How do you write quick, beer-and-pretzels adventures?

[Thoughtbot360]

I know how that I should make a plot skeleton, and only a handful of NPCs really need any description. Heck, look at how Blackjack writes a sample shadowrun adventure. (http://blackjack.dumpshock.com/stuff/RUNSjackpot.htm) Two NPCs worth noting!

Actually, in another run (http://blackjack.dumpshock.com/stuff/RUNStwist.htm), Blackjack has more NPCs and some only exist as "hellraisers" that cause unexpected problems.

What I don't know, however, is how to actually write my own.

Using for example, an interesting campaign concept from Morgan's Streetfighter page (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mcellis/streetfighter/) where he shrinks the prototypically international game of Street Fighter: the Storytelling game to a local scale.

In fact, I could start right now on a game based on that with only three prerequisites (beside the game stats for the NPCs, but that can be worked in at a later date.)

1) A list of local NPCs, some of which serve no purpose but to make cameos every other session in the neighborhood around the group's "base." Of course, the most interesting will be the bad guys.
2) A pulpy, half-assed reason to give overly-skeptical players as how rule by secretive super villain even works. A single mafioso running a protection racquet the entire city over that threatens people, but still has to deal with the cops I can get. The prototypical Side scroller plot? Not so much.
3) Guidelines for dealing with player capture/arrest. Actually the Street Fighter system, while a great, simple system for fighting, has no actual printed rules for death and leaves it up to the GM to invoke the Grim reaper when its dramatically (or common sensibly) appropriate.

The problem: I'm rusty on all three of those. Its a great, simple system that I could even kill after ten session if things went too badly, and I could try to weasal my way around the lack of important NPCs, consequences for party failures (SF:STG is pretty death-lite, as its a resurrectionless world), but I figure I might as well turn to the forum for some GMing advice.

Again:
1) NPCs
2) Believible, if hackneyed, explanation of Big Boss' influence and how Kung Fu fighting is the only way to dethrone him and restore the rule of law in a modern, first-world city.(Everyone was Kung Fu fighting.. Woo! ha!)
3) What happens after the idiot of the group sets off a sleep grenade inside the party's car just 2.5 seconds before they crash into the bad guy's hideout. (Hmm...wonder if knows Mr. Petrol? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35511))

Help?

[That Lanky Bugger]

Plagiarism is how most good DMing works.

My method, if I'm out of ideas and the gaming group is going to be coming over in half an hour, is pretty simple.

Step 1: Pick a random Zelda game, or use a D6:

{table]1|Legend of Zelda|4|Ocarina of Time
2|Link to the Past|5|Majora's Mask
3|Link's Awakening|6|Wind Waker[/table]

2) Pick a random dungeon from the randomly selected game above, and invert and then mirror the dungeon's layout. If the dungeon relies on one element (IE Fire Temple), switch out for another element.

3) Select some monsters and populate!

This has saved my butt a few times. Chuck a magical item the PCs need at the end, use an appropriate plot hook, and switch out the blatantly obvious Master Key for something appropriate. Voila! Instant adventure!

[Cybren]

Link's Awakening but no Twlight Princess or Oracles? pfft

[That Lanky Bugger]

Twilight's a little too recent and I never played Oracles.

This even works for Shadowrun. Just square off the rounded edges and make some of the puzzles and locked doors computers for the Decker to hack in to. ;)

[Logos7]

I tend to use random list's sometimes 1/2 populated with suggestions from players ( Especially in the treasure department)

Their was a series of 6 articles on this on the WOTC page, try searching for wolfgang on their search engine and you should find it, good stuff. I don't always like his magic item design but when it comes to adventure design i t hink the guy has it down.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ab/20060908a

link to 4/6 in the series

If your looking for inspiration and not just a suggestion for the distribution of the encounter's here's my biggest hint

Steal the Heck out of Other Media

Recently my Group had to " Save the Girl to Save Sharn" and acted like HERO"S doing it, as they fought the evil's of the human-gnome project ( Who's Nefarious Ajenda to combine the kewlness of humans with the awesomeness of gnomes succeedingi in making Eberron's First Home, not that my Players Know that yet ....

Logos

[Lapak]

I'll second the 'good artists borrow, great artists steal' approach to quick-and-dirty adventure construction. Applying it to your example, it's often easiest to draw from related materials if at all possible. In this case, you have a simple-as-pie analogue to draw from for item 2: kung fu tournament movies.

Big Bad Boss is indeed a powerful criminal, who stays clear of 'standard justice' by a combination of buying off the police department and not doing anyone outright evil in public. (Or by making sure no witnesses survive his public crimes.) The police won't handle him, and the few who want to can't get the evidence they need to convict him. The players would like to. Maybe he turned their neighborhood into a war zone, maybe he killed their family ten years ago on his way up the criminal ladder, but they're out to get him.

Conveniently, he's staging an underground kung-fu tournament in order to find a new group of bodyguards. He is the mightiest kung fu warrior of all, and will only personally interview/fight with the warriors who can fight their way to the finals.

The players have a reason to fight, and a way to do so while 'undercover,' so capture and losing a fight doesn't automatically mean death. They have the opportunity to sneak and and spy in the bad guys fabulous mansion-base, risking actual capture and death if they leave evidence behind.

Do you recognize the movie I'm filing the serial numbers off of? Good. Now, to make it less recognizable, draw from a completely different source for your NPCs. Don't have a man with a wooden hand, for example. Instead, grab another source altogether when you adapt some people for flavor, some people for plot, and some people for red herrings.

Red Herrings, through the power of association, lead me to another movie. So, your NPCs:

- Major Dijon: This vicious master of savate is the criminal genius running the tournament. A French man who spent many years in French Indochina while that was still the region's name, he wears the saffron robes of a holy man in order to hide his brutal nature from those who do not know it and to flaunt his lack of respect in the face of those who do.

- Lavender: Dijon's right-hand man, this mad doctor is the chief researcher of designer drugs as well as the man who does most of the 'interrogation' of captured enemies. A session or two can revolve around wrecking his lab or taking him out without breaking cover.

- The Bride: This woman, always wearing a long white dress, lurks on the sidelines whenever the PCs are around. She observes every fight, she happens to be at the coffee shop they charge through to get away from pursuing goons, and so on. She may be significant, or she may be nothing but flavor. Why does she wear a wedding dress all the time? Why is she always around? The PCs will want to know.

- The Crimson Killer: This masked woman is one of the contestants that the PCs will have to fight past to win the tournament. Dressed entirely in red from head to toe and masked in such a way as to be blind, she is a fearsome warrior.

Two separate sources. When I list them separately, the connections become obvious; when there's a woman in white always hanging around the tournament with an unknown agenda, it makes both of the source materials different and fresh.

And it was all just free-association made by taking one basic plot and combining it with character names from somewhere else.

[Darrin]

Well, if you haven't even got beer-and-pretzels...

http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue1/gmingwithnothing.html

[Thoughtbot360]

I'll second the 'good artists borrow, great artists steal' approach to quick-and-dirty adventure construction. Applying it to your example, it's often easiest to draw from related materials if at all possible. In this case, you have a simple-as-pie analogue to draw from for item 2: kung fu tournament movies.

Big Bad Boss is indeed a powerful criminal, who stays clear of 'standard justice' by a combination of buying off the police department and not doing anyone outright evil in public. (Or by making sure no witnesses survive his public crimes.) The police won't handle him, and the few who want to can't get the evidence they need to convict him. The players would like to. Maybe he turned their neighborhood into a war zone, maybe he killed their family ten years ago on his way up the criminal ladder, but they're out to get him.

Conveniently, he's staging an underground kung-fu tournament in order to find a new group of bodyguards. He is the mightiest kung fu warrior of all, and will only personally interview/fight with the warriors who can fight their way to the finals.

The players have a reason to fight, and a way to do so while 'undercover,' so capture and losing a fight doesn't automatically mean death. They have the opportunity to sneak and and spy in the bad guys fabulous mansion-base, risking actual capture and death if they leave evidence behind.

Do you recognize the movie I'm filing the serial numbers off of? Good. Now, to make it less recognizable, draw from a completely different source for your NPCs. Don't have a man with a wooden hand, for example. Instead, grab another source altogether when you adapt some people for flavor, some people for plot, and some people for red herrings.

Red Herrings, through the power of association, lead me to another movie. So, your NPCs:

- Major Dijon: This vicious master of savate is the criminal genius running the tournament. A French man who spent many years in French Indochina while that was still the region's name, he wears the saffron robes of a holy man in order to hide his brutal nature from those who do not know it and to flaunt his lack of respect in the face of those who do.

- Lavender: Dijon's right-hand man, this mad doctor is the chief researcher of designer drugs as well as the man who does most of the 'interrogation' of captured enemies. A session or two can revolve around wrecking his lab or taking him out without breaking cover.

- The Bride: This woman, always wearing a long white dress, lurks on the sidelines whenever the PCs are around. She observes every fight, she happens to be at the coffee shop they charge through to get away from pursuing goons, and so on. She may be significant, or she may be nothing but flavor. Why does she wear a wedding dress all the time? Why is she always around? The PCs will want to know.

- The Crimson Killer: This masked woman is one of the contestants that the PCs will have to fight past to win the tournament. Dressed entirely in red from head to toe and masked in such a way as to be blind, she is a fearsome warrior.

Two separate sources. When I list them separately, the connections become obvious; when there's a woman in white always hanging around the tournament with an unknown agenda, it makes both of the source materials different and fresh.

And it was all just free-association made by taking one basic plot and combining it with character names from somewhere else.

Thank you for sharing, Lapak, really, but I have to ask, being the nit picky person I am: Why a wedding dress? I know she's probably rich enough to afford several copies (considering her fairly obvious connections to Dijon) but it seems like a wedding dress is outside the parameters of what say, the other patrons of the coffee shop would expect. A lady in a formal dress would certainly not be casual, but she wouldn't attract the attention a wedding dress would. Those tend to be extravagate and only worn during your actual wedding.

[Matthew]

I don't think she's actually wearing a Wedding Dress; I think it is just a nickname, as she is always wearing a white dress.

[Thoughtbot360]

I don't think she's actually wearing a Wedding Dress; I think it is just a nickname, as she is always wearing a white dress.

Maybe so. That makes more sense.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

I started my present campaign with literally an hour's planning. It took longer for my players to write their character sheets then anything else. I thought up a couple plot twists, then started playing. My years of fiction writing apparently kicked in, and I ended up fleshing out the world while the players were in it instead of afterwards. The hardest part was figuring out the stats for everything, since I ad-lib NPC's too. I end up basing it off of the player's potential stats, then make them higher or lower as needed to compete with CR.

I've done it like this for almost our entire campaign now. Surprisingly, it works.

[Lapak]

Thank you for sharing, Lapak, really, but I have to ask, being the nit picky person I am: Why a wedding dress? I know she's probably rich enough to afford several copies (considering her fairly obvious connections to Dijon) but it seems like a wedding dress is outside the parameters of what say, the other patrons of the coffee shop would expect. A lady in a formal dress would certainly not be casual, but she wouldn't attract the attention a wedding dress would. Those tend to be extravagate and only worn during your actual wedding.I actually hadn't thought about that, as I was just free-associating while throwing together Enter the Dragon, Street Fighter, a mob movie, and Clue and I needed a Mrs. White stand-in. The article of clothing that leaped to mind for 'full-body monochrome women's clothing' was 'wedding dress', though I was picturing one of the more subdued styles of wedding dress, such as one that a friend of mine recently wore in a wedding on the beach. Minimal train, no veil, cut to walk in, but still obviously a wedding dress.

And, whether I decide to use her as a MacGuffin, a distraction, a helpful NPC, or a red herring, 'attention-getting' is precisely the effect I'm looking for, trying to generate the reaction you had from my players.

If I'm *really* short on time, the Viscount's point is a good one too: I wrote that out as I went, and if I needed to start the session the minute I was done I might very well let the PCs' actions help me determine what significance she had, if any.

[Pocket lint]

For some reason, I got an image of a blonde woman in a yellow training outfit wielding a katana....

But maybe that's just me :P

[Helgraf]

I started my present campaign with literally an hour's planning. It took longer for my players to write their character sheets then anything else. I thought up a couple plot twists, then started playing. My years of fiction writing apparently kicked in, and I ended up fleshing out the world while the players were in it instead of afterwards. The hardest part was figuring out the stats for everything, since I ad-lib NPC's too. I end up basing it off of the player's potential stats, then make them higher or lower as needed to compete with CR.

I've done it like this for almost our entire campaign now. Surprisingly, it works.

Ahh hell, I began and ran my longest ever campaign that way. When I moved to Florida, the players loved it so much one of them took over. Needless to say they were a bit surprised by the lack of reams of notes on my part. This same game has transitioned from 2nd ED Skills & Powers to 3.5 Ed/Epic level; when I moved back to Jersey 5.5 years after I left it was (and is) still running - and I have since rejoined it as a player.

I began the campaign as a Halloween one shot adventure. As I recall, the five players had the following characters:

2 Half Orc Cleric/Thieves
2 Human Thieves (or possibly 1 human, 1 elf)
1 Human Monk.

I looked at what was handed me, and was struck with inspiration and cliche.

The Monk was to be the party's parole officer until such time as they had earned their full freedom or their actions required more permanent incarceration.

This group actually took to that with relish - some of them tried to make political friends to buy their freedom, some tried to make a dash for it (the monk's superior movement put a stop to that quickly enough), one of them did a lot of work to show they'd originally been framed for the crime. It was glorious. I was fleshing out by the skin of my pants for the entire night and well into the next several session.

As for writing your own 'on the fly' stuff - yeah, steal steal steal. Just take a few steps to customize your acquisitions and make them your own. The art of theft is in taking other people's stuff then changing it enough that it no longer can be recognized as other people's stuff. (You're jacking a car, then taking it to a paint and customization shop to change how it looks, if you will).

Also, remember - the cliche is your friend; but if your players seem a little too on to your game, switch it up. If you do it right, they;ll never realize you did it on the fly to catch them off guard.

[alchemy.freak]

just watch tv and flick around on the channels. eventually a good idea will present itself. just adapt the setting and change some names, and voila, a good quick adventure. you may want to add some monsters and treasure for effect though.

[TheOOB]

I've virtually pulled a dozen shadowrun 4e adventures out of a hat, between the modern setting and the really easy redshirt generation it's not that hard.

"Let's see, Mr. Johnson wants you to raid a gangs warehouse and steel their stock of BTL chips"

After that all you need is designs for a warehouse(hmm, try a giant cube with boxes in it) and gangers (lets see, stats at 3, pistols 2, perception 2, viola!).