DM-ing Like a Pro: Making an Adventure

"Man, I sure do like that tabletop game podcast an awful lot, I wish I could do something like that."

What if I said "you totally can!"? Hello there dear reader. @joystick_hero here with the first installment of "DM-ing Like a Pro", a blog written with the aim to help those of you who have never run a tabletop game, or bolster the skills of those of you who have run games in the past. This blog is going to end up focusing on different methods and tools that will help most with running a 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons game, although certainly there will be tips that can be applied to a variety of different games systems.

With that bit of an intro out of the way, let's jump right into the meat of this thing. Today's installment looks at the adventure construction aspect of tabletop games.

So You Want to Build an Adventure

There are a great number of guides that give advice in this matter out there on the internet. Many say to "build the world first and work down to finer details". That... Is incredibly time consuming. If you're running an adventure for friends, they will probably never think to ask "what is the principle export of this village" or "What is the ruling caste like?". In the Joystick Method™, instead of building a million things you may never use, I recommend building out from a specific moment you have in mind for your campaign.

What is the key moment you picture in your adventure? Is it sneaking into a third story building through the window? Fighting countless waves of the undead in a musty tomb? Talking the populace into overthrowing a corrupt king? Whatever it is, this is the most important thing to nail in your adventure, so why not start there?

Just pull out a piece of paper. Do it. Write your adventure thing right in the middle of it. Then circle it. I'll wait.

Notice how vague that is. I didn't put a city, or mechanics, or even who or what the heroes are chasing. Not yet. All I know is that I want my adventure to have a scene where the party is jumping from roof to roof while in persuit of a thing.

Now, we start building backwards. Start filling the story details out, don't worry about game mechanics yet. Give it the 'ol "Who, What, When, Where, Why": Let me give an example:

Who, What, When, Where, Why?

Who is being chased?

Logically, someone running around on roofs must be pretty good at acrobatics. Let's say the party is chasing a thief.

What is the reason?

The person being chased in a thief. They must have stolen something valuable. Maybe a magical item from the local wizard's guild?

When is the chase?

I don't mean a literal time (though, feel free to think that way), this is more a step where you consider what part of the overall adventure this chase takes place in. I want the chase to be towards the end of the story.

Where is the chase?

Well, I established the chase happened because a thief stole a magic thing from some wizards, so the chase itself must be happening in a part of town that's academic. The roofs belong to museums, libraries, bookstores, etc.

Why is there a chase?

In order for the adventurers to chase this thief so fast, they must have been at the place where the item was stolen. The adventurers must have expected a robbery and were there to stop it, but failed.

Boom, You Have a Foundation!

Through working backwards like this, you have ended up building a foundation for what the world around this moment looks like. It's important through most of these steps to keep things sort of malleable (unless there's something very specific you want to include!). This is because as you build more sections to the adventure, you may find that earlier decisions don't fit as well as you would like with the greater narrative you're building. That's totally cool, feel free to change any aspect at any time, it's your game after all, and the players will never be the wiser. Unless they can read minds. That's scary.

Do I Write Any of This Down?

No. Don't. Do not do that thing. Let me tell you another pitfall of playing a tabletop game: The party will never, never, NEVER do what you expect. It's good to have this stuff in mind, but if you go super in-depth about anything your group is going to go around it without even encountering it, every time.

That's okay though! Not doing this stuff saves a TON of time, and knowing your own world lets you adapt easily. Furthermore, not having every moment planned out perfectly makes it easier to avoid forcing the players on rails, which is its own talk sometime down the road.