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.

Rant: "It Is What It Is"

You are, by now I am sure, aware of my utter frustration with the currently popular attitude of “It Is What It Is.”   I have, among other things, even called it the attitude of the willing victim. Last night while reading, stumbled upon the following George Bernard Shaw quotes: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man"
 "I … have had to preach, as much as anyone, the enormous power of the environment. We can change it; we must change it; there is absolutely no other sense in life than the task of changing it. What is the use of writing plays, what is the use of writing anything, if there is not a will which finally moulds chaos itself into a race of gods.” Regards

“We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate.”

— Barack Obama, Second Inauguration Speech, January 2013

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.

Rant: "I Want My Flying Car!"

As Avery Brooks said on a TV commercial a few years ago, “I want my flying car!”

When I was young, and the space race was still in hi-gear, we were told that in the future, which meant sometime before the year 2000, we would have flying cars, a colony on the moon, and hotels that we could visit in orbit.  So here we are 12 years after the year 2000, and we have none of it.  NONE!

At this point we can’t even get an American into orbit without paying the Russians- the Russians!- for a ride.

For a few years now, we have heard that the Chinese are working hard on getting to the moon, and now word comes that the Russians are headed to the moon.  

Now I know that we are supposed to be headed back by 2020, but that date keeps being pushed back.  Let’s suppose that we do get there by 2020.  By then it will have been 48 years since the last time we were there.  Will I ever get to see a moon base/colony in my lifetime?  Will I ever get to hear about a man on Mars?  Frankly, it’s embarrassing.

I get that there is nothing up there: no resources to exploit, nothing.  I understand the economics: it’s expensive.  I still think we should there.  

We have a small- that’s right, small- space station orbiting our planet.  There is a lot of great science happening aboard it, but where is the hotel?  I am immensely proud of it, but we should have had it in the 1980s, and have much bigger and better by now.

We were promised space, and have not gotten it.

As far as flying cars are concerned, compared to the space-race, this should be easy.  We have the beginnings of the technologies, we just need to finish the research, and get it done.  Want to clear up traffic jams?  Bring in a third dimension to the traffic patterns, and the problem will go away.

I want my flying car; and I want my weekend get away to the orbiting hotel; and I want to hear about humans landing on Mars; and I want to hear about the latest moon explorations.  Is that too much to ask?

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)