are aware of what is happening, the villain will set his plot in motion.

If you want the players to unmask the plan before it can be put into motion, you will make this step very short.

What are the initial things that happen before anyone is paying attention?

4. The Situation Comes To Light

Someone has finally noticed something is going on, and is alarmed enough to act.

• How is the situation revealed?
• What or who involves the players?
• What is the hook for the players?
• Why should they care?
• Are they being impacted by the plot in some way?

5. Escalate - Up The Ante

The PCs have now become involved. The villain probably knows it, and they may know he knows it. Now the game gets fun for you.

You can try to anticipate and pre-plan for their actions, but the players will likely choose go in a different direction.

Instead, you must begin to react as the villain would react. What counter-moves does he make? Remember the ultimate goal of his plan as you decide what he does.

At this point something needs to happen to instill a sense of urgency in the players. It could be the villain has changed the master plan in some way, sends out thugs to deal with the players, or creates a distraction hoping to lure them away. As Dashiell Hammett would say, "Kick in the door!"

The PCs' actions will result in lost minions, ingredients and resources important to the plan. Thinking as the villain, decide how you will find more, compensate or recover the most important things.

Also, the PCs might acquire allies, powerful items, knowledge and other assets that start to tip the odds in their favour. Thinking as the villain, what can you do to give yourself more power or reduce the PCs' power?

6. The Pursuit

This is the main part of the scenario. Players will make their moves to shut down the villain's plot, and he will make his counter-moves to keep the plan in motion.

This part of the action will be tough to anticipate, because it is an act-react situation.

At all times, remember what you know about the villain, his personality, his desires, his plan and his resources.

You could prepare an encounter or two for this part of the game, but keep things fluid and changeable.

7. The Last Gambit

Sooner or later, the players will have caused enough trouble for the villain that he will realize his plan is in serious danger. At this point he will try one last desperate move to bring his plan to fruition.

This action should lure the PCs to a specific location for a climactic battle.

I think this is best played as a set-piece encounter involving the villain himself in an exciting location like a grand cathedral, atop the Empire State Building, the edge of a volcano.

I like to have multiple things going on in these fights to make things as exciting as possible: minions, ticking bombs, innocent bystanders, the villain himself and his inner circle, dangerous/hindering terrain, blinding rainstorms.

I spend a lot of time designing the ending, because I like them to be memorable. I like to have all of the possible elements ready to go, but am mindful that the organic nature of this style of adventure design can force those elements to change.

8. Escape Plan

Finally, was this guy smart/humble enough to have an escape plan?

Have a logical, viable plan for him to make his getaway if that is your wish.

Do not just pull the old: "Poof! He's gone!" While it works, it's not satisfying for the players.

Also, if you have gone to the trouble of designing an escape plan, it gives the players a chance to figure it out, and foil it.

A foiled escape plan is very, very satisfying for clever players!

Over To You

If you like improv-GMing, roleplaying more than roll-playing, and more real-feeling games, this may be for you.

For years, when people asked me how I plan games, I have answered, "I design the villain, and his plan. Then I stick the players in the middle, and see how it plays out."

These tips have been just a more elaborate, codified version of that statement.

PIXAR's Story Telling Guidelines

#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

#2: You gotta keep in mind what's interesting to you as an audience, not what's fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.

#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won't see what the story is actually about til you're at the end of it. Now rewrite.

#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You'll feel like you're losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.

#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?

#7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.

#8: Finish your story, let go even if it's not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.

#9: When you're stuck, make a list of what WOULDN'T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.

#10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you've got to recognize it before you can use it.

#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you'll never share it with anyone.

#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.

#13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it's poison to the audience.

#14: Why must you tell THIS story? What's the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That's the heart of it.

#15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.

#16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don't succeed? Stack the odds against.

#17: No work is ever wasted. If it's not working, let go and move on - it'll come back around to be useful later.

#18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.

#19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.

#20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d'you rearrange them into what you DO like?

#21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can't just write ‘cool'. What would make YOU act that way?

#22: What's the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

Skill Challenges

The following is the version of skill challenges that I’m continuing to develop.  There is a lot of borrowing going on here including, but not limited to WotC’s original work, and the Obsidian system by Travis Huston Dunlap.


Types of Skill Challenges

Mental
A Mental challenge lets the players using their minds and their senses to gain clues and to find their way around the world.  DMs can use Mental Challenges to describe large scales of scenery and give players a chance to work out clues to obtain victory.

Examples: Finding your way through an old forest, determining the secret entrance to the underground city, solving the puzzle of El‐Karad, or finding the last ingredient for a ritual in an old library are examples of a Mental Challenge.

Standard skills for a mental challenge include:
Arcana (Int)
Dungeoneering (Wis)
Heal (Wis)*
History (Int)
Insight (Wis)
Nature (Wis)
Perception (Wis)
Religion (Int)
Social (cha)**
Streetwise (Cha)***
*When dealing with anatomy or medical insights.
**Social skills can be useful to gain clues when other people are near the challenge site, such as using diplomacy to acquire help from the head librarian. Generally allow this only once per challenge per person.
***For navigating urban terrain or gaining information on the street.

Failure: Failing a mental challenge often means you arrive at a different location than the one you had intended, or that you obtain a piece of information…only to later find out it is incorrect.

Partial Victory: You gain some of the information you need, but need more. You successfully navigate the terrain, but are greatly delayed and it causes problems down the road.

Victory: You gain the information you need and solve the puzzle. You navigate the terrain quickly and easily, and perhaps find a treasure along the way.


Physical
A physical challenge often is the most versatile of challenges. It can include subtle stealth or outrageous stunts. Players are encouraged to describe their actions in detail.

Examples: Scaling a great cliff, sneaking past a group of guards, and crossing a raging river are good physical challenges.

Standard skills for a Physical Challenge include:
Acrobatics (Dex)
Athletics (Str)
Endurance (Con)
Heal (Wis)
Stealth (Dex)
Thievery (Dex)
Social (cha)*
Knowledge (int or wis)**
*Social skills can sometimes be useful in physical challenges against other creatures. Using bluff to throw off a group of guards as you make your escape is a good example. Generally only allow this once per challenge per player.
**Knowledge skills can sometimes be useful in physical challenges that involve certain environments. Using nature in a chase scene that involves the jungle is one example.  Generally only allow this once per challenge per player.

Failure: Failing a physical challenge usually involves physical fatigue and possibly great peril. The party might each lose two healing surges, or every person in the party loses ¼ of their hit points, and then is forced into a combat.

Partial Victory: The party has overcome the obstacle but may have created new obstacles in the process. For example, the party has to climb a rock wall in a way that leads to other hazardous terrain. Or the party completes the task but suffers fatigue in the form of losing two healing surges each.

Victory: The party overcomes the obstacle, fresh, strong and ready for the next one.


Social
A social challenge generally involves talking and a large amount of role‐playing. Players are encouraged to use eloquent words, bold statements, and outright lies to win the day.

Example: A negotiation with the Duke, talking your way past the guards, and convincing an old hero to take up the cause once again are examples of social challenges.

Standard Skills for a social challenge include:
Bluff (cha)
Diplomacy(cha)
Insight (wis)
Intimidate (cha)
Streetwise (cha)
Knowledges * (int or wis)
*In some cases, some knowledge skills can be useful if they are particularly relevant to the challenge. Example: Using religion in a social challenge that involves a priest. Generally only allow this once per player per challenge.

Failure: The party does not get their desired help, and often the other group’s opinion of the party has dropped. If the opposing group was already hostile, it may result in combat.

Partial Victory: The party gets what they want, but the other group wants something too. Good examples are a rare treasure, some key information, or a favor. This could lead to another quest.

Victory: The party gets what they want. In many cases the other side will feel greater respect (or awe) for the party.

A skill challenge can be about almost anything including an abstraction of an epic combat.  It can take place over the course of days or weeks, or it could be more immediate like disarming a complicated lock or trap during an exciting combat.

My players have commented that they dread hearing that they are entering a skill challenge.  I think this is because Skill Challenges have been too mechanically rigid as we have interpreted them.  “You must make a number of successes before a number of failures or you do not pass the challenge” I believe the skill challenge must evolve to be less about the mechanics of successes verses failures, and more about the roleplaying.

To help remove the contrived feeling associated with skill challenges, I don’t think a GM should ever use the words “Skill Challenge” until it is over.  Until then all the players know for sure is that they are making skill rolls to guide and react to changing roleplaying situations.  The effect is purely psychological, but it takes away the perceived formality of the skill challenge environment, and encourages creative thinking and roleplaying.

Time Factor

The time factor is easy to overlook in designing a skill challenge, and that's an error that can turn a compelling challenge into a rote series of die rolls. You know you've lost your group and messed up your design when the players are doing anything but playing the game. The best insurance against this lies in spreading a challenge out over multiple scenes, each allowing a different, general approach to the problem. By varying the environment and situation, you keep things fresh even when the group uses the same skills. There's a world of difference between the Diplomacy check against a drunken guard who mistakes the party's half-orc fighter for his best friend and the same check against the nosy shopkeeper who tries to shake down the PCs for a bribe. If you back up each scene with good roleplay and descriptions, the simplest skill challenge becomes an interesting, varied experience.

Extending a skill challenge over a longer period of time has an important benefit: it lets you plausibly inflict radical changes to the challenge without straining the players' sense of belief. It's ludicrous for the party to run into a long chain of NPCs, each requiring a different skill check to handle, during a 15 minute visit to the local pub. However, if that chain comes at the PCs during an entire day of scouring a city for information, the game makes a lot more sense.

Make the Players Active!

Placing the characters into the role of the aggressor simply means pushing your NPCs into a passive role as blockers, people who stand between the PCs and success and forcing the characters to serve as the catalysts for action.

For example, the characters need to escape from a group of pursuers. It's easy to default to have the PCs making Endurance or Athletics checks to see if they can stay ahead of the chase, but that pushes them into a passive role. The guards are the active party in that arrangement: they chase the PCs, and the PCs make checks to avoid capture. Instead, set up the challenge so that the PCs are the aggressors. They should make checks to foil the pursuit, such as by throwing obstacles in the guards' way, taking a path that discourages pursuit, sparking a brawl between two gangs, or starting a fire that serves as a distraction.

In this example, you might allow PCs to make checks to simply outrun the guards, but that should be one option amongst many. Even then, it's best to flavor that option with a sense that the PCs are the ones creating obstacles that the guards can't overcome. The Athletics check doesn't represent the PC simply running really fast. Instead, it allows a character to dodge through a crowded street with ease while the guards struggle to push through.

Placing the characters in the active role dramatically affects your design, presentation, and the players' engagement in the challenge. It forces the players to step up and make plans rather than sit back and react to your NPCs. It also pushes you to create multiple paths and options. When the PCs are the passive group in a challenge, it's too easy to allow logic to dictate that one, repeated skill check is the best way to plow through.

During a combat sequence, the actions taken by each character and monster set the stage for the next person's turn. In a good fight, the situation constantly changes, and this feeds back into the idea of the skill challenge as something that reacts and changes as the PCs take actions.  The repercussions of skill checks must be more than modifiers or changes to subsequent skill DCs. They should be narrative events that change the situation and make the new conditions, options, and decisions flow into the game's story.

Going Off the Rails

Often players will come up with ideas that were completely unplanned for by the GM.  For me this is where the fun begins.  Suppose the challenge is to climb up a steep icy cliff and sneak past the guard post leading to the wizard’s tower, but when they get to that part the PCs merely walk up to the guards and hand them a sack of gold larger than they’ve ever seen.  Hmmm. . . . Sounds like this challenge may have just ended regardless of how many successes the PCs have accumulated so far, and how many are still needed.  This is the kind of quick creative thinking that needs to be rewarded.  After handing the gold to the guards, don’t tell the players “that counts as one success,” and they still need three more!  Tell them something like “the guards have just beat feet down the mountain, and didn’t even bother to take their swords with them!”

Structuring

The structure is the nuts and bolts of building the challenge. How does the challenge begin? How does it end, and what happens in between?  I like to break skill challenges into three sections, imaginatively titled the opening, the midgame, and the end. Each section requires about a third of the successes to complete the challenge to pass through it.

The opening sets up the skill challenge, makes it clear what the goal is, and lays the groundwork for the first few skills or options for the characters.  This part is all about providing good description so they get ideas about how, and how-not to proceed.

The midgame is the actual process of moving through the challenge. The skills and obstacles the PCs face are determined by the path they choose and one or more random events I roll.

The final skill check depends on the nature of their destination and how the skill challenge has progressed so far. This part can be a GM’s nightmare to prepare for, because the PCs may have taken a path that was unforeseen.

Optional Random Events

To keep some repetitive skill challenges interesting, create a short table of random events for to spice things up. I like unexpected events at the table. They keep the players on their toes, and they keep me on my toes. For me, GMing is a lot more fun when I have no idea how a session might turn out.

Limits

A skill challenge will have limits of some kind.  These could be limits to the number of checks that can be made with a particular skill, skills that are automatic failures, time limits, etc . . . . These limits should flow naturally from the idea.

Time Limit: Time-limited skill challenges are excellent opportunities for getting the whole group involved, since more people making checks means more checks get made in the limit amount of time available. Thus, when designing a time-limited skill challenge, try to throw in opportunities for a diverse set of skills.

Failure Limit (D&D recommends 3): Maybe they only have three Magic Orbs of Xinthos and each time the warlock fails an arcana check one of them shatters, or the prince will become infuriated and send them away after five failed diplomacy checks. A challenge limited by failures will probably only be attempted by the character with the best check in the relevant skills, and smart players will make judicious use of the aid another action. If you want to encourage multiple characters to contribute to the challenge, make skills limited so that they can only add one or two successes. It might also be a good idea to make the DCs a little harder and encourage PCs to use aid another if they’re not already.

Skill Check Limit: The PCs are trying to influence the ruling council, and get one skill check for each member. This approach works best for a challenge with levels of success and failure (see below). It also has many of the same features as a challenge with a limit on the number of failures, so all of that advice applies here as well.

No Limit:  This works fine only if there’s an open-ended penalty for each failure, such as being delayed a day.

The Conclusion

This is the most critical part. Decide what happens if the PCs succeed at every check, and what happens if they fail at every check. Depending on the circumstances, you might have a situation best served by a simple binary fail/succeed paradigm, in which case you’re done, or from there you might be able to branch out into degrees of success.

There must be the possibility of failure, and there must be a consequence for failure. In the most abstract terms, this means that the PCs are tangibly better off if they win than if they lost. This doesn’t necessarily mean something bad has to happen if they fail, though. For example, it might be that rather than something bad happening, something good doesn’t.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Failure must be an option. Just generally good advice. If you ever find yourself planning something that the PCs simply cannot afford to fail at, then you’ve failed at planning.  If there’s no possibility of failure, there’s no reason to roll the dice. If there’s no consequence for failure, there’s no reason to have the skill challenge in the first place. If failure isn’t an option, then you’re setting yourself up for having to choose between fudging things and railroading the PCs into what you need to happen or completely ruining your game.

BIG List of RPG Plots

I copied this from S.John Ross mostly because it is so good, and I’d hate to lose it because his web site disappeared.  Hey, it’s happened before.

Any Old Port in a Storm

The PCs are seeking shelter from the elements or some other threat, and come across a place to hole up. They find that they have stumbled across something dangerous, secret, or supernatural, and must then deal with it in order to enjoy a little rest.
    Common Twists & Themes: The shelter contains the cause of the threat the PCs were trying to avoid. The shelter houses a Hidden Base (q.v.). The PCs must not only struggle for shelter, they must struggle to survive. The place is a legitimate shelter of some kind, but the PCs are not welcome, and must win hearts or minds to earn their bed for the night.

Better Late Than Never

Some bad guys have arrived and done some bad guy things. The PCs were none the wiser. The bad guys have now made good their escape, and the PCs have caught wind of it in time to chase them down before they make it back to their lair, their home nation, behind enemy lines, etc.
    Common Twists & Themes: The bad guys escaped by stealing a conveyance that the PCs know better than they do. The bad guys duck down a metaphorical (or literal) side-road, trying to hide or blend into an environment (often one hostile to the PCs). If the bad guys cross the adventure's "finish line" (cross the county line, make the warp jump, etc.) there's no way to pursue them beyond it.

Blackmail

Usually through trickery (but sometimes by digging into the PCs' past), an antagonist has something to hold over the heads of the PCs and make them jump. This could be any kind of threat from physical to social, but it depends on the villain having something - even if it's information - that others don't have. Now, he is pulling the strings of the PCs, telling them to do things they don't want to. The PCs must end the cycle of blackmail, deprive the villain of his edge, and keep him temporarily satisfied while doing it.
    Common Twists & Themes: The adventure hook involves the PCs doing the villain a good turn, which allows him to take advantage of them (very cynical!). To succeed, the PCs must contact other folks that are also being used. The PCs aren't the victims at all, but somebody they care about/are charged to protect, is.

Breaking and Entering

Mission objective: enter the dangerous place, and retrieve the vital dingus or valuable person. Overcome the area's defenses to do so.
    Common Twists & Themes: The goal is not to extract a thing, but to destroy a thing or interfere with a process (kill the force-screen generator, assassinate the evil king, stop the spell from being cast, wreck the invasion plans, close the portal). The goal has moved. The goal is information, which must be broadcast or otherwise released from the area as soon as it is found. The job must be done without alerting anyone. The PCs don't know the place is dangerous. The PCs must replace the thing with another thing.

Capture the Flag

The PCs must secure a military target for the good guys. There are bad guys there that prefer not to be secured. The fundamental tactical scenario.
    Common Twists & Themes: The PCs must assemble and/or train a force to do the job with them. The PCs are working with flawed intelligence and the target zone isn't as described. The PCs must coordinate their own efforts with an ally group (possibly putting aside rivalries to do so). The target zone includes a population of innocent people, fragile goods, or some other precious thing that mustn't be harmed in the crossfire.

Clearing The Hex

There is a place where bad things live. The PCs must make it safe for nice people, systematically clearing it of danger.
    Common Twists & Themes: The bad things can't be beaten with direct conflict. The PCs must learn more about them to solve the problem. The Haunted House. The Alien Infestation. The Wild Forest.

Delver's Delight

The PCs are treasure-hunters, who have caught wind of a treasure-laden ruin. They go to explore it, and must deal with its supernatural denizens to win the treasure and get out alive.
    Common Twists & Themes: The treasure itself is something dangerous. The treasure isn't in a ruin, but in a wilderness or even hidden somewhere "civilized." The treasure is someone else's rightful property. The treasure turns out to have a will of its own.

Don't Eat The Purple Ones

The PCs are stranded in a strange place, and must survive by finding food and shelter, and then worry about getting back home.
    Common Twists & Themes: The PCs must survive only for a short period of time, until help arrives, the ship and/or radio is repaired, or some such thing (in "repair" scenarios, sometimes the PCs must discover some fact about the local environment that will make such repairs possible).

Elementary, My Dear Watson

A crime or atrocity has been committed; the PCs must solve it. They must interview witnesses (and prevent them from being killed), gather clues (and prevent them from being stolen or ruined). They must then assemble proof to deliver to the authorities, or serve as personal ministers of justice.
    Common Twists & Themes: The PCs are working to clear an innocent already accused (possibly themselves). The PCs must work alongside a special investigator or are otherwise saddled with an unwanted ally. Midway through the adventure, the PCs are "taken off the case" - their invitation/authority to pursue the matter is closed (often the result of political maneuvering by an antagonist). The climax is a courtroom scene or other arena of judgment. The scale is highly variable for this type of adventure, from a small-town murder to a planetwide pollution scandal.

Escort Service

The PCs have a valuable object or person, which needs to be taken to a safe place or to its rightful owner, etc. They must undertake a dangerous journey in which one or more factions (and chance and misfortune) try to deprive them of the thing in their care.
    Common Twists & Themes: The thing or person is troublesome, and tries to escape or sidetrack the PCs. The destination has been destroyed or suborned by the enemy, and the PCs must take upon themselves the job that either the destination or their charge was meant to do when it got there. The person is a person attempting a political defection. Safe arrival at the destination doesn't end the story; the PCs must then bargain with their charge as their token (exchanging money for a hostage, for instance). The PCs must protect the target without the target knowing about it.

Good Housekeeping

The PCs are placed in charge of a large operation (a trading company, a feudal barony, the CIA) and must, despite lack of experience in such things, make it work and thrive.
    Common Twists & Themes: The PCs are brought in because something big is about to happen, and the Old Guard wants a chance to escape. The peasants, neighbors, employees, etcetera resent the PCs, because their method of inheritance looks outwardly bad and everybody loved the old boss.

Help is on the Way

A person (church group, nation, galaxy) is in a hazardous situation they can't survive without rescue. The PCs are on the job. In some scenarios, the hook is as simple as a distant yell or crackly distress signal.
    Common Twists & Themes: The victim(s) is (are) a hostage, or under siege from enemy forces, and the PCs must deal with the captors or break the siege. There is a danger that any rescue attempts will strand the rescuers in the same soup as the rescuees, compounding the problem. The rescuees aren't people, but animals, robots, or something else. The "victim" doesn't realize that he needs rescuing; he thinks he's doing something reasonable and/or safe. The threat isn't villain-oriented at all; it's a natural disaster, nuclear meltdown, or disease outbreak. The rescuees can't leave ; something immobile and vital must be tended to or dealt with at the adventure location. The PCs begin as part of the rescuees, and must escape and gather forces or resources to bring back and proceed as above.

Hidden Base

The PCs, while traveling or exploring, come across a hornet's nest of bad guys, preparing for Big Badness. They must either find some way to get word to the good guys, or sneak in and disable the place themselves, or a combination of both.
    Common Twists & Themes: The PCs must figure out how to use local resources in order to defend themselves or have a chance against the inhabitants.

How Much For Just The Dingus?

Within a defined area, something important and valuable exists. The PCs (or their employers) want it, but so do one or more other groups. The ones that get it will be the ones that can outthink and outrace the others, deal best with the natives of the area, and learn the most about their target. Each competing group has its own agenda and resources.
    Common Twists & Themes: The natives require the competing factions to gather before them as pals to state their cases. The valuable thing was en route somewhere when its conveyance or courier wrecked or vanished.

I Beg Your Pardon?

The PCs are minding their own business when they are attacked or threatened. They don't know why. They must solve the mystery of their attacker's motives, and in the meantime fend off more attacks. They must put two and two together to deal with the problem.
    Common Twists & Themes: The PCs have something that the bad guys want - but they don't necessarily realize it. The bad guys are out for revenge for a dead compatriot from a previous adventure. The bad guys have mistaken the PCs for somebody else.

Long Or Short Fork When Dining On Elf?

The PCs are a diplomatic vanguard, trying to open up (or shore up) either political or trade relations with a strange culture. All they have to do is manage for a day or so among the strange customs without offending anybody . . . and what information they have is both incomplete and dangerously misleading.
    Common Twists & Themes: The PCs were chosen by somebody who knew they weren't prepared for it - an NPC trying to sabotage the works (pinning this villain might be necessary to avert disaster).

Look, Don't Touch

The PCs are working surveillance - spying on a person, gathering information on a beast in the wild, scouting a new sector. Regardless of the scale, the primary conflict (at least at the start) is the rule that they are only to watch, listen and learn. They are not to make contact or let themselves be known.
    Common Twists & Themes: The target gets itself in trouble and the PCs must decide whether to break the no-contact rule in order to mount a rescue.

Manhunt

Someone is gone: they've run away, gotten lost, or simply haven't called home in a while. Somebody misses them or needs them returned. The PCs are called in to find them and bring them back.
    Common Twists & Themes: The target has been kidnapped (possibly to specifically lure the PCs). The target is dangerous and escaped from a facility designed to protect the public. The target is valuable and escaped from a place designed to keep him safe, cozy, and conveniently handy. The target has a reason for leaving that the PCs will sympathize with. The target has stumbled across another adventure (either as protagonist or victim), which the PCs must then undertake themselves. The missing "person" is an entire expedition or pilgrimage of some kind. The target isn't a runaway or missing/lost - they're just someone that the PCs have been hired to track down (possibly under false pretenses).

Missing Memories

One or more of the PCs wakes up with no memory of the recent past, and now they find themselves in some kind of trouble they don't understand. The PCs must find the reason for the memory lapse, and solve any problems they uncover in the meantime.
    Common Twists & Themes: The forgetful PCs voluntarily suppressed or erased the memories, and they find themselves undoing their own work.

Most Peculiar, Momma

Something both bad and inexplicable is happening (racial tension is being fired up in town, all the power is out, the beer supply is drained, it's snowing in July, Voyager still has fans, hordes of aliens are eating all the cheese), and a lot of people are very troubled by it. The PCs must track the phenomenon to its source, and stop it.
    Common Twists & Themes: The PCs are somehow unwittingly responsible for the whole thing. What seems to be a problem of one nature (technological, personal, biological, chemical, magical, political, etc) is actually a problem of an alternate one.

No One Has Soiled The Bridge

The PCs are assigned to guard a single vital spot (anything from a mountain pass to a solar system) from impending or possible attack. They must plan their defensive strategy, set up watches, set traps, and so on, and then deal with the enemy when it arrives.
    Common Twists & Themes: The intelligence the PCs was given turns out to be faulty, but acting on the new information could result in greater danger - but so could not acting on it, and the PCs must choose or create a compromise. The PCs learn that the enemy has good and sympathetic reason for wanting to destroy the protected spot.

Not In Kansas

The PCs are minding their own business and find themselves transported to a strange place. They must figure out where they are, why they are there and how to escape.
    Common Twists & Themes: They were brought there specifically to help someone in trouble. They were brought there by accident, as a by-product of something strange and secret. Some of the PCs' enemies were transported along with them (or separately), and now they have a new battleground, and innocents to convince which guys are the good guys.

Ounces of Prevention

A villain or organization is getting ready to do something bad, and the PCs have received a tip-off of some sort. They must investigate to find out more about the caper, and then act to prevent it.
    Common Twists & Themes: The initial tip-off was a red herring meant to distract the PCs from the actual caper. There are two simultaneous Bad Things on the way, and no apparent way to both of them - how to choose?

Pandora's Box

Somebody has tinkered with Things Man Ought Not, or opened a portal to the Mean People Dimension, cracked a wall at the state prison, or summoned an ancient Babylonian god into a penthouse. Before the PCs can even think of confronting the source of the trouble, they must deal with the waves of trouble already released by it: monsters, old foes out for vengeance, curious aliens who think cars/citizens/McDonald's hamburgers resemble food, and so forth.
    Common Twists & Themes: The PCs can't simply take the released badness to the mat; they have to collect it and shove it back into the source before it the adventure can really end. The PCs are drawn in to the source and must solve problems on the other side before returning to this one. A secret book, code, or other rare element is necessary to plug the breach (maybe just the fellow who opened it). A close cousin to this plot is the basic "somebody has traveled into the past and messed with our reality" story.

Quest For the Sparkly Hoozits

Somebody needs a dingus (to fulfill a prophecy, heal the monarch, prevent a war, cure a disease, or what have you). The PCs must find a dingus. Often an old dingus, a mysterious dingus, and a powerful dingus. The PCs must learn more about it to track it down, and then deal with taking it from wherever it is.
    Common Twists & Themes: The dingus is incomplete when found (one of the most irritating and un-fun plot twists in the universe). Somebody already owns it (or recently stole it, sometimes with legitimate claim or cause). The dingus is information, or an idea, or a substance, not a specific dingus. The PCs must "go undercover" or otherwise infiltrate a group or society, gaining the dingus by guile or stealth.

Recent Ruins

A town, castle, starship, outpost, or other civilized construct is lying in ruins. Very recently, it was just dandy. The PCs must enter the ruins, explore them, and find out what happened.
    Common Twists & Themes: Whatever ruined the ruins (including mean people, weird radiation, monsters, a new race, ghosts) is still a threat; the PCs must save the day. The inhabitants destroyed themselves. The "ruins" are a derelict ship or spaceship, recently discovered. The "ruin" is a ghost town, stumbled across as the PCs travel - but the map says the town is alive and well.

Running the Gauntlet

The PCs must travel through a hazardous area, and get through without being killed, robbed, humiliated, debased, diseased, or educated by whatever is there. The troubles they encounter are rarely personal in nature - the place itself is the "villain" of the adventure.
    Common Twists & Themes: The place isn't dangerous at all, and the various "dangers" are actually attempts to communicate with the party by some agent or another.

Safari

The PCs are on a hunting expedition, to capture or kill and elusive and prized creature. They must deal with its environment, its own ability to evade them, and possibly its ability to fight them.
    Common Twists & Themes: The creature is immune to their devices and weapons. There are other people actively protecting the creature. The creature's lair allows the PCs to stumble onto another adventure.

Score One for the Home Team

The PCs are participants in a race, contest, tournament, scavenger hunt or other voluntary bit of sport. They must win.
    Common Twists & Themes: The other contestants are less honest, and the PCs must overcome their attempts to win dishonestly. The PCs are competing for a deeper purpose than victory, such as to keep another contestant safe, or spy on one, or just to get into the place where the event goes down. The PCs don't wish to win; they just wish to prevent the villain from winning. The event is a deliberate test of the PCs abilities (for entry into an organization, for example). The event becomes more deadly than it's supposed to.

Stalag 23

The PCs are imprisoned, and must engineer an escape, overcoming any guards, automatic measures, and geographic isolation their prison imposes on them.
    Common Twists & Themes: Something has happened in the outside world and the prison security has fallen lax because of it. The PCs have been hired to "test" the prison - they aren't normal inmates. Other prisoners decide to blow the whistle for spite or revenge. The PCs are undercover to spy on a prisoner, but are then mistaken for real inmates and kept incarcerated. The PCs must escape on a tight schedule to get to another adventure outside the walls.

Take Us To Memphis And Don't Slow Down

The PCs are on board a populated conveyance (East Indiaman, Cruise Ship, Ferry, Sleeper Starship), when it is hijacked. The PCs must take action while the normals sit and twiddle.
    Common Twists & Themes: The "hijackers" are government agents pulling a complicated caper, forcing the PCs to choose sides. The hijackers don't realize there is a secondary danger that must be dealt with, and any attempt to convince them is viewed as a trick. The normals are unhelpful or even hostile to the PCs because they think the PCs are just making matters worse.

Troublemakers

A bad guy (or a group of them, or multiple parties) is kicking up a ruckus, upsetting the neighbors, poisoning the reservoirs, or otherwise causing trouble. The PCs have to go where the trouble is, locate the bad guys, and stop the party.
    Common Twists & Themes: The PCs must not harm the perpetrator(s); they must be bagged alive and well. The bad guys have prepared something dangerous and hidden as "insurance" if they are captured. The "bad guy" is a monster or dangerous animal (or an intelligent creature that everybody thinks is a monster or animal). The "bad guy" is a respected public figure, superior officer, or someone else abusing their authority, and the PCs might meet hostility from normally-helpful quarters who don't accept that the bad guy is bad. A balance of power perpetuates the trouble, and the PCs must choose sides to tip the balance and fix things. The "trouble" is diplomatic or political, and the PCs must make peace, not war.

Uncharted Waters

The PCs are explorers, and their goal is to enter an unknown territory and scope it out. Naturally, the job isn't just going to be surveying and drawing sketches of local fauna; something is there, something fascinating and threatening.
    Common Twists & Themes: Either the place itself is threatening (in which case the PCs must both play National Geographic and simultaneously try to escape with their skin, sanity, and credit rating) or the place itself is very valuable and wonderful, and something else there is keen on making sure the PCs don't let anyone else know. Other potential conflicts involve damage to the PCs' conveyance or communication equipment, in which case this becomes Don't Eat the Purple Ones.

We're On The Outside Looking In

Any of the basic plots in this list can be reengineered with the PCs on the outside of it. Either the PCs are accompanying other characters in the midst of such a plot (often being called on to defend the plot from the outside, as it were), or they are minding their own business when the others involved in the plot show up, and must pick sides or simply resist. For instance, with Any Old Port In The Storm, the PCs could already be enjoying (or native to) the shelter when a strange group arrives. If the "the PCs are unwelcome" variant is employed, then perhaps the PCs will be the only voice of reason to still the religious fervor, racial prejudice, anti-monster sentiment, or whatever else is the source of conflict.
    Common Twists & Themes: The PCs find themselves on the receiving end of the adventure. Take any of the plots here and reverse them, placing the PCs in the position where NPCs (often the villain, fugitive, etcetera) normally are. Instead of hunting, they must be hunted. Instead of fixing, they must avoid getting "fixed" themselves (ow). Alternately, leave a classic plot intact but turn the twists upside down, making them twistier (or refreshingly un twisty)

Tips and Tricks

Surrender yourself to metaphor. I've written the plots in the language of (typically very physical) action-adventure genres, because that's the basic form of roleplaying adventure - but if you're playing on more levels than that, the list can still punch its weight. Just remember that every thing, place, and foe can really be a piece of information, person, and unhealthy attitude, as surely as a space station can be a dungeon and a magical residue can be a fingerprint.

Double up. A nice basic method is the chameleon game, where an adventure presents itself as one type of story in the "hook layer" but reveals itself as something else. Sometimes, the switch is innocent and natural - Don't Eat the Purple Ones, for example, makes a good hook for Running the Gauntlet, and Most Peculiar, Momma is a logical lead for Pandora's Box. Sometimes, the switch is something more sinister or deliberate, with NPCs selling the adventure as one thing when it's really another. This can still be innocent, in its way, if the NPCs have been duped themselves, or if they're just desperate for help and worried that nobody will be eager to tackle the real problem.

Throw yourself a curve. Your players will, anyway, so practice early. Pick two random entries from the Big List and make your adventure on those, no matter what comes up - the first one is the hook layer; the second is the meat of the adventure. If the same entry comes up both times, go with it! Two layers can have a similar structure but very different roots or details.

Double up, part two: Some very satisfying adventures weave two separate (or thematically-related) plots together. An easy way to make this work is to make one plot physical and the other plot personal. That way just one of the plots puts demand on the PCs' location, while the other one can tag along anywhere. For example: the PCs are hired to escort a prince to a summit so he can appear before the masses and end a war (a physical and simple example of Escort Service), but on the way, they realize that the poor guy is suicidal because state obligations have ruined his love life, and must prevent his self-destruction by either fixing the problem or convincing him to shoulder the burden (a personal and metaphorical example of Ounces of Prevention).

And . . . .

A More Simple List of RPG Plots

The countdown scenario (e.g., prevent the villain from completing a ritual)

The golden fleece scenario (e.g., retrieve the artifact to save the kingdom)

The whodunit scenario (e.g., figure out who killed the village priest of Pelor)

The destroy-the-artifact scenario (e.g., hurl this magic ring into the volcano)

The heroes-versus-dungeon scenario (e.g., survive a dungeon to win XP and phat lootz)

The tower defense scenario (e.g., defend a fortified village from an orc horde)

The heist scenario (e.g., steal the Electrum Falcon from the noble’s vault)

The close-the-damn-door scenario (e.g., stop demons from spilling out of a magic portal)