{"id":7050,"date":"2023-03-13T04:00:34","date_gmt":"2023-03-13T08:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/?p=7050"},"modified":"2023-03-13T19:15:22","modified_gmt":"2023-03-13T23:15:22","slug":"crashs-course-ep-08-preparing-adventures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/2023\/03\/crashs-course-ep-08-preparing-adventures\/","title":{"rendered":"Crash&#8217;s Course Ep 08: Preparing Adventures"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_2209\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-7050-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/cogwheelgaming\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/CrashsCourse_Ep_08_PreparingAdventures.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/cogwheelgaming\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/CrashsCourse_Ep_08_PreparingAdventures.mp3\">https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/cogwheelgaming\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/CrashsCourse_Ep_08_PreparingAdventures.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/cogwheelgaming\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/CrashsCourse_Ep_08_PreparingAdventures.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/?powerpress_pinw=7050-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/cogwheelgaming\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/CrashsCourse_Ep_08_PreparingAdventures.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"CrashsCourse_Ep_08_PreparingAdventures.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p><a href=\"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-4404\" src=\"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse-300x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse-768x768.png 768w, https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse-1024x1024.png 1024w, https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse.png 1400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Hello and welcome to Crash\u2019s Course, a short form podcast where I share my thoughts and advice on playing and running tabletop role playing games in roughly about 5 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Lately I\u2019ve been working on a 1-shot adventure, so in this episode I thought I\u2019d share some of my common steps for designing scenarios for my group.<\/p>\n<p>Yeah, running an adventure made by someone else can be really fun. It\u2019s not that it\u2019s less work, especially if you\u2019re trying to be as close to the printed adventure as possible. It\u2019s about having a shared story, a bonding experience, and \u2026 oh, yeah, you don\u2019t need to think up an entire adventure\u2019s plot hooks on your own.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026 until the players leave the beaten path of the printed adventure and you have to ad-lib what happens next, at least.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I\u2019ve run a few printed adventures, but never exactly as they were printed. Sometimes I only took a few elements that looked like they\u2019d fit my existing campaign and messed with those. More often, I write my own stuff \u2026 mostly.<\/p>\n<p>It starts with writing random ideas down. This can occur anywhere, and I have a notebook I keep around for such an occasion. More recently, I made a channel in our Discord called \u201cCampaign Seeds\u201d to both use as scratch paper and gauge how my friends react. The stronger the reaction, the more likely I am to at least pull some of that idea into my next campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Each idea I post contains the following things:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>A rough idea of the kind of characters who will be involved,<\/li>\n<li>The goal they\u2019re attempting to achieve,<\/li>\n<li>At least some of their motivation for achieving that goal.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>There may or may not be other details included, but these are the big three for me. Yes, I\u2019m limiting character creation by saying \u201cYou are all doing X at the start of the adventure,\u201d but having the characters all start in a bar or tavern is so darned clich\u00e9 that the only time I went there it turned out to not actually be a tavern. Also the characters were all dead. It\u2019s a long story.<\/p>\n<p>With the starting point of some common ground for the characters and their motivation, we bypass the awkward small talk of characters who have nothing in common and may actually prefer to be enemies followed by everyone agreeing to be fast friends because the players want the adventure to actually get started for real, now (whether or not the characters would do that).<\/p>\n<p>Sure, the players might not like the stated motivation or common player element I\u2019ve suggested, but that\u2019s why I\u2019m sharing it in advance. If they don\u2019t like it, they tell me, or at the very least don\u2019t make a character and sign up on the schedule.<\/p>\n<p>With that out of the way, it\u2019s time to flesh things out a bit more. I won\u2019t stat up the big bad quite yet, as I usually wait until closer to when the characters are going to encounter them. If it\u2019s going to be a 1-shot, I wait until I\u2019ve at least read some backstories.<\/p>\n<p>I might make a map of a starting town or roll up a few NPCs, but TTRPGs have enough somewhat generic stat blocks that even that isn\u2019t necessary unless I\u2019m inspired by those backstories I just mentioned.<\/p>\n<p>I love character backstories. I joke that \u201cbackstory\u201d is a fancy word that means \u201cHow can the GM hurt the character emotionally?\u201d There\u2019s some truth in that, but they also mention friends, family members, and locations. Any time I can weave those into the campaign the whole thing becomes more collaborative, and the players become much more invested in the story.<\/p>\n<p>The party reacts differently when Random Shopkeep 26a is actually the wizard\u2019s Great Aunt Carla, or the BBEG\u2019s Trusted Lieutenant turns out to be the party tank\u2019s former love interest.<\/p>\n<p>My all-time favorite antagonists to RP have been lifted directly from character backstories, and some have remained recurring NPCs long after their introductory campaigns have ended.<\/p>\n<p>Sure, sometimes that requires me to change how I expected the adventure to go, but that\u2019s part of the fun for me.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s all for this episode, subscribe to just this podcast on Mastodon at <a href=\"https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@CrashsCourse\">is.aaronbsmith.com\/@crashscourse<\/a> or subscribe to all my TTRPG podcasts at <a href=\"https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@cogwheel\">is.aaronbsmith.com\/@cogwheel<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Music is <a href=\"http:\/\/modarchive.org\/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&amp;query=169788\">Deadly Windmills by JAM from modarchive.org<\/a>, used with permission, as it\u2019s public domain.<\/p>\n<p>This podcast is distributed under a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/\">CC-BY-NC-ND<\/a> license.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Follow this series on\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#x25b6; Patreon: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/cogwheelgaming\">https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/cogwheelgaming<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#x25b6; RSS: <a href=\"https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@CrashsCourse.rss\">https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@CrashsCourse.rss<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#x25b6; Google Podcasts: <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cHM6Ly9hYXJvbmJzbWl0aC5jb20vY29nd2hlZWwvZmVlZC8\">https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cHM6Ly9hYXJvbmJzbWl0aC5jb20vY29nd2hlZWwvZmVlZC8<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#x25b6; Apple Podcasts: <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/cogwheel-gaming\/id1291681389\">https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/cogwheel-gaming\/id1291681389<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#x25b6; Mastodon (Just this podcast): <a href=\"https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@CrashsCourse\">https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@CrashsCourse<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#x25b6; Mastodon (All podcasts): <a href=\"https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@cogwheel\">https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@cogwheel<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>MP3 Download: <a href=\"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/CrashsCourse_Ep_08_PreparingAdventures.mp3\">Crash&#8217;s Course Ep 08: Prepping Adventures<\/a><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone\"><figcaption><a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/bePatron?u=6006674\">Keep us ad free by supporting us on Patreon!<\/a><br \/>\nThanks to our current Patreon Patrons (as of this upload&#8230;): Chris, Cindy<span class=\"sc-AxirZ bmNQcS\" data-tag=\"user-details-full-name\"> (Patron Emeritus)<\/span>, Ellie, Erik<span class=\"sc-AxirZ bmNQcS\" data-tag=\"user-details-full-name\">, ShanShen, and Walter!<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello and welcome to Crash\u2019s Course, a short form podcast where I share my thoughts and advice on playing and running tabletop role playing games in roughly about 5 minutes. Lately I\u2019ve been working on a 1-shot adventure, so in this episode I thought I\u2019d share some of my common steps for designing scenarios for &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/2023\/03\/crashs-course-ep-08-preparing-adventures\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Crash&#8217;s Course Ep 08: Preparing Adventures&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[312,293],"tags":[362,318,295,327],"class_list":["post-7050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-podcast","category-ttrpg","tag-crashscourse","tag-dnd","tag-dungeons-and-dragons","tag-ttrpg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7050"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7068,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7050\/revisions\/7068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}