I have run into the problem many times whilst building adventures where I can't get started. No idea seems worth spending even a session on. A technique that's helped me has been picking a gimmick, and then prepping as little as I can, while still having a full session worth of stuff. The first part is simple, just think of one unique thing to use as a gimmick. A magic lantern that can reveal secrets, a giant statue that must be destroyed before the curse placed on it destroys the surrounding area, or any other easy to work with, flexible concept to build your adventure around.
A few tips for picking a gimmick:
1. Make sure you can use it as a way to introduce action when things bog down. For example, the cursed statue could animate some vegetation within it's radius. Basically, this helps you prep more lightly, because you have unlimited encounters prepared by just writing down one gimmick.
2. Make sure it's not to well defined so that you can't use it for whatever you want. Don't make it so your gimmick can only do a few things before breaking the players' suspension of disbelief. But don't take this too far and remove all focus and predictability.
3. Don't make it too hard to run, or have it complicate the basic gameplay too much.
After picking a gimmick, make a quick framework, a few npcs, any maps, and a few encounters. Use or don't use these things in your session, just make up a way for them to relate to each other and make up their reactions to the gimmick. Think clocktown in majora's mask. The inhabitants are reacting to the gimmick (the moon falling) by freaking out, or denying it's happening.
That really all you need for an adventure. It sometimes makes for a predictable adventure structure, but it tends to work pretty well.
Instead of a "gimmick" I build the adventure around a "conflict", or - as Angry GM would put it , a "dramatic question". Break that down, and a "dramatic question" is really a combination of a Adversary ( local goblin tribe ), a Goal that the Party can oppose ( they want to sacrifice here to consecrate a new shrine, the Party has been hired to rescue her ), and Ending conditions ( either the Party rescues her, or the Goblins sacrifice her ) - all boiled down into the dramatic question: "Can the Party rescue the Blacksmith's daughter before she is sacrificed by the Goblin tribe"?
The rest of my design strategy is pretty much as you laid out: put your creative energies into the NPCs, their goals and how they behave, locations, and a pocketful of Events and Plot Complications you can toss into the mix when things get bogged down, or when you need to slow down the pace.
I suspect that you're doing much the same thing - finding your Adversary and their Goals when you make up your NPCs and "make up a way for them to relate to each other and make up their reactions to the gimmick".
Or to flip it around, the point of conflict between the various Agencies in how I look at is the "gimmick" in your perspective.
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Instead of a "gimmick" I build the adventure around a "conflict", or - as Angry GM would put it , a "dramatic question". Break that down, and a "dramatic question" is really a combination of a Adversary ( local goblin tribe ), a Goal that the Party can oppose ( they want to sacrifice here to consecrate a new shrine, the Party has been hired to rescue her ), and Ending conditions ( either the Party rescues her, or the Goblins sacrifice her ) - all boiled down into the dramatic question: "Can the Party rescue the Blacksmith's daughter before she is sacrificed by the Goblin tribe"?
The rest of my design strategy is pretty much as you laid out: put your creative energies into the NPCs, their goals and how they behave, locations, and a pocketful of Events and Plot Complications you can toss into the mix when things get bogged down, or when you need to slow down the pace.
I suspect that you're doing much the same thing - finding your Adversary and their Goals when you make up your NPCs and "make up a way for them to relate to each other and make up their reactions to the gimmick".
Or to flip it around, the point of conflict between the various Agencies in how I look at is the "gimmick" in your perspective.
Another thing to note: This is not a be all end all of adventure design. Sometimes you will have an idea too good to pass up that simply won't work in this context.
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I did NOT eat those hikers.
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I have run into the problem many times whilst building adventures where I can't get started. No idea seems worth spending even a session on. A technique that's helped me has been picking a gimmick, and then prepping as little as I can, while still having a full session worth of stuff. The first part is simple, just think of one unique thing to use as a gimmick. A magic lantern that can reveal secrets, a giant statue that must be destroyed before the curse placed on it destroys the surrounding area, or any other easy to work with, flexible concept to build your adventure around.
A few tips for picking a gimmick:
1. Make sure you can use it as a way to introduce action when things bog down. For example, the cursed statue could animate some vegetation within it's radius. Basically, this helps you prep more lightly, because you have unlimited encounters prepared by just writing down one gimmick.
2. Make sure it's not to well defined so that you can't use it for whatever you want. Don't make it so your gimmick can only do a few things before breaking the players' suspension of disbelief. But don't take this too far and remove all focus and predictability.
3. Don't make it too hard to run, or have it complicate the basic gameplay too much.
After picking a gimmick, make a quick framework, a few npcs, any maps, and a few encounters. Use or don't use these things in your session, just make up a way for them to relate to each other and make up their reactions to the gimmick. Think clocktown in majora's mask. The inhabitants are reacting to the gimmick (the moon falling) by freaking out, or denying it's happening.
That really all you need for an adventure. It sometimes makes for a predictable adventure structure, but it tends to work pretty well.
I did NOT eat those hikers.
Instead of a "gimmick" I build the adventure around a "conflict", or - as Angry GM would put it , a "dramatic question". Break that down, and a "dramatic question" is really a combination of a Adversary ( local goblin tribe ), a Goal that the Party can oppose ( they want to sacrifice here to consecrate a new shrine, the Party has been hired to rescue her ), and Ending conditions ( either the Party rescues her, or the Goblins sacrifice her ) - all boiled down into the dramatic question: "Can the Party rescue the Blacksmith's daughter before she is sacrificed by the Goblin tribe"?
The rest of my design strategy is pretty much as you laid out: put your creative energies into the NPCs, their goals and how they behave, locations, and a pocketful of Events and Plot Complications you can toss into the mix when things get bogged down, or when you need to slow down the pace.
I suspect that you're doing much the same thing - finding your Adversary and their Goals when you make up your NPCs and "make up a way for them to relate to each other and make up their reactions to the gimmick".
Or to flip it around, the point of conflict between the various Agencies in how I look at is the "gimmick" in your perspective.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Maybe different words for the same thing?
I did NOT eat those hikers.
Another thing to note: This is not a be all end all of adventure design. Sometimes you will have an idea too good to pass up that simply won't work in this context.
I did NOT eat those hikers.