Planning to Improv: Make Your Own Instant Adventure, Part I

Monte Cook Games has been talking a lot recently about their Instant Adventures. You can even purchase Weird Discoveries: Ten Instant Adventures for Numenera. The idea of an instant adventure is you have just enough prepared to let you improv your way to a good game session. Instead of an item, clue, or other plot point attached to place (under the rug is a hidden map), plot points are fluid and can be placed in whatever scene fits your session's pacing. GUMSHOE GMs will note the similarities with floating core clues.

So, what can we steal to make our own instant adventure? In this post I'll look at the building blocks of an instant adventure. In the next, I'll make my own.

Instant adventures can work not just in Numenera, but in any system.

First you have a list of bullet points about what is really going on. The characters won't have a clue about this information at the start of the session. For example, an ancient machine has awoken and is capturing people and "improving" them in tragic ways.

Then a hook (starting point):  The guide the PCs are counting on has vanished, as have a number of people.

And and ending (wrap-up): The PCs stop the machine and maybe have rescued a few of the people, including the guide.

Next you come up with two to four floating plot points, or keys. A key can be a clue, knowledge, evidence (say in a murder mystery), an item, or something that "summons" a creature. A person who knows where the vanished people went. A device that will fix a sparking sphere. An item that makes the machine think the PCs don't need improvement.

Next, seven to twelve nodes. These are people or places. You can sketch a graph or map that shows all the nodes and which keys might be at any node. Any key could show up at a number of nodes. In play, the GM picks one based on the session, pacing, and what has hooked the player's interest. The players really really like this stupid rock in front of the glowing house? Then it's not a stupid rock, it's a key!

People can have information or items. They can sometimes be opponents. Places can have items, clues, weird numenera, and/or creatures.

Note which key(s) might be with this node. Nodes can point to other nodes. Some nodes can be bottlenecks, the PCs must get past this node to continue the session.

Example node: A deep well with a sparking sphere at the bottom. Next to the sphere is a door that leads to the rest of the session, but won't open until the PCs repair the sphere. If the item that makes the machine think they don't need improvement is here, the PCs must remove it from the sphere and take it with them. Past the door is the dancing reptile woman.

You can tie your instant adventure into your campaign as extra credit if you with.

Then run and enjoy. Let the keys show up when it feels right for the pacing and whatever lunacy your players are up to.

Next time I'll build a tiny instant adventure.

Icon Options: Learning from Organized Play

At my FLGS, I'm GMing 13th Age Organized Play, second season, set in the Dragon Empire of the core book. My home campaign is 13th Age with my own setting. For my day job, I'm working on Gods and Icons. 13th Age immersion therapy! If you're a 13th Age GM, I encourage you to sign up for this program. I'm finding a lot of cool things in the Organized Play, including Icon Options. (Have you heard the rumors of Organized Play for Numenera? I have, and I want to believe!)

Icon Options are bits of background that only come into play if some of the players have a relationship with that icon. They don't have to roll a 5 or a 6, they just need a relationship.

For example, in the first adventure, Night of Deadly Stars, the players are hired by Hosford Merrywife. She changes based on what relationships the players have with the icons. Relationship with the Archmage? Hosford's a failed wizard who can give +1 to skill checks that use magical solutions. Elfqueen? Hosford's part elf. Not half, just a bit, but she can give the party +1 to spot things.

When the party runs into bandits, if they have a relationship with the Empeor, the bandits are imperial deserters. Knowing imperial tactics gives the PCs +1 to attacks. If the Diabolist is important (defined by having PCs have a relationship with her), then the bandits are planning a sacrifice to appease a demon. The PCs would do fine...

The adventure never lists options for all 13 icons, but moves around, so most will be hit. After listing a few with interesting ideas, it's often followed by "Icon Option: Other Icons." Back to the bandit example, the bandits have looted a caravan that belonged to servants of the other icon. They might have fine elven threads, dwarven ale, and so on.

I love this concept. The players are adventuring in a world where the icons they picked are the important ones. And not just on a 5 or a 6.

I am so stealing this.

GM Excuses VI: Win or Lose, Still Fun

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GM Excuses, Part VI

Following along Writing Excuses' master class in writing, we get to a very interesting discussion on the magical 1%. As in Star Wars, the Jedi are the 1%, all that matters to the plot. And then comes Han Solo. Great stuff, have a listen.

The homework is going to have to be reskinned:

Writing Prompt: Think about the last time you lost at a game. What was the process of thought that led to your loss? Now, replicate that moment in the dramatic structure of the story, except the story isn't about games.

What a wonderful fiction prompt, but for a RPG adventure, how can we use it? The last game I lost was Carcassonne, a Euro Game. Hmm, how to create an adventure out of my blunders in cathedral and farm placement...

What are some of the reasons I like Euro games? They are fun even if you lose. The entire time you are playing, you're usually make progress, building things, and racking up points. Even if someone edged you out, you were building your own empire.

Now, let's apply that to an adventure. While RPG players can always lose, they don't usually lose while making progress, getting stuff accomplished. They walk in a door, find something awful, roll badly, make bad choices, and either flee or reacquaint themselves with the character creation rules.

Adventure Writing Prompt: Create a scenario where the players can make progress, accomplish great things, have a good time doing it, and still lose. 

The goal is create a key out of parts found inside an underground temple, rescuing prisoners and destroying evil shrines along the way. Then take the key to the final encounter and unlock the imprisoned avatar of good. So, besides ending up on the sacrificial altar, how can they lose? They can lose to a second adventuring group that finds it's own key and rescues the avatar, putting the PCs in second place. "Nice try..." But the big rewards are for first place.

Let's make three keys that will work, bronze, iron, and steel, each made of three parts. The temple is an inverted pyramid. The fourth, lowest level, holds the door to the imprisoned avatar. The third level has three chambers, each of which has key pieces of different colors. The second has six chambers, three with different colored key pieces. The top level has nine chambers, three with key pieces. Frightful guardians, prisoners, and evil shrines are scattered throughout.

Bishop Beesir is the patron, and sets the two teams in motion. The NPC team, the "Silver Shadows" includes NPCs the PCs have run into before, either as rivals or allies. There are two known entrances, the front door and side entrance. The PCs pick their entrance. The clock is ticking, as the avatar can't survive much longer in it's extra-dimensional prison.

While it may be possible to get to the goal in four encounters, the evil complex is warded against abilities that show either party what is where without looking. It's not wise to skip freeing prisoners and destroying shrines, because these actions give the avatar respite. Sprinkle clues to the keys among shrines and prisoners.

To keep things abstract, we'll measure time in encounters the PCs face. All things being equal, the Silver Shadows will free the avatar in 10 encounters.

Headwinds: If the PCs are racing to an easy win when they hit the third level, they find the Silver Shadows have already looted a key piece they are looking for. The PCs will have to find the other group and arrange a trade, or switch to another color key.

If the PCs are lagging behind, one of the surplus key pieces they have picked up is needed by the Silver Shadows. The NPCs backtrack and find the PCs, offering a trade. This adds 1d3 to the number of encounters the NPCs need to win.

Treachery: If the PCs attack the Silver Shadows to rob them of their keys, they hear a thunderclap as their deeds feed the evil complex, adding to the difficulity of all future encounters. Plus they find themselves applauded by an evil priestess who offers them a deal if they bring her Bishop Beesir in chains.

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A nice change of pace adventure. What about you, can you think of an adventure where the players would feel like they are doing good, even if they "lose" in the end?

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GM Excuses: Audition Your Lead NPC

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GM Excuses, Part 3

OK, class is in session again, and we have more homework. If you're new to this blog thread, I'm following the Writing Excuses master class on writing, and transmogrifying it to be about adventure design. In Part 1, I came up with five adventure ideas based on the homework assignment. In Part 2, I mixed up the ideas to create 4 new ideas. One of them is a mashup of two of my ideas from Part 1, an adventure based on Drood, the novel by Dan Simmons and one based on World Without Tears, a song by Lucinda Williams.

Check out the latest (15 minute) podcast from Writing Excuses, Q&A on Ideas.

The podcast is well worth a listen, but instead of dealing with the very interesting questions the cast answered, I'm jumping right to the homework:

Take one of the ideas you're excited about, and then audition five different characters for the lead role NPC in that story. Make sure they're all different from each other.

I changed the idea from the lead role, to the lead NPC because your player characters, lovable idiots that they are, are already cast in the lead roles. The question is who do they get to bounce off of? It could be the antagonist, an ally, or a another important person, perhaps one around whom the adventure revolves.

Looking over the ideas from the last GM Excuses, I'm going to go with Drood meets World Without Tears. Everything revolves around the famous writer, Charles Dickens. I'm going to mix it up, and replace Dickens with a fictional writer, but we'll say they are a famous and successful Victorian author.

Elizabeth Dixon Liz is a popular writer who has an aura of scandal around her. She's been seen traveling with another man while her husband stayed home with the children. Somehow the scandal has only increased her sales. She's taken a bizarre turn since a railway accident, and can now be found wandering graveyards and dealing with foreigners and other odd people. She's the daughter of a wealthy shipbuilding family and something of an expert in Egyptology. Secretly she believes she is the reincarnation of Hatshepsut, a woman pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty.

George Kingsport George is a popular speaker and writer on occult topics. He's known for his seances and being able to make contact with those who have past beyond the veil. A happy charlatan, George has been milking the naive since he was a teen, but now thing have taken a turn for the strange. For the last few months, George's fake powers have started to work. He speaks in tongues, recites ancient Egyptian poetry, and has the power to bend people to his will. Which would all be great, but for the blackouts. George wakes in odd places and has no recollection of how he got there.

Nalo D'Costa Nalo is a Jamaican woman who has burst onto the literary scene in England. Aided by a following in the upper class, she has transcended racial and gender barriers and gained a popular following. One worry is her belief that she will be fashionable only for a brief moment, and then the English will find another "exotic" author to pay attention to. The other worry is Anton, her fraternal twin who died at birth. Nalo sees and hears Anton, and while she used to believe he was a harmless hallucination, recent events have proven him neither.

Connor Synge is a celebrated Irish playwright and poet. Intense and brooding, he's a bit of a walking contradiction -- often seen in bars, he never drinks; popular with the ladies, he never marries; said to be gifted in Irish, he only works in English. Connor has recently been frustrated in his work. The play "The Droods" just will not write itself. He's torn up more versions than he can count. And each time he stops writing, he sees a pale face in the window. When he looks, he sees a figure vanishing down the block. He follows, and then finds himself lost in the most peculiar places. He's been talking to himself, and his friends are worried.

Robert McTavish was unknown outside of his Scottish landholdings until he reached the age of 70. He claimed he found a Pictish burial site and vanished for three days. When he came out, he began writing at a furious pace, and soon started on well attended speaking tours. He has watery blue eyes that force people to avoid his glance. He's also taken up poetry, and his latest poem is entitled "Before Man, Serpents." His dark writings have embarrassed his offspring, and they are looking for someone to rein in the old man.

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I Have an Adventure Idea; What Do I Do Now?

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GM Excuses, Part 2

Last time on GM Excuses, we followed along with the master class in writing being offered by the awesome podcast Writing Excuses. And we transmogrified the slant to be about writing roleplaying adventures. Take a look at what we came up with.

Well, the writing class has moved on, and so should our GM class. Take a listen. Our homework this week: Writing Prompt: Using last week's five story adventure ideas (or five new ones): 1: Take two of them and combine them into one story adventure. 2: Take one and change the genre underneath it. 3: Take one and change the ages and genders of everybody you had in mind for it 4: Take the last one and have a character make the opposite choice. 1. Combining Drood and World Without Tears: The players are Victorian occult investigators, and they get put on the case by a friend of Charles Dickens. Dickens is on a speaking tour, and terrible things are happening to the audiences. They arrive in good health, but leave covered in bruises and scars. It seems every reading is interrupted by a madman with a gun. And the always charismatic Dickens is spellbinding when he speaks, almost magical. When the PCs tail Dickens, they find him sleepwalking at night. Visiting graveyards and vanishing into crypts. Following, they find a passageway down from the crypt to an underground maze where shadowy figures lead Dickens on, always just out of reach of the investigators. Hidden in the maze is a strange temple with Egyptian style markings, and it is there the Demon of Misery holds court. Can the investigators defeat the demon while rescuing the greatest writer of their time? 2. Move the Invisible Protagonist story from Urban Fantasy/Horror to Space Opera Science Fiction: While exploring the new planet Hykloksia, the xeno-archeologist player characters find a dormant power source still powering *something.* Their instruments start to fail, which triggers an automatic teleport back to the ship. Except now, nobody can see them. They search the ship in vain for a way back into the real world, then realize they are not alone. Alien forms slither away every time they comes upon them. The aliens seem to be making changes to the ship's warp drive. When they enter the drive chamber, the aliens become hostile. The creatures are trying to create a warp gate *inside* the character's ship. Not a good idea. Can they save the ship and find a way back to the real world? 3. Change the ages and genders of everyone in my frp group goes to oz adventure. I had already changed the good/evil axis last time. So why not change the rest? In fact, we can change it up so much that the players might never guess I started with Oz at all. Which is great, I get a great world to riff from, but they think it's all my brilliant imagination. So The Great and Powerful Oz becomes the Dread Sorcerer Tally. She's only six years old, but she was born with such power she wiped out her home village while being born. She's been a terrible force ever since. A road made of violet mounds of flesh leads to the Towers of Tally, a city populated by her minions. Glindor, a handsome and powerful old witch, finds the characters soon after they reach this world. He professes to want to help them, and says that the way home can be found at the Towers of Tally, where the benevolent Empress Tally is sure to help them. He vanishes before the characters can question him further. Mombik, a six year old green (goblin?) boy also born with similar powers to Tally reaches out to the characters, and warns them against Tally and her forces. Mombik has a small force of flying lizard men that protect his castle from Tally. 4. Take the Great Filter adventure idea and have someone make an opposite choice: What if humanity made a different choice about replicator nano-bots? We decided to keep them off of earth, in case anything bad might happen. But it's fine to bring them to someone else's world. They can help with terraforming. After some fixed number of generations, they stop making copies of themselves, and start making things more Earth like. But this planet has seen replicator swarms in it's past, and has defenses. First it takes out the player's starship, but they make it to the surface in a shuttle. Then the planet starts constructing a weapon to deal with the source of the replicator bots. Can the characters stop the weapon from attacking Earth? Can they reason with an intelligence that sees them as an invading species? And with good reason? Try this with your own ideas. Come up with anything fun and exciting?

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Roleplaying Game Design Excuses

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GM Excuses, Part 1

First, I want to point out a fantastic podcast for writers, which you might already know about. It's called Writing Excuses. This year, the 10th season, is a master class on writing. WITH HOMEWORK! Second, I'm going to do the homework here, on my blog, but not the way the presenters intended. Instead, using my transmogrification ray, I'm going to make the homework not about writing a fiction piece, but about writing a roleplaying game adventure. Let's start!

Class 1 is Seriously, Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

And the homework is: Write down five different story adventure ideas in 150 words or less. Generate these ideas from these five sources:

1. From an interview or conversation you've had
2. From research you've done (reading science news, military history, etc)
3. From observation (go for a walk!)
4. From a piece of media (watch a movie)
5. From a piece of music (with or without lyrics)

1. (I was talking with Alison, my wife and editor, and she said, "What about a Dark Oz?" Alison is a big fan of the Wizard of Oz, and we have a collection of first editions.) The player characters in a fantasy roleplaying game find themselves brought to the land of Oz, but not the Oz we know from the books and the movie. In this Oz, good and evil are reversed. Glinda still looks and talks like a good witch, but she stays young and beautiful by stealing the life force of others. Players have to contend with munchkin assassins, a man who seems made of tin, but is really an adamantine plated killing machine, and so on. The Wizard of Oz is a Lich. If they want to get home, they'll need help, and the green hag of the North is their only hope. How can they get to her with the forces of Oz on their tale?

2. (Online article: Habitable exoplanets are bad news for humanity) In a space exploration game, the PCs are astronauts on the first manned expedition to an exoplanet that unmanned probes have found to habitable. They have also found what appear to be ruins. When the PCs awake from deep sleep, they are greated with the news that the great filter struck Earth just after they left. A nanotech facility in India imploded and nano-biobot replicators were released that turned organic material into copies of themselves. The living world was drowned in a gray goo of nanobots. A few tiny space colonies survive in the solar system, but are not tenable long term. Can the PCs find a solution on the alien world that will give humanity a second chance? Or will they unleash the alien version of the great filter and destroy themselves?

3. (Went for a walk. The woman behind the bakery counter filled coffee, moved inventory around, and left. Like she couldn't see me.) The player characters trigger a trap that takes them outside normal life. They can move around, see and hear people, but no one can perceive them. While they struggle to find a way home, they find other beings are also out of phase with reality. These being are spying on the world, up to no good, and they notice the PCs have slipped into this voyeur side world. Can the PCs thwart the threat from this extra-dimensional source? And can they find their way home?

4. (Media: Drood by Dan Simmons) The player characters are occult investigators in Victorian England who meet a popular writer, Wilkie Collins, who claims that Charles Dickens has been possessed by an Egyptian demon. He says that Dickens is now a cannibal necromancer with a cult to carry out his mysterious and unholy wishes. While there are plenty of reasons to distrust Collins, the characters keep running into evidence that is consistent with his wild accusations. Are the thieves breaking into the characters' flats robbers or cultists?  Can the characters be seen to be spouting lunatic libels about the most popular writer of his time? Can they restore Dickens to himself?

5. (World Without Tears, by Lucinda Williams) A misery demon has come to town, and it doesn't mean to leave. Bruises fly in packs, searching for faces to lie upon. Scars hunt for skin to etch themselves into. Guns load themselves and find unstable hands to slip into. Occult investigator PCs need to stop these manifestations, and track them down to the source. Can the PCs find the demon before its manifestations cripple them? Can they find the means to banish it so it won't come back? What drew it here in the first place?

That was fun. Try it for your own game.

Happy Gaming!

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PS, want to see what a real writer does with this homework assignment? Let's snoop on Christy Shorey. Here she is, coming up with cool story ideas. And you know, a cool story idea is often a cool adventure idea, so this snooping is Dread Unicorn approved!