Creating Your Own Adventure

I want to preface this article by saying I have nothing against pre-written modules, and that the information presented herein is not the “right” or “only” way to go about creating your own adventure. This process is simply the way I do it and is what works best for me. I will attempt to give tips for adventure creation that will hopefully be of use to the experienced DM as well as a newcomer to the hobby.

N1 - Against the Cult of the Reptile God, U1 - The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, HM1 -The Disappearance of Harold the Hedge Mage (by yours truly); all great modules and a great way to kick off any campaign. However, sometimes pre-written modules just don’t fit with what a DM is trying to accomplish. Perhaps you are trying to introduce a new setting, perhaps you have a greater campaign in mind and need to get the players thinking along a certain track, or maybe you just have a creative urge you want to see come to life. Regardless of the reason, many DMs will eventually look to create adventures themselves.

The following are the steps I take when designing an adventure, as I go through the steps I will post examples—building a sample adventure.

The Baseline This is the foundation of your adventure, it is the thing that everything else will be built off of. For example, the baseline in Against the Cult of the Reptile God is that a Spirit Naga is charming villagers. Once you have your baseline you can begin to build your framework.

How do you get your baseline? This can be the hardest part of writing an adventure, coming up with a good idea to base a story on. Getting your baseline can be accomplished in a number of ways; some you can control and others you can’t. I have had a few adventure ideas come to me while I was sleeping, obviously we have no control over things such as that, but here are a few tricks I have used to gain ideas.

Brainstorm

Sit down with a piece of paper and pencil and write down a short sentence with any idea that pops into your head. Give yourself a timeframe such as fifteen minutes in which to do this. The key here is not to ignore any of your thoughts as “stupid” and as a result not write them down; write down everything. At the end of the fifteen minutes, stop and carefully go back over your list and think about each idea. If one of the written ideas immediately causes you to imagine how you could expand on the basic thought then you could well have a baseline for your adventure. Those that don’t stir your mind when you read them, cross off the list.

Pay Attention

Sometimes the best ideas come from someone else! An offhand remark by another person could well be a trigger to a new adventure idea. Maybe a response to a post on the Dragonsfoot.org forum or a remark by one of your players can trigger an adventure base. A couple of episodes ago in the RFI podcast DM Jayson mentioned he wished there was a module where the main bad guy was a doppelganger;  this kind of offhand statement could be used by you as a source for your adventure (as a note, as soon as I heard Jayson say that I thought of writing such a module, but I had already used a doppelganger as the main antagonist in my one page dungeon submission).

Skimming

This is one of my favorite methods, and I have written several modules using it (one of which is in the editing stages and will eventually be posted on Dragonsfoot). Even though there are hundreds of creatures across 1E (from the MM, FF and MM2 to the Dragon magazines), only a handful have been used as the baseline for an adventure module. I find it interesting to flip through the books, find a creature that has been neglected, and build an adventure around it.

For the purpose of this article we will use the Skimming method. I will use what is one of my favorite books, the Fiend Folio (I know many dislike it, but I think it’s great, something I will have to tackle in a future article) and start looking through the monster list until I find something that strikes me.

The Blindheim is a funny frog-like creature with spot lights for eyes and 4+2 HD. One of these should be a good challenge for a party of levels 1-3, and as far as I know, it has never been a main feature in any published adventure (I have not read all published adventures, so I could be wrong here).

So for my baseline I have a creature, the Blindheim. It will be causing problems by killing livestock on the farms outside the village. It’s time to move on to my step 2.

The Endgame

What? You’re talking about the end when we are just getting started? Yeah … that’s right.

When I am making anything, whether it is putting something together, coding a new piece of software, or writing an adventure, I want to know what the end product should be. If I am putting together a desk I want to know what that desk is supposed to look like. If I am writing an adventure I want to know what the end point should be. Most the time it’s going to be confronting the big bad evil guy (BBEG), or uncovering the dastardly plot, but whatever it is I want to make that decision before I go any further in my creation process. This will give me direction as I continue making the adventure. It’s easier to build a maze if I have an end point already selected.

So how do you determine the endgame? Well, that really depends on your baseline. When I wrote the Chaos Halls of Belzir, I determined early on the endgame was going to be recovering the artifact amulet because my baseline was the amulet itself. Your endgame needs to have a direct correlation to your baseline.

My baseline here is the Blindheim is killing livestock, so keeping it simple, my endgame will be the characters finding and facing the Blindheim. Let’s move on to my step 3.

The Hook

We now have our foundation (the baseline), and our blueprint (endgame); time to build our framework (the hook). The Hook is our “why,” our introduction; it is what’s happening to draw in the players to take on the adventure.

So how do we develop our hook? Well, to do that we have to understand the basic reasons that players will have their characters adventure. Now, if you are writing an adventure for a specific set of players and their characters, then this part is much easier as you will have a strong idea of what motivates them. However, if you are writing a module for others to use, then you must cast a wider net and target the basic reasons for adventure.

Looting and Killing stuff

Maybe I’m wrong, or it’s just the old-school in me, but I see this as a big motivation to a great many a player character. Going back to the old-school dungeon crawl, there wasn’t much more reason to adventure than wanting to hit stuff with an axe and take its gold. This is pure adventure just for adventure’s sake, and all of the glory that comes with it is a nice benefit.

Fame and Fortune

These characters tend to have grander schemes laid out than the basic kill stuff character. While both are looking to loot whatever magic and money they can get their grubby little hands on, the kill stuff character rarely thinks beyond the next night at the tavern or the new plate armor he can buy. The fame and fortune types, however, are laying the groundwork for something bigger. They want to become a lord, and have a castle, and gather an army. They want to become well-renowned and have people in awe of them when they enter the city. They want their exploits known, to be treated as someone special. The acclaim is a large part of why they take on a challenge, and the loot and the thrill of adventure are just the added bonus.

Goody Two-Shoes

Sometimes you have a player who has decided his character’s sole motivation is “doing good.” These characters tend to want to assist everyone they meet, and help solve their problems.

“What’s that, an ogre is stealing your chickens? No problem—we will go and stop him, free of charge.”

These types are easy to hook into an adventure as all you need is someone to yell “help.”

What’s in it for Me?

Now you might think these characters would fit in with the loot and kill stuff clan, but you would be wrong. These characters don’t have a thrill for adventure, although they do tend to still have a love of loot.

“What’s that, there are strange things happening in the graveyard? So what?” “There are also rumors of a huge ruby buried there? Let’s go!”

These types can be a little harder to hook in, but we use some of the same tactics that we use for the loot and kill types.

Ideally we want to offer something attractive to all of these different types of characters as we develop our adventure introduction.

For the loot and kill it’s obvious—a chance to kill something and loot its lair. It can be as simple as “there’s an old mad wizard’s dungeon up on the mountain said to be full of monsters and gold” to draw them in. For the Goody Two Shoes you need to throw in a little bit more, something to make them feel like they are doing a good deed—such as, “an ogre kidnapped the local farmer’s daughter and dragged her up to that old mad wizard’s dungeon.”

The combination of these two is normally enough to entice the fame and fortune character to join: “An ogre kidnapped the farmer’s daughter and dragged her to the old mad wizard’s dungeon. It’s full of monsters and gold—the village would be so appreciative if you could rescue her—you would be our heroes.”

Finally—the what’s in it for me character. He isn’t going to care about the fun of adventuring, or the fame of being a hero, or helping anyone; instead, “There is a 100GP reward for rescuing her.”

I am finding the players in my group tend to be the latter.

Once we have decided on our incentives, we have to bait the hook with information that will interest our players. This relies purely on your own imagination. You will need to be inventive in creating a story background that will entice, but does not give away your endgame.

So we have to come up with a situation that will entice the above character types and include our baseline that will eventually lead to our endgame. For our sample we will use the following”

At night, strange lights are seen from the hillock near the farm land; the burial mound of a former lord. Cattle have been disappearing, and the local farmers believe it is the work of the former lord’s ghost. The village is offering 50GP per person for any group who can stop the cattle disappearances.

Some Specifics

Now that we have our base adventure information ready, it’s time to start filling it in. Here I want to note anything special that I want included in the module. Normally this would include specific monsters, traps, or magic items that will appear somewhere.

This is not meant to be a list of all such things that will appear, as we cannot start doing that until after the next step, but it is meant to be special ones that we want to make sure we add later on.

For our sample I want to be sure to note that I will be including a special trap; there will be a trap door that will open when more than 20 lbs of pressure is applied and drop the adventurers into a pit of quicksand. The trap will be in the room that is the lord’s tomb, which will be a large room, and will contain his coffin as well.

The Map

Not everyone follows the same pattern I do, and that’s ok. In fact, some people will draw the map and let it dictate everything else. However, I wait until I have my basic story, my ending, and my adventure introduction before I move on to the map.

The map is an extremely important part of the process; the map dictates what the rest of the adventure will hold. When I draw my map the one thing I keep in mind is that I need to be sure to include a place for my noted specifics above. Other than that, I just let my mind take over and draw a random map. Once it is done I will take a long look at it and make any changes I feel are necessary to fit with the look and feel of the adventure. As I have no great skill with cartography, I tend to draw my maps on graph paper, or if on the computer, Excel or Paint. For my modules that have been made available for download I was lucky enough to have someone who is good with the proper software to make maps, to take my simplistic rendition and make it look nice.

I am going to draw my initial map for our adventure, keeping in mind I need a large room that is going to be the tomb.

I decided to draw the map like I would imagine rough carved tunnels and caves would look, since it is a tomb carved into the hillside rather than straight lines and tunnels in something like a pyramid. I wanted it to be small for the purpose of this article and added just a couple of rooms other than the main tomb. Now I will look over it and decide if I want to make any changes.

I have decided to make a slight change—I don’t want my Blindheim laired in the tomb itself, but I did want its lair connected to the tomb. So, I have made a slight adjustment and numbered the map.

Now I know what my adventure is about, how I will get the players involved, where they will be going (my map), and how I want it to end. It’s time to fill out my planned encounters and other specific adventure elements.

The Guts

Here is where we fill in the main body of the adventure. This is where we determine what encounters will occur where and any special circumstances. We will use our map as our guide for placement, and our imagination to actually create the encounters.

There are different ways to go about setting up your encounters—some people roll on a random chart, or just pick creatures at random. There could be a dungeon with a vampire in a room down the hall from some ogres, who is across the hall from a werewolf. When deciding on encounters, I try to rationalize the creatures used. I try to keep a given area filled with different creatures that I could see living together. If I am using undead, then it will mostly be undead along with a few things that undead would most likely not attack, like maybe a black pudding, a gelatinous cube, and a golem. I try not to mix creatures that I think would kill each other. You also have to keep in mind the levels of the characters intended to go through the adventure. Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t throw a diversion of a creature that may be too tough for the party, but if you do that you should leave them an out, some way for them to escape without the TPK (total party kill). In Harold the Hedge Mage I did just that as I included a hydra in the adventure. I know the hydra is far too powerful for a 1st level party, but I specifically mentioned that if any of the characters retreat back the way they came, the hydra will not be able to get to them. Why even include it, then? Because it gives the DM a future idea for an adventure they can expand on. After the characters have gained a few levels they know where they can find a more powerful creature to fight (and loot).

In addition to creature encounters, I also include traps, treasure, and room descriptions here. This portion of the adventure creation process takes perhaps the greatest amount of time. It requires you to gear up your creativity as you try to make sense of the different rooms, why they exist and what they were used for.

So keep in mind any pre-decided creatures you will be using and the levels of the characters you intend to go through the adventure. For our sample we know we will have our Blindheim, so we won’t include any monsters that we would think would be in direct competition with it. We also know we are looking at levels 1-3 for our PCs.

Room #1

This appears to have been a storage chamber. It contains common items that, it was believed, the lord would need in the afterlife. Stacked along the walls are crates with ancient clothing, trays with ancient rotted and petrified food, and several bottles of wine and whiskey (5 each).

Giant rats have chewed through several of the crates and made nests within the clothing, they are aggressive and will attack anyone approaching their crates.

5 Giant Rats (HD:1/2 HP:2, 1, 4, 2, 2, 3 AC:7 A/DAM:1/1-3+special) (MM)

Room #2

This room appears to have been created to depict the life of the fallen lord. On the walls are tapestries that have begun to rot, depicting the lord through the different stages of his life. One shows him as a boy learning to ride a stallion, one shows him as an adult leading men in battle, and a third shows him as a wise ruler seated upon a throne. There are two full suits of rusting plate armor along the north wall and two more along the south wall. In the center of the room is a pedestal with a stand on top holding a long sword and shield.

The four suits of armor each hold a skeleton. The skeletons will activate if any of the suits of armor are touched, or if the pedestal or its contents are touched. As they begin to move, the rusted armor will fall away revealing the skeletons underneath.

4 skeletons (HD:1 HP:4, 7, 6, 4 AC:7 A/DAM1/1-6) (MM)

The sword is a normal long sword, however, the shield is a cursed shield -1 missile attractor.

Room #3

This is the tomb of the lord. Painted on the walls all around the room are depictions of the deceased lord in life as well as depictions of him in the heavens. In the center of the room on a raised platform is a great stone sarcophagus with large candelabra at each end. Light radiates from both candelabra, filling the room. On the floor are the remains of three cows, mostly devoured; there are only strips of flesh left. Giant rats chew on the remains and start to scramble around the room as the party enters.

The rats will not attack as this is not their nest, instead they will run from the room back into room 1.

4 giant rats (HD:1/2 HP:1, 2, 2, 3 AC:7 A/DAM:1/1-3+special) (MM)

Both candelabra are the source of a continual light spell, and the 6’ x 6’ areas on both sides of the sarcophagus are spring-loaded trap doors. When more than 20 lbs is placed on either door it will swing down, dropping anything on top into quicksand in the 20’ deep pit below, then closing again quickly. Anyone falling into the quicksand will be completely submerged in 3 rounds.

Inside the sarcophagi are the remains of the lord; he is dressed in rotting silk clothes and wears a gold pendant around his neck (worth 200GP). In the northeast corner of the room is what appears to have once been a concealed door that has been battered down.

Room #4

Unless the party takes some special stealth precautions the Blindheim will hear them coming down the tunnel. When they reach the mouth of the room it will let loose its eyebeams. The ravenous creature will leap towards the party to attack.

Blindheim (HD:4+1 HP:20 AC:1(3) A/DAM:1/1-8+special) (FF)

The Blindheim came from a series of nearby caverns, and it was hunting for food when it found the entrance to this tomb. It decided to stay in the tomb as the cattle grazed nearby, and at night it would leave to go and drag back a cow to feed on. The eerie lights seen by the villagers were the lights from the Blindheim's eyes in the distance. The creature dragged the cattle to the tomb, as it was the largest room, and it found the secret door that led to the lord’s buried stash. It has been using this secret room as its lair.

Inside are 3 large clay jars. Each jar holds a large amount of coin that was placed for the lord to use in the afterlife. 1000 cp 1000 sp 800 gp

Also in the clay pot with the gold is a beautifully crafted dagger (dagger +1).

We have now created the main portion of our adventure using the pieces we decided on earlier. Now we have to move on to the final steps.

Finishing Touches

This is where we fill in the holes to our adventure. Things like the description of the village, directions from the village to the tomb, the description of the tomb’s entrance … it is also where I create any special wandering monster tables I want used. This is also where I would put any special DM notes needed to run the adventure. This step can be very long and time consuming, as it takes a lot of writing to give all of the necessary descriptions, and explanations to tie everything together.

The party is given directions to the hillock that holds the tomb of the local lord. When they arrive, they find a large earthen mound. Near the top there is an entrance that appears to have once been a wooden door overgrown with earth and grass, but has now been busted in revealing the tomb’s entrance.

You will need to go through your adventure and make such descriptions where ever they are needed, most likely at any transition areas.

Appendix

The final step is to create an appendix where I list anything new such as monsters or magic items, and any NPCs that need full stats. This is also where I put all of the maps used.

Once this is done I will put everything into a document in chronological order from my introduction to the appendix.

I now have my adventure. If I am looking to publish this, I would find someone to proofread it, make my map actually look good, and perhaps do some artwork. After it has all been put together I would need to find someone to give it a nice layout and transform it into a PDF.

I hope this has been helpful to you in some way—at  least given you a few new ideas on how to help build your adventures.

Sample Adventure

Adventure Introduction

The party has entered a small village. At some point they will overhear complaints from the locals about the haunting on the hill where strange lights are seen, believed to be a ghost. They will also hear about cattle that have been disappearing at night, and the local farmers are offering an award of 50GP per person to anyone who can solve the mystery and stop the disappearances.

The Hill

The hill contains the tomb of a former lord who was buried long ago. If the party investigates the hill they will find a shaft that appears to have once been a wooden door that was overgrown with earth and grass, but has now been busted inward, revealing the tomb’s entrance.

While in the tomb, use the following chart for random encounters, a chance for an encounter is 1 in 6 each turn.

Dice Roll Creature (# appearing) 01-50 Giant Rat (2-5) 51-75 Giant Centipede (1-4) 76-100 Large Spider (1-4)

Room #1

This appears to have been a storage chamber. It contains common items that, it was believed, the lord would need in the afterlife. Stacked along the walls are crates with ancient clothing, trays with ancient rotted and petrified food, and several bottles of wine and whiskey (5 each).

Giant rats have chewed through several of the crates and made nests within the clothing. They are aggressive and will attack anyone approaching their crates..

5 Giant Rats (HD:1/4 HP:2, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3 AC:8 A/DAM:1/1-3+special) (MM)

Room #2

This room appears to have been created to depict the life of the fallen lord. On the walls are tapestries that have begun to rot, depicting the lord through the different stages of his life. One shows him as a boy learning to ride a stallion, one shows him as an adult leading men in battle, and a third shows him as a wise ruler seated upon a throne. There are two full suits of rusting plate armor along the north wall and two more along the south wall. In the center of the room is a pedestal with a stand on top holding a long sword and shield.

The four suits of armor each hold a skeleton. The skeletons will activate if any of the suits of armor are touched, or if the pedestal or its contents are touched. As they begin to move the rusted armor will fall away, revealing the skeletons underneath.

4 skeletons (HD:1 HP:4, 7, 6, 4 AC:7 A/DAM1/1-6) (MM)

The sword is a normal long sword, however, the shield is a cursed shield -1 missile attractor.

Room #3

This is the tomb of the lord. Painted on the walls all around them room are depictions of the deceased lord in life as well as depictions of him in the heavens. In the center of the room on a raised platform is a great stone sarcophagus with large candelabra at each end. Light radiates from both candelabra, filling the room. On the floor are the remains of three cows, mostly devoured; there are only strips of flesh left. Giant rats chew on the remains and start to scramble around the room as the party enters.

The rats will not attack as this is not their nest, instead they will run from the room back into room 1.

4 giant rats (HD:1/4 HP:1, 2, 2, 1 AC:8 A/DAM:1/1-3) (MM)

Both candelabra are the source of a continual light spells, and the 6’ x 6’ areas on both sides of the sarcophagus are spring loaded trap doors. When more than 20 lbs is placed on either door, it will swing down dropping anything on top into quicksand in the 20’ deep pit below, then closing again quickly. Anyone falling into the quicksand will be completely submerged in three rounds.

Inside the sarcophagi are the remains of the lord, he is dressed in rotting silk clothes and wears a gold pendant around his neck (worth 200GP). In the northeast corner of the room is what appears to have once been a concealed door that has been battered down.

Room #4

Unless the party takes some special stealth precautions, the Blindheim will hear them coming down the tunnel. When the reach the mouth of the room it will let loose its eyebeams. The ravenous creature will leap towards the party to attack.

Blindheim (HD:4+1 HP:20 AC:1(3) A/DAM:1/1-8+special) (FF)

The Blindheim came from a series of nearby caverns, and it was hunting for food when it found the entrance to this tomb. It decided to stay in the tomb as the cattle grazed nearby, and at night it would leave to go and drag back a cow to feed on. The eerie lights seen by the villagers were the lights from the Blindheim’s eyes in the distance. The creature dragged the cattle to the tomb, as it was the largest room, and found the secret door that led to the lord’s buried stash. It has been using this secret room as its lair.

Inside are three large clay jars. Each jar holds a large amount of coin that was placed for the lord to use in the afterlife. 1000 cp 1000 sp 800 gp

Also in the clay pot with the gold is a beautifully crafted dagger (dagger +1).

Conclusion

If the characters are successful and inform the town of their success they will be treated as heroes. The townspeople will pay them their fee and throw a feast in their honor.

Appendix

Maps