0% found this document useful (0 votes)

225 views255 pages

Adventure Design Guide Combined

Uploaded by

Liubartas Aleksiejus

We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.

Available Formats

Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

0% found this document useful (0 votes)

225 views255 pages

Adventure Design Guide Combined

Uploaded by

Liubartas Aleksiejus

We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.

Available Formats

Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

You are on page 1/ 255

BITTER RIVALS

Adventure Design Guide

Dancing Lights Press

Join our community at
https://dancinglightspress.com

The bearer of this document has the express written permission of the
publisher to make copies for personal use.
Copyright 2019 Berin Kinsman. All Rights Reserved. Adventure Design Guide and
respective trade dress are © and ™ 2019 Berin Kinsman. This is a work of fiction. Any
similarity with people or events, past or present, is purely coincidental and unintentional
except for any people and events presented in historical context.
This is version 1.0 of this document.
Contents
Welcome to Adventure Design................................................................1
How to Use This Book...................................................................................................... 2
The Three Pillars Approach.......................................................................................... 2
The Three Canons Account............................................................................................ 3
The Three Act Structure................................................................................................. 3
Bitter Rivals.....................................................................................................5
Story Elements................................................................................................................... 5
Character Elements.......................................................................................................... 7
Worldbuilding Elements................................................................................................. 9
Act I – The Beginning................................................................................12
Establish the Status Quo.............................................................................................. 12
Reveal the Inciting Incident........................................................................................ 14
Issue the Call to Adventure......................................................................................... 16
Act I Scenes & Beats....................................................................................................... 16
Act II – The Middle.....................................................................................18
Rising Action..................................................................................................................... 19
Reach a Turning Point................................................................................................... 19
Things Go Downhill....................................................................................................... 19
Create a Moment of Doubt.......................................................................................... 20
Act II Scenes & Beats..................................................................................................... 21
Act III – The End..........................................................................................22
Create a Moment of Atonement................................................................................22
Unleash the Finale.......................................................................................................... 23
Wrap Up Loose Ends..................................................................................................... 24
Act III Scenes & Beats.................................................................................................... 24
Finishing Up..................................................................................................26
Update the Character Canon......................................................................................26
Update the Worldbuilding Canon.............................................................................26
Update the Story Canon............................................................................................... 26
Bitter Rivals Beat Sheet...........................................................................27
Act I – The Beginning.................................................................................................... 27
Act II – The Middle......................................................................................................... 27
Act III – The End.............................................................................................................. 27
Welcome to Adventure Design
Bitter Rivals: Adventure Design Guide will help gamemasters to
create and prepare competition-driven adventures for your favorite role-
playing game. This book acts as a “beat sheet”, a tool used by writers to
outline and plan pivotal elements of a story. It allows them to know where
they’re going, gather the research and information they need, and ensure
that everything ultimately holds together and makes sense.
This series was created specifically with tabletop role-playing games in
mind. It’s designed to work with any setting, genre, or rules system. All you
need to do is apply the context provided by your player characters, the
game world, and your own adventure ideas. Plug in appropriate encounters
and challenges, create the villains, monsters, and non-player characters
you’ll need, and you’re ready to play.
This book contains the following:
• Bitter Rivals: An overview of this type of adventure, what makes it
fun, and ways it can be used again and again to create interesting and
unique experiences for your players. Once you embrace these basic
elements, the rest of the adventure flows from there.
• Act I – The Beginning: The elements needed at the start of your
adventure, how to structure the opening act, and advice on
establishing the adventure goal. It’s where the player characters learn
what’s going on and agree to get involved.
• Act II – The Middle: Elements that define the center of the adventure,
structuring the second act, and advice on pursuing the adventure goal.
It’s where the characters do most of their exploring, investigating, and
other actions necessary to achieving the goal.
• Act III – The End: Creating the elements for the last segment of the
adventure, providing structure for the finale, and advice on completing
the adventure goal. It’s where the player characters will confront the
villain, achieve what they set out to do, and earn their rewards.
• Finishing Up: This section shows how to take what happened during
the adventure-as-played and use it as a source for new plot hooks,
character development, and ongoing worldbuilding. Add to your
campaign’s canon and leverage the momentum you’ve established.

1
How to Use This Book
Read through Bitter Rivals: Adventure Design Guide once entirely to
become familiar with its contents and main concepts. After that you can go
back through section-by-section to plan and craft your adventure. Refer
back to any section as needed to be sure you’ve covered everything.

The Three Pillars Approach

The Three Pillars Approach to adventure design places equal weight
on story, character, and worldbuilding. Too much reliance on just one or
two and the whole structure falls down. These three elements feed into one
another to create a context that enriches and enhances the overall
experience of the adventure you create.

Story Elements
The plot has to be appropriate for the player characters. It should
make use of their backgrounds, interests, and personalities as much as
possible. The challenges you create need to play toward their abilities so
that everyone has something meaningful to do in the adventure. There
should be story elements that tie into the worldbuilding details that make
this setting different and distinct. The goal is to craft a story that is
specifically tailored to your unique campaign.

Character Elements
Player character backgrounds should draw from the lore of the setting,
connecting them to the game world. Each character should be appropriate
to the adventure, either because their abilities make them useful to
achieving the goal, or their back story, personal objectives, and vested
interests mean that the outcome will affect them. Simply put, they need to
have skin in the game, for one reason or another.

Worldbuilding Elements
While worldbuilding can be a fun activity by itself, every setting
element that you choose to use in an adventure ought to serve a purpose. It
should inform the events of the story, and explain who stands to gain or
lose based on the outcome of events. The worldbuilding should provide
fodder for player character back stories in a way that will make the
information matter in your adventures. The setting should always be there
to provide context for the other elements, and not overpower them.

2
The Three Canons Account
If you’re not familiar with the term, when something is canon or
canonical it means that it’s recognized as official. The Three Canons
Account doesn’t consider any adventure-as-written to be canon for your
campaign. Only what takes place in the adventure-as-played is official.
There are, as the name implies, three separate types of canonical
information that you will need to take into account when planning
adventures. This will help you to keep track of what happens during play.

Story Canon
These are events-as-played that affect this adventure, and could have
an impact on future adventures. Did the player characters kill that
particular monster, or did it run away? If it fled, could it come back in a
future adventure? If the character’s didn’t talk to a certain non-player
character, then they don’t know a bit of information that could be useful
later. Whether or not the player characters accomplished the adventure
goal could have consequences that affect future storylines.

Character Canon
Most roleplayers are familiar with this concept. What happened to the
player character during the course of the adventure? Character canon
includes injuries they’ve suffered, the items they’ve acquired, and the
consumable goods they’ve used. It extends to documenting their back
story, charting progress on personal goals, and taking note of personal
preferences discovered over the course of play.

Worldbuilding Canon
Setting elements become canon when they appear or are referred to
during play. This gives you the freedom to change and adapt things as the
campaign unfolds. Track what has been clearly established. Note the things
that have changed as a result of character actions and plot lines. Use the
possibilities of the evolving setting canon to inform backgrounds for new
characters and to create plot hooks for future adventures.

The Three Act Structure

3
rob them of the ability to make their own choices. Nor does it allow the
adventure to become an endless rambling sandbox that requires extensive
preparation on your part. You can focus on developing the elements that
are absolutely essential to crafting a satisfying adventure.
While the three-act structure is a time-honored institution, some
people are understandably suspicious about using it for a role-playing
game. It can seem constraining or feel formulaic. Use it as a baseline and
learn to craft fulfilling and coherent adventures with it. Then you can begin
to play around with your own variations and understand how and when to
break the time-honored rules of basic storytelling.

4
Bitter Rivals
The player characters must win a
competition, facing an equally-
matched adversary and overcoming
the limitations of their own abilities.

In a Bitter Rivals adventure, the player characters will be called upon

to compete against an adversary that is their equal in nearly every way.
The nature of the competition can be nearly anything, but is centered on
the types of abilities and challenges that the PCs are meant to be the best
at. During the course of the adventure, they will have to not only do their
best, but find new ways to do better than their rival. By the end, they
should not only win, but feel a new sense of empowerment.

Story Elements
This type of adventure is fun because it allows you to focus on
emotionally-charged challenges that lean into player characters’ best
abilities. It opens up possibilities for the player characters to show off the
things that they’re presumably most proud of. There are worldbuilding
opportunities centered around the nature of the competition, and its
significance within the setting, allowing you a free hand to develop the
elements necessary for this type of plot.
All of the story elements required to make the adventure possible are
automatically part of your story canon. The whole setup wouldn’t work if
these events didn’t happen and the player characters weren’t in a position
to be drawn into them. From this point forward only what happens in the
adventure-as-played will be considered part of your canon.

The Adventure Goal

The adventure goal is what the player characters need to accomplish
in order to successfully complete the adventure. How they do it is up to
them, so the players still have agency. In a competition-driven adventure,
the objective is for them to not just defeat their adversary, but to do the
best that they possibly can with the abilities they have.

5
The Stakes
An adventure’s stakes include both the potential rewards and likely
complications that could arise based on how the story plays out. It isn’t
always as simple as the player characters getting something good when
they succeed, or having something bad happen to them if they fail.
Rewards will sometimes come with a cost. Complications can have an
unexpected silver lining.
Rewards
In a Bitter Rivals story, the most common rewards are whatever
accolades accompany winning the type of competition involved. If it’s an
organize sport or official contest, this could be a trophy, a cash prize, or an
opportunity to do something. Your game system of choice will have its own
rules for character advancement, awarded for their efforts during the
adventure. Depending upon the genre and setting, there may be treasure or
other financial bonuses to be found throughout the course of the
competition as well.
Complications
The types of difficulties that can arise from a competition-driven
adventure include all of the hazards associated with that activity. Races
involve speed and the chance of accidents. Combat, of course, carries the
risk of injury or death. While these are story-based complications, they
should also be used as a basis for worldbuilding and character
development. The impact made by fans and detractors of the competition
will affect the local economy. This might be a positive thing, or a costly
disruption. Even a personal competition without any spectators or official
sanction can run afoul of the law, create property damage, or endanger
innocent bystanders. These can in turn lead to new plot hooks, personal
goals for the player characters, and new areas of the setting to be fleshed
out and explored.

Story-Based Challenges
Challenges keep the player characters from achieving the adventure
goal too quickly. For a Bitter Rivals adventure, the obstacles that arise
directly from the plot include the rules of the competition itself, if there are
any. Specific victory conditions have to be met, because there may be
penalties for cheating. Opposition from legal authorities, religious groups,
and cultural gatekeepers may arise. Keep in mind the inherent difficulties

6
of the campaign, including any open meta-plot issues and recurring
antagonists. Tie individual player character backgrounds and personal
goals in as well, so the adventure feels custom-built for these characters.

Character Elements
A competition-driven adventure let you focus on the player characters’
best, or at least most prominent, abilities. It doesn’t have to be the specific
skill, talent, or special power of one character, although it could. You might
center on the types of things the party collectively is good at, like exploring
caverns, winning epic battles, or rescuing villages from occupying bands of
goblins. What’s important is that there is someone else, an individual or a
group, that also has the same capabilities and is seeking to outdo the player
characters. Those elements can be incorporated into subplots as well, to
make the rivalry a more personalized experience.
This opens up possibilities for the player characters to use less
frequently seen abilities to give them an advantage. Sticking to their strong
suit isn’t where they’ll have a chance to shine, because their rival is just as
good as they are. As the adventure goes on, of course, the challenges will
increase in difficulty. When a character doesn’t excel at the typical things,
they should be given other opportunities to contribute by making
secondary and tertiary abilities more important.
There are worldbuilding opportunities centered around the reason for
the rivalry, allowing you to develop the setting elements that factor into the
character’s back story. If the player characters knew the rival, having grown
up with them, trained with them, or even being in a previous party
together, it creates questions. Did they have a falling out, and why? Are the
on the same side, relatively speaking, making the competition about the
abilities, or is this a good-versus-evil issue? What do the culture,
government, and religious authorities have to say about the nature of
competition, the way these rivalries are sorted out, and the impact they
might have on the community? This sort of worldbuilding also creates
opportunities for interesting non-player characters, new adversaries, and
even future player characters.
Elements required to make the adventure possible become part of
their character canon. If they weren’t in this particular place at the right
moment, lacked certain abilities, or didn’t have some background element
the adventure wouldn’t work. From this point forward what happens in the

7
adventure-as-played will be added to their back story and considered part
of their ongoing canon.

Player Characters
Player Characters are the protagonists of the story. In a competition-
driven adventure, they need to be among the best at whatever the rivalry
will be based on. If they’re not strong in those abilities, you can
compensate by having them be the best currently available to do the job. It
could be that this is their foot in the door, and beating the antagonist in
whatever skill, ability, or objective will open up opportunities for them.
Placing responsibility for those ability into the hands of a non-player
character won’t work here. It forces the player characters into a supporting
role within their own story, and smacks of cheating.
Combat-centric player characters in a competition-driven adventure
will be well-rounded and experienced warriors. They should be capable of
taking on any sort of opponent with a reasonable expectation that they will
prevail. A player character that is magic-centric or power-centric will be
known as among the greatest in their particular niche. This might mean
they have bona fides in a specific school or magic, or a reputation from
doing amazing things with their special abilities. For skill-centric player
characters, they will need to be renowned for their trained talents. This
either has to be something that can be used as an opposed skill, pitting the
rivals against each other, or with a type of success that can me measured.

8
equivalent spells and special abilities, if not identical ones, to the player
characters. They might have a linked origin to explain this. For skill-
centric adversaries, they will need to be able to accomplish the same
things, even if their skills are slightly different. It’s the outcome that’s
important, and they need to be able to achieve anything that the player
characters can.

Non-Player Characters
Non-Player Characters includes everyone else in the story. This
covers important resource characters, friends and allies, and nameless
extras. Knowing the roles you’ll need to fill can help you to target your
preparation for the adventure.
Within a competition-driven adventure you will find non-player
characters lacking the primary abilities that the rivalry is focused on. If
they could do these things for themselves, they wouldn’t need the player
characters or their rival/antagonist. Combat-centric non-player
characters in a rivalry adventure should only be around if the nature of the
competition doesn’t focus on battle. If they are present, they will be far
below the level of the competitors. A non-player character that is magic-
centric or power-centric will likewise have different spells than the rivals.
Their specialties place them outside the field of competition. For skill-
centric non-player characters, they will need to supply expertise in things
not related to the rivalry. They can’t be there to compensate for abilities
that the player characters lack, as they might be in other types of
adventures.

Character-Based Challenges
These challenges center on the player character’s needs, desires, and
personal goals. They distract them from the adventure goal by dividing
their priorities. For a Bitter Rivals adventure, the obstacles that arise
directly from the character elements can include old non-player character
adversaries from their background showing up, opportunities to go after
something they want instead, and other temptations. When you tailor
these sorts of challenges to the player characters, the adventure will feel as
if it was designed just for them.

9
Worldbuilding Elements
A Bitter Rivals adventure requires the setting to have the proper
conditions for a competition to develop. It doesn’t have to be a formal,
officially recognized contest like a sport, but it can be if that’s what you
choose to develop. Even a casual, “friendly” rivalry will have some
precedents set by the world’s cultures and traditions, governments and
laws, and religious beliefs and practices.
It’s difficult to imagine any sort of competition without rules. If your
game world already has them for the sort of rivalry you’re planning, use
them, and take this opportunity to flesh them out a bit more. If not, why not
take the way other sorts of competitions work in the world and apply them
to the informal, unofficial type of feud in your adventure. When there is no
ready-made solution, your worldbuilding efforts will need to be focused on
the precedents already established by political, religious, and cultural
mores as part of your preparation.
If a player character’s background suggests a suitable location, use it.
This can be something from a previous adventure, or an unseen part of the
setting mentioned in their back story. This not only helps to develop the
game world, but connects the character directly to the story.
Tie existing worldbuilding into the competition-driven adventure as
well. Use the terrain, the cultures that live there, and monsters known to be
in the area. Connect the story to the setting in meaningful ways, so it
doesn’t feel as if you’ve just dropped events into a random spot on the map.
Why types of events do rivalries spring up over? How does the tradition,
the law, and religious belief affect how those rivalries are expressed? Is
there are prescribed manner for these things to happen?
Every setting element required to make the adventure possible is
automatically part of your worldbuilding canon. The premise wouldn’t
work if the location, the history, and the broad possibilities inherent in
your worldbuilding didn’t support them. From this point forward what
happens in the adventure-as-played will be added to your growing canon.

Preceding Events
An important part of worldbuilding is creating the history of the
setting. For a Bitter Rivals adventure, it needs to be established that
people compete with one another in general, as well as in specific ways
using particular means. This can build upon the existing lore of the region,

10
or add new information. How the local population feels about it, and what
sorts of potential obstacles will already exist, can stem from events that
have happened in the world’s past.

Essential Locations
The types of locations that are required for a Bitter Rivals adventure
include anywhere that the competition might take place. These can be
public places where innocent bystanders might watch, or private
hideaways if there are legal, moral, or ethical problems with the nature of
the rivalry. If suitable places already exist within your setting, you simply
need to adapt them or expand upon them to make them fit with the needs
of the story.
Places that are implied by the needs of a competition-driven adventure
may extend to neutral meeting places, training grounds, or the location
where whatever needs to be proven has to occur. If the rivalry is over who
cane do something first, or best, or most, then that will imply things about
specific locations necessary for the adventure. Should you need to develop
those locations, you know where your worldbuilding efforts will need to be
focused.

Overall Tone
While this is an element that can be reflected in the way the story and
characters are presented, it’s the worldbuilding that supports and
reinforces it. A competition-driven adventure with a dramatic tone will
have more serious emotional beats. It’s not necessarily tragic or grim, but
the characters and situations can carry notes of sadness, suffering, or fear.
By contrast, a comedic tone in a rivalry-centered adventure will focus on
humor, with situations set up to provoke laughter.
You can have both dramatic and comedic moments within one
adventure. Overall, though, it will favor one over the other. For example,
the Bitter Rivals adventure might be mostly dramatic, but have some
scenes or encounters that lean into humor to make a point about the player
characters and the antagonist being evenly matched. It might also add
some comedy when one or the other experiences a setback in the
competition. If it is mostly comedic, it can still contain elements of drama
when it feels as if the player characters might lose. This can be centered
around what’s at stake, the rewards that they won’t win or the
consequences that might occur if they fail.

11
When a rivalry adventure has a light tone it isn’t necessarily comedic,
but the rewards will tend to be higher than the potential complications.
The stakes overall won’t be as high. Things will tend to skew toward the
success of the player characters, allowing them to play to their strengths.
Competition-driven adventures with a dark tone have higher stakes, with
complications far outweighing any potential rewards. Challenges won’t
always play to the characters’ strengths, making failure a constant
possibility. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be comedic, but it will be black
comedy.
Within the same adventure you can have light and dark moments. It
will tend to lean more toward one of the other overall, though. For instance,
a light competition-based adventure might put the emphasis on the fun of
the various challenges, but still have darker scenes or encounters where
the adversary takes things dangerously too far. A Bitter Rivals adventure
that centers on a darker tone can stick mainly to the potential
consequences of losing, but offer lighter moments where the overall
rewards for winning ease the tension and provide some measure of hope.
You can pair elements of drama/comedy and light/dark, of course. In a
Bitter Rivals adventure, a light drama would be something where the
action is exciting, and states are moderately important but not world-
ending. A dark drama could make the consequences of failure incredibly
dire, and the trials and tribulations the player characters have to go
through to win especially brutal. A light comedy would be high fun/low
risk, with the rivalry probably being more of a friendly thing. A dark
comedy may emphasize the action and adventure, while still having a
potentially grim outcome if the PC’s lose. When combined with the tone
established by the events of the story and the personalities of the player
characters, this becomes another opportunity to make your adventure
unique.

Setting-Based Challenges
Think about the worldbuilding elements in your setting that could
both support and hinder a Bitter Rivals adventure. You already have an
idea of the elements required to make the story work. What if those
elements were removed? Are there things within the canonical setting that
conflict with what’s necessary for a competition-driven adventure to play
out? Those are potential challenges for the player characters to overcome.

12
For example, of the things that the player characters and their
adversary are competing in are things that are part of an organized event,
like a race or regular sporting activity, then there will be traditions and
possibly an entire culture that’s developed around that. If there is some
official body that oversees these events, it could be an additional source of
conflict for the player character. There might be safety regulations in place
to prevent injury to innocent people or property damage, meaning the
adventure’s competition could run afoul of the law. Religious bodies might
have moral or ethical concerns, and protect or actively oppose the rivalry.
All of these are challenges above and beyond the competitive elements.
Add in other background items like the terrain, ordinary crime, and
wandering monsters, and there will be plenty to distract the player
characters from the main goal of the adventure.

13
Act I – The Beginning
There are certain this that need to happen at the start of a
competition-driven adventure. The status quo is established, showing the
current state of the characters and what relevant events are taking place
within the setting. An inciting incident takes place, creating the adventure
goal. Finally, the call to adventure is issued, where the player characters
choose to pursue that goal.

Story Canon
This is where you begin to introduce the foundational elements of your
story canon. The Bitter Rivals adventure goal is presented, the stakes are
established, and what the story-based obstacles will be should at least be
hinted at. The information necessary to begin the adventure is officially
part of your campaign history.

Character Canon
The player characters who will take part in this Bitter Rivals
adventure are introduced. If the antagonists don’t appear yet, the inciting
incident will at least hint at their existence. Non-player characters will be
there to help the player characters find their way. Character-based
challenges based on the things they are best at can be used to demonstrate
what the player characters can do. Any abilities that form the focus of the
competitive challenge have to be established here. This allows the PC’s to
build up their confidence before facing more difficult obstacles in the
second act.

Worldbuilding Canon
Any events leading up to the inciting incident have to be introduced,
either through in-play action or exposition. Locations that will be
important to the Bitter Rivals adventure will appear, be named as
destinations for the second act, or at least have their existence hinted at.
The tone of the setting will be established, or reinforced if this isn’t the first
adventure of the campaign. Some setting-based challenges can be used to
allow the player characters to become familiar with worldbuilding
elements that will become important to the story later, like legal, religious,
and cultural attitudes toward competition in general, and the form of the
coming competition in particular.

14
Establish the Status Quo
The adventure begins by showing what “normal” looks like. It will
introduce the characters, introduce the setting, and introduce the
theme. The player characters are doing whatever it is they do. If they have
professions, hobbies, or other interests, they could be doing those things.
When they’re full-time adventurers, you might start them off having an
easy encounter to show that this is what their life is like.
Establishing the status quo also means demonstrating what goes on in
the setting on an ordinary day. This can help to establish the stakes later
on. For a Bitter Rivals adventure, it might mean showing various way that
people express rivalry, and the socially acceptable ways of acting upon
them. This would include the forms of competition that people engage in,
whether it’s combat, spellcasting, or skills-based.

Introduce the Characters

Provide each player character with a “spotlight moment” to establish
who they are and what their role in the campaign is. Provide them with a
task that shows off their abilities. Consider giving them a challenge that
foreshadows something they’ll need to do later in the adventure. For
example, in a competition-driven adventure you may have them
demonstrate the abilities that they’ll need to call upon later to help them
resolve the rivalry.
Adversaries may not appear in the first act, but their presence should
at least be hinted at. For a competitive rivalry adventure you might create
the conditions for the rivalry by having the player characters’ interests
intersect or tread upon what the adversary is planning. They might not
know who is responsible for what’s going on, or what they will need to
face, but the existence of some potential rival should be clear early on.
There may be rumors going around about their personal goals, which
either conflict with or directly impact the player characters’ own pursuits.
This will eventually bring them into competition.
Well-known non-player characters might appear early in the story to
offer advice, help with equipment, and generally help to get the player
characters pointed in the right direction. Some NPCs that will appear later
might be mentioned, or their existence established indirectly. If the PCs
know that they have to visit an, for example, it implies the existence of an
innkeeper.

15
Introduce the Setting
There are a few reasons to establish what “normal” looks like in the
setting. The first is to show what is possible, so that the exploits of the
player characters and their adversaries seem credible. Anything that will
happen on a large scale in the second and third acts should be
demonstrated on a smaller scale here.
The second is to help establish the stakes. By showing something of the
setting prior to the inciting incident, you can more effectively show what
has changed. While the stakes can be personal, it’s more dramatic if the
outcome will have a larger impact on the world. The player characters will
better understand what is to be gained or lost during the adventure, and
why the adventure goal of defeating their rival is so important not just to
them but to the world they live in.
Finally, establishing things that are going to be relevant to the
adventure later is targeted worldbuilding. You can focus on creating the
elements that will force the characters to deal with any political, religious,
or cultural impacts of their competition. Their adversaries have some sort
of background that connects them to the setting, and what they will do if
they win the competition ought to have an effect in the world.

Introduce the Theme

The adventure’s theme is what it’s actually about. It can be a single
idea, like “friendship”, or a conflict between two ideas like “good versus
evil”. When you have a theme, you can create encounters and plot points
that reinforce the idea.
A common theme in Bitter Rivals adventures is the nature of
competition. You can demonstrate that by showing both the pros and cons
of rivalry. While in one hand it can be inspiring and drive people to be their
best self, it can also become obsessive and destructive. This is just an
example, of course. Using a different theme can drastically alter an
adventure, and is one way to gave the basic structure of a competition-
driven story replayability by changing the meaning and types of elements
that you want to emphasize.
The thematic statement is what you, as the gamemaster, are trying to
say through the work. In the theme of competition, you might want to
express that it’s necessary for progress and innovation, or that it causes
people to engage in harmful and self-destructive behavior. The types of

16
challenges to create, and the attitudes of key non-player characters, will
reflect your point of view.
Every character, both player characters and supporting characters,
could have their own thematic concept. They have their own point of view
about the theme, which can be expressed through their personalities and
actions. One character might compete because they have a need to prove
something, to themselves, their family, or the community at large, for
example. Another could be in it because they feel the adversary needs to be
taken down a peg, so it’s a way for them to dole out punishment to those
they deem unworthy.
Having a theme can help you to design interesting encounters. It can
help you to give non-player characters some depth by having them
represent a point of view. The theme can also allow players to round out
their characters by providing them with a specific idea or concept to focus
on, and letting them work out what the character’s thoughts would be
based on their background and adventuring experiences.

Reveal the Inciting Incident

This is the moment when things go wrong. The inciting incident is the
event that sets off the adventure and draws the players characters into it.
Something that no one expected or planned for goes down. This is where
you need to establish the adventure goal and present the stakes. For a
competition-driven adventure, this is where the form of the competition is
introduced. Something has to be done, and both the player characters and
the adversary have to outdo each other to do it first, or to do it better.

Establish the Adventure Goal

To put it simply, how do you know when the adventure is over? What is
the one clear objective that the player characters have to accomplish? In a
Bitter Rivals adventure, this is simply to outdo the adversary. I could be
that it’s a race, and they need to get to the destination first. It might be to
build something, or solve some problem, and do it before their adversary
can. There might be a direct competition, where the rivals fight each other,
or face the same series of trials and challenges.
This means that the goal has to align with the promise of the game.
What are the players expecting? If it’s action and combat, then the
adventure goal has to reflect a situation that’s going to require a lot of

17
fighting. If it’s mystery, or intrigue, or a lot of roleplaying and character
development, then the goal should make it clear that there will be ample
opportunities for those things.
Having a goal isn’t railroading the player characters. There’s a
difference between understanding what they need to accomplish and
forcing them into one specific course of action to accomplish it. They
should be free to make their own plans and solve the problems inherent in
the adventure goal using their own ideas.

Present the Stakes

The player characters need to be presented with what’s at stake. There
are two parts to this. The first are the consequences: what will happen if
the adventure goal has not fulfilled? How will it affect the player characters,
the non-player characters they care about, and their personal goals if the
bad guys win? What will become of the world if no one steps up to save it?
That’s the stick. The second part, the rewards, is the carrot. What will
the player characters gain if they accept the mission? How will they benefit
from accomplishing the adventure goal? When they know what’s in it for
them, they’re more likely to answer the call to adventure.
The stakes of your adventure have to connect to the wants and needs
of the player characters. If they’re not feeling any sort of potential loss,
they’re not going to care. The same if the rewards dangled in front of them
aren’t useful or appealing. This is where you can make a competitive
adventure feel like it was designed just for them, and not a set of generic
encounters that anyone could play through.
For a Bitter Rivals adventure, the stakes often lean heavily toward all-
or-nothing rewards. If the player characters win they get the prize. Should
they lose, the adversary gets it. The complications that arise from not
defeating the rival will include a blow to the characters’ egos, but it will
also have other effects. The PC’s might have been trying to get something
for a reason – a rare plant to cure a disease, money to pay the taxes on an
orphanage, and so on. If the fail, their cause fails as well. It could be that
defeating the rival would me putting an end to their larger plans, so losing
means that the adversary’s grand scheme and person objective moves
forward, to the detriment of everyone.

18
Issue the Call to Adventure
At the end of the first act the player characters should accept the call
to adventure. This means they understand the stakes and are willing to
engage in the competition against their adversary. If you have established
all of the points clearly, this should be a given. The reason this is important
is that while most players will go along with things because they just want
to play, others will insist on things making sense. It has to be “in character”
for their character, the risks involved need to seem worthwhile, and it all
has to hold together in the context of the genre and the setting.

Accepting the Call

It’s assumed that the stakes will be enough to get the player characters
to answer the call. The adventure is in line with the promise of the setting
and genre, and therefore meets the players’ expectations. It’s relevant to
the individual player characters somehow, and feels like it’s part of their
story, not a generic adventure that they’ve been dropped into.

Rejecting the Call

Let’s take a moment to acknowledge that this could happen. Someone
will say something about not understanding why their character would do
this. If you’ve set things up properly, and done your best to connect each
character to the adventure, it shouldn’t happen. Hopefully the other players
will help to talk them into it. Through a non-player character you can
remind them of the stakes, and what they personally stand to gain and lose.
Mention their morals and ethics, their standing and reputation within the
setting, whatever is on the line.

Act I Scenes & Beats

19
Reveal the Inciting Incident – Something changes that forces the
player characters to respond. Introduce the adventure goal and the stakes.
This can be separate scenes for each player character, giving them a reason
to come together. It can be an interruption of the “status quo” scene.
Issue the Call to Adventure – The player characters will hopefully
accept the adventure, based on the established stakes. This can be a
separate scene, after the characters have had a chance to regroup, talk
things over, and make some decisions. It might be a continuation of the
inciting incident scene, when there’s no doubt as to their involvement.

20
Act II – The Middle
Most of the action occurs in the middle of the adventure. Challenges
will become increasingly more difficult until the midpoint as a result of
rising action. The player characters will reach a turning point where
something changes, and things no longer happen predictably. From there
things go downhill as the adversary gains the upper hand and the
challenges no longer play to the player characters’ strengths. All of this
leads to a moment of doubt as to whether the adventure goal can be
achieved as the second act comes to a close.

Story Canon
The second act in your Bitter Rivals adventure is where the elements
of your story canon introduced in the first act will get used. The player
characters will be reminded of what’s at stake. If the adventure goal wasn’t
entirely clear, or parts of it didn’t make complete sense, all will be revealed
here. Story-based obstacles will present themselves regularly to slow down
the characters’ progress. The campaign history established in the first act
can be built upon and be used as the player characters compete against the
adversary to be the best, or the first, or whatever will allow them to win.

Character Canon
The player characters will all get to use their signature abilities and
show off the things they’re good at. If the main adversary hasn’t appeared
yet, they’ll show up by the midpoint of this act. Non-player characters will
have various parts to play, but as the act goes on those they will appear less
frequently. Toward the end of the act the player characters will be called
upon to do things they aren’t as good at, providing a difference sort of
challenge. This allows them to build up their confidence before facing the
main adversary in the third act.

Worldbuilding Canon
The player characters will get the opportunity to explore locations
important to the Bitter Rivals adventure. Places named or hinted at in the
first act will appear and be fleshed out a bit more. The tone of the setting
established earlier will be reinforced and expanded upon. Setting-based
challenges can be used so player characters can increase their familiarity
with worldbuilding elements important to the story, like political, religious,

21
or cultural forces that influence or oppose the competition. Not only
locations, but attitudes, traditions, and popular opinions have the potential
to generate problems for the player characters to overcome as the try to
defeat their rival.

Rising Action
This section of the adventure is where roughly half of the encounters
will be. These are the fun bits where the player characters get to run wild.
It will contain several scenes, as many as you feel are necessary to
challenge the characters, establish essential plot points, and introduce
major non-player characters. Here is where the initial action will happen in
a competition-based adventure. The rules will be established, and the
player characters can focus on what needs to be done without a lot of
external factors and distractions.

The Fun Bits

Things will be relatively easy for the player characters throughout the
early part of Act II. They’ll face exactly what they expect to find in a Bitter
Rivals adventure and will be prepared. The obstacles they encounter will
play to their strengths, meaning that every player character will have an
opportunity to show off. You can combine player character challenges into
scenes, or provide each character with at least one scene that showcases
their signature abilities.
For a competitive adventure, that means every player character should
have challenges that showcase their best abilities. Any sort of investigation
or information gathering will be easy, and the people they have to interact
with will be friendly and cooperative. Gathering resources will be a breeze,
as costs are low and availability of even unusual things high. The road is
clear and the weather is nice. Conditions, in other words, are as close to
idea for the competition as they can get.
Whatever the player characters have to face, they’re likely to succeed.
The difficulty will start off a bit below their ability level, and increase
slightly with every subsequent encounter. This makes the adventure
exciting, action-packed, and put an emphasis on just having fun. By the end
of this section they should be facing challenges that are fully worthy of
their abilities.

22
Reach a Turning Point
About midway through the second act, something happens that makes
the adventure more difficult. This is one pivotal scene. It’s an unexpected
twist that the player characters could not have reasonably planner for. In a
Bitter Rivals adventure this often means that the PCs encounter some sort
of setback. There’s an injury, equipment is lost, or something just goes
annoyingly wrong. The antagonist has stepped up their plans to win,
unleashing a hidden advantage, a secret weapon, or outright cheating.

Things Go Downhill
From this point though the end of the second act, the obstacles that the
player characters face will be more difficult. They’ve reach the hard part.
This section comprises a little less than half of the scenes and encounters
in the adventure. They will begin to run out of resources. The challenges
that arise don’t require their best abilities, but skills and talents that
they’re not necessarily as good at. These encounters should be tailored to
the player characters based on their opportunities for development. Things
won’t be harder than they can handle, but it will seem far more challenging
than it is because they can’t fall back on the abilities they’re most
comfortable with.

The Hard Part

For a Bitter Rivals adventure this means that the thing that they’re
good at, the focus of the competition thus far, isn’t enough to take them to
victory.. The easy-to-locate information has already been acquired, so they
need to dig a bit further. Smooth terrain has been crossed, and now travel
gets complicated. The resources that were readily available are harder to
come by, if not impossible to get. They’ll need to find a way to turn the
abilities and resources they do have into an advantage.

Create a Moment of Doubt

At this point in the adventure, the worst case scenario happens. The
player characters fall behind, in a way that feels like they may not be able to
catch up. In a competition-driven adventure, this typically means that
something necessary has been lost. A person had died, an irreplaceable
and absolutely essential item has been destroyed. This should lead to a
transformation in both the tone of the adventure and the attitudes of the
player characters.

23
This will be the hardest encounter in the entire adventure. It has to be
even more difficult than the finale, because in the end the player characters
need to be able to win. The stakes here are temporarily suspended, or at
least diminished. There will be a way to escape, in the event that they’re
unable to win. If the player characters do win, it should be a close call, or
possibly a matter of luck. They will need to pull out any resources they’ve
been holding in reserve for the finale, and use them earlier than they
anticipated.

Transformation
The net effect of the moment of doubt should be that the player
characters feel uncertain about whether or not they can achieve the
adventure goal. The reason to do this is to make their eventual victory feel
even more special. By the end of the adventure they should feel that they
overcame all of the challenges thrown at them, and be proud of what they
accomplished. That emotional surge starts right here.
Clearly the player characters’ original plan is no longer going to work.
For a Bitter Rivals adventure, this means that the adversary be fault has
taken the lean in the competition, and is going to win unless they can come
up something. They will need to regroup, come up with a new plan, or
simply face the fact that they’re going to have to wing it. Once they’ve
accept this shift in the status quo of the adventure and are ready to press
on, this middle section of the adventure is over and it’s time for Act III.

Act II Scenes & Beats

Rising Action – The encounters start off easy but become increasingly
more difficult. They cater to the player characters’ abilities and resources.
There are several scenes, and this is the largest section of the adventure.
Reach a Turning Point – Something changes that makes achieving the
adventure goal more difficult. The main villain is aware of the player
characters. This is one scene that shifts the tone of the adventure.
Things Go Downhill – The encounters are no longer based on the
player characters’ best abilities. Resources are in short supply. At several
scenes this is the second-largest section of the adventure.
Create a Moment of Doubt – The player characters should begin to
wonder whether they will be able to complete the story goal. They realize
that their initial plan is not working and need to regroup. This is one scene.

24
Act III – The End
At the end of the adventure the promise of everything that has
happened so far will be fulfilled. There will be a moment of atonement to
balance out the moment of doubt at the end of the second act. From there
the gamemaster can unleash the finale, allowing the player characters to
deal with the main adversary and achieve the story goal. All that’s left then
is to wrap up loose ends and the adventure is over.

Story Canon
The final act has to tie up all of the events from the first two, clearly.
Nothing new should be introduced. It’s where the player characters at last
have the opportunity to achieve the story goal and defeat the main
antagonist. The end of the adventure has to be about closure, so that the
story feels complete in a way that’s satisfying to the players.

Character Canon
This is also where the player characters get to apply everything they’ve
learned over the course of the adventure. Information, allies, and resources
that have been gathered need to be useful to them. If they’ve stumbled in
any way, this is where they can prove themselves and get a bit of
redemption. The way events wrap up here needs to be consistent with the
way each character has been played in the first two acts.

Worldbuilding Canon
Nothing new about the setting should be introduced in the final act.
What happens should relate to important things about the world that the
player characters have learned over the course of the adventure. If
elements of the setting are important to the finale, these should be
highlighted so that your worldbuilding efforts pay off in a meaningful way.

Create a Moment of Atonement

As a mirror to the moment of doubt at the end of the second act, this
should begin with the player characters pulling themselves together.
Provide them with a chance to regroup. If the adventure were a film, this
is where the montage would go. They gather their allies, make their plans,
collect their various resources, and get ready to make their final pushed

25
toward the adventure goal. All told, it shouldn’t take more than one to three
short scenes.

A Chance to Regroup
Another purpose for the moment of atonement is to give the players a
chance to breathe. The moment of doubt was no doubt intense. This is
where non-player characters give them pep talks and remind them of
what’s at stake. It’s a chance to look back and remember why these player
characters are the stars of the adventure. It’s the quiet before the storm,
where everyone can rest, recover a bit, and think about what they’re going
to do next.
For a Bitter Rivals adventure this could mean that the player
characters get a fresh look at the consequences of failure. They realize how
it will affect other people, and how that in turn might affect their
relationships with those non-player characters. It ought to be deeply
personal, if the competition wasn’t already. When the player characters
regroup, it’s with renewed purpose because the won’t be able to live with
this sort of defeat.

Unleash the Finale

This can be one giant scene, or broken up into two or three smaller,
more manageable encounters. Either way, it’s the beginning of the end.
There are two parts to the finale proper. The player characters will need to
defeat the antagonist, their main adversary in the adventure, to win the
competition. In this sort of adventure that means having a clear, clean, and
uncontested victory. They will also complete the secondary adventure
goal, if there is one. This comes down to fulfilling the reason they need the
reward, or ensuring that the consequences they feared have been avoided.
They can do these things together, or in separate scenes. If you combine
them, you can imply that everything worked out, or do a short montage
rather than roleplaying all of the minutiae.

Confront the Antagonist

For a Bitter Rivals adventure, the main adversary has lost the
competition. Here the player characters will at last have an opportunity to
be sportsmanlike, or rub it in, or do whatever it is they need to in order to
find emotional closure. This may be time for a final battle, if the
competition didn’t involve fighting and the adversary is particularly

26
inclined to cut loose in this fashion. It may be that the rules of the
competition forced the player characters to refrain from violence, but now
that it’s over the can deck their rival and get it out of their systems.

Complete the Adventure Goal

This is where the story is more or less complete. In the first act the
player characters answered the call to compete against their rival, the
adventure’s antagonist. In the second act, they competed and did what they
had to in order to win fairly and with no doubt as to their victory. This is it.
One important scene. The player characters have proven themselves,
earned their reward, and avoided unpleasant complications.

Wrap Up Loose Ends

After the adventure goal has been completed, you can take a few
scenes to handle any unresolved issues. Most of the loose ends from the
first two acts should be tied up, although you can leave a few things open
for sequels and spin-off adventures. The player characters will have a
chance to return home, collect their rewards and complications, and
reset things back to the established baseline normal.

Return
In a Bitter Rivals adventure, the player characters will go back to their
normal lives after the adventure goal has been completed. Life may have
changed as the result of the preceding events, and now they will have to
readjust. The way they are perceived in their community has shifted. This
could mean getting praise from people that might not have initially
supported them. There could be a shift in the political climate, or an easing
of religious restrictions. Old traditions might be changed, and new ones
might begin. The competition has to have meant something, and the
settling of the rivalry needs to hod significance for the player characters
and the important non-player characters around them.

Rewards and Complications

27
complications, if the character caused harm to innocent bystanders or
property as a result of the competition. Any moral or ethical breaches will
be addressed by religious leaders, as appropriate to the setting. Depending
on the nature of the competition and how public it was, it could have an
impact on the culture, at least locally.

Reset
Based on what has happened during the adventure, you will need to
reset the status quo. Things could go back to normal, as if nothing ever
happened. There might be changes, based on what was witnessed and how
much the general public and community leaders know about what went
down. In a Bitter Rivals adventure, you will need to account for any
influence and support that the adversary has as well and the impact it may
have on the characters and the setting going forward.

Act III Scenes & Beats

Create a Moment of Atonement – The player characters are given
some breathing room to regroup and renew their commitment to achieving
the story goal. This is one to three short scenes.
Unleash the Finale – The main antagonist will be defeated, and the
adventure goal will finally be achieved. The main plot is resolved. This can
be one big scene, or a series of one to three smaller scenes.
Wrap Up Loose Ends – Outstanding plot threads are tied up. The
player characters return home, they get their rewards and deal with any
lingering complications, and the status quo of the world is reset.

28
Finishing Up
After the adventure is over you will have to perform a bit of campaign
maintenance. Players will update the character canon to reflect changes
and advances. The gamemaster will update the worldbuilding canon to
add new elements to the setting that have been created or altered during
play. Everyone will need to update the story canon, as the events of the
adventures have officially happened and are now part of the campaign lore.

Update the Character Canon

Everything that happened is now part of each player character’s back
story. They performed those deeds, met and formed relationships with the
non-player characters, and honed their abilities. In addition to any
character advancement in terms of abilities, they will need to update
information on their personal goals, their relationships, and possibly even
their outlook on life. Adventures can change the way characters are played.

Update the Worldbuilding Canon

During the course of the adventure you may have added new details to
the setting that didn’t exist before. Some elements that hadn’t yet been
seen in the game may have been altered from what you have in your notes.
Events may have altered parts of the setting. All of that needs to be updated
because it’s not part of your campaign’s worldbuilding canon.

Update the Story Canon

This story is now officially part of your campaign history. Whether the
characters achieve the adventure goal or fail spectacularly, these events
have happened. The ramifications will resonate, creating plot hooks and
possibilities for spin-offs and sequels to deal with loose ends and explain
new elements that popped upon along the way. For a Bitter Rivals
adventure, this could mean that the rivalry with the adversary has been
settled, or it may heat it up even further. New attitudes, opinions, and
traditions might be formed based on how the competition went. There may
be changes to the laws, religious doctrine, or cultural mores if the rivalry
was particularly important, engaging, or spectacular.

29
Bitter Rivals Beat Sheet
Act I – The Beginning
The player characters must compete against their adversary,
Establish the Status Quo – Show what the world look like before the
inciting incident. Introduce the characters, the setting, and the theme.
Reveal the Inciting Incident – Something changes that forces the
player characters to respond. Introduce the adventure goal and the stakes.
Issue the Call to Adventure – The player characters will hopefully
accept the adventure, based on the established stakes.

Act II – The Middle

The player characters have a tough time and may lose the competition.
Rising Action – The encounters start off easy but become increasingly
more difficult. They cater to the player characters’ abilities and resources.
Reach a Turning Point – Something makes achieving the adventure
goal more difficult. The main villain is aware of the player characters.
Things Go Downhill – Encounters get easier, but they are no longer
based on the player characters’ best abilities. Resources are in short supply.
Create a Moment of Doubt – The player characters should begin to
wonder whether they will be able to complete the story goal.

Act III – The End

The player characters bounce back and have a chance to win after all.
Create a Moment of Atonement – The player characters regroup and
renew their commitment to achieving the story goal.
Unleash the Finale – The main antagonist will be defeated, and the
adventure goal will finally be achieved. The main plot is resolved.
Wrap Up Loose Ends – The player characters return home, get their
rewards, deal with any lingering complications, and the status quo is reset.

30
The Escape Plan
Adventure Design Guide

Dancing Lights Press

Join our community at
https://dancinglightspress.com

The Escape Plan: Adventure Design Guide will help gamemasters to

create and prepare breakout adventures for your favorite role-playing
game. This book acts as a “beat sheet”, a tool used by writers to outline and
plan pivotal elements of a story. It allows them to know where they’re
going, gather the research and information they need, and ensure that
everything ultimately holds together and makes sense.
This series was created specifically with tabletop role-playing games in
mind. It’s designed to work with any setting, genre, or rules system. All you
need to do is apply the context provided by your player characters, the
game world, and your own adventure ideas. Plug in appropriate encounters
and challenges, create the villains, monsters, and non-player characters
you’ll need, and you’re ready to play.

1
This book contains the following:
• The Escape Plan: An overview of this type of adventure, what makes it
fun, and ways it can be used again and again to create interesting and
unique experiences for your players. Once you embrace these basic
elements, the rest of the adventure flows from there.
• Act I – The Beginning: The elements needed at the start of your
adventure, how to structure the opening act, and advice on
establishing the adventure goal. It’s where the player characters learn
what’s going on and agree to get involved.
• Act II – The Middle: Elements that define the center of the adventure,
structuring the second act, and advice on pursuing the adventure goal.
It’s where the characters do most of their exploring, investigating, and
other actions necessary to achieving the goal.
• Act III – The End: Creating the elements for the last segment of the
adventure, providing structure for the finale, and advice on completing
the adventure goal. It’s where the player characters will confront the
villain, achieve what they set out to do, and earn their rewards.
• Finishing Up: This section shows how to take what happened during
the adventure-as-played and use it as a source for new plot hooks,
character development, and ongoing worldbuilding. Add to your
campaign’s canon and leverage the momentum you’ve established.

How to Use This Book

Read through Adventure Design Guide: The Escape Plan once
entirely to become familiar with its contents and main concepts. After that
you can go through section-by-section to plan and craft your adventure.
Refer back to any section as needed to be sure you’ve covered everything.

The Three Pillars Approach

2
Story Elements
The plot has to be appropriate for the player characters. It should
make use of their backgrounds, interests, and personalities as much as
possible. The challenges you create need to play to their abilities so
everyone has something meaningful to do. There should be story elements
that tie into the worldbuilding details that make this setting unique. The
goal is to craft a story that is uniquely tailored to your campaign.

Character Elements
Player character backgrounds should draw from the lore of the setting,
connecting them to the game world. Each character should be appropriate
to the adventure, either because their abilities make them useful to
achieving the goal, or their back story, personal objectives, and vested
interests mean that the outcome of the story will affect them. They need to
have skin in the game, for one reason or another.

The Three Canons Account

If you’re not familiar with the term, when something is canon or
canonical it means that it’s recognized as official. The Three Canons
Account doesn’t consider any adventure-as-written to be canon for your
campaign. Only what takes place in the adventure-as-played is official.
There are, as the name implies, three separate types of canonical
information that you will need to take into account when planning
adventures. This will help you to keep track of what happens during play.

3
future adventure? If the character’s didn’t talk to a certain non-player
character, then they don’t know a bit of information that could be useful
later. Whether or not the player characters accomplished the adventure
goal could have consequences that affect future storylines.

Worldbuilding Canon
Setting elements become canon when they appear or are referred to
during play. This gives you the freedom to change and adapt things as the
campaign unfolds. Track what has been clearly established. Note the things
that have changed as a result of character actions and plot lines. Use the
possibilities of the evolving canon to inform backgrounds for new
characters and to create plot hooks for future adventures.

The Three Act Structure

Every story needs a beginning, a middle, and an end. Understanding
the basic structure of an adventure will help you to develop it. Having
established beats doesn’t force your players into taking specific actions or
rob them of the ability to make their own choices. Nor does it allow the
adventure to become an endless rambling sandbox that requires extensive
preparation on your part. You can focus on developing the elements that
are absolutely essential to crafting a satisfying adventure.
While the three-act structure is a time-honored institution, some
people are understandably suspicious about using it for a role-playing
game. It can seem constraining or feel formulaic. Use it as a baseline and
learn to craft fulfilling and coherent adventures with it. Then you can begin
to play around with your own variations and understand how and when to
break the ancient rules of basic storytelling.

4
The Escape Plan

The protagonist is being held against their will

by the antagonist, and must plot their escape.

In an escape plan adventure, the player characters will be captured and

confined by the antagonist in some way. It should have literal elements, all
though some of it could be cultural, political, or religious oppression.
During the course of the adventure, they will have to avoid antagonist and
make a plan to escape their captivity. By the end, they should be able to
escape and finally be free.

Story Elements
This type of adventure is fun because it allows you to focus on the
“everyday heroism” of the player characters. They are confined against
their will, placed into a situation not of their choosing, and need to find
ways to cope with that. It’s a way to show what the characters are made of
when they’re not facing the types of obvious threats they’re used to. You
can explore what they’re made of when they’re the underdog.
It opens up possibilities for the player characters to utilize skills and
abilities that don’t get much use in a regular adventures. It shifts things
away from combat and more toward survival, planning, and avoiding fights
as much as possible. The perceived disadvantage they find themselves at
can be an opportunity to leverage unacknowledged strengths.
There are worldbuilding opportunities centered around both the
means of captivity and the reasons for it. This allows you to develop the
cultural, political, and religious elements necessary for this type of plot.
Prisons, dungeons, or even oppressive societies will need people and
resources to build and maintain them, creating a ripple effect on the
setting. A single location can imply a lot about how things work within
your game world.
All of the story elements required to make the adventure possible are
automatically part of your story canon. The whole setup wouldn’t work if
these events didn’t happen and the player characters weren’t in a position

5
to be drawn into them. From this point forward only what happens in the
adventure-as-played will be considered part of your canon.

The Adventure Goal

The adventure goal is what the player characters need to accomplish
in order to successfully complete the adventure. How they do it is up to
them, so the players still have agency. In an escape adventure, the objective
is for them to get free from their captivity, and likely putting an end to their
captors in the process. It may mean tearing down the society that allow for
this type of confinement to occur in the first place, or it could simply mean
getting away and out of the sphere or influence of the captors.

The Stakes
An adventure’s stakes include both the potential rewards and likely
complications that could arise based on how the story plays out. It isn’t
always as simple as the player characters getting something good when
they succeed, or having something bad happen to them if they fail.
Rewards will sometimes come with a cost. Complications can have an
unexpected silver lining.
Rewards
In a big breakout story, the most common reward is simply the player
characters’ freedom. They’re no longer confined, or under the thumb of an
oppressive organization. Your game system of choice will have its own
rules for character advancement, awarded for their efforts during the
adventure. Depending upon the genre and setting, there may be treasure or
other financial bonuses as well.
Complications
The types of difficulties that can arise from an escape adventure
include the existence of cultural political and religious systems that drive
the confinement of certain types of people. Those will exist, even if the
player characters break out. They will have to face people who believe that
they deserve to be locked up, confined, or otherwise restricted in what that
are allowed to do.
While these are story-based complications, they should also be used
as a basis for worldbuilding and character development. The impact of
social norms will affect the resources and allies the player characters will

6
be able to find, which can in turn lead to new plot hooks, personal goals for
them, and new areas of the setting to be fleshed out and explored.

Story-Based Challenges
Challenges keep the player characters from achieving the adventure
goal too quickly. For an escape plan adventure, the obstacles that arise
directly from the plot include the cultural, political, and religious elements
that create the rationale for captivity, enable it, and benefit from it. This
extends to the supporting characters that are somehow incentivized to
participate in the system of captivity. They may have embraced the
ideology behind it, see it as normative, or merely pay lip service to it in
order to get along and remain free themselves. Keep in mind the inherent
difficulties of the campaign, including any open meta-plot issues and
recurring antagonists. Tie individual player character backgrounds and
personal goals in as well, so the adventure feels custom-built for these
characters.

Character Elements
An escape plan adventure let you focus on the player characters’
personalities. How they cope with captivity, the ways that their keep their
spirits up, and how they support one another is important. As far as
abilities go, they will likely be without weapons and have access to magic
and other powers cut off. This means that their ability to improvise, to use
more mundane skills, and to make the most of limited resources will be
vital. Those character traits and abilities can be incorporated into subplots
to make it a more personalized experience.
It opens up possibilities for the player characters to use creative and
crafting abilities. They might need to fashion their own weapons, lockpicks,
and other tools from available materials. If those abilities are their strong
suit, they’ll have a chance to shine. As the adventure goes on, of course, the
challenges will increase in difficulty. When a character doesn’t excel at
those things, they should be given other opportunities to contribute. An
ability to fight, to organize people, and to lead supporting character
prisoners can come in handy.
There are worldbuilding opportunities centered around captivity,
allowing you to develop the setting elements that factor into the
character’s back story. Who build the prison, where do the guards live, and
how are goods and services like food for the prisoners provided are all

7
questions that need to be answered. Even in a cursory way. Those elements
can become important when the player characters are formulating an
escape plan. This sort of worldbuilding also creates opportunities for
interesting non-player characters, new adversaries, and even future player
characters.
Elements required to make the adventure possible become part of
their character canon. If they weren’t in this particular place at the right
moment, lacked certain abilities, or didn’t have some background element
the adventure wouldn’t work. From this point forward what happens in the
adventure-as-played will be added to their back story and considered part
of their ongoing canon.

Player Characters
Player Characters are the protagonists of the story. In a breakout
adventure, they need to be able to withstand harsh conditions of captivity.
They should also have skills and traits that make them useful in a situation
that’s far from the typical adventuring scenario. If they lack those abilities,
you can compensate by having non-player character prisoners who can
teach them things, or perform certain tasks for them. Placing responsibility
for important pieces of the escape plan into the hands of a non-player
character can work, but that could force the player characters into a
supporting role within their own story. There has to be a reason why they
aren’t focused on details, like having them be the leaders and planners, or
uplifting the morale of their fellow prisoners.
Combat-centric player characters in an escape adventure will either
have to fight unarmed or with improvised weapons. As the adventure
progresses they will undoubtedly be able to overpower guards and take
their weapons, or even find their own gear locked up somewhere. A player
character that is magic-centric or power-centric will de at a
disadvantage, because every effort will be made to inhibit their ability to
cast spells. They may only have a limited selection to work with, if they
have any spellcasting capability at all. For skill-centric player characters,
they will need to be the stars of the show. Leading people, giving rousing
speeches, and picking locks are going to be a major focus.

Adversaries
Adversaries are the antagonists in the story, including the monsters,
villains, and other opponents the player characters will face. Their motives

8
and methods for interfering will vary, but their purpose in the adventure is
to prevent the player characters from achieving the adventure goal.
The antagonists in this type of adventure need to be ideologically
driven. They are often the diametric opposite of the player characters in
terms of cultural, political, and religious beliefs, if not moral and ethical
ones as well. Antagonists have solid reasons for oppressing either
individuals or groups of people, placing then into captivity.
Combat-centric adversaries in an escape plan adventure will have
every advantage over the player characters. They may not be tougher, but
they have greater numbers and better equipment, so in a straight fight
they’ll always win. An adversary that is magic-centric or power-centric
will also attempt to monopolize that power, so only they and their like-
minded allies are able to wield those forces. For skill-centric adversaries,
they will need to be well-versed in the things that aid in keeping people
locked up. This not only includes the obvious things like crafting strong
walls, secure locks, and dangerous traps, but in manipulating people into
supporting their ideology and intimidating those who oppose them.

Non-Player Characters
Non-Player Characters includes everyone else in the story. This
covers important resource characters, friends and allies, and nameless
extras. Knowing the roles you’ll need to fill can help you to target your
preparation for the adventure.
Within an escape plan adventure you may find non-player characters
who are also being held captive. You may not, leaving the player characters
entirely on their own. It all depends on the reasons for the captivity, and
the type of place where the PCs are being confined. Combat-centric non-
player characters in a breakout adventure may very well be broken. They
could be physically sick or injured, making it difficult for them to fight, or
their spirits might be crushed. A non-player character that is magic-
centric or power-centric will have lost their abilities, or be rusty from
prolonged misuse. The may be pressed into using their spellcasting for the
benefit of their captor, or have the magical energy harvested from them.
For skill-centric non-player characters, they will need to hide what they
are able to do, if their abilities could in any way aid in an escape attempt.
Their captor might put them to work using other skills in order to keep the
detention facility operating smoothly.

9
Character-Based Challenges
These challenges center on the player character’s needs, desires, and
personal goals. They distract them from the adventure goal by dividing
their priorities. For an escape plan adventure, the obstacles that arise
directly from the character elements can include non-player characters
from their background showing up, either working with the captors or as
fellow captives. It might be that their imprisonment is costing them
opportunities to go after something they want, making their captivity more
personal and all them more frustrating. When you tailor these sorts of
challenges to the player characters, the adventure will feel as if it was
designed just for them.

Worldbuilding Elements
An escape plan adventure requires the setting to have people willing to
lock other people up, a justification for locking them up, and a place to keep
their prisoners. It’s difficult to escape without a place to escape from. If
your game world already has those features, use them, and take this
opportunity to flesh them out a bit more. When there is no ready-made
solution, your worldbuilding efforts will need to be focused on both the
ideologies and facilities as part of your preparation.
If a player character’s background suggests a suitable location, use it.
This can be something from a previous adventure, or an unseen part of the
setting mentioned in their back story. This not only helps to develop the
game world, but connects the character directly to the story. Why create an
ideology if one exists, either ready-made to be exploited or easily twisted to
rationalize the villain’s actions? Why create a prison when there’s a castle
with a dungeon, a cave that can be blocked off, or some other location that
the adversaries can remodel to suit their needs?
Tie existing worldbuilding into the escape adventure as well. Use the
terrain, the cultures that live there, and monsters known to be in the area
to your advantage. Escape means avoiding the hazards of the environment,
the people who will rat them out or try to recapture them, and the beasts
and horrors that can be used to supplement the guards. Connect the story
to the setting in meaningful ways, so it doesn’t feel as if you’ve just dropped
events into a random spot on the map.
Every setting element required to make the adventure possible is
automatically part of your worldbuilding canon. The premise wouldn’t

10
work if the location, the history, and the broad possibilities inherent in
your worldbuilding didn’t support them. From this point forward what
happens in the adventure-as-played will be added to your growing canon.

Preceding Events
An important part of worldbuilding is creating the history of the
setting. For an escape adventure, it needs to be established that the villain
has some sort of problem with the player characters. There’s a history
there, if not specifically with these PCs then with the organization or
faction they work with, or the ideology that they represent. This can build
upon the existing lore of the region, or add new information. How the local
population feels about it, and what sorts of potential obstacles will already
exist, can stem from events that have happened in the world’s past.

Essential Locations
The types of locations that are required for a breakout adventure will
center around the place where the player characters are held captive.
That’s where most of the adventure will take place. There will have to be
supporting locations, the surrounding area for as far as needed to support
the needs of the place they need to escape from. If those already exist
within your setting, you simply need to adapt them or expand upon them
to make them fit with the needs of the story. Places that are implied by the
needs of an escape plan adventure may extend to the villain’s lair, the
surrounding community, and of course the place where the player
characters are taken captive in the first place. Should you need to develop
those locations, you know where your worldbuilding efforts will need to be
focused.

Overall Tone
While this is an element that can be reflected in the way the story and
characters are presented, it’s the worldbuilding that supports and
reinforces it. An escape plan adventure with a dramatic tone will have
more serious emotional beats. It’s not necessarily tragic or grim, but the
characters and situations can carry notes of sadness, suffering, or fear. By
contrast, a comedic tone in a breakout adventure will focus on humor,
with situations set up to provoke laughter.
You can have both dramatic and comedic moments within one
adventure. Overall, though, it will favor one over the other. For example,

11
the escape adventure might be mostly comedic, with the reasons and
means of their capture being silly, but have some scenes or encounters that
are truly frightening and imply darker consequences if the player
characters cannot escape. If it is mostly dramatic, based on some thematic
point drawn from the real would that you’d like to make, it can still contain
elements of humor to keep things from becoming too preachy or over-
serious to the point of not being any fun.
When an escape adventure has a light tone it isn’t necessarily
comedic, but the rewards will tend to be higher than the potential
complications. The stakes overall won’t be as high. Things will tend to skew
toward the success of the player characters, allowing them to play to their
strengths. They types of adventures with a dark tone have higher stakes,
with complications far outweighing any potential rewards. Challenges
won’t play to characters’ strengths, making failure a constant possibility.
That doesn’t mean that it can’t be comedic, but it will be black comedy.
Within the same adventure you can have light and dark moments. It
will tend to lean more toward one of the other overall, though. For instance,
a light escape adventure might put the emphasis on the fun of outwitting
guards and making a fool out of the villain, but still have darker scenes or
encounters where defenseless non-player characters are threatened. An
escape plan adventure that centers on a darker tone can stick mainly to the
need to get out before something terrible and irreversible happens to the
player characters, but offer lighter moments where a sense of hope and an
unbreakable spirit outshine potential dangers and horrific implications.
You can pair elements of drama/comedy and light/dark, of course. In a
breakout adventure, a light drama would be a relatively situation to get out
of due to the player characters’ superior abilities, while a dark drama could
keep them at a constant disadvantage with a realistically slim chance that
their plan will actually work. A light comedy would show the villain to be a
buffoon, perhaps with the player characters sticking around longer than
they need to because the threat isn’t credible. A dark comedy may have
genuine consequences posed by a joke of a villain, who has locked up the
player characters for an utterly ludicrous reason. When combined with the
tone established by the events of the story and the personalities of the
player characters, this becomes another opportunity to make your
adventure unique.

12
Setting-Based Challenges
Think about the worldbuilding elements in your setting that could
both support and hinder an escape plan adventure. You already have an
idea of the elements required to make the story work. What if those
elements were removed? Are there things within the canonical setting that
conflict with what’s necessary for a breakout adventure to play out? Those
are potential challenges for the player characters to overcome.

13
Act I – The Beginning

There are certain this that need to happen at the start of an escape
plan adventure. The status quo is established, showing the current state of
the characters and what relevant events are taking place within the setting.
An inciting incident takes place, creating the adventure goal. Finally, the
call to adventure is issued, where the player characters choose to pursue
that goal.

Story Canon
This is where you begin to introduce the foundational elements of your
story canon. The escape plan adventure goal is presented, the stakes are
established, and what the story-based obstacles will be should at least be
hinted at. The information necessary to begin the adventure is officially
part of your campaign history.

Character Canon
The player characters who will take part in this breakout adventure
are introduced. If the antagonists don’t appear yet, the inciting incident will
at least hint at their existence. Non-player characters will be there to help
the player characters find their way. Character-based challenges like
crafting, lock picking, and social skills can be used to demonstrate what the
player characters can do. This allows them to build up their confidence
before facing more difficult obstacles in the second act.

Worldbuilding Canon
Any events leading up to the inciting incident have to be introduced,
either through in-play action or exposition. Locations that will be
important to the escape adventure will appear, be named as destinations
for the second act, or at least have their existence hinted at. The tone of the
setting will be established, or reinforced if this isn’t the first adventure of
the campaign. Some setting-based challenges can be used to allow the
player characters to become familiar with worldbuilding elements that will
become important to the story later, like the ideology that drives the villain,

14
and elements like locations, monsters, and traps that will be used to
confine them.

Establish the Status Quo

The adventure begins by showing what “normal” looks like. It will
introduce the characters, introduce the setting, and introduce the
theme. The player characters are doing whatever it is they do. If they have
professions, hobbies, or other interests, they could be doing those things.
When they’re full-time adventurers, you might start them off having an
easy encounter to show that this is what their life is like.
Establishing the status quo also means demonstrating what goes on in
the setting on an ordinary day. This can help to establish the stakes later
on. For an escape plan adventure, it might mean showing what the player
characters’ lives are like before they get captured, kidnapped, or arrested.
The things that they do to attract the ire of the villain, long before they
cross paths, can be set up. This will include a demonstration of the player
characters’ beliefs and ideologies, which run directly opposite of the views
held by the adversary and which drive them to lock the PCs up.

Introduce the Characters

Provide each player character with a “spotlight moment” to establish
who they are and what their role in the campaign is. Provide them with a
task that shows off their abilities. Consider giving them a challenge that
foreshadows something they’ll need to do later in the adventure. For
example, in an escape adventure you may have them working with locks
and traps, organizing the community to accomplish some large project, or
engaging in an activity that supports some cultural, political, or religious
ideology that will later get them into trouble.
Unlike many other types of adventures, adversaries will appear in the
first act. They cross paths with the player characters, and imprison them.
The player characters absolutely know who is responsible for what’s going
on, if not what they will need to face. The reason for their being captured
and locked up by the antagonist may not be clear early on, but they do
know who did it. There may be rumors going around about purges,
revenge, or whatever labels you choose to put in the villain’s motivation.
Well-known non-player characters might appear early in the story to
offer advice and generally help to get the player characters pointed in the

15
right direction. Some NPCs that will appear later might be mentioned, or
their existence established indirectly. If the PCs are locked in an old,
established prison, for example, they may know of a notorious criminal
that is serving time there who will be introduced in the second act.

Introduce the Setting

There are a few reasons to establish what “normal” looks like in the
setting. The first is to show what is possible, so that the exploits of the
player characters and their adversaries seem credible. Anything that will
happen on a large scale in the second and third acts should be
demonstrated on a smaller scale here.
The second is to help establish the stakes. By showing something of the
setting prior to the inciting incident, you can more effectively show what
has changed. The player characters will better understand what is to be
gained or lost during the adventure, and why the adventure goal of
breaking free from captivity is so important not just to them but to the
world they live in.
Finally, establishing things that are going to be relevant to the
adventure later is targeted worldbuilding. You can focus on creating the
elements that will allow the player characters to become captured, their
adversaries to have so much investment in and support for an ideology, and
to reinforce the entire concept of having enemies of the villain locked up.
This will include possible undercurrents of the ideology popping up within
the community, establishing the history of the place where the player
characters will be held, and providing the villain with a reputation as a
credible threat.

Introduce the Theme

The adventure’s theme is what it’s actually about. It can be a single
idea, like “family”, or a conflict between two ideas like “people versus
nature”. When you have a theme, you can create encounters and plot points
that reinforce the idea.
A common theme in escape plan adventures is what freedom means.
You can demonstrate that by depriving the player characters of choices,
especially around things that most of us take for granted. Their lives in
captivity will be regimented. This is just an example, of course. Using a
different theme can drastically alter an adventure, and is one way to gave

16
the basic structure of a breakout story replayability by changing the
meaning and types of elements that you want to emphasize.
The thematic statement is what you, as the gamemaster, are trying to
say through the work. In the theme of freedom, you might want to express
that free will continues to exist even in captivity, or that the availability of
choice is essential to the concept of freedom. The villain’s statement will be
the exact opposite: people have more freedom when they no longer have to
make choices, that it is somehow to their benefit to allow an authority
figure to dictate their lives.
Every character, both player characters and supporting characters,
could have their own thematic concept. They have their own point of view
about the theme, that can be expressed through their personalities and
actions. One character might consider freedom to be the ability to express
their cultural traditions, for example. Another could place an emphasis on
the freedom to practice religion, or challenge political leaders.
Having a theme can help you to design interesting encounters. It can
help you to give non-player characters some depth by having them
represent a point of view. The theme can also allow players to round out
their characters by providing them with a specific idea or concept to focus
on, and letting them work out what the character’s thoughts would be
based on their background and adventuring experiences.

Reveal the Inciting Incident

This is the moment when things go wrong. The inciting incident is the
event that sets off the adventure and draws the players characters into it.
Something that no one expected or planned for goes down. This is where
you need to establish the adventure goal and present the stakes. For an
escape plan adventure, this is the moment when the player characters are
taken prisoner by the villain. You might back it up a bit to a point where
they learn they are being hunted, or are going to be arrested, and make the
inciting incident the moment they know that their freedom is in jeopardy.

Establish the Adventure Goal

To put it simply, how do you know when the adventure is over? What is
the one clear objective that the player characters have to accomplish? In an
escape adventure, this is the moment that they escape. It’s right in the title.
As adventure types go, this one in incredibly transparent.

17
This means that the goal has to align with the promise of the game.
What are the players expecting? If it’s action and combat, then the
adventure goal has to reflect a situation that’s going to require a lot of
fighting. If it’s mystery, or intrigue, or a lot of roleplaying and character
development, then the goal should make it clear that there will be ample
opportunities for those things.
Having a goal isn’t railroading the player characters. There’s a
difference between understanding what they need to accomplish and
forcing them into one specific course of action to accomplish it. They
should be free to make their own plans and solve the problems inherent in
the adventure goal using their own ideas.
What might be considered railroading is the notion that the player
characters don’t really have the possibility of escape during the first act. If
they avoid capture, the whole plot goes right out the window. This means
that the situation has to be presented in a way that doesn’t feel like it robs
the players (not the characters) of their agency. It also has to make sense in
the context of what we know about the setting, these player characters, and
the villain.

Present the Stakes

The player characters need to be presented with what’s at stake. There
are two parts to this. The first are the consequences: what will happen if
the adventure goal has not been fulfilled? How will it affect the player
characters, the non-player characters they care about, and their personal
goals if the bad guys win? What will become of the world if no one steps up
to save it? For an escape adventure this might also be reversed, so that the
player characters have to worry about what the villain will do to beloved
supporting characters if the PCs do not go peacefully.
That’s the stick. The second part, the rewards, is the carrot. We know
up front what the player characters gain if they accept the mission: their
freedom. How will they benefit from accomplishing the adventure goal is
obvious. Know what’s in it for them, they won’t even see it as answering a
call to adventure.
The stakes of your adventure beyond the player characters’ freedom
have to connect to their wants and needs. If they’re not feeling any sort of
potential loss if the villain isn’t dealt with or a situation isn’t stopped,
they’re not going to care past the point that they get away. The same if the

18
rewards dangled in front of them aren’t useful or appealing. This is where
you can make an escape plan adventure feel like it was designed just for
them, and not a set of generic encounters that anyone could play through.
For an escape plan adventure, the larger stakes often stem from the
adversary trying to push their ideology. There are ramifications to any
culture that is not their culture, political views that are not their view,
religious beliefs that do not align with their beliefs. This all depends on
how powerful the villain is in the context of the world, of course, or how
much damage their in a position to inflict. It may be that their wrath begins
and ends with the player characters, because of a personal disagreement.
It’s far more interesting when the issues are over not just what the player
characters believe, but what they represent to the setting. The
complications that arise from not escaping will be used to symbolically
prove the weakness of the player characters’ culture, politics, or religion,
and superiority of the villain’s ideology. What the player characters stand
to get from successfully is the same sort of symbolic victory.

Issue the Call to Adventure… Kind Of

At the end of the first act the player characters will be captured. It’s not
up to them to accept the call to adventure so much as to lose. This means
the players, rather than the characters, have to understand. Obviously the
characters will grasp the stakes for themselves and be willing to pursue the
goal. It might require you to make the stakes to other people and
organizations, particularly those that align with with ideology on a larger
level, clear to the player characters.

Accepting the Call

It’s assumed that the stakes will be enough to get the player characters
to surrender, rather than fight to the death. The adventure is in line with
the promise of the setting and genre, and therefore meets the players’
expectations. It’s relevant to the individual player characters somehow, and
feels like it’s part of their story, not a generic adventure that they’ve been
dropped into.

Rejecting the Call

Let’s take a moment to acknowledge that this could happen. Someone
will say something about railroading. They don’t understanding why their
character would surrender, short of being knocked unconscious. If you’ve

19
set things up properly, and done your best to connect each character to the
adventure, it shouldn’t happen. Hopefully the other players will help to talk
them into it. Through a non-player character you can remind them of the
stakes, and what they personally stand to gain and lose. Mention their
morals and ethics, their standing and reputation within the setting,
whatever is on the line.

Act I Scenes & Beats

In a novel or screenplay, this setup could take up one-quarter to one-
third of the whole story. For an adventure, you’re looking at 1 to 3 scenes
minimum. You can establish all of the important points at once, or spread
things out to give them more detail and attention.
Establish the Status Quo – Show what the world look like before the
villain attacks and captures the player characters. Introduce the important
characters, the setting, and the theme of the adventure. This can be one
scene for each character, a single scene with the player characters together,
or part of one big introduction scene.
Reveal the Inciting Incident – The villain appears and forces the
player characters to respond. Introduce the adventure goal of having to
escape captivity and the stakes to the larger community. This can be
separate scenes for each player character, giving them a reason to come
together. It can be an interruption of the “status quo” scene.
Issue the Call to Adventure – The player characters will hopefully
understand the established stakes and not feel that they’ve been forced
into a specific course of action. This can be a separate scene, after the
characters have had a chance to regroup, talk things over, and make some
decisions. It might be a continuation of the capture scene, when there’s no
doubt as to their involvement.

20
Act II – The Middle

Most of the action occurs in the middle of the adventure. Challenges

will become increasingly more difficult until the midpoint as a result of
rising action. The player characters will reach a turning point where
something changes, and things no longer happen predictably. From there
things go downhill as the adversary gains the upper hand and the
challenges no longer play to the player characters’ strengths. All of this
leads to a moment of doubt as to whether the adventure goal can be
achieved as the second act comes to a close.

Story Canon
The second act in your escape plan adventure is where the elements of
your story canon introduced in the first act will get used. The player
characters will be reminded of what’s at stake, not just for them but for
individuals and groups that share their ideology, or don’t align with the
villain’s. If the adventure goal wasn’t entirely clear, or parts of it didn’t
make complete sense, all will be revealed here. Story-based obstacles will
present themselves regularly to slow down the characters’ progress. The
campaign history established in the first act can be built upon and be used
as the player characters are introduced to their new life in captivity.

Character Canon
The player characters will all get to use their signature abilities and
show off the things they’re good at. If the main adversary hasn’t appeared
yet, they’ll show up by the midpoint of this act. Non-player characters will
have various parts to play, but as the act goes on those they will appear less
frequently. Toward the end of the act the player characters will be called
upon to do things they aren’t as god at, providing a difference sort of
challenge. This allows them to build up their confidence before facing the
main adversary in the third act.

Worldbuilding Canon
The player characters will get the opportunity to explore locations
important to the escape plan adventure. Places named or hinted at in the

21
first act will appear and be fleshed out a bit more. The tone of the setting
established earlier will be reinforced and expanded upon. Setting-based
challenges can be used so player characters can increase their familiarity
with worldbuilding elements important to the story, like types of locks,
traps, and fortifications, as wells as the cultural, political, and religious
ideologies of the world and the people and organizations that promote
those views.

Rising Action
This section of the adventure is where roughly half of the encounters
will be. These are the fun bits where the player characters get to run wild.
It will contain several scenes, as many as you feel are necessary to
challenge the characters, establish essential plot points, and introduce
major non-player characters. Here is where early escape attempts will
happen in a breakout adventure, with the player characters learning things
about the situation they’re in, gathering resources, and formulating a plan.

The Fun Bits

Things will be relatively easy for the player characters throughout the
early part of Act II. They’ll face exactly what they expect to find an an
escape adventure and will be prepared. The obstacles they encounter will
play to their strengths, meaning that every player character will have an
opportunity to show off. You can combine player character challenges into
scenes, or provide each character with at least one scene that showcases
their signature abilities.
For an escape plan adventure, that means allowing them to settle in.
This section will include learning the rules of their captivity, becoming
familiar with who their captors are, and discovering the resources that are
available to them that could be useful later on.
Whatever the player characters have to face, they’re likely to succeed.
The difficulty will start off a bit below their ability level, and increase
slightly with every subsequent encounter. This makes the adventure
exciting, action-packed, and put an emphasis on just having fun. By the end
of this section they should be facing challenges that are fully worthy of
their abilities.

22
Reach a Turning Point
About midway through the second act, something happens that makes
the adventure more difficult. This is one pivotal scene. This is an
unexpected twist that the player characters could not have reasonably
planner for. In an escape adventure this often means that their first escape
attempt fails, or the villain discovers their plan and puts an end to it.
Resources they’ve spent time accumulating are confiscated. Things they’ve
created and hidden away for the right moment are destroyed. Allied non-
player characters are taken away, no longer able to aid in the escape plan.
Security in increased. The antagonist has stepped up their plans to spread
their ideology, which might mean doing harm to people and organizations
on the outside where the player characters are unable to help them.

The Hard Part

For an escape plan this means that the obvious means of getting away
isn’t going to work. The easy-to-locate information has already been
acquired, so they need to dig a bit further. Resources have been taken away,
and getting the things they need becomes more complicated. Holes in the
villain’s security and routines are harder to detect and gain access to, if not
impossible to leverage.

Create a Moment of Doubt

At this point in the adventure, the worst case scenario happens.
Whatever could bring the whole escape plan to a grinding halt takes place
here in one brutal scene. The player characters are shown how much the
villain is winning, and made to feel helpless. In an escape adventure, this

23
typically means that someone they care about dies in a show of their
captor’s power. This should lead to a transformation in both the tone of
the adventure and the attitudes of the player characters.
This will be the hardest encounter in the entire adventure. It has to be
even more difficult than the final, because in the end the player characters
need to be able to win. If the player characters do have a win here, it should
be a close call, or possibly a matter of luck. They will need to pull out any
resources they’ve been holding in reserve for the finale, and use them
earlier than they anticipated.

Transformation
The net effect of the moment of doubt should be that the player
characters feel uncertain about whether or not they can achieve the
adventure goal. The reason to do this is to make their eventual victory feel
even more special. By the end of the adventure they should feel that they
overcame all of the challenges thrown at them, and be proud of what they
accomplished. That emotional surge starts right here.
Clearly the player characters’ original plan is no longer going to work.
For an escape adventure, this means that they will need to fall back on Plan
B. They will need to regroup, come up with a new plan that involves greater
risk that their original idea, or simply face the fact that they’re going to
have to wing it. Once they’ve accept this shift in the status quo of the
adventure and are ready to press on, this middle section of the adventure is
over and it’s time for Act III.

Act II Scenes & Beats

Rising Action – The encounters start off easy but become increasingly
more difficult. Resources, allies, and information, if available, are relatively
easy to acquire. They cater to the player characters’ abilities and resources.
There are several scenes, and this is the largest section of the adventure.
Reach a Turning Point – Something changes that makes achieving the
adventure goal more difficult. The main villain is aware of the player
characters’ escape plan, and takes steps to squash it. Resources are
confiscated or destroyed. This is one scene that shifts the tone of the
adventure.
Things Go Downhill – The encounters are no longer based on the
player characters’ best abilities. Resources are in short supply or

24
impossible to acquire any longer. There is greater scrutiny of the player
characters’ activities. At several scenes this is the second-largest section of
the adventure.
Create a Moment of Doubt – The player characters should begin to
wonder whether they will be able to complete the story goal. The villain
demonstrates their power in an effort to make the player characters feel
helpless. They realize that their initial plan is not working and need to
regroup. This is one scene.

25
Act III – The End

At the end of the adventure the promise of everything that has

happened so far will be fulfilled. There will be a moment of atonement to
balance out the moment of doubt at the end of the second act. From there
the gamemaster can unleash the finale, allowing the player characters to
deal with the main adversary and achieve the story goal. All that’s left then
is to wrap up loose ends and the adventure is over.

Create a Moment of Atonement

26
is where the montage would go. They gather their allies, make their plans,
collect their various resources, and get ready to make their final push
toward the adventure goal. All told, it shouldn’t take more than one to three
short scenes.

A Chance to Regroup
Another purpose for the moment of atonement is to give the players a
chance to breathe. The moment of doubt was no doubt intense. This is
where non-player characters give them pep talks and remind them of
what’s at stake. It’s a chance to look back and remember why these player
characters are the stars of the adventure. It’s the quiet before the storm,
where everyone can rest, recover a bit, and think about what they’re going
to do next.
For an escape plan adventure this could mean that the player
characters salvage what the have left. This might be some weapon or tool
that wasn’t found and confiscated, or a piece of the plan that could still
work. It might be the realization that they have nothing to lose that makes
them willing to take risks that they wouldn’t before. Although it might feel
like more railroading, the moment of doubt could have accidentally
revealed some weakness or opportunity that the player characters weren’t
aware of before, that they can now exploit to get free.

Unleash the Finale

This can be one giant scene, or broken up into two or three smaller,
more manageable encounters. Either way, it’s the beginning of the end.
There are two parts to the finale proper. The player characters will need to
confront the antagonist, their main adversary in the adventure, to hold
them accountable for what they’ve done. In an escape plan adventure that
usually means capturing or killing the villain. They will also complete the
adventure goal, getting away from the place of captivity. They can do these
things together, or in separate scenes.

Confront the Antagonist

For an escape plan adventure, the main adversary has tormented the
player characters based on the fact that they are the ideological opposites.
Here the player characters will at last have an opportunity to get back at
the villain and make them pay. There’s always an element of revenge here,
no matter how objectively good or moral the characters are normally.

27
The player characters may need to go through the antagonist to get
out. This becomes a “final boss” situation where the only way to get free is
to defeat their captor once and for all. Once they go down, everything else
about their scheme starts to fall apart.
The player characters may need to complete the adventure goal before
chasing after the antagonist. Breaking free is the only means of getting to
them, in order to bring them to justice, exact revenge, or stop them from
implementing a larger plan that will harm more people. This could require
the player characters to travel to another location, allowing them time to
rest, heal, and acquire their equipment.

Complete the Adventure Goal

This is where the story is more or less complete. In the first act the
player characters were captured and dragged into this adventure against
their will. In the second act, they pursued escape and did what they had to
in order to survive until the time was right. This is it. One important scene.
Even if the antagonist gets away, the player characters are free.

Wrap Up Loose Ends

Return
In an escape plan adventure, the player characters will go back to their
normal lives after the adventure goal has been completed. Their life may
have changed as the result of the preceding events, and now they will have
to readjust. This could mean dealing with physical or emotional injuries
sustained while being locked up.

Rewards and Complications

28
affected by the things they’ve done. There could also be financial and legal
complications, if the character is able to pursue some sort of restitution
from the organization or faction their captor represented. The people who
shared the villain’s ideology will not forget what the player characters did,
will resent that they are free, and could pose an ongoing threat in future
adventures.

Reset
Based on what has happened during the adventure, you will need to
reset the status quo. Things could go back to normal, as if nothing ever
happened. There might be changes, based on the clash of ideologies that
drove the conflict between the villain and the player characters. In an
escape adventure, you will need to account for the location where they
were held captive, support systems that fed into it, and the impact it may
have had on the characters and the setting. There could be changes in the
cultural, political, or religious factions the villain was associated with, as
they either attempt to distance themselves from the events of the
adventure or embrace him as a martyr to their cause.

Act III Scenes & Beats

29
Finishing Up

After the adventure is over you will have to perform a bit of campaign
maintenance. Players will update the character canon to reflect changes
and advances. The gamemaster will update the worldbuilding canon to
add new elements to the setting that have been created or altered during
play. Everyone will need to update the story canon, as the events of the
adventures have officially happened and are now part of the campaign lore.

Update the Character Canon

Update the Worldbuilding Canon

Update the Story Canon

This story is now officially part of your campaign history. Whether the
characters achieve the adventure goal or fail spectacularly, these events
have happened. The ramifications will resonate, creating plot hooks and
possibilities for spin-offs and sequels to deal with loose ends and explain
new elements that popped upon along the way. For an escape plan
adventure, this could mean increased tension between the opposed
ideologies of the player characters and the villain, violence between
people, groups, and factions, and ongoing tensions among cultures,
political bodies, and religious organizations directly or indirectly involved
in the clash of ideas.

30
The Escape Plan Beat Sheet

Act I – The Beginning

The player characters are captured by the villain.
Establish the Status Quo – Show what the world look like before the
inciting incident. Introduce the characters, the setting, and the theme.
Reveal the Inciting Incident – Something changes that forces the
player characters to respond. Introduce the adventure goal and the stakes.
Issue the Call to Adventure – The player characters will hopefully
accept the adventure, based on the established stakes.

Act II – The Middle

The player characters make a plan to escape.
Rising Action – The encounters start off easy but become increasingly
more difficult. They cater to the player characters’ abilities and resources.
Reach a Turning Point – Something makes achieving the adventure
goal more difficult. The main villain is aware of the player characters.
Things Go Downhill – Encounters get easier, but they are no longer
based on the player characters’ best abilities. Resources are in short supply.
Create a Moment of Doubt – The player characters should begin to
wonder whether they will be able to complete the story goal.

Act III – The End

The player characters overcome the villain and escape.
Create a Moment of Atonement – The player characters regroup and
renew their commitment to achieving the story goal.
Unleash the Finale – The main antagonist will be defeated, and the
adventure goal will finally be achieved. The main plot is resolved.
Wrap Up Loose Ends – The player characters return home, get their
rewards, deal with any lingering complications, and the status quo is reset.

31
The Hero’s Quest
Adventure Design Guide

Dancing Lights Press

Join our community at
https://dancinglightspress.com

The Hero's Quest: Adventure Design Guide will help gamemasters

to create and prepare journey-centered adventures for your favorite role-
playing game. This book acts as a “beat sheet”, a tool used by writers to
outline and plan pivotal elements of a story. It allows them to know where
they’re going, gather the research and information they need, and ensure
that everything ultimately holds together and makes sense.
This series was created specifically with tabletop role-playing games in
mind. It’s designed to work with any setting, genre, or rules system. All you
need to do is apply the context provided by your player characters, the
game world, and your own adventure ideas. Plug in appropriate encounters
and challenges, create the villains, monsters, and non-player characters
you’ll need, and you’re ready to play.

1
This book contains the following:
• The Hero's Quest: An overview of this type of adventure, what makes
it fun, and ways it can be used again and again to create interesting and
unique experiences for your players. Once you embrace these basic
elements, the rest of the adventure flows from there.
• Act I – The Beginning: The elements needed at the start of your
adventure, how to structure the opening act, and advice on
establishing the adventure goal. It’s where the player characters learn
what’s going on and agree to get involved.
• Act II – The Middle: Elements that define the center of the adventure,
structuring the second act, and advice on pursuing the adventure goal.
It’s where the characters do most of their exploring, investigating, and
other actions necessary to achieving the goal.
• Act III – The End: Creating the elements for the last segment of the
adventure, providing structure for the finale, and advice on completing
the adventure goal. It’s where the player characters will confront the
villain, achieve what they set out to do, and earn their rewards.
• Finishing Up: This section shows how to take what happened during
the adventure-as-played and use it as a source for new plot hooks,
character development, and ongoing worldbuilding. Add to your
campaign’s canon and leverage the momentum you’ve established.

How to Use This Book

Read through Adventure Design Guide: The Hero's Quest once
entirely to become familiar with its contents and main concepts. After that
you can go through section-by-section to plan and craft your adventure.
Refer back to any section as needed to be sure you’ve covered everything.

The Three Pillars Approach

Character Elements
Player character backgrounds should draw from the lore of the setting,
connecting them to the game world. Each character should be appropriate
to the adventure, either because their abilities make them useful to
achieving the goal, or their back story, personal objectives, and vested
interests mean that the outcome of the story will affect them. They need to
have skin in the game, for one reason or another.

The Three Canons Account

Worldbuilding Canon
Setting elements become canon when they appear or are referred to
during play. This gives you the freedom to change and adapt things as the
campaign unfolds. Track what has been clearly established. Note the things
that have changed as a result of character actions and plot lines. Use the
possibilities of the evolving canon to inform backgrounds for new
characters and to create plot hooks for future adventures.

The Three Act Structure

4
The Hero's Quest

The player characters travel far to find an item

of great value, facing the hazards of strange
places and overcoming a dangerous foe seeking
the same thing.

In a hero's quest adventure, the player characters will be called upon to

find a person, place, or thing. They will have to travel far and wide,
overcome many obstacles, and return with the object of their expedition.
During the course of the adventure, they will have to face the hazards of
weather and terrain. There will be others seeking the same thing, and
those who don’t want it to be found. By the end, they should locate what
they seek and safely return back to where they started.

Story Elements
This type of adventure is fun because it allows you to show off your
worldbuilding skills. The player characters get to see new things, meet
interesting cultures, and face unusual and unfamiliar challenges. More of
the history and geography of the setting will be revealed along the way,
opening up story possibilities for future adventures. A hero’s quest
adventure opens up possibilities for the player characters to show off
abilities centered around survival, diplomacy, and various fields of
knowledge.
All of the story elements required to make the adventure possible are
automatically part of your story canon. The whole setup wouldn’t work if
these events didn’t happen and the player characters weren’t in a position
to be drawn into them. From this point forward only what happens in the
adventure-as-played will be considered part of your canon.

The MacGuffin
The object of the quest will be referred to going forward at the
MacGuffin. It’s a person, place, or thing that’s not significant to the plot, but
it serves as the motivation for the player characters. While it’ interesting to
know what it can do, who they are, or why the location is significant, the

5
important thing is that it provides an excuse for the player characters to go
searching for it. Making it something cool, with an interesting back story, is
just a bonus.

The Adventure Goal

The adventure goal is what the player characters need to accomplish
in order to successfully complete the adventure. How they do it is up to
them, so the players still have agency. In a hero’s quest adventure, the
objective is for them to locate the MacGuffin and return back to the original
starting point. For simplicity we’ll refer to this as “home”, but it could be
the location of whoever hired them, or the people in need of the MacGuffin.

The Stakes
An adventure’s stakes include both the potential rewards and likely
complications that could arise based on how the story plays out. It isn’t
always as simple as the player characters getting something good when
they succeed, or having something bad happen to them if they fail.
Rewards will sometimes come with a cost. Complications can have an
unexpected silver lining.
Rewards
In a hero’s quest story, the most common reward is the MacGuffin
itself. It’s either worth something, or it does something, or someone is
willing to trade it for a valuable item the player characters actually want or
need. Your game system of choice will have its own rules for character
advancement, awarded for their efforts during the adventure. Depending
upon the genre and setting, there may be incidental treasure or other
financial bonuses as well.
Complications
The types of difficulties that can arise from a hero’s quest adventure
come down to travel, misunderstanding, and greed. The player characters
will have to deal with weather, terrain, and wild animals. They’ll encounter
people that are by turns friendly, hostile, and ambivalent. Culture
differences, unfamiliar customs, and languages barriers could about. They
may also not be the only ones after the MacGuffin, and the people that
currently have it may not be willing to give it up.
There could also be worries about what will happen at home while the
player characters are away. Their could be concerns about how their

6
responsibilities will be covered. Rivals could we waiting for an opportunity
to interfere with their regular jobs, their relationships, or the possessions
they leave behind.
While these are story-based complications, they should also be used as
a basis for worldbuilding and character development. The impact of travel
will introduce all manner of new setting elements, which can in turn lead
to new plot hooks, personal goals for the player characters, and new areas
of the setting to be fleshed out and explored.

Story-Based Challenges
These challenges are intended keep the player characters from
achieving the adventure goal too quickly. For a hero's quest adventure, the
obstacles that arise directly from the plot include anything related to the
MacGuffin, why people want it, and the rewards and complications that
stem from having it. These are elements that would be largely the same
regardless of the setting or the specific player characters on the quest.
Keep in mind the story elements that connect the worldbuilding to the
story, though. Tie individual player character backgrounds and personal
goals in as well, so the adventure feels custom-built for these characters.
This means exploring their connections to the areas they will be traveling
through, their need to gain the reward, and the impact the complications
might have on the player characters and the people they care about.

Character Elements
A hero’s quest adventure let you focus on the player characters’ full
range of skills. Those elements can be incorporated into subplots to make it
a more personalized experience. Travel, encountering new cultures, and
searching for clues as to the MacGuffin’s location provide opportunities for
nearly every sort of player character.
A hero’s quest opens up possibilities for the player characters to use
abilities related to knowledge, diplomacy, and survival. If those are their
strong suit, they’ll have a chance to shine. As the adventure goes on, of
course, the challenges will increase in difficulty. When a character doesn’t
excel at those things, they should be given other opportunities to
contribute based on their core concept.
There are worldbuilding opportunities centered around a hero’s quest,
allowing you to develop the setting elements that factor into the

7
character’s back story. Where have they been before, and what impression
did that previous trip leave on them? If they’ve never traveled this way
before, how can you use the setting to create a sense of awe and wonder?
This sort of worldbuilding also creates opportunities for interesting non-
player characters, new adversaries, and even future player characters.
Elements required to make the adventure possible become part of
their character canon. If they weren’t in this particular place at the right
moment, lacked certain abilities, or didn’t have some background element
the adventure wouldn’t work. From this point forward what happens in the
adventure-as-played will be added to their back story and considered part
of their ongoing canon.

Player Characters
Player Characters are the protagonists of the story. In a hero’s quest
adventure, they need to be able to live on the road with all that entails. If
they lack those abilities, you can compensate by giving them a guide, have
them travel with an experienced caravan, or provide them with maps,
books, and other reference materials compiled by a helpful non-player
character. Placing responsibility for a safe journey into the hands of a non-
player character can work, but that could force the player characters into a
supporting role within their own story. There has to be a reason why they
aren’t focused on their surroundings, like having them too busy fighting
through canonically hostile territory to notice the terrain, the interesting
people, and other nuanced bits of setting and story.
Combat-centric player characters in a hero’s quest adventure will find
new foes and monsters to do battle with. Adversaries will use strange
weapons and tactics. There will be creatures with abilities they never
dreamed of. A player character that is magic-centric or power-centric
should have opportunities to use their abilities in new ways. They will
encounter spells that they’ve never seen before. It should be an
opportunity to learn things they couldn’t if they’d stayed at home. For skill-
centric player characters, they will need to exhibit a wide range of
expertise, including languages, various forms of lore, hunting and camping,
and even persuasion and negotiation.

Adversaries
Adversaries are the antagonists in the story, including the monsters,
villains, and other opponents the player characters will face. Their motives

8
and methods for interfering will vary, but their purpose in the adventure is
to prevent the player characters from achieving the adventure goal. This
means that they will need motives, which can range from simply not liking
outsiders in their territory to common banditry to coveting the MacGuffin
for themselves.
The antagonists in this type of adventure need to be connected to the
area where the live, as representatives of the local culture. Combat-centric
adversaries in a hero’s quest will display the arms, armor, and combat style
of their people, which should be distinct from that the player characters
are used to. An adversary that is magic-centric or power-centric should
have unusual spells and abilities, or at least special effects that reflect their
backgrounds and traditions. For skill-centric adversaries, they will need to
be experts in local flora, fauna, and terrain. They live there, after all, so
they’re fluent in the language, customs, and all manner of everyday lore.

Non-Player Characters
Non-Player Characters includes everyone else in the story. This
covers important resource characters, friends and allies, and nameless
extras. Knowing the roles you’ll need to fill can help you to target your
preparation for the adventure. Because the characters are on the road, you
have the opportunity to provide a succession of friendly faces along the
way. The player characters won’t be able to conveniently return to the same
supporting cast every time they run into trouble.
Within a hero’s quest adventure you will find non-player characters
that are both benevolent and mercenary. Some will support the player
characters’ cause, while many will see the opportunity to exploit strangers
for as much money as they can get out of them. Combat-centric non-
player characters in a hero’s quest will take up arms to help if their causes
align. The complications of failing to achieve the adventure goal may splash
in them, so they’re willing to assist. Otherwise, they’ll gladly help for pay or
a cut of the reward. A non-player character that is magic-centric or
power-centric will operate under similar motives, but there could also be
cultural, political, and religious reasons influencing the degree to which
they’re willing to help. For skill-centric non-player characters, they will
need to be in place to supply expertise the player characters lack. This
means that they should be agreeable, and their fees not too steep, because
their assistance will be necessary to achieve the adventure goal.

9
Character-Based Challenges
These challenges center on the player character’s needs, desires, and
personal goals. They distract them from the adventure goal by dividing
their priorities. Character-based challenges are things that might happen
regardless of the type of adventure or the setting in which it occurs. A
challenge might connect to why the player characters want the reward, or
why the complications of not achieving the adventure goal would be
particularly devastating to them.
For a hero's quest adventure, the obstacles that arise directly from the
character elements can include problematic non-player characters from
their background showing up, opportunities to go after something they
want instead of the adventure goal, or a past history with the people who
live in the area they must travel through. When you tailor these sorts of
challenges to the player characters, the adventure will feel as if it was
designed just for them.

Worldbuilding Elements
A hero’s quest adventure requires the setting to have interesting places
to travel. It’s difficult to go on a journey without a destination, and
interesting sights to see along the way. If your game world already has
suitable locations, use them. Take this opportunity to flesh them out a bit
more. When there is no ready-made solution, your worldbuilding efforts
will need to be focused on where the MacGuffin is located, and what type of
places the player characters will need to pass through, as part of your
overall preparation.
If a player character’s background suggests a suitable location, use it.
This can be something from a previous adventure, or an unseen part of the
setting mentioned in their back story. This not only helps to develop the
game world, but connects the character directly to the story. You can
leverage the player to help flesh out the area, making that player character
the expert for that section of the journey.
Tie existing worldbuilding into the hero’s quest as well. Use the terrain,
the cultures that live there, and monsters known to be in the area as much
as possible. This cuts down on your preparation. Connect the story to the
setting in meaningful ways, so it doesn’t feel as if you’ve just dropped
events into a random spot on the map. Tweak the history that’s know to
incorporate the background of the MacGuffin and the adventure goal.

10
Every setting element required to make the adventure possible is
automatically part of your worldbuilding canon. The premise wouldn’t
work if the location, the history, and the broad possibilities inherent in
your worldbuilding didn’t support them. From this point forward what
happens in the adventure-as-played will be added to your growing canon.

Preceding Events
An important part of worldbuilding is creating the history of the
setting. For a hero’s quest adventure, it needs to be established that the
MacGuffin exists. The background of this person, place, or thing can build
upon the existing lore of the region, or add new information. How the local
population feels about it, and what sorts of potential obstacles will already
exist, can stem from events that have happened in the world’s past.

Essential Locations
The types of locations that are required for a hero’s quest include
where the MacGuffin is currently, where it originated, and all points
between it and where the player characters begin the adventure. If those
places already exist within your setting, you simply need to adapt them or
expand upon them to make them fit with the needs of the story. Places that
are implied by the needs of a hero’s adventure may extend to lodging,
hunting grounds, and places to find local information. Should you need to
develop those locations, you know where your worldbuilding efforts will
need to be focused.

Overall Tone
While this is an element that can be reflected in the way the story and
characters are presented, it’s the worldbuilding that supports and
reinforces it. A hero’s quest adventure with a dramatic tone will have
more serious emotional beats. It’s not necessarily tragic or grim, but the
characters and situations can carry notes of sadness, suffering, or fear. The
focus will be on avoiding or diminishing the complications that come with
failing to meet the adventure goal. By contrast, a comedic tone in a hero’s
quest will focus on humor, with situations set up to provoke laughter. The
emphasis will be more on the rewards to be gained from accomplishing the
adventure goal, and possibly connect more closely to player characters
achieving their personal goals.

11
You can have both dramatic and comedic moments within one
adventure. These will be scenes, or even moments. Overall, though, it will
favor one over the other. For example, the hero’s quest adventure might be
mostly dramatic, but have some scenes or encounters that are thrilling and
fun when meeting new people or experiencing amazing new locations. If it
is mostly comedic, it can still contain elements of danger and doubt when
faced with hostile locals and difficult terrain.
When a hero’s quest adventure has a light tone it isn’t necessarily
comedic, but the potential rewards will tend to be higher than the likely
complications. The stakes overall won’t be as high. Things will tend to skew
toward the success of the player characters, allowing them to play to their
strengths. Resources will be abundant and easy to acquire. A quest a with a
dark tone have higher stakes, with complications far outweighing any
potential rewards. Challenges won’t always play to the characters’
strengths, making failure a constant possibility. There will be a scarcity of
resources, which will be expensive and difficult to get. That doesn’t mean
that the adventure can’t be comedic, but it will be black comedy.
Within the same adventure you can have light and dark moments. It
will tend to lean more toward one of the other overall, though. For instance,
a light quest adventure might put the emphasis on travel and seeing
interesting sights, but still have darker scenes or encounters where the
main adversary actively introduces obstacles. A hero’s quest that centers
on a darker tone can stick mainly to the difficulties of travel and the hostile
nature of locals, but offer lighter moments where the player characters can
rest, enjoy the view, and meet some kind and interesting non-player
characters.
You can pair elements of drama/comedy and light/dark, of course. In a
hero’s quest adventure, a light drama would feature relatively easy travel
but moderately difficult character encounters, which a dark drama could
have serious relationship issues and an environment that just wants to kill
the player characters. A light comedy would make travel fun, with
misunderstandings between characters rather than vicious blood feuds. A
dark comedy may have the trappings of danger, but the actual
consequences and the difficulties characters face not being all that awful.
When combined with the tone established by the events of the story and
the personalities of the player characters, this becomes another
opportunity to make your adventure unique.

12
Setting-Based Challenges
Think about the worldbuilding elements in your setting that could
both support and hinder an adventure heavily focused on travel. You
already have an idea of the elements required to make the story work.
What if things that made travel easier were removed? Are there cultural
conflicts within the canonical setting that will make it difficult for the
player characters to pass through certain areas? Those are potential
challenges for the player characters to overcome.
Setting-based challenges should be able to exist independent of the
story and the player characters. Anyone involved in any sort of plot would
come up against the same things. You should still attempt to tailor these
encounters to the overall themes of the adventure, and connect them to the
goal whenever possible, but they remain rooted in the unique elements of
your worldbuilding.

13
Act I – The Beginning

There are certain this that need to happen at the start of a hero’s quest
adventure. The status quo is established, showing the current state of the
characters and what relevant events are taking place within the setting. We
don’t know, or don’t care, about the MacGuffin, or that person, place, or
thing is right where it ought to be. An inciting incident takes place,
creating the adventure goal. This generates the need to go after the
MacGuffin. Finally, the call to adventure is issued, where the player
characters choose to pursue that goal, and go off to find the MacGuffin.

Story Canon
This is where you begin to introduce the foundational elements of your
story canon. The adventure goal for the hero’s quest, to find the MacGuffin,
is presented. The stakes are established, both the potential rewards and
likely complications. What the story-based obstacles will be should at least
be hinted at, including why the MacGuffin needs to be found, who has it,
and who is likely to try to stop the player characters from getting it. The
information necessary to begin the adventure, including anything known
about where the player characters will need to travel, is officially part of
your campaign history.

Character Canon
The player characters who will take part in this hero’s quest adventure
are introduced. If the antagonists don’t appear yet, the inciting incident will
at least hint at their existence. Someone is responsible for the resulting
change in the status quo, after all, even if their identity isn’t known yet.
Non-player characters will be there to help the player characters find their
way, providing material resources and information needed to get them
started. Character-based challenges like hunting, camping, and conducting
research can be used to demonstrate what the player characters can do.
This allows them to build up their confidence before facing more difficult
obstacles in the second act.

14
Worldbuilding Canon
Any events leading up to the inciting incident have to be introduced,
either through in-play action or exposition. Locations that will be
important to the hero’s quest adventure will appear, be named as
destinations for the second act, or at least have their existence hinted at.
There have to be at least rumors about the MacGuffin, the destination that
the player characters will travel to, and the areas they will be required to
pass through. That will include terrain, wildlife, and the cultures that live
there. The tone of the setting will be established, or reinforced if this isn’t
the first adventure of the campaign. Some setting-based challenges can be
used to allow the player characters to become familiar with worldbuilding
elements that will become important to the story later, like riding, foraging
for food, or asking people for information.

Establish the Status Quo

The adventure begins by showing what “normal” looks like. It will
introduce the characters, specifically the player characters and any non-
player characters that will travel with them. The first act will introduce
the setting, starting with where the player characters begin and any lore
about where they’re going. It needs to introduce the theme, so that the
concept of what the story is about and what various elements mean
symbolically can be established.
The player characters will be doing whatever it is they do. If they have
professions, hobbies, or other interests, they could be doing those things.
When they’re full-time adventurers, you might start them off having an
easy encounter to show that this is what their life is like. This both
establishes their credibility as the heroes of the adventure, and will help to
show how different the places on their journey are from their regular lives.
Establishing the status quo also means demonstrating what goes on in
the setting on an ordinary day. This can help to establish the stakes later
on. For a hero’s quest adventure, it might mean showing why the MacGuffin
is significant. The way that it’s absence will affect people should be clear, so
that the necessity of finding it isn’t in question. This will make it easier to
get the player characters to answer the call to adventure.

15
Introduce the Characters
Provide each player character with a “spotlight moment” to establish
who they are and what their role in the campaign is. Provide them with a
task that shows off their abilities. Consider giving them a challenge that
foreshadows something they’ll need to do later in the adventure. For
example, in a hero’s quest you may have them show survival and travel
skills, demonstrate their knowledge, or make it clear that they’re good at
negotiating with people. Fighting, magic, and general adventure-related
skills can be thrown in as well, when they will be needed to achieve the
adventure goal.
Adversaries may not appear in the first act, but their presence should
at least be hinted at. For a hero’s quest adventure you know that the
MacGuffin needs to be found. This implies that someone has done
something with it. The nature of the MacGuffin will establish what it can
do, which will help to extrapolate what the adversary might use it for. The
player characters might not know specifically who is responsible for what’s
going on, or what they will need to face, but the existence of some
antagonist should be clear early on.
Well-known non-player characters might appear early in the story to
offer advice, help with equipment, and generally get the player characters
pointed in the right direction. Some non-player characters that will appear
later might be mentioned, or their existence established indirectly. It could
be that the first let of the journey is to travel to where a knowledgeable
non-player character is, to request their aid. If the player characters know
that they have to visit an inn, for example, it implies the existence of an
innkeeper, possibly a village, and the whole ecosystem that would support
and inn including other travelers.

Introduce the Setting

There are a few reasons to establish what “normal” looks like in the
setting. The first is to show what is possible, so that the exploits of the
player characters and their adversaries seem credible. It doesn’t mean that
they know what they will have to face, but their qualifications for the quest
are clear. Anything that will happen on a large scale in the second and third
acts should be demonstrated on a smaller scale here.
The second is to help establish the stakes. By showing something of the
setting prior to the inciting incident, you can more effectively show what

16
has already changed and what further changes are possible. The player
characters will better understand what is to be gained or lost during the
adventure. Why the adventure goal of finding the MacGuffin is so
important, not just to them but to the world they live in, should be obvious.
Finally, establishing things that are going to be relevant to the
adventure later allows you to engage in targeted worldbuilding. You can
focus on creating the elements that will allow the player characters to
travel, their adversaries to hold onto the MacGuffin, and to support the
entire concept of making a journey to find the person, place, or thing and
come back with it. This will include the environment, animals and
monsters, and the cultures and people who reside in the areas the place
characters must pass through.

Introduce the Theme

The adventure’s theme is what it’s actually about. It can be a single
idea, like “friendship”. It might be a conflict between two ideas like “good
versus evil”. When you have a theme, you can create encounters and plot
points that reinforce the main concept of the adventure.
A common theme in hero's quest adventures is change. Not only has
the status quo changed at the beginning, but the player characters will
change as well. Seeing new things, meeting new people, will give them a
fresh perspective. They will acquire new knowledge, new skills, and
possibly even a new attitude.
You can demonstrate that by giving the player characters similar, or
repetitive, encounters to show the differences in how their handling of the
situation evolves. There can be a direct comparison and contrast of each
character at the start and end of the story. This is just an example, of
course. Using a different theme can drastically alter an adventure, and is
one way to gave the basic structure of a hero's quest story replayability by
changing the meaning and types of elements that you want to emphasize.
The thematic statement is what you, as the gamemaster, are trying to
say through the work. In the theme of change, you might want to express
that while it is disruptive and often destructive, ultimately change is good.
This means that the status quo of the world has to be better at the end, or
at least show the promise of that, than it was at the beginning. The rewards
have come to fruition, while the complications end up being minimal.
Finding the MacGuffin was a blessing for everyone.

17
Every character, both player characters and supporting characters,
could have their own thematic concept. They have their own point of view
about the theme, that can be expressed through their personalities and
actions. One character might be changed for the positive by having
financial security, for example. Another could show positive change by
giving up a bad habit, or reconciling with a friend they had a falling out
with. By contrast, you can have a character that is adversely affected by
change, to show that while overall things are better, there are always
people who bear the cost of such progress.
Having a theme can help you to design interesting encounters. It can
help you to give non-player characters some depth by having them
represent a point of view. The theme can also allow players to round out
their characters by providing them with a specific idea or concept to focus
on, and letting them work out what the character’s thoughts would be
based on their background and adventuring experiences.

Reveal the Inciting Incident

This is the moment when things go wrong. The inciting incident is the
event that sets off the adventure and draws the players characters into it.
Something that no one expected or planned for goes down. This is where
you need to establish the adventure goal and present the stakes. For a
hero’s quest adventure, this is where it’s established that the MacGuffin
must be found and that a journey will be required.

Establish the Adventure Goal

To put it simply, how do you know when the adventure is over? What is
the one clear objective that the player characters have to accomplish? In a
hero’s quest adventure, this is when the player characters return back to
where they started after finding the MacGuffin.
This means that the goal has to align with the promise of the game.
What are the players expecting? If it’s action and combat, then the
adventure goal has to reflect a situation that’s going to require a lot of
fighting. Travel will require battling through hostile territory, and whoever
has the MacGuffin will need to be defeated in an epic melee. If it’s mystery,
or intrigue, or a lot of roleplaying and character development, then the goal
should make it clear that there will be ample opportunities for those things
as the player characters search for the MacGuffin and deal with the hazards
of life on the road.

18
Having a goal isn’t railroading the player characters. There’s a
difference between understanding what they need to accomplish and
forcing them into one specific course of action to accomplish it. They
should be free to make their own plans and solve the problems inherent in
the adventure goal using their own ideas. Allow them to make their own
travel plans, and journey at their own pace. Have them lead their own
search, and gather information in their own way. Let them do what they
feel they need to do in order to find the MacGuffin and return home.

Present the Stakes

The player characters need to be presented with what’s at stake. There
are two parts to this. The first are the consequences: what will happen if
the adventure goal has not fulfilled? How will it affect the player characters,
the non-player characters they care about, and their personal goals if the
MacGuffin is not found? What will become of the world if no one steps up?
That’s the stick. The second part, the rewards, is the carrot. What will
the player characters gain if they accept the mission? How will they benefit
from accomplishing the adventure goal? When they know what’s in it for
them, they’re more likely to answer the call to adventure.
The stakes of your adventure have to connect to the wants and needs
of the player characters. If they’re not feeling any sort of potential loss,
they’re not going to care. The same is true if the rewards dangled in front of
them aren’t useful or appealing. This is where you can make a hero’s quest
adventure feel like it was designed just for them, and not a set of generic
encounters that anyone could play through.
For a hero’s quest, the stakes are often cultural, religious, or even
political as opposed to strictly personal. The complications that arise from
finding or not finding the MacGuffin will resonate throughout the setting.
What the player characters stand to get from successfully completing that
goal are not only financial, but social. They’ll have gain status for saving the
world, securing the region, or doing something of ideological merit.

Issue the Call to Adventure

19
along with things because they just want to play, others will insist on things
making sense. It has to be “in character” for them, the risks involved need
to seem worthwhile, and it all has to hold together in the context of the
genre and the setting. That’s completely fair, especially if your campaign is
character- or story-driven.

Accepting the Call

It’s assumed that the stakes will be enough to get the player characters
to agree to go after the MacGuffin. The adventure is in line with the
promise of the setting and genre, and therefore meets the players’
expectations. It’s relevant to the individual player characters somehow, and
feels like it’s part of their story, not a generic adventure that they’ve been
dropped into.

Rejecting the Call

Let’s take a moment to acknowledge that this could happen. Someone
will say something about not understanding why their character would
care about the MacGuffin, the rewards offered, or the potential
complications. If you’ve set things up properly, and done your best to
connect each character to the adventure, it shouldn’t happen. Hopefully the
other players will help to talk them into it. Through a non-player character
you can remind them of the stakes, and what they personally stand to gain
and lose. Mention their morals and ethics, their standing and reputation
within the setting, whatever is on the line. If nothing else, find a reason to
make them want to leave for a bit, to get away from some problem or to
pursue a personal goal that dovetails with the adventure goal’s journey.

Act I Scenes & Beats

20
This can be separate scenes for each player character, giving them a reason
to come together. It can be an interruption of the “status quo” scene.
Issue the Call to Adventure – The player characters will hopefully
accept the adventure, based on the established stakes. This can be a
separate scene, after the characters have had a chance to regroup, talk
things over, and make some decisions. It might be a continuation of the
inciting incident scene, when there’s no doubt as to their involvement.

21
Act II – The Middle

Most of the action occurs in the middle of the adventure. Challenges

will become increasingly more difficult until the midpoint as a result of
rising action. The player characters will reach a turning point where
something changes, and things no longer happen predictably. From there
things go downhill as the adversary gains the upper hand and the
challenges no longer play to the player characters’ strengths. All of this
leads to a moment of doubt as to whether the journey can be completed
and the MacGuffin can be found as the second act comes to a close.

Story Canon
The second act in your hero’s quest adventure is where the elements of
your story canon introduced in the first act will get used. The player
characters will be reminded of what’s at stake. If the adventure goal wasn’t
entirely clear, or parts of it didn’t make complete sense, all will be revealed
here. The player characters will understand what the MacGuffin is, where
they need to start looking, and where their journey will take them. Story-
based obstacles will present themselves regularly to slow down the
characters’ progress. The campaign history established in the first act can
be built upon and be used as the player characters get to see more of the
setting in their travels.

Character Canon
The player characters will all get to use their signature abilities and
show off the things they’re good at. If the main adversary hasn’t appeared
yet, they’ll show up by the midpoint of this act. Non-player characters will
have various parts to play, but as the act goes on those they will appear less
frequently. Some will be left behind as the player characters continue their
journey. Toward the end of the act the player characters will be called upon
to do things they aren’t as good at, providing a different sort of challenge.
This allows them to build up their confidence before facing the main
adversary in the third act, get to the MacGuffin, and prepare to return
home.

22
Worldbuilding Canon
The player characters will get the opportunity to explore locations
important to the quest. Places named or hinted at in the first act will
appear and be fleshed out a bit more. The tone of the setting established
earlier will be reinforced and expanded upon. Setting-based challenges can
be used so player characters can increase their familiarity with
worldbuilding elements important to the story, like the cultures connect to
the MacGuffin and the main adversary.

Rising Action
This section of the adventure is where roughly half of the encounters
will take place. These are the fun bits where the player characters get to
run wild. It will contain several scenes, as many as you feel are necessary to
challenge the characters, establish essential plot points, and introduce
major non-player characters. Here is where a lot of travel and investigation
will happen in a hero’s quest adventure, with the player characters learning
more about the MacGuffin and slowly closing in on its location.

The Fun Bits

Things will be relatively easy for the player characters throughout the
early part of Act II. They’ll face exactly what they expect to find on a quest
and will be prepared for those encounters. The obstacles they come across
will play to their strengths, meaning that every player character will have
an opportunity to show off. You can combine player character challenges
into scenes, or provide each character with at least one scene that
showcases their signature abilities.
For a hero’s quest adventure, that means survival, diplomacy, and
information gathering in addition to combat against hostile local people
and creatures. This section will include finding out more about the
MacGuffin itself, identifying who the adversary is, and covering substantial
ground though relatively easy travel conditions. Non-player characters who
have what they need will be relatively friendly. The lore that the player
characters will need to call upon won’t be difficult to acquire.
Whatever the player characters have to face, they’re likely to succeed.
The difficulty will start off a bit below their ability level, and increase
slightly with every subsequent encounter. This makes the adventure
exciting, action-packed, and put an emphasis on just having fun. By the end

23
of this section they should be facing challenges that are fully worthy of
their abilities but still basic enough that they’ll succeed with minimal extra
effort required.

Reach a Turning Point

About midway through the second act, something happens that makes
the adventure more difficult. This is one pivotal scene. This is an
unexpected twist that the player characters could not have reasonably
planner for. In a hero’s quest adventure this often means that the MacGuffin
isn’t where they thought it was. It might have been moved, or stolen by a
secondary antagonist. The true significance of the MacGuffin could be
revealed, completely changing the stakes. The main antagonist will step up
their plans for the MacGuffin, and are likely not aware of that player
characters are actively seeking that person, place, or thing.

Things Go Downhill
From this point through the end of the second act, the obstacles that
the player characters face will become increasingly more difficult. They’ve
reach the hard part of the quest. This section comprises a little less than
half of the scenes and encounters in the adventure.
The player characters will begin to run out of resources, and find them
harder to replace. The challenges that arise don’t require their best
abilities, but skills and talents that they’re not necessarily as good at.
Encounters should be tailored to the player characters based on their
opportunities for development. Things won’t be harder than they can
handle, but it will seem far more challenging because they can’t fall back on
the abilities they’re most comfortable with.

The Hard Part

For a hero’s quest adventure, this means that travel will become more
difficult. The weather will turn on them, and the terrain will take more
time and skill to cross. Their could be things like climbing involved, missing
bridges, and so on. Non-player characters they meet won’t automatically be
hostile, but neither will they be friendly by default.
The easy-to-locate information has already been acquired, so the
player characters will need to dig a bit further. Any lore that they knew has
been exhausted, and what they come up against wasn’t mentioned in any of
the stories they were told, songs they’d heard, or books they had read.

24
Resources are going to be more expensive, of lesser quality, or
incompatible with what the player characters are used to, if they’re
available at all.

Create a Moment of Doubt

At this point in the adventure, the worst case scenario happens.
Whatever could bring the whole quest to a grinding halt takes place here in
one brutal scene. The player characters get lost, or lose their means of
transportation. Information they had turns out to be wrong. The antagonist
got there first, and made off with the MacGuffin before they arrived. This
should lead to a transformation in both the tone of the adventure and the
attitudes of the player characters.
This will be the hardest encounter in the entire adventure. It has to be
even more difficult than the finale, because in the end the player characters
need to be able to win. That means that the stakes here are temporarily
suspended, or at least diminished. There will be a way to escape, in the
event that they fail at the challenges they’re presented with. If the player
characters do succeed, it should be a close call, or possibly a matter of luck.
They will need to pull out any resources they’ve been holding in reserve for
the finale and use them earlier than they anticipated.

Transformation
The net effect of the moment of doubt should be that the player
characters feel uncertain about whether or not they can achieve the
adventure goal. They need to start their search for the MacGuffin all over
again. The reason to do this is to make their eventual victory feel even
more special. By the end of the adventure they should feel that they
overcame all of the challenges thrown at them, and be proud of what they
accomplished. That emotional surge starts right here.
Clearly the player characters’ original plan is no longer going to work.
For a hero’s quest adventure, this means that finding new clues and
beginning the search anew. They will need to regroup, come up with a new
plan, or simply face the fact that they’re going to have to wing it. Once
they’ve accept this new shift in the adventure’s status quo and are ready to
press on, this section of the quest is over and it’s time for Act III.

25
Act II Scenes & Beats
Rising Action – The encounters start off easy but become increasingly
more difficult. They cater to the player characters’ abilities and resources.
There are several scenes, and this is the largest section of the adventure.
Reach a Turning Point – Something changes that makes achieving the
adventure goal more difficult. The main villain is aware of the player
characters. This is one scene that shifts the tone of the adventure.
Things Go Downhill – The encounters are no longer based on the
player characters’ best abilities. Resources are in short supply. At several
scenes this is the second-largest section of the adventure.
Create a Moment of Doubt – The player characters should begin to
wonder whether they will be able to complete the story goal. They realize
that their initial plan is not working and need to regroup. This is one scene.

26
Act III – The End

At the end of the adventure the promise of everything that has

happened so far will be fulfilled. There will be a moment of atonement to
balance out the moment of doubt at the end of the second act. From there
the gamemaster can unleash the finale, allowing the player characters to
deal with the main adversary and acquire the MacGuffin. All that’s left then
is to head home, wrap up loose ends, and the adventure is over.

Story Canon
The final act has to tie up all of the events from the first two, clearly.
Nothing new should be introduced. It’s where the player characters at last
have the opportunity to get the MacGuffin and defeat the main antagonist.
The end of the hero’s quest adventure has to be about returning full circle
to the beginning while showing what has changed, so that the story feels
complete in a way that’s satisfying to the players.

Character Canon
This is also where the player characters get to apply everything they’ve
learned over the course of their journey. Information, allies, and resources
that have been gathered need to be useful to them. If they’ve stumbled in
any way, this is where they can prove themselves and get a bit of
redemption. The way events wrap up here needs to be consistent with the
way each player character has been played in the first two acts, and the
ways that they have grown and evolved as people.

Worldbuilding Canon
Nothing new about the setting should be introduced in the final act.
What happens should relate to important things about the world that the
player characters have learned over the course of their travels. That might
be bits of cultural wisdom, lore about the terrain and its wildlife, or
something about the MacGuffin itself. If elements of the setting are
important to the finale, these should be highlighted so that your
worldbuilding efforts pay off in a meaningful way.

27
Create a Moment of Atonement
As a mirror to the moment of doubt at the end of the second act, this
should begin with the player characters pulling themselves together.
Provide them with a chance to regroup. This possibly means falling back
to a safe spot they’ve previously visited, or getting sanctuary from a
friendly non-player character they met earlier. If the quest were a film, this
is where the montage would go. The player characters gather their allies,
make their plans, collect their various resources, and get ready to make
their final pushed toward finally getting the MacGuffin. All told, it shouldn’t
take more than one to three short scenes.

A Chance to Regroup
Another purpose for the moment of atonement is to give the players a
chance to breathe. The moment of doubt was no doubt intense. This is
where non-player characters give them pep talks and remind them of
what’s at stake. It’s a chance to look back and remember why these player
characters are the stars of the adventure. It’s the quiet before the storm,
where everyone can rest, recover a bit, and think about what they’re going
to do next.
For a hero’s quest adventure this could mean that the player characters
are reminded of the rewards and complications. This can be different for
each character. One person remembers why they need the reward, and how
it fits together with their personal goals and needs. Another might be
prompted to consider how hard failure will make life for the people they
care about. They’ve gone too far to turn back now, and would face nothing
but disgrace to return to where they started empty handed.

Unleash the Finale

This can be one giant scene, or broken up into two or three smaller,
more manageable encounters. Either way, it’s the beginning of the end.
There are two parts to the finale proper. The player characters will need to
confront the antagonist, their main adversary in the adventure, to hold
them accountable for what they’ve done. In a hero’s quest adventure that’s
anything they’ve done regarding acquiring or using the MacGuffin. They
player characters will also complete the adventure goal, finally arriving
at the MacGuffin. They can do these things together, or in separate scenes.

28
Confront the Antagonist
For a hero’s quest adventure, the main adversary either has the
MacGuffin in their possession, or is in a race to get to it before the player
characters do. If they already have it, they’re on the verge of using it to
accomplish whatever their actual goal is. Here the player characters will at
last have an opportunity to stop them from achieving their villainous
objective. No one necessarily needs to arrest, beat up, or kill the adversary.
All that’s required for their defeat in this type of adventure is to take the
MacGuffin from them.

Complete the Adventure Goal

This is where the story is more or less complete. In the first act the
player characters answered the call to locate the MacGuffin. In the second
act, they traveled and searched and did what they had to in order to find it.
This is it. One important scene. Even if the antagonist gets away, the player
characters have the MacGuffin.

Wrap Up Loose Ends

After the MacGuffin has been acquired, you can take a few scenes to
handle any unresolved issues. Most of the loose ends from the first two acts
should be tied up, although you can leave a few things open for sequels and
spin-off adventures. The player characters will have a chance to return
home, collect their rewards and complications, and reset things back to
the established baseline normal (albeit with some positive changes).

Return
In a hero’s quest adventure, the player characters will go back to their
normal lives after the adventure goal has been completed. Their lives will
have changed as the result of the preceding events, and now they will have
to readjust. How they return, and the way they are received by the non-
player characters back at the starting point, will largely depend upon the
nature of the MacGuffin and what the stakes of the adventure were.

Rewards and Complications

Every game system has its own method of character advancement, so
we won’t address that here. Each player should review their character’s
personal goals, to see if the hero’s quest has put them closer to achieving

29
them, or further away. They should reset their objectives based on the
things they’ve learned, gain, and lost along the way.
Depending upon what the MacGuffin was, the player characters might
now be cultural, political, or religious heroes. They went off, did something
significant, and returned to tell the tale. Their social status will be affected.
Relationships with non-player characters could be affected by the things
they’ve done.
There could also be financial and legal changes. The player characters
might get paid for completing the quest, or they could be richer for the
treasure they acquired along the way. They may face complications if the
things they acquired are cultural artifacts, or the things they did were
illegal, culturally taboo, or ideologically forbidden.

Reset
Based on what has happened during the adventure, you will need to
reset the status quo. Things could go back to normal, as if nothing ever
happened, but that’s unlikely; the theme here was change after all. If the
quest didn’t affect the characters in any lasting way, then what was the
point? There might be changes based on wealth, social status, and the
expectations non-player characters now have toward the player characters.
In a hero’s quest adventure, you will need to account for the fact that
they’re now famous and have a reputation, and the impact their journey
may have had on the characters and the setting. If nothing else, people will
call upon them to perform more acts of heroism.

Act III Scenes & Beats

30
Finishing Up

Update the Character Canon

Update the Worldbuilding Canon

Update the Story Canon

This story is now officially part of your campaign history. Whether the
characters acquired the MacGuffin and stopped the antagonist or failed
spectacularly, these events have happened. The ramifications will resonate,
creating plot hooks and possibilities for spin-offs and sequels to deal with
loose ends and explain new elements that popped upon along the way. For
hero’s quest adventure, this could mean that other effects of the MacGuffin
being found, and the impacts of the player characters’ encounters in other
places, could create changes and new troubles within the setting.

31
The Hero's Quest Beat Sheet

Act I – The Beginning

The player characters set off to find a MacGuffin.
Establish the Status Quo – Show what the world look like before the
inciting incident. Introduce the characters, the setting, and the theme.
Reveal the Inciting Incident – Something changes that forces the
player characters to respond. Introduce the adventure goal and the stakes.
Issue the Call to Adventure – The player characters will hopefully
accept the adventure, based on the established stakes.

Act II – The Middle

The player characters travel far and wide in search of the MacGuffin.
Rising Action – The encounters start off easy but become increasingly
more difficult. They cater to the player characters’ abilities and resources.
Reach a Turning Point – Something makes achieving the adventure
goal more difficult. The main villain is aware of the player characters.
Things Go Downhill – Encounters get easier, but they are no longer
based on the player characters’ best abilities. Resources are in short supply.
Create a Moment of Doubt – The player characters should begin to
wonder whether they will be able to complete the story goal.

Act III – The End

The player characters find the MacGuffin and return home with it.
Create a Moment of Atonement – The player characters regroup and
renew their commitment to achieving the story goal.
Unleash the Finale – The main antagonist will be defeated, and the
adventure goal will finally be achieved. The main plot is resolved.
Wrap Up Loose Ends – The player characters return home, get their
rewards, deal with any lingering complications, and the status quo is reset.

32
Hot Pursuit
Adventure Design Guide

Dancing Lights Press

Join our community at
https://dancinglightspress.com

Hot Pursuit: Adventure Design Guide will help gamemasters to

create and prepare chase adventures for your favorite role-playing game.
This book acts as a “beat sheet”, a tool used by writers to outline and plan
pivotal elements of a story. It allows them to know where they’re going,
gather the research and information they need, and ensure that everything
ultimately holds together and makes sense.
This series was created specifically with tabletop role-playing games in
mind. It’s designed to work with any setting, genre, or rules system. All you
need to do is apply the context provided by your player characters, the
game world, and your own adventure ideas. Plug in appropriate encounters
and challenges, create the villains, monsters, and non-player characters
you’ll need, and you’re ready to play.

1
This book contains the following:
• Hot Pursuit: An overview of this type of adventure, what makes it fun,
and ways it can be used again and again to create interesting and
unique experiences for your players. Once you embrace these basic
elements, the rest of the adventure flows from there.
• Act I – The Beginning: The elements needed at the start of your
adventure, how to structure the opening act, and advice on
establishing the adventure goal. It’s where the player characters learn
what’s going on and agree to get involved.
• Act II – The Middle: Elements that define the center of the adventure,
structuring the second act, and advice on pursuing the adventure goal.
It’s where the characters do most of their exploring, investigating, and
other actions necessary to achieving the goal.
• Act III – The End: Creating the elements for the last segment of the
adventure, providing structure for the finale, and advice on completing
the adventure goal. It’s where the player characters will confront the
villain, achieve what they set out to do, and earn their rewards.
• Finishing Up: This section shows how to take what happened during
the adventure-as-played and use it as a source for new plot hooks,
character development, and ongoing worldbuilding. Add to your
campaign’s canon and leverage the momentum you’ve established.

How to Use This Book

Read through Hot Pursuit: Adventure Design Guide once entirely to
become familiar with its contents and main concepts. After that you can go
through section-by-section to plan and craft your adventure. Refer back to
any section as needed to be sure you’ve covered everything.

The Three Pillars Approach

Character Elements
Player character backgrounds should draw from the lore of the setting,
connecting them to the game world. Each character should be appropriate
to the adventure, either because their abilities make them useful to
achieving the goal, or their back story, personal objectives, and vested
interests mean that the outcome of the story will affect them. They need to
have skin in the game, for one reason or another.

The Three Canons Account

Worldbuilding Canon
Setting elements become canon when they appear or are referred to
during play. This gives you the freedom to change and adapt things as the
campaign unfolds. Track what has been clearly established. Note the things
that have changed as a result of character actions and plot lines. Use the
possibilities of the evolving canon to inform backgrounds for new
characters and to create plot hooks for future adventures.

The Three Act Structure

4
Hot Pursuit

The pursued has to flee for their life, overcoming

physical danger to evade their pursuer.

In a hot pursuit adventure, the player characters will be running for

their life to get away from some person, organization, or force that’s
chasing them. During the course of the adventure, they will have to run,
hide, and do everything they can to slow doing their pursuer and stay
ahead in the chase. By the end, they should safely escape, either by
resolving the issue they’re running from, putting an end to their pursuer, or
getting to a place where they are no longer threatened by the situation they
were fleeing.

Story Elements
This type of adventure is fun because it allows you to focus almost
entirely on physical challenges. It’s action-packed. That’s not to say that it
doesn’t require the player characters to be smart and creative. It opens up
possibilities for them to show off problem-solving abilities in ways that
center on keeping away from their pursuer.
There are worldbuilding opportunities centered around the obstacles
in the chase, allowing you to develop those elements necessary for this
type of plot. This includes not only the terrain that the player characters
need to cross, and places for them to hide, but the social, political, and even
religious elements that might restrict their ability to travel. The reasons
that they need to flee, and the way that they have to go about it, are more
than just excuses for actions. They should reflect larger problems that exist
within the setting.
All of the story elements required to make the adventure possible are
automatically part of your story canon. The whole setup wouldn’t work if
these events didn’t happen and the player characters weren’t in a position
to be drawn into them. From this point forward only what happens in the
adventure-as-played will be considered part of your canon.

5
The Adventure Goal
The adventure goal is what the player characters need to accomplish
in order to successfully complete the adventure. How they do it is up to
them, so the players still have agency. In a hot pursuit adventure, the
objective is for them to get away. They might need to escape a specific
antagonist, an organization that is trying to oppress, detain, or even kill
them, or some malevolent force that’s haunting them. There are endless
variations, but the goal of getting to some kind of safety will remain at the
center of the adventure.

The Stakes
An adventure’s stakes include both the potential rewards and likely
complications that could arise based on how the story plays out. It isn’t
always as simple as the player characters getting something good when
they succeed, or having something bad happen to them if they fail.
Rewards will sometimes come with a cost. Complications can have an
unexpected silver lining. For a hot pursuit adventure, the stakes have to
connect directly to the need to flee.
Rewards
In a chase story, the most common rewards are the safety and security
of getting away. That’s it. The player characters come out of it alive. There
may be secondary incentives, if the money, the magic item, or whatever the
characters are running toward will ultimately stop the pursuer. Your game
system of choice will have its own rules for character advancement,
awarded for their efforts during the adventure. Depending upon the genre
and setting, there may be incidental treasure or other financial bonuses to
be found along the way, which can aid them in their flight.
Complications
The types of difficulties that can arise from a hot pursuit adventure
include not only physical challenges involving running and hiding, but the
disruption of routines. The player characters will find their daily lives
turned upside down. They won’t be able to go to work. Relationships will
be interrupted. People they know might be placed in danger. While these
are story-based complications, they should also be used as a basis for
worldbuilding and character development. The impact of conducting a
chase will affect the non-player characters along the route of the chase. It
will disturb traffic, endanger people in the streets, and interfere with

6
everyday life within the setting. Property might be stolen, broken, or
destroyed creating additional problems. The collateral damage can in turn
lead to new plot hooks, personal goals for the player characters, and new
areas of the setting to be fleshed out and explored.

Story-Based Challenges
Challenges keep the player characters from achieving the adventure
goal too quickly. For a hot pursuit adventure, the obstacles that arise
directly from the plot include obstacles that interfere with travel, the
difficulty in finding places to hide, and the skills of the characters
themselves. Overcoming the competence of the pursuer is a challenge. The
abilities of the player characters, and how well those apply to the needs of
their pursuit, are challenges. Keep in mind the inherent difficulties of the
campaign, including any open meta-plot issues and recurring antagonists.
Tie individual player character backgrounds and personal goals in as well,
so the adventure feels custom-built for these characters.

Character Elements
A hot pursuit adventure lets you focus on the player characters’
abilities, but it also shines a spotlight on their flaws. The reason they’re
being chased could stem from some previous failure. It might be that the
pursuer is after them to hold them accountable for some past action. They
may possess something the pursuer feels is rightfully theirs. It could be
that the player characters messed up on a more mundane level, offending
someone, breaking an esoteric law, or violating some cultural or religious
taboo. Those elements can be incorporated into subplots to make it a more
personalized experience. At the same time, it forces them to place personal
goals and ambitions on hold. It’s impossible to purse a career objective,
work on a relationship, or dive into a hobby when you’re on the run.
This type of adventure opens up possibilities for the player characters
to use physical abilities, especially speed, endurance, and stealth. If those
are their strong suit, they’ll have a chance to shine. As the adventure goes
on, of course, the challenges will increase in difficulty. When a character
doesn’t excel at those things, that’s okay. A hot pursuit adventure requires
player characters that are quick-witted, resourceful, and able to adapt to
their surrounding. There are many opportunities to contribute toward
achieving the story goal for all kinds of characters.

7
There are worldbuilding opportunities centered around complex an
intricate locations, allowing you to develop the setting elements that factor
into the developing story of the chase. Various forms of transportation,
closed courses for the characters to run through, and interesting places for
them to hide are necessary. This sort of worldbuilding also creates
opportunities for interesting non-player characters, new adversaries, and
even future player characters. What sorts of people will exist in these
environments? What do they do, and how to they either create obstacles
with their presence or potentially provide a means of overcoming chase
obstacles?
Elements required to make the adventure possible become part of
their character canon. If they weren’t in this particular place at the right
moment, lacked certain abilities, or didn’t have some background element
the adventure wouldn’t work. From this point forward what happens in the
adventure-as-played will be added to their back story and considered part
of their ongoing canon.

Player Characters
Player Characters are the protagonists of the story. In a hot pursuit
adventure, they need to be able to travel, if not run. If they lack those
abilities, you can compensate by having another character carry them, or
providing them with an alternate means of movement. Placing
responsibility for evading capture into the hands of another character,
whether it’s a PC or NPC, can work but forces the player character with
limited mobility into a supporting role within their own story. This type of
adventure might not be well-suited for that sort of character.
Combat-centric player characters in a chase adventure will be
presented with opponents who block their way. They not only have to run,
but fight their way through an endless number of foes seeking to slow them
down or capture them. A player character that is magic-centric or power-
centric will be able to use their abilities to expedite travel and hide from
their pursuer. Spells might help them to find necessary resources along the
way, so they can stay off the beaten path and away from people. For skill-
centric player characters, they will need to have both athletic and stealth-
based abilities. Things like disguise, persuasion, and skills that can allow
them to not be recognized are going to be incredibly useful.

8
Pursuers
Pursuers are the adversaries and antagonists in this type story,
including the monsters, villains, and other opponents the player characters
will face. Their motives and methods for chasing after them will vary, but
their purpose in the adventure is to prevent the player characters from
achieving the adventure goal. They might directly or indirectly aid the
primary pursuer, either because they’re hired henchmen, they seek a
reward, or because they think ratting out the player characters is the right
thing to do.
The antagonists in this type of adventure can have a wide range of
abilities that are useful to the main pursuer’s objective. Combat-centric
adversaries in a chase adventure will have physical advantages in terms of
athletic prowess and being able to restrain and detail the player characters.
An adversary that is magic-centric or power-centric might be able to cast
spells that create barriers, track the player characters’ movements, and
speed the pursuer along. For skill-centric adversaries, they will need to
have tracking and survival abilities, as well as the means to notice disguises
and use trained athletic abilities like jumping and climbing.

Non-Player Characters
Non-Player Characters includes everyone else in the story. This
covers important resource characters, friends and allies, and nameless
extras. Knowing the roles you’ll need to fill can help you to target your
preparation for the adventure.
Within a hot pursuit adventure you will find non-player characters all
along the route of the chase, usually as innocent bystanders. They could
help the player character, but more often than not they’re in the way and
serving as an obstacles. They could directly or indirectly be helping the
pursuer. Combat-centric non-player characters in a chase adventure could
become offended it they’re bumped into or their property is damaged,
making them want to fight. A non-player character that is magic-centric or
power-centric will use their spells to try to stop reckless player
characters, and hold them accountable for any collateral damage. For skill-
centric non-player characters, they might use their abilities to slow down
the player characters or rat them out to the pursuer, especially if they feel
endangered or there’s a potential reward in it for them.

9
Character-Based Challenges
These challenges center on the player character’s needs, desires, and
personal goals. They distract them from the adventure goal by dividing
their priorities. For a hot pursuit adventure, the obstacles that arise
directly from the character elements can include non-player characters
from their background slowing them down or being placed in danger. The
PC might be missing an opportunity to go after something they want
instead. The path of their flight could lead them to temptations and
delights that make them want to stop longer than they safely should. When
you tailor these sorts of challenges to the player characters, the adventure
will feel as if it was designed just for them.

Worldbuilding Elements
A hot pursuit adventure requires the setting to have places to run and
hide, but also compelling reasons for the chase to take place. It’s more
interesting to have a chase through a crowded marketplace or a hedgerow
labyrinth when there’s a reason those places exist. If your game world
already has those features, use them, and take this opportunity to flesh
them out a bit more. When there is no ready-made solution, your
worldbuilding efforts will need to be focused on creating the context for
the thrilling chase locations as part of your preparation.
If a player character’s background suggests a suitable location, use it.
This can be something from a previous adventure, or an unseen part of the
setting mentioned in their back story. This not only helps to develop the
game world, but connects the character directly to the story. Build upon
what you already have whenever possible. This has the side effect of giving
the player characters some familiarity, especially in the early part of the
adventure.
Tie existing worldbuilding into the chase adventure as well. Use the
terrain, the cultures that live there, and monsters known to be in the area.
Connect the story to the setting in meaningful ways, so it doesn’t feel as if
you’ve just dropped events into a random spot on the map. The player
characters might never have been there, but they’ve heard of it, and it
creates some continuity that makes your setting come to life.
Every setting element required to make the hot pursuit adventure
possible is automatically part of your worldbuilding canon. The premise
wouldn’t work if the location, the history, and the broad possibilities

10
inherent in your worldbuilding didn’t support them. From this point
forward what happens in the adventure-as-played will be added to your
growing canon.

Preceding Events
An important part of worldbuilding is creating the history of the
setting. For a hot pursuit adventure, it needs to be established that the
chase locations and hiding places exist. The player characters know they’re
heading toward, or into, some place that aids their escape. There also
needs to be adequate groundwork laid to make the inciting incident, the
reason they’re being pursued, plausible. In combat-centric games
especially, there has to be a compelling reason why the player characters
don’t just stand and fight (aside from the always-popular “because the bad
guy is more powerful and they’d lose”). This can build upon the existing
culture, politics, and religion of the region, or add new lore and
information. How the local population feels about the chase, and what
sorts of potential obstacles will already exist, can stem from events that
have happened in the world’s past.

Essential Locations
The types of locations that are required for a chase-centered adventure
include interesting places for pursuit to take place. This means locations
with obstacles that not only slow down the pursuer, but can impair the
pursued and increase their risk of getting caught. If those already exist
within your setting, you simply need to adapt them or expand upon them
to make them fit with the needs of the story. Places that are implied by the
needs of a hot pursuit adventure may extend to roads, streets, and
anywhere characters can run, ride, or drive. Should you need to develop
those locations in more detail than already exists in your setting, you know
where your worldbuilding efforts will need to be focused.
One thing to consider is whether you want your chase to all take place
in one location, like within a single city or dungeon, or across several
locations. The player characters would escape from one town, or country,
or woodland, only to have the pursuer locate them in pick up the chase
again in the next city, or kingdom, or mountainside. It’s best to confine each
chase sequence-slash-encounter to a single location (inside the palace, at
the fairground, around the farmhouse) than trying to go wide in a single
encounter.

11
Overall Tone
While this is an element that can be reflected in the way the story and
characters are presented, it’s the worldbuilding that supports and
reinforces it. A hot pursuit adventure with a dramatic tone will have more
serious emotional beats. It’s not necessarily tragic or grim, but the
characters and situations can carry notes of sadness, suffering, or fear. By
contrast, a comedic tone in a chase adventure will focus on humor, with
situations set up to provoke laughter.
You can have both dramatic and comedic moments within one
adventure. Overall, though, it will favor one over the other. For example,
the comedic chase adventure might be mostly thrills, near-misses, and
embarrassing falls, crashes, and tumbles, but have some scenes or
encounters that have the potential for serious injury to the player character
or innocent bystanders. If it is mostly a dramatic pursuit, it can still
contain elements of humor when the player characters concoct clever ways
to outwit their pursuer..
When a hot pursuit adventure has a light tone it isn’t necessarily
comedic, but the rewards will tend to be higher than the potential
complications. The stakes overall won’t be as high. Things will tend to skew
toward the success of the player characters, allowing them to play to their
strengths. Chase adventures with a dark tone have higher stakes, with
complications far outweighing any potential rewards. Challenges won’t
always play to the characters’ strengths, making failure a constant
possibility. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be comedic, but it will be black
comedy.
Within the same adventure you can have light and dark moments. It
will tend to lean more toward one of the other overall, though. For instance,
a light chase adventure might put the emphasis on action, but still have
darker scenes or encounters where the toll on the player characters’
personal lives becomes apparent. The whole thing comes at some cost to
their relationship, their job, and their personal goals. A pursuit adventure
that centers on a darker tone can stick mainly to the drama by continually
highlighting the stakes if the player characters get caught, but offer lighter
moments where evading the pursuer is actually fun and exciting.
You can pair elements of drama/comedy and light/dark, of course. In a
hot pursuit adventure, a light drama would be fun and the stakes would
skew more toward property damage than characters risking serious injury

12
or death. A dark drama could threaten nothing but serious bodily harm and
permanent complications if the player characters are caught, making the
chase more of an ongoing state of panic than a thrilling romp. A light
comedy would be silly and ridiculously over-the-top in terms of the
methods used in the chase and the sorts of obstacles encountered. A dark
comedy may have egregious amounts of property damage, but happening
in cartoonish ways. When combined with the tone established by the
events of the story and the personalities of the player characters, this
becomes another opportunity to make your adventure unique.

Setting-Based Challenges
Think about the worldbuilding elements in your setting that could
both support and hinder a hot pursuit adventure. You already have an idea
of the elements required to make the story work. What if those elements
were removed? Are there things within the canonical setting that conflict
with what’s necessary for an adventure-length to play out? Those are
potential challenges for the player characters to overcome.

13
Act I – The Beginning

There are certain this that need to happen at the start of a hot pursuit
adventure. The status quo is established, showing the current state of the
characters and what relevant events are taking place within the setting. An
inciting incident takes place, sparking the reason for the pursuit and
creating the adventure goal. Finally, the call to adventure is issued, where
the player characters are forced to flee and pursue that goal.

Story Canon
This is where you begin to introduce the foundational elements of your
story canon. The hot pursuit adventure goal is presented, the stakes are
established, and the story-based obstacles will at the very least be hinted
at. The player characters know why they’re running, and who they’re
trying to get away from. If they’re not clear on where they’re running to,
they at least know what location they need to get some distance away from.
The information necessary to begin the adventure is officially part of your
campaign history.

Character Canon
The player characters who will take part in this hot pursuit adventure
are introduced. If the antagonists don’t appear yet, the inciting incident will
at least hint at their existence; it’s possible to know that someone is after
them, without known exactly who. Non-player characters will be there to
help the player characters find their way. Character-based challenges like
running, hiding, and disguise skills can be used to demonstrate what the
player characters can do. This allows them to build up their confidence
before facing more difficult obstacles in the second act.

Worldbuilding Canon
Any events leading up to the inciting incident have to be introduced,
either through in-play action or exposition. Locations that will be
important to the hot pursuit adventure will appear, be named as
destinations for the second act, or at least have their existence hinted at.
The tone of the setting will be established, or reinforced if this isn’t the first

14
adventure of the campaign. Some setting-based challenges can be used to
allow the player characters to become familiar with worldbuilding
elements that will become important to the story later, like locations where
they might be able to hide out, and places good for chases involving
running, riding, or driving.

Establish the Status Quo

The adventure begins by showing what “normal” looks like. It will
introduce the characters, introduce the setting, and introduce the
theme. The player characters are doing whatever it is they do. If they have
professions, hobbies, or other interests, they could be doing those things.
When they’re full-time adventurers, you might start them off having an
easy encounter to show that this is what their life is like.
Establishing the status quo also means demonstrating what goes on in
the setting on an ordinary day. This can help to establish the stakes later
on. For a hot pursuit adventure, it might mean showing whether the player
characters are used to being chased around by an antagonist, or if they idea
of being “prey” is going to be a new experience for them. It can also mean
clarifying how familiar they are with the situation they’re about to be
dropped into, whether they know that a pursuer could potentially be
coming after them based on a setting situation or something they’ve done,
or if this scenario is going to be an unexpected one.

Introduce the Characters

15
antagonist will just show up, and if it’s not clear who they are and why
they’re after the player characters they’ll explain it up front. This isn’t a
mystery, after all, it’s an action-focused adventure.
Well-known non-player characters might appear early in the story to
offer advice, help with resources, and generally help to get the player
characters pointed in the right direction. Some NPCs that will appear later
might be mentioned, or their existence established indirectly. If the PCs
know that they have to visit a smuggler who can hide them, for example, it
implies the existence of some sort of ship, and a port, and probably a seedy
bar where sailors hang out.

Introduce the Setting

There are a few reasons to establish what “normal” looks like in the
setting. The first is to show what is possible, so that the exploits of the
player characters and their adversaries seem credible. Anything that will
happen on a large scale in the second and third acts should be
demonstrated on a smaller scale here. Running, jumping, and crazy
parkour-type skills have to be set up. Any sorts of vehicles, fantastic means
of transportation, and slick abilities to avoid being detected like stealth and
disguise have to have some sort of introduction.
The second is to help establish the stakes. By showing something of the
setting prior to the inciting incident, you can more effectively show what
changes. The player characters will better understand what is to be gained
or lost during the adventure, and why the adventure goal of not getting
caught is so important not just to them but to the world they live in. This
could mean showing how other people rely on them, and what would
happen if the player characters were suddenly no longer in these peoples’
lives. That impact can make this adventure about more than the obvious
physical challenges of chases.
Finally, establishing things that are going to be relevant to the
adventure later is targeted worldbuilding. You can focus on creating the
elements that will allow the player characters to run and hide, their
adversaries to track them, and to support the entire concept of why the
pursuit takes place instead of a straight-up fight. This will include things
like cultural and religious taboos, legal and political prohibitions, and even
personal morals and ethics. Not everything has to be solved with murder,
even if popular fantasy roleplaying games.

16
Introduce the Theme
The adventure’s theme is what it’s actually about. It can be a single
idea, like “friendship”, or a conflict between two ideas like “good versus
evil”. When you have a theme, you can create encounters and plot points
that reinforce the idea.
A common theme is hot pursuit adventures is “the individual versus
something”. It’s versatile because the player characters will represent the
individual, with the pursuer standing in as the thematic representation of
whatever force you choose. The individual versus government, for example,
with the antagonist being some sort of government agent. A theme of the
individual versus religion, the pursuer could be an inquisitor type or
enforcer or doctrine. You can even have things like the individual versus
nature, with the pursuer representing unchecked natural forces.
This theme is is just an example, of course. Using a different themes for
your hot pursuit adventure can drastically alter the feel of it and suggest
not only different motives but entirely different obstacles and challenges.
It’s one way to gave the basic structure of a chase story replayability, by
changing the meaning and types of elements that you want to emphasize.
The thematic statement is what you, as the gamemaster, are trying to
say through the work. In the theme of the individual versus something, you
might want to express that only people with certain qualities can win
against the opposing thematic force, or that individuals can’t win at all.
Every character, both player characters and supporting characters, could
have their own thematic concept. They have their own point of view
about the theme, that can be expressed through their personalities and
actions. One character might think that a middle ground could be found
between individuals and the opposed thematic force, for example. Another
could think that the opposing force needs to be defeated, or somehow
subverted, conquered, or destroyed in order for individuals to be able to
truly “win” in the scenario.
Having a theme can help you to design interesting encounters. It can
help you to give non-player characters some depth by having them
represent a point of view. The theme can also allow players to round out
their characters by providing them with a specific idea or concept to focus
on, and letting them work out what the character’s thoughts would be
based on their background and adventuring experiences.

17
Reveal the Inciting Incident
This is the moment when things go wrong. The inciting incident is the
event that sets off the adventure and forces the players characters into it.
Something that no one expected or planned for goes down. This is where
you need to establish the adventure goal and present the stakes. For a
hot pursuit adventure, this is where the player characters learn that they’re
being chased, and that they’re better off running and hiding than trying to
stand their ground and fight.

Establish the Adventure Goal

To put it simply, how do you know when the adventure is over? What is
the one clear objective that the player characters have to accomplish? In a
hot pursuit adventure, this is when we know that the chase is conclusively
over. Either the need to run and hide no longer exists, the pursuer has been
defeated, or the player characters have reached a safe place where they are
no longer in any danger.
This means that the goal has to align with the promise of the game.
What are the players expecting? If it’s action and combat, then the
adventure goal has to reflect a situation that’s going to require a lot of
fighting. If it’s mystery, or intrigue, or a lot of roleplaying and character
development, then the goal should make it clear that there will be ample
opportunities for those things.
Having a goal isn’t railroading the player characters. There’s a
difference between understanding what they need to accomplish and
forcing them into one specific course of action to accomplish it. They
should be free to make their own plans and solve the problems inherent in
the adventure goal using their own ideas.

Present the Stakes

18
from accomplishing the adventure goal? When they know what’s in it for
them, they’re more likely to answer the call to adventure.
The stakes of your adventure have to connect to the wants and needs
of the player characters. If they’re not feeling any sort of potential loss,
they’re not going to care. The same if the rewards dangled in front of them
aren’t useful or appealing. This is where you can make a hot pursuit
adventure feel like it was designed just for them, and not a set of generic
encounters that anyone could play through.
For a chase adventure, the stakes are often a loss of freedom or even
loss of life for the player characters. They will be locked up, or they will be
killed, period. The complications that arise from not evading capture will
be long-term, if not permanent, and they will be drastic. What the player
characters stand to get from successfully getting away from the pursuer is
nothing less than their freedom.

Issue the Call to Adventure

At the end of the first act the player characters should accept the call
to adventure. This means they understand the stakes and are willing to
pursue the goal. If you have established all of the points clearly, this should
be a given. The reason this is important is that while most players will go
along with things because they just want to play, others will insist on things
making sense. It has to be “in character” for their character, the risks
involved need to seem worthwhile, and it all has to hold together in the
context of the genre and the setting. Someone’s going to want to stay and
fight, convinced that they can win.

Accepting the Call

Rejecting the Call

Let’s take a moment to acknowledge that this could happen. Someone
will say something about not understanding why their character would do

19
this. If you’ve set things up properly, and done your best to connect each
character to the adventure, it shouldn’t happen. Hopefully the other players
will help to talk them into it. Through a non-player character you can
remind them of the stakes, and what they personally stand to gain and lose.
Mention their morals and ethics, their standing and reputation within the
setting, whatever is on the line. When in doubt, beat the crap out of them
so they realize that they can’t win in a straight fight, and give them a means
to escape via a deus ex machina.

Act I Scenes & Beats

In a novel or screenplay, this setup could take up one-quarter to one-
third of the whole story. For an adventure, you’re looking at 1 to 3 scenes
minimum. You can establish all of the important points at once, or spread
things out to give them more detail and attention.
Establish the Status Quo – Show what the world look like before the
inciting incident. Introduce the characters, the setting, and the theme of the
adventures. This can be one scene for each character, a single scene with
the player characters together, or part of one big introduction scene.
Reveal the Inciting Incident – Something changes that forces the
player characters to run and hide. Introduce the adventure goal and the
stakes. This can be separate scenes for each player character, giving them a
reason to come together. It can be an interruption of the “status quo” scene.
Issue the Call to Adventure – The player characters will hopefully
accept the adventure, based on the established stakes. This can be a
separate scene, after the characters have had a chance to regroup, talk
things over, and make some decisions. It might be a continuation of the
inciting incident scene, when there’s no doubt as to their need to flee.

20
Act II – The Middle

Most of the action occurs in the middle of the adventure. Challenges

will become increasingly more difficult until the midpoint as a result of
rising action. The player characters will reach a turning point where
something changes, and things no longer happen predictably. From there
things go downhill as the pursuer gains the upper hand and the
challenges no longer play to the player characters’ strengths. All of this
leads to a moment of doubt as to whether they can ever get away as the
second act comes to a close.

Story Canon
The second act in your hot pursuit adventure is where the elements of
your story canon introduced in the first act will get used. The player
characters will be reminded of what’s at stake. If the adventure goal wasn’t
entirely clear, or parts of it didn’t make complete sense, all will be revealed
here. Story-based obstacles will present themselves regularly to slow down
the characters’ progress. The campaign history established in the first act
can be built upon and be used as the player characters have to flee to other
locations, familiar at first and increasingly unfamiliar as the act progresses.

Character Canon
The player characters will all get to use their signature abilities and
show off the things they’re good at. If the main pursuer hasn’t appeared
yet, they’ll show up by the midpoint of this act. Non-player characters will
have various parts to play, but as the act goes on those they will appear less
frequently. Toward the end of the act the player characters will be called
upon to do things they aren’t as good at, providing a different sort of
challenge. This allows them to build up their confidence before facing the
main pursuer in the third act.

Worldbuilding Canon
The player characters will get the opportunity to explore locations
important to the chase adventure. Places named or hinted at in the first act
will appear and be fleshed out a bit more. The tone of the setting

21
established earlier will be reinforced and expanded upon. Setting-based
challenges can be used so player characters can increase their familiarity
with worldbuilding elements important to the story, like the reasons
behind the pursuit in the context of the setting, the sorts of locations they
will be moving through, and the types of things they can ride, drive, or
otherwise use for transportation.

Rising Action
This section of the adventure is where roughly half of the encounters
will be. These are the fun bits where the player characters get to run wild.
It will contain several scenes, as many as you feel are necessary to
challenge the characters, establish essential plot points, and introduce
major non-player characters. Here is where the initial chases will happen
in a hot pursuit adventure, with player characters initially having a home
field advantage over the pursuer. They know the potential obstacles and
how to overcome them, where the best hiding places are, and NPC allies
will be readily available to assist them in evading the pursuer.

The Fun Bits

Things will be relatively easy for the player characters throughout the
early part of Act II. They’ll face exactly what they expect to find an a hot
pursuit adventure and will be prepared. The obstacles they encounter will
play to their strengths, meaning that every player character will have an
opportunity to show off. You can combine player character challenges into
scenes, or provide each character with at least one scene that showcases
their signature abilities.
For a chase adventure, that means a lot of running and hiding from the
pursuer. This section will include the advantage of moving in and around
locations that are familiar to them, but new to their pursuer. This allows
them to make their initial escape, and find some time to plan their next
move to get away.
Whatever the player characters have to face, they’re likely to succeed.
The difficulty will start off a bit below their ability level, and increase
slightly with every subsequent encounter. This makes the adventure
exciting, action-packed, and put an emphasis on just having fun. By the end
of this section they should be facing challenges that are fully worthy of
their abilities.

22
Reach a Turning Point
About midway through the second act, something happens that makes
the adventure more difficult. This is one pivotal scene. There is an
unexpected twist that the player characters could not have reasonably
planned for. In a hot pursuit adventure this often means that their means of
travel breaks down. Someone is injured and can’t run, perhaps. A
supporting character betrays them to the pursuer. The antagonist has
stepped up their plans to capture the player characters. They may, in fact,
be captured and need to escape so they can go on the run again.

The Hard Part

For a hot pursued this means the player characters are running out of
known safe spaces and familiar locations to hide out. The easy-to-locate
lore that can be used to evade the pursuer has already been acquired, so
they need to dig a bit further. Smooth terrain has been crossed, and now
travel gets complicated. The resources that were readily available are
harder to come by, if not impossible to get. More people may be involved in
the chase, if the pursuer has more henchmen arriving, the news has gotten
out that the player characters are wanted, or if a reward has been issued
leading to their capture.

Create a Moment of Doubt

At this point in the adventure, the worst case scenario happens.
Whatever could bring the whole pursuit to a grinding halt takes place here
in one brutal scene. One or more player characters probably get captured.
In a chase adventure, this typically means that one or more player

23
characters failed some crucial ability roll. This should lead to a
transformation in both the tone of the adventure and the attitudes of the
player characters.
This will be the hardest encounter in the entire adventure. It has to be
even more difficult than the final, because in the end the player characters
need to be able to win. That means that the stakes here are suddenly all or
nothing. There will be a way to escape via gamemaster’s caveat, in the
event that they’re unable to win on their own. If the player characters do
win, it should be a close call, or possibly a matter of luck. They will need to
pull out any remaining resources they’ve been holding in reserve for the
finale, and use them earlier than they anticipated.

Transformation
The net effect of the moment of doubt should be that the player
characters feel uncertain about whether or not they can ever completely
get away from the pursuer. The reason to do this is to make their eventual
victory feel even more special. By the end of the adventure they should feel
that they overcame all of the challenges thrown at them, and be proud of
what they accomplished. That emotional surge begins to build right here.
Clearly the player characters’ original plan is no longer going to work.
For a pursuit adventure, this means that the tactics they’ve used so far no
longer work. The place they were hiding in, or the location they were
heading to that they assumed would be safe, has been compromises. They
will need to regroup, come up with a new plan, or simply face the fact that
they’re going to have to wing it. Once they’ve accept this shift in the status
quo of the adventure and are ready to press on, this middle section of the
adventure is over and it’s time for Act III.

Act II Scenes & Beats

24
Things Go Downhill – The encounters are no longer based on the
player characters’ best abilities. Resources are in short supply. At several
scenes this is the second-largest section of the adventure.
Create a Moment of Doubt – The player characters should begin to
wonder whether they will be able to complete the story goal. They realize
that their initial plan is not working and need to regroup. This is one scene.

25
Act III – The End

At the end of the adventure the promise of everything that has

happened so far will be fulfilled. There will be a moment of atonement to
balance out the moment of doubt at the end of the second act. From there
the gamemaster can unleash the finale, allowing the player characters to
deal with the main pursuer and achieve the story goal. All that’s left then is
to wrap up loose ends and the adventure is over.

Story Canon
The final act has to tie up all of the events from the first two, clearly.
Nothing new should be introduced. It’s where the player characters at last
have the opportunity to achieve the story goal and defeat the main pursuer.
The end of the adventure has to be about closure, so that the story feels
complete in a way that’s satisfying to the players.

Character Canon
This is also where the player characters get to apply everything they’ve
learned over the course of the long pursuit. Information, allies, and
resources that have been gathered need to be useful to them. If they’ve
stumbled in any way, this is where they can prove themselves and get a bit
of redemption. The way events wrap up here needs to be consistent with
the way each character has been played in the first two acts.

Create a Moment of Atonement

As a mirror to the moment of doubt at the end of the second act, this
should begin with the player characters pulling themselves together.
Provide them with a chance to regroup. If one or more player characters

26
were captured, this is where they escape, or get busted out by the
characters who remain free. They gather their allies, make their plans,
collect their various resources, and get ready to make their final pushed
toward the adventure goal. All told, it shouldn’t take more than one to three
short scenes.

A Chance to Regroup
Another purpose for the moment of atonement is to give the players a
chance to breathe. The moment of doubt was assuredly intense. This is
where non-player characters will offer pep talks to remind them of what’s
at stake, or the player characters will have a flashback to an NPC doing so
earlier. It’s a chance to look back and remember why these player
characters are the stars of the adventure. It’s the quiet before the storm,
where everyone can rest, recover a bit, and think about what they’re going
to do next.
For a hot pursuit adventure this could mean that the player characters
discover the means to end the chase. They have the opportunity to board a
ship taking them, far, far away. The information needed to clear themselves
is within their grasp. A way to defeat the undefeatable pursuer is shown to
them. The strategy is no longer to run and hide, but to stand tall and
confront the problem.

Unleash the Finale

This can be one giant scene, or broken up into two or three smaller,
more manageable encounters. Either way, it’s the beginning of the end.
There are two parts to the finale proper. The player characters will need to
confront the antagonist, their main adversary in the adventure. In a hot
pursuit adventure that usually means finally having the means to fight
them, presenting them with information that their pursuit of the player
characters is wrong, or doing something that will stop the antagonist long
enough for the player characters to escape once and for all. They will
complete the adventure goal, either by getting away or removing the
condition that forced them to run and hide in the first place. They can do
these things together, or in separate scenes.

Confront the Antagonist

For a hot pursuit adventure, the main pursuer has remained
untouchable for the first two acts. They are either too tough to be beaten in

27
combat, or fighting and possibly killing them would carry too many legal,
cultural, or religious consequences for the player characters to risk. Here
the player characters will at last have an opportunity to deal with them
head-on, with a level playing field at least. This could mean that they now
have an advantage in combat, or have neutralized or removed the
adversary’s advantage. It might mean that their legal or moral authority, or
popular support, has been taken away or shifted in favor of the player
characters for some reason. In any case, what couldn’t be done in the first
act is possible now.

Complete the Adventure Goal

This is where the story is more or less complete. In the first act the
player characters were forced to run and hide. In the second act, they were
pursued and did what they had to in order to avoid being captured. This is
it. One important scene. Even if the antagonist survives, the player
characters have escaped and will no longer be pursued going forward.

Wrap Up Loose Ends

Return
In a hot pursuit adventure, the player characters will go back to their
normal lives after the adventure goal has been completed. Their life may
have changed as the result of the preceding events, and now they will have
to readjust. This could mean dealing with injuries and taking responsibility
for the collateral damage that was inflicted during the prolonged chaise
sequences. It might just mean dealing with relationships and other issues
that were left unattended while they were running and hiding from the
antagonist. Depending on why they were forced to go on the run, there may
still be some residual impact on their reputation, especially if their flight
was connected to cultural, governmental, or religious issues.

28
Rewards and Complications
Every game system has its own method of character advancement, so
we won’t address that here. Each player should review their character’s
personal goals, to see if anything in the adventure might put them closer to
achieving them, or more realistically how much further away they are.
Relationships with non-player characters could be affected by the things
they’ve done, aside from their being away for the period of the adventure.
There could also be financial and legal complications, if the character
wasn’t around to work or fulfill obligations, and is being held responsible
for injuries and property damage incurred during action sequences.

Reset
Based on what has happened during the adventure, you will need to
reset the status quo. Things could go back to normal, as if nothing ever
happened. There might be changes, based on why they were running and
how the premise of the adventure might have affected peoples’ opinions. In
a hot pursuit adventure, you will need to account for the social status of the
pursuer and the pursued, and what impact the adventure’s outcome may
have on the characters and the setting.

Act III Scenes & Beats

29
Finishing Up

Update the Character Canon

Update the Worldbuilding Canon

Update the Story Canon

This story is now officially part of your campaign history. Whether the
characters achieved the adventure goal of escaping or failed spectacularly
and are now imprisoned, these events have happened. The ramifications
will resonate, creating plot hooks and possibilities for spin-offs and sequels
to deal with loose ends and explain new elements that popped upon along
the way. For a hot pursuit adventure, this could mean dealing with the
authority or thematic argument that the pursuer represented. There could
be a grudge held against the player characters by those sympathetic to the
pursued, or who still believe the worst about the PCs.

30
Hot Pursuit Beat Sheet

Act I – The Beginning

An incident occurs that sets up the chase to come.
Establish the Status Quo – Show what the world look like before the
inciting incident. Introduce the characters, the setting, and the theme.
Reveal the Inciting Incident – Something changes that forces the
player characters to respond. Introduce the adventure goal and the stakes.
Issue the Call to Adventure – The player characters will hopefully
accept the adventure, based on the established stakes.

Act II – The Middle

The chase is on as the pursued try to escape the pursuer.
Rising Action – The encounters start off easy but become increasingly
more difficult. They cater to the player characters’ abilities and resources.
Reach a Turning Point – Something makes achieving the adventure
goal more difficult. The main villain is aware of the player characters.
Things Go Downhill – Encounters get easier, but they are no longer
based on the player characters’ best abilities. Resources are in short supply.
Create a Moment of Doubt – The player characters should begin to
wonder whether they will be able to complete the story goal.

Act III – The End

The chase between the pursuer and the pursued comes to an end.
Create a Moment of Atonement – The player characters regroup and
renew their commitment to achieving the story goal.
Unleash the Finale – The main antagonist will be defeated, and the
adventure goal will finally be achieved. The main plot is resolved.
Wrap Up Loose Ends – The player characters return home, get their
rewards, deal with any lingering complications, and the status quo is reset.

31
Long Strange Trip
Adventure Design Guide

Dancing Lights Press

Join our community at
https://dancinglightspress.com

Long Strange Trip: Adventure Design Guide will help gamemasters

to create and prepare “wandering exploration”-style adventures for your
favorite role-playing game. This book acts as a “beat sheet”, a tool used by
writers to outline and plan pivotal elements of a story. It allows them to
know where they’re going, gather the research and information they need,
and ensure that everything ultimately holds together and makes sense.
This series was created specifically with tabletop role-playing games in
mind. It’s designed to work with any setting, genre, or rules system. All you
need to do is apply the context provided by your player characters, the
game world, and your own adventure ideas. Plug in appropriate encounters
and challenges, create the villains, monsters, and non-player characters
you’ll need, and you’re ready to play.

1
This book contains the following:
• Long Strange Trip: An overview of this type of adventure, what makes
it fun, and ways it can be used again and again to create interesting and
unique experiences for your players. Once you embrace these basic
elements, the rest of the adventure flows from there.
• Act I – The Beginning: The elements needed at the start of your
adventure, how to structure the opening act, and advice on
establishing the adventure goal. It’s where the player characters learn
what’s going on and agree to get involved.
• Act II – The Middle: Elements that define the center of the adventure,
structuring the second act, and advice on pursuing the adventure goal.
It’s where the characters do most of their exploring, investigating, and
other actions necessary to achieving the goal.
• Act III – The End: Creating the elements for the last segment of the
adventure, providing structure for the finale, and advice on completing
the adventure goal. It’s where the player characters will confront the
villain, achieve what they set out to do, and earn their rewards.
• Finishing Up: This section shows how to take what happened during
the adventure-as-played and use it as a source for new plot hooks,
character development, and ongoing worldbuilding. Add to your
campaign’s canon and leverage the momentum you’ve established.

How to Use This Book

Read through Adventure Design Guide: Long Strange Trip once
entirely to become familiar with its contents and main concepts. After that
you can go through section-by-section to plan and craft your adventure.
Refer back to any section as needed to be sure you’ve covered everything.

The Three Pillars Approach

Character Elements
Player character backgrounds should draw from the lore of the setting,
connecting them to the game world. Each character should be appropriate
to the adventure, either because their abilities make them useful to
achieving the goal, or their back story, personal objectives, and vested
interests mean that the outcome of the story will affect them. They need to
have skin in the game, for one reason or another.

The Three Canons Account

Worldbuilding Canon
Setting elements become canon when they appear or are referred to
during play. This gives you the freedom to change and adapt things as the
campaign unfolds. Track what has been clearly established. Note the things
that have changed as a result of character actions and plot lines. Use the
possibilities of the evolving canon to inform backgrounds for new
characters and to create plot hooks for future adventures.

The Three Act Structure

4
Long Strange Trip

The player characters set off to see the world,

face its challenges, and discover their fortunes
along the way.

In a long strange trip adventure, the player characters will set out to
see the world. They know that fortune and fame await them, but it won’t be
found at home. It’s a type of adventure that’s more a showcase for your
worldbuilding than it is a vehicle for character development. That doesn’t
mean that the player characters can’t learn and grow, but it’s less about
how they change than using the setting to showcase their thoughts, values,
and personalities. The player characters are the eyes through which we see
the world. They act as our interpreters and tour guides. To fill that role,
they won’t have huge epiphanies along the way, or experience some sort of
life-changing revelation by the end.
During the course of the adventure, they will have to find their place in
the world. Fortune doesn’t just mean wealth; it also encompasses their
purpose in life, how they fit into the cultural, political, and religious
landscape, and the way they become comfortable with who they are. In a
tabletop roleplaying game, this often equates to the player getting a handle
on the character, grasping their personality, and working out the best way
to play them. By the end, the player characters should be better off in terms
of both wealth and knowledge of the setting, as well as understanding of
their own fundamental nature. They will have gotten there by being true to
themselves, and striving to be the best possible version of whatever that is.

Story Elements
This type of adventure is fun because it allows you to focus on the
challenges of the setting itself. The landscapes and environments will offer
up their their hazards along with their beauty and resources. Cultures,
governments, and religious institutions will provide threats and obstacles
based on differences of ideology as well as possession of resources. The
world itself is the focus, so cut loose and go big.

5
It opens up possibilities for the player characters to use their own
background as a basis to compare and contrast the things they encounter.
Where they are from, what they were raised to believe, and the things they
have experienced in their life so far provide context for the strange and
wonderful things they will discover as they seek their fortune.
There are worldbuilding opportunities centered around this context,
allowing you to develop those elements necessary for this type of plot. It’s
not enough to have elements that are the same as things the players are
used to, and some that are different. Good worldbuilding will get into the
why of those differences. It ought to be because the available resources
aren’t the same. One place has trees and therefore makes things from
wood, for example; another doesn’t and has to use rock, bone, or other
materials. Belief systems, including what deities are represented in the
local religion, how the government operates, and the way that ethnic
traditions and folklore have developed, show be reflected in that way
places stand out as unique.
All of the story elements required to make the adventure possible are
automatically part of your story canon. The whole setup wouldn’t work if
these events didn’t happen and the player characters weren’t in a position
to be drawn into them. From this point forward only what happens in the
adventure-as-played will be considered part of your canon.

The Adventure Goal

The adventure goal is what the player characters need to accomplish
in order to successfully complete the adventure. How they do it is up to
them, so the players still have agency. In an exploration-driven adventure,
the objective is for them to find their fortune. They know that it doesn’t
exist where they are, and that they’ll have to travel elsewhere to achieve it.

6
Rewards
In an exploration story, the most common rewards are new things that
the player characters discover, to go along with the new experiences
they’re having. Your game system of choice will have its own rules for
character advancement, awarded for their efforts during the adventure.
Depending upon the genre and setting, there may be treasure or other
financial bonuses as well.
Complications
The types of difficulties that can arise from an exploration adventure
include the standard hazards of travel, culture shock, and
misunderstandings caused by miscommunication and ignorance of local
customs. While these are story-based complications, they should also be
used as a basis for worldbuilding and character development. The impact
of discovering new and diverse elements of the setting will affect the player
characters’ perception of the opportunities available to them, which can in
turn lead to new plot hooks, personal goals for the player characters, and
new areas of the setting to be fleshed out and explored.

Story-Based Challenges
Challenges keep the player characters from achieving the adventure
goal too quickly. For a long strange trip adventure, the obstacles that arise
directly from the plot will depend largely upon the means they employ to
pursue their fortune. They may have something specific in mind that, as
they go along, doesn’t prove to be feasible. Other, better opportunities will
arise, but there will be obstacles and competition for those chances. Keep
in mind the inherent difficulties of the campaign, including any open meta-
plot issues and recurring antagonists. Tie individual player character
backgrounds and personal goals in as well, so the adventure feels custom-
built for these characters.

Character Elements
A fortune-seeking adventure let you focus on the player characters’
abilities, their personal goals, and their flaws. What they are best at, the
things they do well, should be given a chance to shine. At the same time, the
things they’re not a proficient all will become clear. It is likely that these
shortcoming are the result of never needing to do these sorts of things back
home. They aren’t necessary life skills where they come from. It could also

7
be a lack of knowledge, because they wouldn’t have learned certain facts as
part of their background. Those elements can be incorporated into
subplots to make it a more personalized experience.
This sort of adventure opens up possibilities for the player characters
to use and add to knowledge and persuasion-type abilities. If those are
their strong suit, they’ll have a chance to shine. As the adventure goes on, of
course, the challenges will increase in difficulty. When a character doesn’t
excel at those things, they should be given other opportunities to
contribute. Fighting, running, and hiding when things go wrong will always
be useful skill sets.
There are worldbuilding opportunities centered around a long strange
trip, allowing you to develop the setting elements that factor into each
player character’s back story. Where they come from has to be established,
and seen in the first act, in order to create a baseline. The trip is strange in
comparison to what, exactly? The answer is what the player characters are
familiar with. Start there, establish baseline normal, and them explore the
possibilities of what would seem unfamiliar, discomfiting, and downright
bizarre. This sort of worldbuilding also creates opportunities for
interesting non-player characters, new adversaries, and even future player
characters who hail from these newly creates parts of the setting.
Elements required to make the adventure possible become part of
their character canon. If they weren’t in this particular place at the right
moment, lacked certain abilities, or didn’t have some background element
the adventure wouldn’t work. From this point forward what happens in the
adventure-as-played will be added to their back story and considered part
of their ongoing canon.

Player Characters
Player Characters are the protagonists of the story. In a fortune-
seeking adventure, they need to be able to travel, to survive along the way,
and to utilize the abilities they feel will make them rich and famous. If they
lack those abilities, you can compensate by having a non-player character
along as a guide. Placing responsibility for managing the expedition into
the hands of a non-player character can work, but that could force the
player characters into a supporting role within their own story. There has
to be a reason why they aren’t focused on pursuing their own
opportunities, like having them centered on the skills they’ll use when they
get to their destination, rather than planning and navigating the trip itself.

8
Combat-centric player characters in a long strange trip adventure will
find plenty of opportunities for fights. There will be wild animals and
unusual creatures to defend themselves from, all manner of bandits and
thieves seeking to take advantages of naive travelers, and even soldiers and
law enforcement agents suspicious of outsiders. A player character that is
magic-centric or power-centric will be able to use their abilities for
survival, and possibly even make some money along the way by offering
useful services and entertainment to people they meet who are unused to
such abilities. For skill-centric player characters, they will need to use
what they’ve learned about the world, practice their language skills, and
engage in negotiation and diplomacy in ways they’ve never had to before.

Adversaries
Adversaries are the antagonists in the story, including the monsters,
villains, and other opponents the player characters will face. Their motives
and methods for interfering will vary, but their purpose in the adventure is
to prevent the player characters from achieving the adventure goal. While
they will share some common traits and motivations with the villains the
player characters have faced back home, the adversaries should also offer
up some unique twists in terms of their motivations and goals, if not their
abilities.
The antagonists in this type of adventure need to have characteristics
that set them apart from home-grown villains. They’re driven by different
things, rooted in their culture, political system, or religion. Greed, vice, and
a propensity for violence are universal conditions, but the specific
manifestations of those elements shouldn’t be the same as what the player
characters would find at home.
Combat-centric adversaries in a long strange trip adventure ought to
use weapons and armor not found when the player characters are from.
This means not only types and styles, but materials used and the manner of
decoration. Remember the area they are from, and the resources they have
available to them. Their tactics might reflect some ideological point, in
terms of brutality, lethality, and showmanship. An adversary that is magic-
centric or power-centric will have spells that are useful or advantageous
for their environment. The standard spells likes for each region of your
setting might be slightly different based on need, as well as religious,
political, or cultural restrictions again certain types of magic. For skill-
centric adversaries, they will need to abilities that reflect life in their

9
region. This extends to languages, fields of knowledge, and things like
professional and crafting skills. Connect them to the culture in a many ways
as you can manage, without diluting their effectiveness as an antagonist.

Non-Player Characters
Non-Player Characters includes everyone else in the story. This
covers important resource characters, friends and allies, and nameless
extras. Knowing the roles you’ll need to fill can help you to target your
preparation for the adventure. They will need to be representative of the
cultures the player characters travel through, including the governments,
religious institutions, and ethnic groups that exist in those regions.
Within a long strange trip adventure you will find non-player
characters invaluable for player character interactions, possibly moreso
than in other types of adventures. They will be there not only to help the
PC’s navigate the world, but to provide comparison and contrast to life
back home. Combat-centric non-player characters in this sort of
adventure will be able to provide exposition on why people in the area use
certain weapons, armor, and tactics, and the advantages they have in the
environment. A non-player character that is magic-centric or power-
centric will be able to teach useful spells and help player characters adjust
their spellbooks. For skill-centric non-player characters, they will be able
to act as guides and translators, offer knowledge of local customs, and
teach survival skills tailored to the local terrain.

Character-Based Challenges
These challenges center on the player character’s needs, desires, and
personal goals. They distract them from the adventure goal by dividing
their priorities. For a long strange trip adventure, the obstacles that arise
directly from the character elements can include local non-player
characters taking offense at the (to them) strange player characters. It
ought to offer alternative opportunities that differ from what the player
characters set out to pursue. Other temptations might make the player
characters consider staying a while, rather than continuing on toward their
objective. When you tailor these sorts of challenges to the player
characters, the adventure will feel as if it was designed just for them.

10
Worldbuilding Elements
A fortune-seeking, expedition-driven adventure requires the setting to
have a wide range of things to see and do. It’s difficult to have a long
strange trip without the “long” and “strange” parts. If your game world
already has those features, use them, and take this opportunity to flesh
them out a bit more. When there is no ready-made solution, your
worldbuilding efforts will need to be focused on the specific places the
player characters will go as part of your preparation. There’s no need to
build a complete open sandbox. Focus on one, maybe two, areas of the
world per adventure.
If a player character’s background suggests a suitable location, use it.
They may have grown up in one place, but their family is from somewhere
else and they want to see the ancestral homeland. It could be rumored that
there’s work, or treasure, or glory to be found in some distance place. This
can be something mentioned in previous adventure, or an unseen part of
the setting discussed in their back story. This not only helps to develop the
game world, but connects the character directly to the story.
Tie existing worldbuilding into the long strange trip adventure as well.
Use the terrain, the cultures known to live there, and monsters rumored to
be in the area. Connect the story to the setting in meaningful ways, so it
doesn’t feel as if you’ve just dropped events into a random spot on the map.
Just because the player characters have never been there doesn’t mean no
one has. It doesn’t have to be completely unexplored, just new to them.
Every setting element required to make the adventure possible is
automatically part of your worldbuilding canon. The premise wouldn’t
work if the location, the history, and the broad possibilities inherent in
your worldbuilding didn’t support them. From this point forward what
happens in the adventure-as-played will be added to your growing canon.

Preceding Events
An important part of worldbuilding is creating the history of the
setting. For a long strange trip adventure, it needs to be established that
opportunities for a character to make their fortune do in fact exist. There
are jobs to be had, gold to be found, dragons to be slain. It doesn’t have to
be exactly what they expected to find, and in fact should have some
interesting twists and surprises, but they’re not going to arrive at their
destination and find nothing there. This can build upon the existing lore of

11
the region, or add new information. How the local population feels about it,
and what sorts of potential obstacles will already exist, can stem from
events that have happened in the world’s past.

Essential Locations
The types of locations that are required for a lost strange trip
adventure include both the region(s) the player characters are traveling
through, and the destination they’re aiming for. Don’t overdo it, and create
more than you need. If those already exist within your setting, you simply
need to adapt them or expand upon them to make them fit with the needs
of the story. Places that are implied by the needs of an expedition-style
adventure may extend to everything from established civilizations to
wilderness areas that keep the destination isolated from the player
characters’ home. Should you need to develop those locations, you know
where your worldbuilding efforts will need to be focused.

Overall Tone
While this is an element that can be reflected in the way the story and
characters are presented, it’s the worldbuilding that supports and
reinforces it. A long strange trip adventure with a dramatic tone will have
more serious emotional beats. It’s not necessarily tragic or grim, but the
characters and situations can carry notes of sadness, suffering, or fear. It’s
going to be scary because too much is unknown, unfamiliar, and confusing.
By contrast, a comedic tone in a fortune-seeking adventure will focus on
humor, with situations like misunderstanding and odd customs set up to
provoke laughter.
You can have both dramatic and comedic moments within one
adventure. Overall, though, it will favor one over the other. For example,
the adventure might be mostly dramatic, but have some scenes or
encounters that ease the tension with a funny encounter. If it is mostly
comedic, it can still contain elements of drama if one of the player
characters meets a love interest and have a romantic encounter.
When a long strange trip adventure has a light tone it isn’t necessarily
comedic, but the rewards will tend to be higher than the potential
complications. The stakes overall won’t be as high. Things will tend to skew
toward the success of the player characters, allowing them to play to their
strengths. These types of adventures that carry a dark tone have higher
stakes, with complications far outweighing any potential rewards.

12
Challenges won’t always play to the characters’ strengths, making failure a
constant possibility. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be comedic, but it will
be black comedy.
Within the same adventure you can have light and dark moments. It
will tend to lean more toward one of the other overall, though. For instance,
a light fortune-seeking adventure might put the emphasis on the hopes and
dreams of the player characters and joy of seeing and experiencing new
things, but still have darker scenes or encounters where their lives are in
real danger. An adventure that centers on a darker tone can stick mainly to
the risks involved, but offer lighter moments where those risks pay off and
the player characters have reasons to celebrate their successes.
You can pair elements of drama/comedy and light/dark, of course. In a
long strange trip adventure, a light drama would be highlight the difficult
elements of new places and culture shock, which a dark drama could turn
into all manner of dangerous situations. A light comedy would play up the
juxtaposition of what the player characters are familiar with and the new
experiences they’re having for laughs. A dark comedy may take that
contrast, but make the player characters’ quaint naivete more of a liability.
When combined with the tone established by the events of the story and
the personalities of the player characters, this becomes another
opportunity to make your adventure unique.

Setting-Based Challenges
Think about the worldbuilding elements in your setting that could
both support and hinder a fortune-seeking expeditionary adventure. You
already have an idea of the elements required to make the story work.
What if those elements were removed? Are there things within the
canonical setting that conflict with what’s necessary for this type of
adventure to play out? Those are potential challenges for the player
characters to overcome.

13
Act I – The Beginning

There are certain this that need to happen at the start of a long strange
trip adventure. The status quo is established, showing the current state of
the characters and what relevant events are taking place within the setting.
An inciting incident takes place, creating the adventure goal. Finally, the
call to adventure is issued, where the player characters choose to pursue
that goal.

Story Canon
This is where you begin to introduce the foundational elements of your
story canon. The fortune-seeking adventure goal is presented, the stakes
are established, and what the story-based obstacles will be should at least
be hinted at. The information necessary to begin the adventure is officially
part of your campaign history.

Character Canon
The player characters who will take part in this long strange trip
adventure are introduced. If the antagonists don’t appear yet, the inciting
incident will at least hint at their existence. Non-player characters will be
there to help the player characters find their way. Character-based
challenges that will be relevant to their journey and the pursuit of
opportunity can be used to demonstrate what the player characters can do.
This allows them to build up their confidence before facing more difficult
obstacles in the second act.

Worldbuilding Canon
Any events leading up to the inciting incident have to be introduced,
either through in-play action or exposition. Locations that will be
important to the long strange trip adventure will be named as destinations
for the second act, or at least have their existence hinted at. The tone of the
setting will be established, or reinforced if this isn’t the first adventure of
the campaign. Some setting-based challenges can be used to allow the
player characters to become familiar with worldbuilding elements that will

14
become important to the story later, like knowledge, language, and
diplomacy skills.

Establish the Status Quo

The adventure begins by showing what “normal” looks like. It will
introduce the characters, introduce the setting, and introduce the
theme. The player characters are doing whatever it is they do. If they have
professions, hobbies, or other interests, they could be doing those things.
When they’re full-time adventurers, you might start them off having an
easy encounter to show that this is what their life is like.
Establishing the status quo also means demonstrating what goes on in
the setting on an ordinary day. This is especially important in this type of
adventure, where comparison and contrast of the things the player
characters encounter with their own “normative” home life and culture will
drive much of the story. For a long strange trip adventure, it might mean
setting up things like customs, political systems, and religious beliefs. It
will mean showing common foods, available resources, and the types of
clothing, weapons, and armor that people use. Anything that is meant to
stand out later in another region or culture should have a notable
counterpoint established here.

Introduce the Characters

Provide each player character with a “spotlight moment” to establish
who they are and what their role in the campaign is. Provide them with a
task that shows off their abilities. Consider giving them a challenge that
foreshadows something they’ll need to do later in the adventure. For
example, in a long strange trip adventure you may have them demonstrate
some ability that have relevance in their own culture. They know about
their own environment, the ideologies of the region, or even cultural arts,
crafts, and professions. It anchors them as members of this region, which
will make them stand out, and their new experiences seem all the more
unusual, in later acts.
Adversaries may not appear in the first act, but their presence should
at least be hinted at. They might not know who is responsible for what’s
going on, or exactly what they will need to face, but the existence of some
antagonist should be clear early on. For a long strange adventure you might
drop rumors of the sorts of bandits that prey on travelers, or the types of
people competing for the opportunities the player characters are going to

15
pursue. If the opportunity is to fight some monster, challenge some
champion, or best some skilled competitor, then the player characters will
have a clear expectation of what they’ll need to do even if they don’t know
who their adversary might turn out to be.
Well-known non-player characters might appear early in the story to
offer advice, help with equipment, and generally help to get the player
characters pointed in the right direction. Some NPCs that will appear later
might be mentioned, a friendly contacts in other regions, or their existence
established indirectly. If the PCs know that they have to visit a temple, for
example, it implies the existence of clergy.

Introduce the Setting

There are a few reasons to establish what “normal” looks like in the
setting. The first is to show what is possible, so that the exploits of the
player characters and their adversaries seem credible. Anything that will
happen on a large scale in the second and third acts should be
demonstrated on a smaller scale here.
The second is to help establish the stakes. By showing the player
characters’ home setting prior to the inciting incident, you can more
effectively show what has changed. The player characters will better
understand what is to be gained or lost during the adventure, and why the
adventure goal of finding their fortune is so important not just to them but
to the world they live in. There are limited, if any, opportunities for them if
they stay here.
Finally, establishing things that are going to be relevant to the
adventure later is targeted worldbuilding. You can focus on creating the
elements that will allow the player characters to know where to go in
search of opportunities. They have an inkling as to who their adversaries
will be. There is setting-level support for the entire concept of a fortune-
seeking expedition, and that the key to the player characters achieving
their hopes, dream, and wildest ambitions lies somewhere else.

Introduce the Theme

16
A common theme in long strange trip adventures is a sense of
belonging. You can demonstrate that in the first act by showing how the
player characters don’t fit in where they are. What they want isn’t possible
at home, either for practical reasons or because some local ideology
opposes it. In order to find their place in the world, they need to seek their
fortune elsewhere. This theme is just an example, of course. Using a
different theme can drastically alter an adventure, and is one way to gave
the basic structure of a long strange trip story replayability by changing the
meaning and types of elements that you want to emphasize.
The thematic statement is what you, as the gamemaster, are trying to
say through the work. In the theme of belonging, you might want to express
that everyone feels like an outsider sometimes, or that society demands a
degree of conformity in return for safety and a degree or acceptance. That
conformity limits both potential and opportunity and is damaging to a
person’s spirit.
Every character, both player characters and supporting characters,
could have their own thematic concept. They have their own point of view
about the theme, that can be expressed through their personalities and
actions. One character might not fit in because there’s no need for their
special abilities within their community, for example. Another could feel
they don’t belong because their values and beliefs clash with the cultural,
political, or religious norms of the area.
Having a theme can help you to design interesting encounters. It can
help you to give non-player characters some depth by having them
represent a point of view. The theme can also allow players to round out
their characters by providing them with a specific idea or concept to focus
on, and letting them work out what the character’s thoughts would be
based on their background and adventuring experiences.

Reveal the Inciting Incident

This is the moment where it becomes clear to the player characters
that their fortune needs to be found elsewhere. The inciting incident is the
event that sets off the adventure and launches the players characters into
it. Something that no one expected or planned for goes down. This is where
you need to establish the adventure goal and present the stakes. For a
long strange trip adventure, this is where the player characters are shown
how dissatisfied they are in their present circumstances, and are made

17
aware of an appealing opportunity that suits their needs and desires that
exists somewhere else.

Establish the Adventure Goal

To put it simply, how do you know when the adventure is over? What is
the one clear objective that the player characters have to accomplish? In a
long strange trip adventure, this is the moment that the player characters
find their fortune. This might be achieving it clearly, or having a legitimate,
ongoing opportunity presented to them. We know for certain that they’re
set going forward.
This means that the goal has to align with the promise of the game.
What are the players expecting? If it’s action and combat, then the
adventure goal has to reflect a situation that’s going to require a lot of
fighting. If it’s mystery, or intrigue, or a lot of roleplaying and character
development, then the goal should make it clear that there will be ample
opportunities for those things. If it’s simply some manner of financial or
social reward, then all challenges have to reflect the value of the thing
they’re seeking, to make it feel worthwhile.
Having a goal isn’t railroading the player characters. There’s a
difference between understanding what they need to accomplish and
forcing them into one specific course of action to accomplish it. They
should be free to make their own plans and solve the problems inherent in
the adventure goal using their own ideas.

Present the Stakes

The player characters need to be presented with what’s at stake. There
are two parts to this. The first are the consequences: what will happen if
the adventure goal has not been fulfilled? How will it affect the player
characters, the non-player characters they care about, and their personal
goals if they aren’t able to find their fortune? We can assume that they’d
need to return home, and go back to a life they didn’t find fulfilling before.
The credible threat of a boring and dissatisfying life should motivate them.
That’s the stick. The second part, the reward, is the carrot. What will
the player characters gain if they choose to pursue opportunity? How will
they benefit from accomplishing the adventure goal? When they know
what’s in it for them, they’re more likely to answer the call to adventure.
The risks feel as if they’re worth the return they stand to get.

18
The stakes of your adventure have to connect to the wants and needs
of the player characters. If they’re not feeling any sort of potential loss,
they’re not going to care. The same if the rewards dangled in front of them
aren’t useful or appealing. This is where you can make a long strange trip
adventure feel like it was designed just for them, and not a set of generic
encounters that anyone could play through.
For a fortune-seeking adventure, the stakes are often just to get a
change of scenery. The characters simply want to get away from home, to
see new and have different experiences. The complications that arise from
not leaving home will be a lifetime in the same rut. What the player
characters stand to get from successfully pursuing a new opportunity are
wealth, freedom, and the chance to be their best selves.

Issue the Call to Adventure

Accepting the Call

Rejecting the Call

19
Act I Scenes & Beats
In a novel or screenplay, this setup could take up one-quarter to one-
third of the whole story. For an adventure, you’re looking at 1 to 3 scenes
minimum. You can establish all of the important points at once, or spread
things out to give them more detail and attention.
Establish the Status Quo – Show what the world look like before the
inciting incident. Introduce the characters, the setting, and the theme of the
adventures. This can be one scene for each character, a single scene with
the player characters together, or part of one big introduction scene.
Reveal the Inciting Incident – Something changes that forces the
player characters to respond. Introduce the adventure goal and the stakes.
This can be separate scenes for each player character, giving them a reason
to come together. It can be an interruption of the “status quo” scene.
Issue the Call to Adventure – The player characters will hopefully
accept the adventure, based on the established stakes. This can be a
separate scene, after the characters have had a chance to regroup, talk
things over, and make some decisions. It might be a continuation of the
inciting incident scene, when there’s no doubt as to their involvement.

20
Act II – The Middle

Most of the action occurs in the middle of the adventure. Challenges

Story Canon
The second act in your long strange trip adventure is where the
elements of your story canon introduced in the first act will get used. The
player characters will be reminded of what’s at stake. If the adventure goal
wasn’t entirely clear, or parts of it didn’t make complete sense, all will be
revealed here. Story-based obstacles will present themselves regularly to
slow down the characters’ progress. The campaign history established in
the first act can be built upon and be used as the player characters head off
to find their fortune out in the world.

Character Canon
The player characters will all get to use their signature abilities and
show off the things they’re good at. If the main adversary hasn’t appeared
yet, they’ll show up by the midpoint of this act. Non-player characters will
have various parts to play, with new NPCs introduced in each place the
player characters visit. Toward the end of the act the player characters will
be called upon to do things they aren’t as good at, providing a difference
sort of challenge. This allows them to build up their confidence before
facing the main adversary in the third act.

Worldbuilding Canon
The player characters will get the chance to explore new and
interesting locations important to the long strange trip adventure. Places
named or hinted at in the first act will appear and be fleshed out a bit

21
more. Some unexpected places will be found, providing surprises and
interesting things to explore. The tone of the setting established earlier will
be reinforced and expanded upon. Setting-based challenges can be used so
player characters can increase their familiarity with worldbuilding
elements important to the story, like validating or disproving the rumors
they’ve heard. The opportunities they left home to pursue will turn out to
exist, but it will be come increasingly clear that the player characters have
wrong information, and will need to do some course correction.

Rising Action
This section of the adventure is where roughly half of the encounters
will be. These are the fun bits where the player characters get to run wild.
It will contain several scenes, as many as you feel are necessary to
challenge the characters, establish essential plot points, and introduce
major non-player characters. Here is where the strange parts will happen
in a long strange trip adventure, with player characters getting to react to
elements that stand in stark contrast to anything they’re familiar with.

The Fun Bits

Things will be relatively easy for the player characters throughout the
early part of Act II. They’ll face exactly what they expect to find an a long
strange adventure, insofar as they know it will be unlike home. They will be
prepared as much as they possibly can be. The obstacles they encounter
will play to their strengths, meaning that every player character will have
an opportunity to show off. You can combine player character challenges
into scenes, or provide each character with at least one scene that
showcases their signature abilities.
For a long strange trip adventure, that means that things will conform
to the information they have and the rumors they have heard. This section
will include easy access to resources, a relatively uneventful journey, and
no dramatically surprising twists. Whatever the player characters have to
face, they’re likely to succeed.
The difficulty will start off a bit below their ability level, and increase
slightly with every subsequent encounter. The farther from home they get,
the more difficult things will become. This makes the adventure exciting,
action-packed, and put an emphasis on just having fun. By the end of this
section they should be facing challenges that are fully worthy of their
abilities.

22
Reach a Turning Point
About midway through the second act, something happens that makes
the adventure more difficult than the player characters were prepared for.
This is one pivotal scene. This is an unexpected twist that the player
characters could not have reasonably planner for. In a long strange trip
adventure this often means that the information they have is wrong. The
opportunity they were pursuing either doesn’t exist, or is drastically
different than they were led to believe. The antagonist has stepped up their
plans to rob them of the chance to find their fortune, either by claiming of
for themselves or doing something that invalidates it.

Things Go Downhill
From this point though the end of the second act, the obstacles that the
player characters face will be more difficult. They’ve reached the hard
part. This section comprises a little less than half of the scenes and
encounters in the adventure. They will begin to run out of resources. Non-
player characters will be more difficult to negotiate with. The challenges
that arise don’t require their best abilities, but skills and talents that
they’re not necessarily as good at. These encounters should be based on
abilities that are normative for people in the region, but strange and
unfamiliar to the player characters. Things won’t be harder than they can
handle, but it will seem far more challenging than they are because they
can’t fall back on the situations they’re most comfortable with.

The Hard Part

For a long strange trip this means they are in an unfamiliar place with
no friends and no concept of what they’re doing. The easy-to-locate
information has already been acquired, so they need to dig a bit further.
Smooth terrain has been crossed, and now travel gets complicated. The
resources that were readily available are harder to come by, if not
impossible to get. A lot of what they know simply isn’t applicable. The
fortune they seek is still there, but claiming it is going to take more than
they could have anticipated.

Create a Moment of Doubt

At this point in the adventure, the worst case scenario happens.
Whatever could bring the whole fortune-seeking expedition to a grinding
halt takes place here in one brutal scene. The player characters get robbed,

23
or lose some vital resource. In a long strange trip adventure, this could
mean that they become lost. They may believe that the opportunity they
were seeking doesn’t exist, or has been claimed or destroyed by the
antagonist. The whole journey has been for nothing, or so they think. This
should lead to a transformation in both the tone of the adventure and the
attitudes of the player characters.
This needs to be the hardest encounter in the entire adventure. It has
to be even more difficult than the finale, because in the end the player
characters need to be able to win. That means that the stakes here are
temporarily suspended, or at least diminished. There will be a way to claim
some manner of fortune, even in the event that they’re unable to “win” in a
confrontation with the main adversary. If the player characters do win, it
should be a close call, or possibly a matter of luck. They will need to pull
out any resources they’ve been holding in reserve for the finale, and use
them earlier than they anticipated.

Transformation
The moment of doubt should make the player characters feel uncertain
about whether they can achieve the adventure goal. The reason to do this is
to make their eventual victory feel even more special. By the end of the
long strange trip adventure they should feel that they overcame all of the
challenges thrown at them, and be proud of what they accomplished. That
emotional surge starts right here.
Clearly the player characters’ original plan is no longer going to work.
For a fortune-seeking adventure, this means that what they were looking
for isn’t where they though it would be, or is substantially different from
what they expected to find. They will need to regroup, come up with a new
plan, or simply face the fact that they’re going to have to wing it. What they
should realize is that they still have a chance to find their fortune, but it’s
not what they were originally seeking. Once they’ve accept this shift in the
status quo of the adventure and are ready to press on, this middle section
of the adventure is over. It’s time for Act III.

Act II Scenes & Beats

24
Reach a Turning Point – Something changes that makes achieving the
adventure goal more difficult. The main villain is aware of the player
characters. This is one scene that shifts the tone of the adventure.
Things Go Downhill – The encounters are no longer based on the
player characters’ best abilities. Resources are in short supply. At several
scenes this is the second-largest section of the adventure.
Create a Moment of Doubt – The player characters should begin to
wonder whether they will be able to complete the story goal. They realize
that their initial plan is not working and need to regroup. This is one scene.

25
Act III – The End

At the end of the adventure the promise of everything that has

Create a Moment of Atonement

26
is where the montage would go. They gather their allies, make their plans,
collect their various resources, and get ready to make their final pushed
toward the adventure goal. All told, it shouldn’t take more than one to three
short scenes.

A Chance to Regroup
Another purpose for the moment of atonement is to give the players a
chance to breathe. The moment of doubt was no doubt intense. This is
where non-player characters give them pep talks and remind them of
what’s at stake. It’s a chance to look back and remember why these player
characters are the stars of the adventure. It’s the quiet before the storm,
where everyone can rest, recover a bit, and think about what they’re going
to do next.
For a long strange trip adventure this could mean that the player
characters see how the opportunity they seek is still open to them. They
might realize that reclaiming the opportunity, or stopping the antagonist,
or doing the thing they now need to do, is the actual means of finding the
fortune they seek. This is their destiny, the thing they were meant to do.

Unleash the Finale

This can be one giant scene, or broken up into two or three smaller,
more manageable encounters. Either way, it’s the beginning of the end.
There are two parts to the finale proper. The player characters will need to
confront the antagonist, their main adversary in the adventure, to hold
them accountable for what they’ve done. In a long strange trip adventure
that usually means the player characters are called upon to do what they
do best, or at least to do things that reflect who they are at the core of their
personality. They will also complete the adventure goal, finding their
fortune, by being their best self. They can do these things together, or in
separate scenes.

Confront the Antagonist

For a long strange trip adventure, the main adversary has the key to
the player characters’ fortune in their hands. They can keep them from
achieving what they set out to do. Here the player characters will at last
have an opportunity to take control of their destiny. The player characters
need to defeat the antagonist in order to get to what they need, and in
doing so complete the adventure goal.

27
Complete the Adventure Goal
This is where the story is more or less complete. In the first act the
player characters answered the call to leave home to pursue new
opportunities in the larger world and find their fortune. In the second act,
they got to experience the world beyond their home, and did what they had
to in order to find their fortune. This is it. One important scene. Even if the
antagonist gets away, the player characters still have a chance to embrace
their destiny and become the people they were meant to be.

Wrap Up Loose Ends

After the adventure goal has been completed, you can take a few
scenes to handle any unresolved issues. Most of the loose ends from the
first two acts should be tied up, although you can leave a few things open
for sequels and spin-off adventures. The player characters will have a
chance to collect their rewards and complications and reset things back
to the established baseline normal.

Rewards and Complications

Every game system has its own method of character advancement, so
we won’t address that here. Each player should review their character’s
personal goals, to see if the adventure has put them closer to achieving
them, or further away. Relationships with non-player characters could be
affected by things they’ve done, although most of the NPCs in this type of
adventure are one-and-done, never to be seen again. There could also be
financial and legal complications, if the character did things along the
journey that violated the laws, social conventions, or religious taboos of the
people in those regions.

Reset
Based on what has happened during the adventure, you will need to
reset the status quo. Things shouldn’t go back to normal, with characters
behaving as if nothing ever happened. There have to be changes, based on
the fact that the player characters have left home, and have found their
fortune. In a long strange trip adventure, you will need to account for the
possibility that the player characters might settle in the new region they
find themselves in during the finale, or continue traveling going forward.
This is why the player characters will change very little, it as all; they’re the
source of continuity, the anchor point of the campaign.

28
Act III Scenes & Beats
Create a Moment of Atonement – The player characters are given
some breathing room to regroup and renew their commitment to achieving
the story goal. This is one to three short scenes.
Unleash the Finale – The main antagonist will be defeated, and the
adventure goal will finally be achieved. The main plot is resolved. This can
be one big scene, or a series of one to three smaller scenes.
Wrap Up Loose Ends – Outstanding plot threads are tied up. The
player characters return home, they get their rewards and deal with any
lingering complications, and the status quo of the world is reset.

29
Finishing Up

Update the Character Canon

Everything that happened is now part of each player character’s back
story. They performed those deeds, met and formed relationships with the
non-player characters, and honed their abilities. In addition to any
character advancement in terms of abilities, they will need to update
information on their personal goals, because they’ve found their fortune
and established their place in the world. They probably won’t change their
outlook on life as a result of the long strange trip, as it’s meant to be a
validation of who they are rather than a process for growth.

Update the Worldbuilding Canon

During the course of the long strange trip you will undoubtedly have
added new details to the setting that didn’t exist before. It is, after all, one
of the points of this type of adventure. Some elements that hadn’t yet been
seen in the game may have been altered from what you have in your notes.
Events may have altered parts of the setting. All of that needs to be updated
because it’s not part of your campaign’s worldbuilding canon.

Update the Story Canon

30
Long Strange Trip Beat Sheet

Act I – The Beginning

The player characters realize there are no opportunities at home.
Establish the Status Quo – Show what the world look like before the
inciting incident. Introduce the characters, the setting, and the theme.
Reveal the Inciting Incident – Something changes that forces the
player characters to respond. Introduce the adventure goal and the stakes.
Issue the Call to Adventure – The player characters will hopefully
accept the adventure, based on the established stakes.

Act II – The Middle

The player characters head out into the world to find their fortune.
Rising Action – The encounters start off easy but become increasingly
more difficult. They cater to the player characters’ abilities and resources.
Reach a Turning Point – Something makes achieving the adventure
goal more difficult. The main villain is aware of the player characters.
Things Go Downhill – Encounters get easier, but they are no longer
based on the player characters’ best abilities. Resources are in short supply.
Create a Moment of Doubt – The player characters should begin to
wonder whether they will be able to complete the story goal.

Act III – The End

The player characters find their fortune by being true to themselves.
Create a Moment of Atonement – The player characters regroup and
renew their commitment to achieving the story goal.
Unleash the Finale – The main antagonist will be defeated, and the
adventure goal will finally be achieved. The main plot is resolved.
Wrap Up Loose Ends – The player characters return home, get their
rewards, deal with any lingering complications, and the status quo is reset.

31
Rescue Mission
Adventure Design Guide

Dancing Lights Press

Join our community at
https://dancinglightspress.com

Rescue Mission: Adventure Design Guide will help gamemasters to

create and prepare search and recovery adventures for your favorite role-
playing game. This book acts as a “beat sheet”, a tool used by writers to
outline and plan pivotal elements of a story. It allows them to know where
they’re going, gather the research and information they need, and ensure
that everything ultimately holds together and makes sense.
This series was created specifically with tabletop role-playing games in
mind. It’s designed to work with any setting, genre, or rules system. All you
need to do is apply the context provided by your player characters, the
game world, and your own adventure ideas. Plug in appropriate encounters
and challenges, create the villains, monsters, and non-player characters
you’ll need, and you’re ready to play.

1
This book contains the following:
• Rescue Mission: An overview of this type of adventure, what makes it
fun, and ways it can be used again and again to create interesting and
unique experiences for your players. Once you embrace these basic
elements, the rest of the adventure flows from there.
• Act I – The Beginning: The elements needed at the start of your
adventure, how to structure the opening act, and advice on
establishing the adventure goal. It’s where the player characters learn
what’s going on and agree to get involved.
• Act II – The Middle: Elements that define the center of the adventure,
structuring the second act, and advice on pursuing the adventure goal.
It’s where the characters do most of their exploring, investigating, and
other actions necessary to achieving the goal.
• Act III – The End: Creating the elements for the last segment of the
adventure, providing structure for the finale, and advice on completing
the adventure goal. It’s where the player characters will confront the
villain, achieve what they set out to do, and earn their rewards.
• Finishing Up: This section shows how to take what happened during
the adventure-as-played and use it as a source for new plot hooks,
character development, and ongoing worldbuilding. Add to your
campaign’s canon and leverage the momentum you’ve established.

How to Use This Book

Read through Rescue Mission: Adventure Design Guide once
entirely to become familiar with its contents and main concepts. After that
you can go through section-by-section to plan and craft your adventure.
Refer back to any section as needed to be sure you’ve covered everything.

The Three Pillars Approach

Character Elements
Player character backgrounds should draw from the lore of the setting,
connecting them to the game world. Each character should be appropriate
to the adventure, either because their abilities make them useful to
achieving the goal, or their back story, personal objectives, and vested
interests mean that the outcome of the story will affect them. They need to
have skin in the game, for one reason or another.

The Three Canons Account

Worldbuilding Canon
Setting elements become canon when they appear or are referred to
during play. This gives you the freedom to change and adapt things as the
campaign unfolds. Track what has been clearly established. Note the things
that have changed as a result of character actions and plot lines. Use the
possibilities of the evolving canon to inform backgrounds for new
characters and to create plot hooks for future adventures.

The Three Act Structure

4
Rescue Mission

The player characters have to save an important

non-player character from the clutches of a
dangerous villain.

In a rescue mission adventure, the player characters will be called

upon to locate and save an important non-player character. It might be
someone important to the setting, like a member of a royal family, a
popular celebrity, or a beloved figure in the community. The kidnap victim
could be a close friend or part of the player characters’ family. During the
course of the adventure, they will have to go out into the adversary’s turf
and face the villain on their own terms. By the end, they should be able to
save the victim and bring them back home to safety.

Story Elements
This type of adventure is fun because it allows you to focus on the both
physical challenges and character relationships. There has to be an
emotional connection between the player characters and the kidnap victim.
This makes the stakes feel genuinely important, and creates a sense of
urgency for the players. Every minute that passes increases the possibility
that something bad could happen to the victim.
It opens up possibilities for the player characters to visit new places,
and gain a different perspective on the villain. To pull off the daring rescue
mission, they will need to enter the villain’s world. This means seeing the
places their adversary is familiar with, learning how they live, and facing
their allies, friends, and possibly even their family members. It gives them
context as to why the villain became a villain, which ought to tie into the
plot in terms of explaining why the kidnapped the victim.
There are worldbuilding opportunities centered around designing the
villain’s world, allowing you to develop those elements necessary for this
type of plot. Where the villain is hiding out should contrast with the type of
environment the player characters live in. There are also the places the
characters will need to travel through in order to reach when the victim is

5
being held. While some elements should feel familiar and relatable, so the
player characters can at least partially understand the villain and their
motivation, most should be uncomfortable enough to make them feel that
they’re at a disadvantage.
All of the story elements required to make the adventure possible are
automatically part of your story canon. The whole setup wouldn’t work if
these events didn’t happen and the player characters weren’t in a position
to be drawn into them. From this point forward only what happens in the
adventure-as-played will be considered part of your canon.

The Adventure Goal

The adventure goal is what the player characters need to accomplish
in order to successfully complete the adventure. How they do it is up to
them, so the players still have agency. In a rescue mission adventure, the
objective is for them to save a non-player character, or possible a group of
them, from the clutches of a dangerous villain. That might mean stopping
the villain to eliminate any ongoing threat. It might also mean sneaking
them out of the situation and helping them get to a place where they
victims will be safe.

6
characters, the community they live in, or both. If they fail, they’ll carry the
guilt and the social stigma of people the people that didn’t bring the victim
home. They will also need to deal with entering strange and hostile
territory, and the awareness that the villain holds almost every advantage.
While these are story-based complications, they should also be used as a
basis for worldbuilding and character development. The impact of the
victim being taken will affect how the world sees the player characters, and
how they see themselves. This in turn lead to new plot hooks, personal
goals for the player characters, and new areas of the setting to be fleshed
out and explored.

Story-Based Challenges
Challenges keep the player characters from achieving the adventure
goal too quickly. For a rescue mission adventure, the obstacles that arise
directly from the plot include the need to do things in ways that won’t
result in the villain hurting the hostage. This means stealth, secrecy, and
possibly doing things to appease the adversary. Keep in mind the inherent
difficulties of the overall campaign, including any open meta-plot issues
and recurring antagonists. Tie individual player character backgrounds and
personal goals in as well, connecting them to both the victim and the
villain, so the adventure feels custom-built for these characters.

Character Elements
A rescue adventure let you focus on the player characters’ ability to
stay calm under pressure, and their emotional needs. The core of this type
of adventure is action, but it’s driven by relationships. It’s about how the
player characters connect to both the victim and the villain. Those
elements can be incorporated into subplots to make it a more personalized
roleplaying experience.
It opens up possibilities for the player characters to use social skills
like diplomacy and persuasion. They will have to negotiate for the safety of
someone they care about, while masking their contempt for an antagonist
that has all of the leverage. If those types of abilities are their strong suit,
they’ll have a chance to shine. As the adventure goes on, of course, the
challenges will increase in difficulty. When a character doesn’t excel at
those things, they will be given other opportunities to contribute. It’s still
an action-oriented adventure.

7
There are worldbuilding opportunities centered around where the
victim comes from and what their background is, allowing you to develop
the setting elements that also factor into the player characters’ back
stories. It establishes why the victim is important, and the reasons why
there are connections between the characters. This sort of worldbuilding
creates opportunities for interesting non-player characters, new
adversaries, and even future player characters.
Elements required to make the adventure possible become part of
their character canon. If they weren’t in this particular place at the right
moment, lacked certain abilities, or didn’t have some background element
the adventure wouldn’t work. From this point forward what happens in the
adventure-as-played will be added to their back story and considered part
of their ongoing canon.

Player Characters
Player Characters are the protagonists of the story. In a rescue
mission adventure, they need to be able to credible locate and extract one
or more victims of kidnapping. This requires a degree of social skill, stealth,
and combat readiness. If they lack those abilities, you can compensate by
having a non-player character fill the roles the player characters aren’t
suited for. Placing responsibility for either the negotiations, the search, or
the fighting into the hands of a non-player character can work, but that
could force the player characters into a supporting role within their own
story. There has to be a reason why they aren’t focused on the mission as a
whole, like having them brought in to be part of a larger, coordinated effort
being staged by an organization.
Combat-centric player characters in a rescue adventure will have to
do battle with guards. This will be in the service of getting into and out of
secure locations, as well as protecting the victim. A player character that is
magic-centric or power-centric will be useful for persuasion,
misdirection, and protection. For skill-centric player characters, they will
need to be able to investigate, track, and break into facilities that
undoubtedly have locks, traps, and other mechanical security measures.

Adversaries
Adversaries are the antagonists in the story, including the monsters,
villains, and other opponents the player characters will face. Their motives

8
and methods for interfering will vary, but their purpose in the adventure is
to prevent the player characters from achieving the adventure goal.
The antagonists in this type of adventure need to be tough as well as
clever. Combat-centric adversaries will need to be a credible threat to the
hostage, as well as any force that makes a rescue attempt. Their entire plan,
after all, is predicated on threats of violence. An adversary that is magic-
centric or power-centric will have abilities that center on imprisonment
and self-defense. They might have some spell that threatens to deliver a
particularly gruesome death to the hostage. For skill-centric adversaries,
they will need to be intimidating, making their threats credible. They also
need to have a hideout that’s been well thought out, so that it offers
adequate security to keep people from getting in or out.

Non-Player Characters
Non-Player Characters includes everyone else in the story. This
covers important resource characters, friends and allies, and nameless
extras. Knowing the roles you’ll need to fill can help you to target your
preparation for the adventure.
Within a rescue adventure you will find non-player characters are the
victims, and the people who care about the victims. They’re the ones who
will ask the player character for help, but will also hold them accountable if
things go wrong. Combat-centric non-player characters in a hostage-
based adventure will be available for support in large fights or set pieces.
They could also supply weapons and armor, or provide distractions to draw
the villain’s attention away from the PCs. A non-player character that is
magic-centric or power-centric will be able to give the player characters
some temporary protection, either via magical armor, disguises, or
invisibility. They should be able to cast spells that the PC’s can’t, as needed
to complete the plan. For skill-centric non-player characters, they will
need to fill the gaps in the PC’s abilities, offering information, negotiation,
and security-breaching talents. It’s best when they can advise, rather than
participate, so the player characters retain the spotlight.

9
player characters. They want their loved ones back, and want to know why
the player characters aren’t moving more quickly. They’’ll blame the player
characters if things go wrong. All of which adds layers of stress to an
already difficult situation. When you tailor these sorts of challenges to the
player characters’ existing relationships, the adventure will feel as if it was
designed just for them.

Worldbuilding Elements
A rescue mission adventure requires the setting to have places where
the villain will be safe and secure, and areas where the victim isn’t. It’s
difficult to kidnap someone without vulnerability and opportunity on one
side, and a defensible place to keep the hostages on the other.. If your game
world already has those features, use them, and take this chance to flesh
them out a bit more. When there is no ready-made solution, your
worldbuilding efforts will need to be focused on these contrasting types of
locations and cultural or political situations as part of your preparation.
If a player character’s background suggests a suitable location, use it.
This can be something from a previous adventure, or an unseen part of the
setting mentioned in their back story. This not only helps to develop the
game world, but connects the character directly to the story. Have the
villain holed up in some past adversary’s lair, or inside of a community or
country that’s for some reason hostile toward the player characters.
Tie existing worldbuilding into the rescue adventure as well. Use the
terrain, the cultures that live there, and monsters known to be in the area.
Build the reasons the victim or victims were chosen around past events,
based on revenge or perceived offenses against the villain’s cultural,
political, or religious beliefs. Connect the story to the setting in meaningful
ways, so it doesn’t feel as if you’ve just dropped events into a random spot
on the map.
Every setting element required to make the adventure possible is
automatically part of your worldbuilding canon. The premise wouldn’t
work if the location, the history, and the broad possibilities inherent in
your worldbuilding didn’t support them. From this point forward what
happens in the adventure-as-played will be added to your growing canon.

10
Preceding Events
An important part of worldbuilding is creating the history of the
setting. For a rescue mission adventure, it needs to be established why the
villain takes a hostage. It’s always a reaction to something that’s already
happened. This could be personal, cultural, political, or religious. They are
lashing out, striking back, or demonstrating that they have power. This can
build upon the existing lore of the region, or add new information. How the
local population feels about it, and what sorts of potential obstacles will
already exist, can stem from events that have happened in the world’s past.

Essential Locations
The types of locations that are required for a rescue adventure include
a place for the kidnapping to happen, somewhere for the villain to stash the
victim, and any interesting or difficult terrain between the two. If those
already exist within your setting, you simply need to adapt them or expand
upon them to make them fit with the needs of the story. Places that are
implied by the needs of a rescue adventure may extend to a victim’s home,
the headquarters of an institution supporting either the victim, the villain,
or both, and facilities used by what passes for law enforcement. Should you
need to develop those locations, you know where your worldbuilding
efforts will need to be focused.

Overall Tone
While this is an element that can be reflected in the way the story and
characters are presented, it’s the worldbuilding that supports and
reinforces it. A rescue mission adventure with a dramatic tone will have
more serious emotional beats. It’s not necessarily tragic or grim, but the
characters and situations can carry notes of sadness, suffering, or fear. By
contrast, a comedic tone in a hostage will focus on humor, with situations
set up to provoke laughter.
You can have both dramatic and comedic moments within one
adventure. Overall, though, it will favor one over the other. For example,
the dramatic rescue adventure might be mostly intense due to the credible
threats to the victim’s safety, but have some scenes or encounters where
the villain made a foolish mistake that provides the player characters with
an opening, resulting in a good laugh. If it is mostly comedic, it can still
contain elements of serious drama when the player characters run the risk
of injury or death.

11
When a rescue mission adventure has a light tone it isn’t necessarily
comedic, but the rewards will tend to be higher than the potential
complications. The stakes overall won’t be as high. Things will tend to skew
toward the success of the player characters, allowing them to play to their
strengths. These types of adventures carrying a dark tone have higher
stakes, with complications far outweighing any potential rewards.
Challenges won’t always play to the characters’ strengths, making failure a
constant possibility. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be comedic, but it will
be black comedy.
Within the same adventure you can have light and dark moments. It
will tend to lean more toward one of the other overall, though. For instance,
a light rescue adventure might put the emphasis on the player characters
nailing the action sequences, but still have darker scenes or encounters
where they’re reminded that the victim is still in danger. A rescue
adventure that centers on a darker tone can stick mainly to hitting the
player characters over the head with the stakes, but offer lighter moments
where they are shown hope for success in their mission.
You can pair elements of drama/comedy and light/dark, of course. In a
rescue mission adventure, a light drama would have action sequences with
lower difficulty and less permanent stakes, which a dark drama could
crank up the challenges and make other elements of the setting hinge on
how things turn out; fail and nations go to war, for example.
A light comedy would mean that there’s a slim chance the villain will
actually harm the victim. The antagonist might not be particularly
competent, or the cause they’re fighting for is patently ridiculous. A dark
comedy may still lean into the absurd, but the violence and potential for all
manner of harm is very real. When combined with the tone established by
the events of the story and the personalities of the player characters, this
becomes another opportunity to make your adventure unique.

Setting-Based Challenges
Think about the worldbuilding elements in your setting that could
both support and hinder a rescue mission adventure. You already have an
idea of the elements required to make the story work. What if those
elements were removed? Are there things within the canonical setting that
conflict with what’s necessary for a hostage-centric adventure to play out?
Those are potential challenges for the player characters to overcome.

12
Act I – The Beginning

There are certain this that need to happen at the start of a rescue
mission adventure. The status quo is established, showing the current
state of the characters and what relevant events are taking place within the
setting. An inciting incident takes place, creating the adventure goal.
Finally, the call to adventure is issued, where the player characters choose
to pursue that goal.

Story Canon
This is where you begin to introduce the foundational elements of your
story canon. The adventure goal of saving the hostage is presented, the
stakes are established, and what the story-based obstacles will be should at
least be hinted at. The information necessary to begin the adventure is
officially part of your campaign history.

Character Canon
The player characters who will take part in this rescue mission are
introduced. If the antagonists don’t appear yet, the inciting incident will at
least hint at their existence. Non-player characters will be there to help the
player characters find their way. Character-based challenges like
negotiation, stealth, and combat prowess can be used to demonstrate what
the player characters can do. This allows them to build up their confidence
before facing more difficult obstacles in the second act..

Worldbuilding Canon
Any events leading up to the inciting incident have to be introduced,
either through in-play action or exposition. Locations that will be
important to the rescue will appear, be named as destinations for the
second act, or at least have their existence hinted at. The tone of the setting
will be established, or reinforced if this isn’t the first adventure of the
campaign. Some setting-based challenges can be used to allow the player
characters to become familiar with worldbuilding elements that will
become important to the story later, like the cultural, political, or religious
situation that motivates the villain, or the reasons why that particular

13
person was abducted. There ought to be ramifications to the crime that
cause ripples throughout the setting.

Establish the Status Quo

The adventure begins by showing what “normal” looks like. It will
introduce the characters, introduce the setting, and introduce the
theme. The player characters are doing whatever it is they do. If they have
professions, hobbies, or other interests, they could be doing those things.
When they’re full-time adventurers, you might start them off having an
easy encounter to show that this is what their life is like.
Establishing the status quo also means demonstrating what goes on in
the setting on an ordinary day. This can help to establish the stakes later
on. For a rescue mission adventure, it might mean presenting how the
victim lives, and why they’re an important supporting character to both the
setting and the player characters. It could set up the events that drive the
villain to take a hostage, and provide context for what they expect to get
out of doing it.

Introduce the Characters

Provide each player character with a “spotlight moment” to establish
who they are and what their role in the campaign is. Give them a task that
shows off their most prominent abilities. Consider a challenge that
foreshadows something they’ll need to do later in the adventure. For
example, in a rescue adventure you may have them tracking something or
someone, picking lock and overcoming traps, or bargaining with a non-
player character to gain something they want.
Adversaries may not appear in the first act, but their presence should
at least be hinted at. For a rescue mission adventure you might have news
or rumors about the event that triggers the kidnapping. It could be a failed
crime on their part, a political coup, or a schism within a religious group.
There might be problems around a culture, or a clash between any sort of
incompatible ideologies, one of which the villain is an adherent of. The
player characters might not know who is responsible for what’s going on,
or what they will need to face, but the existence of some antagonist should
be clear early on.
Well-known non-player characters might appear early in the story to
offer advice, help with equipment, and generally help to get the player

14
characters pointed in the right direction. One of these might be the victim.
Having the player characters interact with the victim not long before the e
kidnapping is a way of establishing connection and yes, laying on a bit of
guilt. Some NPCs that will appear later might be mentioned, or their
existence established indirectly. If the PCs know that they have to visit a jail
where one of the villain’s henchmen is locked up, for example, it implies the
existence of a jailer and some type of law enforcement agents.

Introduce the Setting

There are a few reasons to establish what “normal” looks like in the
setting. The first is to show what is possible, so that the exploits of the
player characters and their adversaries seem credible. Anything that will
happen on a large scale in the second and third acts should be
demonstrated on a smaller scale here.
The second is to help establish the stakes. By showing something of the
setting prior to the inciting incident, you can more effectively show what
has changed. The player characters will better understand what is to be
gained or lost during the adventure, and why the adventure goal of saving
the victim from the villain’s clutches is so important not just to them but to
the world they live in.
Finally, establishing things that are going to be relevant to the
adventure later is targeted worldbuilding. You can focus on creating the
elements that will allow the player characters to conduct the rescue
mission, their adversaries to kidnap and detain the victim, and to support
the entire concept of the villain’s motivations. This will include not only
locations, but types of characters and historical situations that flow into
the existence of this adventure’s inciting incident.

Introduce the Theme

15
chief rival. This type of adventure tends to keep things simple, so the player
characters are clearly right, and the villain is most obviously wrong.
This is just an example, of course. Using a different theme can
drastically alter an adventure, and is one way to gave the basic structure of
a rescue mission story replayability by changing the meaning and types of
elements that you want to emphasize.
The thematic statement is what you, as the gamemaster, are trying to
say through the work. In the theme of directly opposed ideologies, you
might want to express why the villain’s world view and the actions that
spring from it are specifically bad, and why the player characters’ outlook
is inherently superior if not clearly the best. Again, it’s simple so you can
focus on the action, but it’s effective because it creates opportunities for
character development and worldbuilding.
Every character, both player characters and supporting characters,
could have their own thematic concept. They have their own point of view
about the theme, that can be expressed through their personalities and
actions. One character might be good because it results in greater personal
happiness and world peace, for example. Another could be good because
they fear divine or even social punishment for non-compliance.
Having a theme can help you to design interesting encounters. It can
help you to give non-player characters some depth by having them
represent a point of view. The theme can also allow players to round out
their characters by providing them with a specific idea or concept to focus
on, and letting them work out what the character’s thoughts would be
based on their background and adventuring experiences.

Reveal the Inciting Incident

Establish the Adventure Goal

To put it simply, how do you know when the adventure is over? What is
the one clear objective that the player characters have to accomplish? In a

16
rescue mission adventure, this is when the victim is clearly out of danger.
Either the villain is no longer a threat, or the hostage has been removed
from the situation and taken to a place of safety.
This means that the goal has to align with the promise of the game.
What are the players expecting? If it’s action and combat, then the
adventure goal has to reflect a situation that’s going to require a lot of
fighting. If it’s mystery, or intrigue, or a lot of roleplaying and character
development, then the goal should make it clear that there will be ample
opportunities for those things.
Having a goal isn’t railroading the player characters. There’s a
difference between understanding what they need to accomplish and
forcing them into one specific course of action to accomplish it. They
should be free to make their own plans and solve the problems inherent in
the adventure goal using their own ideas.

Present the Stakes

The player characters need to be presented with what’s at stake. There
are two parts to this. The first are the consequences: what will happen if
the victim isn’t rescued and adventure goal has not been fulfilled? How will
it affect the player characters, the non-player characters they care about,
and their personal goals if the villain wins? What will become of the
hostage if no one steps up to save them?
That’s the stick. The second part, the rewards, is the carrot. What will
the player characters gain if they accept the rescue mission? How will they
personally benefit from accomplishing the adventure goal and saving the
life of a non-player character? When they know what’s in it for them,
they’re more likely to answer the call to adventure.
The stakes of your rescue mission have to connect to the wants and
needs of the player characters. If they’re not feeling any sort of potential
loss, they’re not going to care. The same if the rewards dangled in front of
them aren’t useful or appealing. This is where you can make this type of
adventure feel like it was designed just for them, and not a set of generic
encounters that anyone could play through.
For a rescue adventure, the stakes are often nothing more than saving
a life, or through inaction being responsible for a death. The complications
that arise from not saving a hostage could have cultural, political, or
religious consequences that impact the setting, which in turn will directly

17
and indirectly have an effect on the player characters. What they stand to
get from successfully implementing a rescue are good will, the trust of the
community, and freedom to continue adventuring without an excess of
unwanted scrutiny and criticism.

Issue the Call to Adventure

Accepting the Call

It’s assumed that the stakes will be enough to get the player characters
to answer the call. The adventure is in line with the promise of the setting
and genre, and therefore meets the players’ expectations. It’s relevant to
the individual player characters somehow, either due to their connection to
the villain or the victim. The adventure feels like it’s part of their story, not
a generic series of encounters that they’ve been dropped into.

Rejecting the Call

This is where we always pause and take a moment to acknowledge that
it could happen. Someone will say something about not understanding why
their character would do this. If you’ve set things up properly, and done
your best to connect each character to the adventure, it shouldn’t happen.
Hopefully the other players will help to talk them into it. Through a non-
player character you can remind them of the stakes, and what they
personally stand to gain and lose. Mention their morals and ethics, their
standing and reputation within the setting, whatever is on the line.

Act I Scenes & Beats

18
Establish the Status Quo – Show what the world look like before the
inciting incident of the kidnapping. Introduce the characters, the setting,
and the theme of the adventures. This can be one scene for each character,
a single scene with the player characters together, or part of one big
introduction scene.
Reveal the Inciting Incident – A non-player character is taken
hostage and that forces the player characters to respond. Introduce the
adventure goal and the stakes. This can be separate scenes for each player
character, giving them a reason to come together. It can be an interruption
of the “status quo” scene.
Issue the Call to Adventure – The player characters will hopefully
accept the rescue mission, based on the established stakes. This can be a
separate scene, after the characters have had a chance to regroup, talk
things over, and make some decisions. It might be a continuation of the
inciting incident scene, when there’s no doubt as to their involvement.

19
Act II – The Middle

Most of the action occurs in the middle of the adventure. Challenges

Story Canon
The second act in your rescue mission adventure is where the
elements of your story canon introduced in the first act will get used. The
player characters will be reminded of what’s at stake. If the adventure goal
wasn’t entirely clear somehow, or parts of it didn’t make complete sense,
all will be revealed here. Story-based obstacles will present themselves
regularly to slow down the characters’ progress. The campaign history
established in the first act can be built upon and be used as the player
characters to help them get to where they’re going, and better grasp the
villain’s motivations for taking a hostage.

Worldbuilding Canon
The player characters will get the opportunity to explore locations
important to the rescue adventure. Places named or hinted at in the first

20
act will appear and be fleshed out a bit more. The tone of the setting
established earlier will be reinforced and expanded upon. Setting-based
challenges can be used so player characters can increase their familiarity
with worldbuilding elements important to the story, like the villain’s
ideology and why the victim is important to the future of the setting.

Rising Action
This section of the adventure is where roughly half of the encounters
will be. These are the fun bits where the player characters get to run wild.
It will contain several scenes, as many as you feel are necessary to
challenge the characters, establish essential plot points, and introduce
major non-player characters. Here is where the tracking, traveling, and
planning will happen in a rescue mission adventure, with plenty of
opportunity for fight scenes against the villains henchmen as well.

The Fun Bits

Things will be relatively easy for the player characters throughout the
early part of Act II. They’ll face exactly what they expect to find on a rescue
mission and will be prepared. The obstacles they encounter will play to
their strengths, meaning that every player character will have an
opportunity to show off. You can combine player character challenges into
scenes, or provide each character with at least one scene that showcases
their signature abilities.
For rescue mission adventure, that means they will start off in familiar
territory. This section will include some relatively easy investigation to
determine where the victim has been taken, so the player characters can
begin their journey there. Gathering resources won’t be a problem,
because they’ll be around people who support the rescue mission. Anyone
they need to fight will be low-level lackey intended to slow the player
characters down so the true villain can make a clean getaway.
Whatever the player characters have to face, they’re likely to succeed.
The difficulty will start off a bit below their ability level, and increase
slightly with every subsequent encounter. This makes the adventure
exciting, action-packed, and put an emphasis on just having fun. By the end
of this section they should be facing challenges that are fully worthy of
their abilities.

21
Reach a Turning Point
About midway through the second act, something happens that makes
the adventure more difficult. This is one pivotal scene. This is an
unexpected twist that the player characters could not have reasonably
planner for. In a rescue mission adventure this often means that the player
characters have moved into territory controlled by the antagonist. He
villain has the home field advantage. It also means that the villain has
stepped up their plans to repel the player characters, and is now sending
their forces directly at them in an effort to end to their rescue attempt.

The Hard Part

For a rescue mission this means a number of things. The easy-to-locate
information has already been acquired, so the player characters will need
to dig a bit further to find the exact location of the hostage. Familiar
territory has been crossed, and now things get complicated because their
adversary controls, or at least has knowledge of, the locations they need to
move through. The resources that were readily available are harder to
come by, if not impossible to get. There’s also the looming threat that the
villain could hurt the hostage if they player characters aren’t careful.

Create a Moment of Doubt

At this point in the adventure, the worst case scenario happens.
Whatever could bring the whole rescue to a grinding halt takes place here
in one brutal scene. The player characters get captures, or the villain takes
the victim and moves them to a new, unknown location. In rescue mission
adventure, this typically means that the player characters are in a hostile

22
place, low on resources, and essentially have to start over from scratch.
This should lead to a transformation in both the tone of the adventure and
the attitudes of the player characters.
This will be the hardest encounter in the entire adventure. It has to be
even more difficult than the finale, because in the end the player characters
need to be able to win. There will be a way to get out of danger, in the event
that they’re unable to rescue the victim or defeat the villain. If the player
characters do win, it should be a close call, or possibly a matter of luck.
They will need to pull out any resources they’ve been holding in reserve for
the finale, and use them earlier than they anticipated.

Transformation
The net effect of the moment of doubt should be that the player
characters feel uncertain about whether or not they can achieve the
adventure goal. The reason to do this is to make their eventual victory feel
even more special. By the end of the adventure they should feel that they
overcame all of the challenges thrown at them, and be proud of what they
accomplished. That emotional surge starts right here.
Clearly the player characters’ original plan is no longer going to work.
For a rescue mission adventure, this means that they don’t know where the
victim currently is, or how they’re going to be able to defeat the villain. It
might be that they have to focus on their own survival, because the
antagonist’s forces are coming after them with everything they’ve got. The
player characters will need to regroup, come up with a new plan, or simply
face the fact that they’re going to have to wing it. Once they’ve accept this
shift in the status quo of the adventure and are ready to press on, this
middle section of the adventure is over and it’s time for Act III.

Act II Scenes & Beats

Rising Action – The encounters start off easy but become increasingly
more difficult. They cater to the player characters’ best abilities and ease of
access to resources. There are several scenes, and this is the largest section
of the rescue mission.
Reach a Turning Point – Something changes that makes achieving the
adventure goal more difficult. The territory is now controlled by the
antagonists. The main villain is aware of the player characters and is

23
actively working against them. This is one scene that shifts the tone of the
entire rescue mission.
Things Go Downhill – The encounters are no longer based on the
player characters’ best abilities. Resources are in short supply and there’s
no one around to help the player characters. The villain is winning. At
several scenes this is the second-largest section of the adventure.
Create a Moment of Doubt – The player characters should begin to
wonder whether they will be able to complete the story goal. The villain
takes the victim and moves to an unknown location, negating any progress
the player characters have made so far. They realize that their initial plan is
not working and need to regroup. This is one scene.

24
Act III – The End

At the end of the rescue mission the promise of everything that has
happened so far will be fulfilled. There will be a moment of atonement to
balance out the moment of doubt at the end of the second act. From there
the gamemaster can unleash the finale, allowing the player characters to
deal with the main adversary and achieve the story goal. All that’s left then
is to wrap up loose ends and the adventure is over.

Story Canon
The final act has to tie up all of the events from the first two, clearly.
Nothing new should be introduced. It’s where the player characters at last
have the opportunity to achieve the story goal and defeat the main
antagonist. The end of the rescue mission has to be about closure, so that
the story feels complete in a way that’s satisfying to the players.

Worldbuilding Canon
Nothing new about the setting should be introduced in the final act.
What happens should relate to important things about the world that the
player characters have learned over the course of the rescue mission. If
elements of the setting are important to the finale, these should be
highlighted so that your worldbuilding efforts pay off in a meaningful way.

Create a Moment of Atonement

25
this is where the montage would go. They gather whatever allies they may
have, revise their plans, collect all available resources, and get ready to
make their final pushed to save the victim and defeat the villain. All told, it
shouldn’t take more than one to three short scenes.

A Chance to Regroup
Another purpose for the moment of atonement is to give the players a
chance to breathe. The moment of doubt was no doubt intense. This is
where non-player characters give them pep talks and remind them of
what’s at stake. It’s a chance to look back and remember why these player
characters are the stars of the adventure. It’s the quiet before the storm,
where everyone can rest, recover a bit, and think about what they’re going
to do next.
For a rescue mission adventure this could mean that the player
characters stop and assess the resources and capabilities they still have. It
might mean reviewing the information for clues as to where the villain has
gone. Everything ought to be there, they just need to think out it and put it
all together. They can salvage the operation.

Unleash the Finale

This can be one giant scene, or broken up into two or three smaller,
more manageable encounters. Either way, it’s the beginning of the end.
There are two parts to the finale proper. The player characters will need to
confront the villain, their main adversary in the adventure, to hold them
accountable for what they’ve done. In a rescue mission adventure that
usually means stopping them before they can kill the victim. They will also
complete the adventure goal, freeing the victim. They can do these things
together, or in separate scenes.

Confront the Antagonist

For a rescue mission adventure, the main adversary could either be
with the victim in the same room, where they can use them as a human
shield or bargaining chip, or very close by. The player characters may need
to go through the antagonist first in order to to get to save the victim.
If the victim is in location separate from the villain, the player
characters may be able to sneak in, overpower some guards, and get the
hostage to safety. After that’s been done they have the choice to go after the
villain, or be satisfied that the plot has been foiled. A lot of this depends on

26
how powerful they perceive the villain to be, and what sort of condition
the player characters are in as far as injuries and resources are concerned.
It should also align with what their best abilities are. If they’re combat-
centric characters, then by all means you need a big fight scene with the
villain to wrap things up. If the player characters are inclined toward
stealth and subterfuge, sneaking in and out undetected right under the
villain’s nose will be the most satisfying conclusion.

Complete the Adventure Goal

This is where the story is more or less complete. In the first act the
player characters answered the call to save the victim. In the second act,
they pursued the villain and did what they had to in order to locate where
the victim was being held. This is it. One important scene. Even if the
antagonist gets away, the player characters have rescued the important
non-player characters and foiled the villain’s scheme.

Wrap Up Loose Ends

After the adventure goal has been completed, you can take a few
scenes to handle any unresolved issues. Most of the loose ends from the
first two acts should be tied up, although you can leave a few things open
for sequels and spin-off adventures. The player characters will have a
chance to return home and deliver the victim to safety, collect their
rewards and complications, and reset things back to the established
baseline normal.

Return
In a rescue mission adventure, the player characters will go back to
their normal lives after the adventure goal has been completed. Their life
may have changed as the result of the preceding events, and now they will
have to readjust. This could mean that people trust them, laud them as
heroes, and shower them with praise and gifts for saving a beloved non-
player character from the hands of a despicable villain. It could also mean
they’re held responsible for anything that went wrong, especially if the
victim was injured in the rescue attempt, or the player characters failed to
save them.

27
Rewards and Complications
Every game system has its own method of character advancement, so
we won’t address that here. Each player should review their character’s
personal goals, to see if the adventure has put them closer to achieving
them, or further away. Relationships with non-player characters could be
affected by the things they’ve done. There could also be financial and legal
complications, if the victim had connections to some cultural, political, or
religious organization heavily invested in their well-being.

Reset
Based on what has happened during the adventure, you will need to
reset the status quo. Things could go back to normal, as if nothing ever
happened. There might be changes, based on how events changed public
perception of the thematic ideologies of the victim and the villain. In a
rescue mission adventure, you will need to account for the health of the
victim after they’ve been rescued, and the whereabouts of the villain (if
they’re still alive). The impact the events of the mission may have had on
the characters and the setting can be minimal, or create lasting changes
that can serve as plot hooks for future adventures.

Act III Scenes & Beats

Create a Moment of Atonement – The player characters are given
some breathing room to regroup and renew their commitment to achieving
the adventure goal, rescuing the victim, and defeating the villain. This is
one to three short scenes.
Unleash the Finale – The main antagonist will be defeated, and the
adventure goal will finally be achieved. The player characters return the
victim to a place of safety. The main plot is resolved. This can be one big
scene, or a series of one to three smaller scenes.
Wrap Up Loose Ends – Outstanding plot threads are tied up. The
villain’s plot is shown to be conclusively foiled. The player characters
return home, they get their rewards and deal with any lingering
complications, and the status quo of the world is reset.

28
Finishing Up

Update the Character Canon

Update the Worldbuilding Canon

Update the Story Canon

This story is now officially part of your campaign history. Whether the
characters achieve the adventure goal or fail spectacularly, these events
have happened. The ramifications will resonate, creating plot hooks and
possibilities for spin-offs and sequels to deal with loose ends and explain
new elements that popped upon along the way. For rescue adventure, this
could mean a change in peoples’ attitude toward the player characters. The
adherents to the villain’s ideology might be demoralized or emboldened,
depending on how things turned out.

29
Rescue Mission Beat Sheet

Act I – The Beginning

The PCs learn that a non-player character has been kidnapped.
Establish the Status Quo – Show what the world look like before the
inciting incident. Introduce the characters, the setting, and the theme.
Reveal the Inciting Incident – Something changes that forces the
player characters to respond. Introduce the adventure goal and the stakes.
Issue the Call to Adventure – The player characters will hopefully
accept the adventure, based on the established stakes.

Act II – The Middle

The player characters mount a rescue mission to save the NPC.
Rising Action – The encounters start off easy but become increasingly
more difficult. They cater to the player characters’ abilities and resources.
Reach a Turning Point – Something makes achieving the adventure
goal more difficult. The main villain is aware of the player characters.
Things Go Downhill – Encounters get easier, but they are no longer
based on the player characters’ best abilities. Resources are in short supply.
Create a Moment of Doubt – The player characters should begin to
wonder whether they will be able to complete the story goal.

Act III – The End

The victim is rescued and the villain is defeated.
Create a Moment of Atonement – The player characters regroup and
renew their commitment to achieving the story goal.
Unleash the Finale – The main antagonist will be defeated, and the
adventure goal will finally be achieved. The main plot is resolved.
Wrap Up Loose Ends – The player characters return home, get their
rewards, deal with any lingering complications, and the status quo is reset.

30
RETRIBUTION
Adventure Design Guide

Dancing Lights Press

Join our community at
https://dancinglightspress.com

The bearer of this document has the express written permission of the
publisher to make copies for personal use.
Copyright 2019 Berin Kinsman. All Rights Reserved. Adventure Design Guide and
respective trade dress are © and ™ 2019 Berin Kinsman. This is a work of fiction. Any
similarity with people or events, past or present, is purely coincidental and unintentional
except for any people and events presented in historical context.
This is version 1.0 of this document.
Contents
Welcome to Adventure Design................................................................1
How to Use This Book...................................................................................................... 2
The Three Pillars Approach.......................................................................................... 2
The Three Canons Account............................................................................................ 3
The Three Act Structure................................................................................................. 3
Retribution......................................................................................................5
Story Elements................................................................................................................... 5
Character Elements.......................................................................................................... 7
Worldbuilding Elements.............................................................................................. 10
Act I – The Beginning................................................................................14
Establish the Status Quo.............................................................................................. 15
Reveal the Inciting Incident........................................................................................ 17
Issue the Call to Adventure......................................................................................... 19
Act I Scenes & Beats....................................................................................................... 19
Act II – The Middle.....................................................................................21
Rising Action..................................................................................................................... 22
Reach a Turning Point................................................................................................... 22
Things Go Downhill....................................................................................................... 23
Create a Moment of Doubt.......................................................................................... 23
Act II Scenes & Beats..................................................................................................... 24
Act III – The End..........................................................................................25
Create a Moment of Atonement................................................................................25
Unleash the Finale.......................................................................................................... 26
Wrap Up Loose Ends..................................................................................................... 27
Act III Scenes & Beats.................................................................................................... 28
Finishing Up..................................................................................................29
Update the Character Canon......................................................................................29
Update the Worldbuilding Canon.............................................................................29
Update the Story Canon............................................................................................... 29
Retribution Beat Sheet............................................................................30
Act I – The Beginning.................................................................................................... 30
Act II – The Middle......................................................................................................... 30
Act III – The End.............................................................................................................. 30
Welcome to Adventure Design
Retribution: Adventure Design Guide will help gamemasters to
create and prepare revenge-themed adventures for your favorite role-
playing game. This book acts as a “beat sheet”, a tool used by writers to
outline and plan pivotal elements of a story. It allows them to know where
they’re going, gather the research and information they need, and ensure
that everything ultimately holds together and makes sense.
This series was created specifically with tabletop role-playing games in
mind. It’s designed to work with any setting, genre, or rules system. All you
need to do is apply the context provided by your player characters, the
game world, and your own adventure ideas. Plug in appropriate encounters
and challenges, create the villains, monsters, and non-player characters
you’ll need, and you’re ready to play.
This book contains the following:
• Retribution: An overview of this type of adventure, what makes it fun,
and ways it can be used again and again to create interesting and
unique experiences for your players. Once you embrace these basic
elements, the rest of the adventure flows from there.
• Act I – The Beginning: The elements needed at the start of your
adventure, how to structure the opening act, and advice on
establishing the adventure goal. It’s where the player characters learn
what’s going on and agree to get involved.
• Act II – The Middle: Elements that define the center of the adventure,
structuring the second act, and advice on pursuing the adventure goal.
It’s where the characters do most of their exploring, investigating, and
other actions necessary to achieving the goal.
• Act III – The End: Creating the elements for the last segment of the
adventure, providing structure for the finale, and advice on completing
the adventure goal. It’s where the player characters will confront the
villain, achieve what they set out to do, and earn their rewards.
• Finishing Up: This section shows how to take what happened during
the adventure-as-played and use it as a source for new plot hooks,
character development, and ongoing worldbuilding. Add to your
campaign’s canon and leverage the momentum you’ve established.

1
How to Use This Book
Read through Retribution: Adventure Design Guide once entirely to
become familiar with its contents and main concepts. After that you can go
back through section-by-section to plan and craft your adventure. Refer
back to any section as needed to be sure you’ve covered everything.

The Three Pillars Approach

The Three Act Structure

4
Retribution

In a Retribution adventure, the player characters will be called upon

to suffer some injustice. It might be something done to them, or to people
they care about. This requires them to right that wrong in creative and
emotionally satisfying ways. During the course of the adventure, they will
have to locate the people responsible, plan how they want to get payback,
and gather together the resources to pull it off. By the end, they should be
ready to take justice into their own hands and make the target suffer the
consequences of their actions.

Story Elements
This type of adventure is fun because it allows you to focus on creative
challenges. It’s not as simple as finding the villain and arresting them. You
don’t want to duel to death. A Retribution story is about making them
suffer for what they did. It’s a “you ruined my life, so I’m going to ruin
yours” thing. This requires the player characters to first figure out who is
responsible, if they don’t already know. Then they need to decide what they
want to so, and how they can pull that off.
There are worldbuilding opportunities centered around the sorts of
injustices that might be committed within the setting. These might be
anything from a pranks taken too far to common and familiar crimes to the
atrocities of war. What the victim does could be considered offensive
based on the player characters’ culture and traditions, requiring a
particular response in order to save face. There might be religious taboos
that were violated, forcing them to address the blasphemy. If the player
characters are involved in law enforcement, they might need to deal with
someone who has unfairly gotten away with something.
All of these allow you to develop those elements necessary for this
type of plot, creating the possibilities as well as the obstacles for this type
of adventure. The one key component, though, is that it has to be personal.
It hits the player characters where it counts. What the villain does has to be
insult, injury, and more.

5
All of the story elements required to make the adventure possible are
automatically part of your story canon. The whole setup wouldn’t work if
these events didn’t happen and the player characters weren’t in a position
to be drawn into them. From this point forward only what happens in the
adventure-as-played will be considered part of your canon.

The Adventure Goal

The adventure goal is what the player characters need to accomplish
in order to successfully complete the adventure. How they do it is up to
them, so the players still have agency. In a revenge-driven adventure, the
objective is for them to track down someone who has done them (or
someone they care about) wrong and make them pay for their actions.

The Stakes
An adventure’s stakes include both the potential rewards and likely
complications that could arise based on how the story plays out. It isn’t
always as simple as the player characters getting something good when
they succeed, or having something bad happen to them if they fail.
Rewards will sometimes come with a cost. Complications can have an
unexpected silver lining.
Rewards
In a Retribution story, the most common reward is the satisfaction of
seeing the target of revenge suffer. It’s purely emotional. Your game system
of choice will have its own rules for character advancement, awarded for
their efforts during the adventure. Depending upon the genre and setting,
there may be treasure or other financial bonuses as well. Retribution could
include stealing something valuable from the target, either as a main plot
point or an afterthought
Complications
The types of difficulties that can arise from a revenge-driven adventure
include the impact that the quest for payback can have on other characters.
The villain targeted by the player characters might have family, friends, or
servants who are dependent upon them. What affects the target will, via
the ripple affect, also affect them. This could be for good or ill. While these
are story-based complications, they should also be used as a basis for
worldbuilding and character development. The impact of what happens to
the villain will affect everyone within their sphere or influence. This can in

6
turn lead to new plot hooks, personal goals for the player characters, and
new areas of the setting to be fleshed out and explored.

Story-Based Challenges
Challenges keep the player characters from achieving the adventure
goal too quickly. For a Retribution adventure, the obstacles that arise
directly from the plot include the need to keep plans a secret. Gathering
allies, resources, and information can draw the suspicion of the target.
There is also the presumption that the target, knowing that they’re a
villain, will have at least basic security measures in place. Keep in mind the
inherent difficulties of the campaign, including any open meta-plot issues
and recurring antagonists. Tie individual player character backgrounds and
personal goals in as well, so the adventure feels custom-built for these
characters.

Character Elements
A revenge-centered adventure let you focus on the player characters’
abilities. They will need to use social skills to gather information about the
target, get people to help them with their plan, and convince potentially
hostile non-player characters that they aren’t up to anything.
Just about any type of ability can come into play, depending on the sort
of payback the player characters have planned. Those elements can be
incorporated into subplots to make it a more personalized experience. If
those are their strong suit, they’ll have a chance to shine. As the adventure
goes on, of course, the challenges will increase in difficulty. When a
character doesn’t excel at those things, they should be given other
opportunities to contribute.
There are worldbuilding opportunities centered around the nature of
the offense they’re seeking retribution for, allowing you to develop the
setting elements that factor into the character’s back story. If what they’re
doing is illegal, certain types of actions might create ethical dilemmas for
the PCs. The play might have to work around concepts of law and chaos,
good and evil. This sort of worldbuilding also creates opportunities for
interesting non-player characters, new adversaries, and even future player
characters.
Elements required to make the adventure possible become part of
their character canon. If they weren’t in this particular place at the right

7
moment, lacked certain abilities, or didn’t have some background element
the adventure wouldn’t work. From this point forward what happens in the
adventure-as-played will be added to their back story and considered part
of their ongoing canon.

Player Characters
Player Characters are the protagonists of the story. In a revenge-
focused adventure, they need to be able to create an execute a plan for
payback. It might be simple, and play to their strengths, but it could also
need to be complex and force them to stretch into lesser-used skills and
talents. If they lack those abilities, you can compensate by hiring
supporting characters, or possibly enlisting other non-player characters
who have been wronged by the target to aid them. Placing responsibility
for revenge into the hands of a non-player character can work, but that
could force the player characters into a supporting role within their own
story. There has to be a reason why they aren’t focused on getting payback
for some real or perceived injustice, like having them maintain plausible
deniability for tasks they’ve assigned to others.
Combat-centric player characters in a revenge adventure will
naturally be responsible for any fighting. They may need to kidnap the
target, battle any body guards, and possibly take on law enforcement
figures if their plan is illegal. A player character that is magic-centric or
power-centric can help to keep parts of the plan hidden. They might
obfuscate the actions of other characters using illusions and such, or create
distractions. For skill-centric player characters, they will need to do all of
the thieving, spying, and mischief-making that this type of caper thrives on.
There will be things to be stolen or planted, places to break into, and many,
many lies to be told.

8
The chief antagonist in this type of adventure is the target. This is the
individual (or small group of characters) responsible for the doing harm
that set this adventure in motion. They are the ones the player characters
are seeking revenge against. Combat-centric adversaries in a revenge-
themed adventure will have killed, maimed, and destroyed someone or
something the player characters care about. What they’ve done to elicit a
desire for revenge will likely stem directly from some violent act they
committed. An adversary that is magic-centric or power-centric will have
used those abilities to perform the inciting task. The reason the players are
seeking payback is a direct result of a spell that was cast or a special talent
that was used. For skill-centric adversaries, they will need to have done
something with those skills, like cheated, lied, or stolen something, that
triggers the desire for payback. It’s the use of their special skills that set the
player characters off.

Non-Player Characters
Non-Player Characters includes everyone else in the story. This
covers important resource characters, friends and allies, and nameless
extras. It will also extend to people who work for the target, or who would
rat out the player characters if the nature of their plan is discovered. Even
those who normally side with the PCs might disapprove of a payback
scheme for various moral, ethical, or legal reasons. Knowing the roles you’ll
need to fill can help you to target your preparation for the adventure.
Within a revenge-based adventure you will find non-player characters
who are both allies and obstacles. Combat-centric non-player characters
in a payback-focused adventure will present tried-and-true fight-based
obstacles. They may be friends trying to prevent the player characters from
doing something stupid, or be in the way of their revenge plans. A non-
player character that is magic-centric or power-centric will be able to
provide spells that can help the plan. They may also try to dispel things to
prevent things from going as planned. For skill-centric non-player
characters, they will need to assist with things the player character’s can’t
do, or at last can’t do well. They might also be able to spot suspicious
activity, or figure out that something unusual is going on.

Character-Based Challenges
These challenges center on the player character’s needs, desires, and
personal goals. They distract them from the adventure goal by dividing

9
their priorities. For a Retribution adventure, the obstacles that arise
directly from the character elements can include non-player characters
from their background who have done them wrong suddenly showing up,
opportunities to go after something they want instead, and other
temptations. When you tailor these sorts of challenges to the player
characters, the adventure will feel as if it was designed just for them.

Worldbuilding Elements
A Retribution adventure requires the setting to have laws, customs,
and traditions around seeking revenge. There could be an expectation that
an individual will seek their own justice, or that things should be handled
by some official body. People might overlook what they deem to be
acceptable, but speak and act against payback schemes they feel cross
some line. It’s difficult to seek revenge without something happening that
the people of the setting would consider to be revenge-worthy. What’s
considered to be a slight, an offense, or a crime to one community might
not be thought of as a big deal in another. If your game world already has
those features, use them, and take this opportunity to flesh them out a bit
more. When there is no ready-made solution, your worldbuilding efforts
will need to be focused on the cause-and-effect of vengeance as part of
your preparation.
If a player character’s background suggests a suitable location, use it.
This can be something from a previous adventure, or an unseen part of the
setting mentioned in their back story. This not only helps to develop the
game world, but connects the character directly to the story.
Tie existing worldbuilding into the revenge-driven adventure as well.
Use the terrain, the cultures that live there, and monsters known to be in
the area. Connect the story to the setting in meaningful ways, so it doesn’t
feel as if you’ve just dropped events into a random spot on the map. Are
there legal, theological, or traditional attitudes and practices for exacting
revenge? Does a class exist that normally exacts justice for those who have
been wronged? What happens to people caught taking matters into their
own hands?
Every setting element required to make the adventure possible is
automatically part of your worldbuilding canon. The premise wouldn’t
work if the location, the history, and the broad possibilities inherent in

10
your worldbuilding didn’t support them. From this point forward what
happens in the adventure-as-played will be added to your growing canon.

Preceding Events
An important part of worldbuilding is creating the history of the
setting. For a Retribution adventure, it needs to be established that there
are rules, religious taboos, and community standards that everyone is
expected to adhere to. This covers both the sorts of actions that would
cause a person to seek revenge, and the ways that vengeance might
manifest itself. A payback scheme can build upon the existing lore of the
region, or add new information. How the local population feels about it,
and what sorts of potential obstacles will already exist, can stem from
events that have happened in the world’s past.

Essential Locations
The types of locations that are required for a Retribution adventure
will vary based on the offense and the plan for payback. One thing that has
to be consistent is that the locations are personal. It should feel like a
violation on the part of the player characters, that the villain not just did
what they did, but that they did it where they did. The location of the
revenge plan should likewise be designed to hit the villain where it will
hurt. This means creating location that they care about, and establishing
why it’s important to them.
If those already exist within your setting, you simply need to adapt
them or expand upon them to make them fit with the needs of the story.
Places that are implied by the needs of a revenge-driven adventure may
extend to neutral ground, or places where the player characters will gather
information, allies, and other resources. Should you need to develop those
locations, you know where your worldbuilding efforts will need to be
focused.

Overall Tone
While this is an element that can be reflected in the way the story and
characters are presented, it’s the worldbuilding that supports and
reinforces it. A revenge-based adventure with a dramatic tone will have
more serious emotional beats. It’s not necessarily tragic or grim, but the
characters and situations can carry notes of sadness, suffering, or fear. By

11
contrast, a comedic tone in a payback-focused adventure will focus on
humor, with situations set up to provoke laughter.
You can have both dramatic and comedic moments within one
adventure. Overall, though, it will favor one over the other. For example,
the Retribution adventure might be mostly dramatic, but have some
scenes or encounters where comeuppance is delivered that are hilariously
funny. If it is mostly comedic, it can still contain elements of drama to
establish that the player characters have been personally affected by the
things that have happened.
When a revenge-focused adventure has a light tone it isn’t necessarily
comedic, but the rewards will tend to be higher than the potential
complications. The stakes overall won’t be as high. Things will tend to skew
toward the success of the player characters, allowing them to play to their
strengths. Payback-centered adventures with a dark tone have higher
stakes, with complications far outweighing any potential rewards.
Challenges won’t always play to the characters’ strengths, making failure a
constant possibility. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be comedic, but it will
be black comedy.
Within the same adventure you can have light and dark moments. It
will tend to lean more toward one of the other overall, though. For instance,
a light Retribution adventure might put the emphasis on how much fun it
is to mess with the target, but still have darker scenes or encounters where
the damage the villain did is apparent. A revenge-driven adventure that
centers on a darker tone can stick mainly to the anger and sorrow the
villain have caused, but offer lighter moments where the player characters
take hope and comfort from one another.
You can pair elements of drama/comedy and light/dark, of course. In a
Retribution adventure, a light drama would be a fun action romp, while a
dark drama could be a non-stop tornado of death and destruction. A light
comedy would keep the revenge plans down to relatively harmless pranks.
A dark comedy may have pranks that are funny, but still carry serious, long-
lasting, and devastating implications. When combined with the tone
established by the events of the story and the personalities of the player
characters, this becomes another opportunity to make your adventure
unique.

12
Setting-Based Challenges
Think about the worldbuilding elements in your setting that could
both support and hinder a Retribution adventure. You already have an
idea of the elements required to make the story work. What if those
elements were removed? Are there things within the canonical setting that
conflict with what’s necessary for a revenge-centered adventure to play
out? Those are potential challenges for the player characters to overcome.
For example, a revenge plan might be challenging in a setting with an
authoritarian government. Even if the target isn’t a member of the ruling
party, the player characters will have to work around an increased
presence of law enforcement, spies and informants, and anxious citizens
who will report suspicious activity in an attempt to protect their own
assets. If the target is a member of a powerful faction, political, religious, or
criminal, there will be challenges that stem from messing with those
institutions.

13
Act I – The Beginning
There are certain this that need to happen at the start of a revenge-
driven adventure. The status quo is established, showing the current state
of the characters and what relevant events are taking place within the
setting. An inciting incident takes place, creating the adventure goal.
Finally, the call to adventure is issued, where the player characters choose
to pursue that goal.

Story Canon
This is where you begin to introduce the foundational elements of your
story canon. The Retribution adventure goal is presented, the stakes are
established, and what the story-based obstacles will be should at least be
hinted at. The information necessary to begin the adventure is officially
part of your campaign history.

Character Canon
The player characters who will take part in this Retribution adventure
are introduced. If the antagonists don’t appear yet, the inciting incident will
establish their existence. Non-player characters will be there to help the
player characters find their way. Character-based challenges like gathering
information, breaking and entering, and all manner of stealth can be used
to demonstrate what the player characters can do. This allows them to
build up their confidence before facing more difficult obstacles in the
second act.

Worldbuilding Canon
Any events leading up to the inciting incident have to be introduced,
either through in-play action or exposition. Locations that will be
important to the revenge-driven adventure will appear, be named as
destinations for the second act, or at least have their existence hinted at.
The tone of the setting will be established, or reinforced if this isn’t the first
adventure of the campaign. Some setting-based challenges can be used to
allow the player characters to become familiar with worldbuilding
elements that will become important to the story later, like the laws,
religious taboos, and cultural traditions around seeking vengeance.

14
Establish the Status Quo
The adventure begins by showing what “normal” looks like. It will
introduce the characters, introduce the setting, and introduce the
theme. The player characters are doing whatever it is they do. If they have
professions, hobbies, or other interests, they could be doing those things.
When they’re full-time adventurers, you might start them off having an
easy encounter to show that this is what their life is like.
Establishing the status quo also means demonstrating what goes on in
the setting on an ordinary day. This can help to establish the stakes later
on. For a Retribution adventure, it might mean showing why the player
character cares so much about the person, place, or thing that the villain
messes with. When the inciting incident occurs, it will have greater
emotional impact.

Introduce the Characters

Provide each player character with a “spotlight moment” to establish
who they are and what their role in the campaign is. Provide them with a
task that shows off their abilities. Consider giving them a challenge that
foreshadows something they’ll need to do later in the adventure. For
example, in a revenge-focused adventure you may have them exhibiting
what they’re passionate about, and what they’re willing to do to show that
passion. The lengths they’ll go to in order to protect what they love can be
demonstrated, with the relevant abilities on display.
Adversaries may not appear in the first act, but their presence should
be clearly and deeply felt. For a revenge-driven adventure they have to do
something, or be responsible for something, that affects the player
characters personally. The PCs might not know who is responsible for
what’s going on, or what they will need to face, but the existence of the
antagonist will be felt early on. There may be rumors going around about
other things that they have done, in order to firmly establish their morals,
ethics, and general modus operandi.
Well-known non-player characters might appear early in the story to
offer advice, help with equipment, and generally help to get the player
characters pointed in the right direction. Some NPCs that will appear later
might be mentioned, or their existence established indirectly. If the PCs
know that they have to visit an, for example, it implies the existence of an
innkeeper.

15
Introduce the Setting
There are a few reasons to establish what “normal” looks like in the
setting. The first is to show what is possible, so that the exploits of the
player characters and their adversaries seem credible. Anything that will
happen on a large scale in the second and third acts should be
demonstrated on a smaller scale here.
The next is to help establish the stakes. By showing something of the
setting prior to the inciting incident, you can more effectively show what
has changed. The player characters will better understand what is to be
gained or lost during the adventure, and why the adventure goal of getting
payback is so important not just to them but to the world they live in.
Finally, establishing things that are going to be relevant to the
adventure later is targeted worldbuilding. You can focus on creating the
elements that will allow the player characters to exact their own form of
justice from the villain, their adversaries to suffer for their actions, and to
support the entire concept of vengeance. This will include doing what
needs to be done in spite of what law, tradition, or religious convictions
hold up as fair, or the proper course of action.

Introduce the Theme

The adventure’s theme is what it’s actually about. It can be a single
idea, like “friendship”, or a conflict between two ideas like “good versus
evil”. When you have a theme, you can create encounters and plot points
that reinforce the idea.
A common theme in Retribution adventures is right versus wrong. You
can demonstrate that by establishing the cultural, political, and religious
norms of the setting. What the villain does in this type of adventure of often
clearly wrong, but sometimes it isn’t. Their actions may be legal, but not
moral or ethical. In response, what the player characters do might be
moral, but not legal or ethical. More often than not, what the player
characters do will be in a gray area, and that will lead to a lot of the
conflicts within the story. Is what they’re doing the right thing, or are they
trying to get two (or more) wrongs to add up to a right?
This is just an example, of course. Using a different theme can
drastically alter an adventure, and is one way to gave the basic structure of
a revenge-based story replayability by changing the meaning and types of
elements that you want to emphasize.

16
The thematic statement is what you, as the gamemaster, are trying to
say through the work. In the theme of right versus wrong, you might want
to express that whatever serves to balance the scales is justifiable and
therefore right. You could also stress that doing bad things for good
reasons is still bad, and that there will be additional consequences for the
player characters even after they’ve gotten their vengeance.
Every character, both player characters and supporting characters,
could have their own thematic concept. They have their own point of view
about the theme, that can be expressed through their personalities and
actions. One character might base their concepts of right and wrong on
their cultural traditions, for example. They were raised that it’s okay to take
things into your on hands, because the law doesn’t care about their ethnic
subgroup. Another could have different ideas of right and wrong that stem
from religious beliefs, or their political ideology. They might agree on what
constitutes wrong, but have separate explanations for why.
Having a theme can help you to design interesting encounters. It can
help you to give non-player characters some depth by having them
represent a point of view. The theme can also allow players to round out
their characters by providing them with a specific idea or concept to focus
on, and letting them work out what the character’s thoughts would be
based on their background and adventuring experiences.

Reveal the Inciting Incident

This is the moment when things go wrong. The inciting incident is the
event that sets off the adventure and draws the players characters into it.
Something that no one expected or planned for goes down. This is where
you need to establish the adventure goal and present the stakes. For a
revenge-driven adventure, this is when the adversary does the bad, bad
thing that hurts the player characters. It leaves them no choice but to take
it personally, to internalize it, to anguish over it.

Establish the Adventure Goal

To put it simply, how do you know when the adventure is over? What is
the one clear objective that the player characters have to accomplish? In a
Retribution adventure, this is that the villain has been served an
emotionally satisfying comeuppance.

Present the Stakes

The player characters need to be presented with what’s at stake. There
are two parts to this. The first are the consequences: what will happen if
the adventure goal has not fulfilled? How will it affect the player characters,
the non-player characters they care about, and their personal goals if the
bad guys win? What will become of the world if no one steps up to save it?
That’s the stick. The second part, the rewards, is the carrot. What will
the player characters gain if they accept the mission? How will they benefit
from accomplishing the adventure goal? When they know what’s in it for
them, they’re more likely to answer the call to adventure.
The stakes of your adventure have to connect to the wants and needs
of the player characters. If they’re not feeling any sort of potential loss,
they’re not going to care. The same if the rewards dangled in front of them
aren’t useful or appealing. This is where you can make a revenge-driven
adventure feel like it was designed just for them, and not a set of generic
encounters that anyone could play through.
For a Retribution adventure, the stakes are often centered on the
outcome of the player characters’ revenge mission. The complications that
arise from not getting vengeance will be a lack of closure. It might also
mean that the PCs will have to face the consequences of their actions,
either from their target or the authority figures in the setting. What the
player characters stand to get from successfully taking revenge on the
villain are emotional satisfaction and possibly the admiration of other
people who were affected by the villain’s actions.

18
Issue the Call to Adventure
At the end of the first act the player characters should accept the call
to adventure. This means they understand the stakes and are willing to
pursue the goal. If you have established all of the points clearly, this should
be a given. The reason this is important is that while most players will go
along with things because they just want to play, others will insist on things
making sense. It has to be “in character” for their character, the risks
involved need to seem worthwhile, and it all has to hold together in the
context of the genre and the setting.

Accepting the Call

Rejecting the Call

Act I Scenes & Beats

Story Canon
The second act in your Retribution adventure is where the elements
of your story canon introduced in the first act will get used. The player
characters will be reminded of what’s at stake. If the adventure goal wasn’t
entirely clear, or parts of it didn’t make complete sense, all will be revealed
here. Story-based obstacles will present themselves regularly to slow down
the characters’ progress. The campaign history established in the first act
can be built upon and be used as the player characters makes their plans
for revenge and gather allies and resources.

Worldbuilding Canon
The player characters will get the opportunity to explore locations
important to the Retribution adventure. Places named or hinted at in the
first act will appear and be fleshed out a bit more. The tone of the setting
established earlier will be reinforced and expanded upon. Setting-based
challenges can be used so player characters can increase their familiarity
with worldbuilding elements important to the story, like the places their

21
target hangs out, where needed resources might be found, and the
locations of potentially allies to the cause.

The Fun Bits

Things will be relatively easy for the player characters throughout the
early part of Act II. They’ll face exactly what they expect to find in a
Retribution adventure and will be prepared. The obstacles they encounter
will play to their strengths, meaning that every player character will have
an opportunity to show off. You can combine player character challenges
into scenes, or provide each character with at least one scene that
showcases their signature abilities.
For a revenge-centered adventure, that means that gathering basic
information on the villain will be easy. If they don’t know who is
responsible for the inciting incident in the first act, they figure it out
quickly. A few allies will readily join the cause if asked, if they’ve also been
harmed by the villain. Making the plan to get back at the villain will go
smoothly, and initially resources will be easy to come by.
Whatever the player characters have to face, they’re likely to succeed.
The difficulty will start off a bit below their ability level, and increase
slightly with every subsequent encounter. This makes the adventure
exciting, action-packed, and put an emphasis on just having fun. By the end
of this section they should be facing challenges that are fully worthy of
their abilities.

Reach a Turning Point

22
and starts taking precautions. An outside party, usually an authority figure
who won’t approve of what the player characters are doing, might start
snooping around. A resources they were counting on isn’t available, or gets
broken. An ally gets cold feet and back out, throwing off the whole plan. It
could simply be that the antagonist has stepped up their plans and moves
to another location, or changes their habits, or begins traveling with an
unsuspecting innocent who’d be harmed if the revenge scheme went off as
originally planned. The player characters will need to make adjustments.

The Hard Part

For a Retribution adventure this means finding a way to make the
difficult pieces of the plan feasible. The easy-to-locate information has
already been acquired, so they need to dig a bit further. Allies who were
eager to sign on have been acquired, and the remaining people the player
characters need require additional convincing, or more money than they
can afford to pay. The resources that were readily available are harder to
come by, if not impossible to get.

Create a Moment of Doubt

At this point in the adventure, the worst case scenario happens.
Whatever could bring the whole plan for payback to a grinding halt takes
place here in one brutal scene. The player characters get caught. The target
gets suspicious and goes into hiding. Something changes that screws up the
whole scheme. In a revenge-based adventure, this typically means that the
player characters will need to start over. The original plan will not longer
work. This should lead to a transformation in both the tone of the
adventure and the attitudes of the player characters.

Transformation
The net effect of the moment of doubt should be that the player
characters feel uncertain about whether or not they can achieve the
adventure goal. The reason to do this is to make their eventual victory feel
even more special. By the end of the adventure they should feel that they
overcame all of the challenges thrown at them, and be proud of what they
accomplished. That emotional surge starts right here.
Clearly the player characters’ original plan is no longer going to work.
For a Retribution adventure, this means that something has changed or
got horribly wrong. They will need to regroup, come up with a new plan, or
simply face the fact that they’re going to have to wing it. Once they’ve
accept this shift in the status quo of the adventure and are ready to press
on, this middle section of the adventure is over and it’s time for Act III.

Act II Scenes & Beats

Create a Moment of Atonement

25
toward the adventure goal. All told, it shouldn’t take more than one to three
short scenes.

A Chance to Regroup
Another purpose for the moment of atonement is to give the players a
chance to breathe. The moment of doubt was no doubt intense. This is
where non-player characters give them pep talks and remind them of
what’s at stake. It’s a chance to look back and remember why these player
characters are the stars of the adventure. It’s the quiet before the storm,
where everyone can rest, recover a bit, and think about what they’re going
to do next.
For a Retribution adventure this could mean that the player
characters look at the parts of the plan that are salvageable and make
adjustments. They could try to go ahead with the original plan, and
improvise around the things that have changes. It might be that they wing
it, and go in with metaphorical guns blazing out of frustration. Whatever
they decide to do, they don’t choose to walk away. They’re not going to let
the villain get away with it.

Unleash the Finale

This can be one giant scene, or broken up into two or three smaller,
more manageable encounters. Either way, it’s the beginning of the end.
There are two possible parts to the finale proper, one required and one
optional.
The player characters will first complete the adventure goal, and
implement their revenge. With luck, everything goes according to plan the
their target, the villain, gets their comeuppance. They can also, if they
choose, confront the antagonist. This means the target will know who is
responsible what what’s been done to them, and why. The player
characters get the added satisfaction of seeing the villain’s face as they
realize they’ve fallen prey to an elaborate payback scheme.

Complete the Adventure Goal

This is where the story is more or less complete. In the first act the
player characters answered the call to vengeance. In the second act, they
created and pursued a plan to exact revenge and did what they had to in
order to make the villain pay. This is it. One important scene. Even if the
antagonist survives, the player characters have won.

26
Confront the Antagonist
For a Retribution adventure, the main adversary has to suffer in the
end. Here the player characters will at last have an opportunity to let them
know who they are, and why they’ve done this. They let the villain know
that they are being held accountable for their actions all the way back in
the first act. It’s come full circle. Justice has been done.

Wrap Up Loose Ends

Return
In a Retribution adventure, the player characters will go back to their
normal lives after the adventure goal has been completed. Their life may
have changed as the result of the preceding events, and now they will have
to readjust. This could mean facing any consequences for pursuing
revenge. They may be in trouble for breaking the law. Friends and loved
ones may be angry or disappointed in them for taking things into their own
hands. It’s also possible that they’ve made themselves into folk heroes.

Rewards and Complications

Every game system has its own method of character advancement, so
we won’t address that here. Each player should review their character’s
personal goals, to see if the adventure has put them closer to achieving
them, or further away. Relationships with non-player characters could be
affected by the things they’ve done. There could also be financial and legal
complications, if the character harmed innocent bystanders, damaged
property, or committed any manner of crimes in the pursuit of vengeance.

27
for the moral and ethical quandaries the PCs faced, and the impact those
may have had on their personal beliefs and the general cultural, political,
and religious beliefs of the setting.

Act III Scenes & Beats

Update the Character Canon

Update the Worldbuilding Canon

Update the Story Canon

This story is now officially part of your campaign history. Whether the
characters achieve the adventure goal or fail spectacularly, these events
have happened. The ramifications will resonate, creating plot hooks and
possibilities for spin-offs and sequels to deal with loose ends and explain
new elements that popped upon along the way. For a Retribution
adventure, this could mean that relationships with non-player characters
change based on what the PCs did. The community may change, if the
revenge scheme made them question the political, religious, or cultural
order. There could be loose ends involving the villain’s allies, friends, or
family, starting an ongoing cycle of revenge.

29
Retribution Beat Sheet
Act I – The Beginning
The player characters have been wronged, and seek revenge.
Establish the Status Quo – Show what the world look like before the
inciting incident. Introduce the characters, the setting, and the theme.
Reveal the Inciting Incident – Something changes that forces the
player characters to respond. Introduce the adventure goal and the stakes.
Issue the Call to Adventure – The player characters will hopefully
accept the adventure, based on the established stakes.

Act II – The Middle

The player characters plan their revenge and gather resources.
Rising Action – The encounters start off easy but become increasingly
more difficult. They cater to the player characters’ abilities and resources.
Reach a Turning Point – Something makes achieving the adventure
goal more difficult. The main villain is aware of the player characters.
Things Go Downhill – Encounters get easier, but they are no longer
based on the player characters’ best abilities. Resources are in short supply.
Create a Moment of Doubt – The player characters should begin to
wonder whether they will be able to complete the story goal.

Act III – The End

The player characters take their revenge.
Create a Moment of Atonement – The player characters regroup and
renew their commitment to achieving the story goal.
Unleash the Finale – The main antagonist will be defeated, and the
adventure goal will finally be achieved. The main plot is resolved.
Wrap Up Loose Ends – The player characters return home, get their
rewards, deal with any lingering complications, and the status quo is reset.

Star Fleet Battles Electronic Master Rulebook
100% (1)
Star Fleet Battles Electronic Master Rulebook
468 pages
5e NPC Stat Blocks Nearly Every Player Class LVL 1-10
100% (1)
5e NPC Stat Blocks Nearly Every Player Class LVL 1-10
193 pages
Ski Trainer Manual - English
100% (2)
Ski Trainer Manual - English
32 pages
G-fff2 & G-fff2-Fp Operation and Maintenance Manual
No ratings yet
G-fff2 & G-fff2-Fp Operation and Maintenance Manual
40 pages
Heart The City Beneath - Core Book-Strony-225 PDF
No ratings yet
Heart The City Beneath - Core Book-Strony-225 PDF
1 page
Chronicles of Adventure - The Ultimate RPG Campaign Creator Guidebook: Chronicles of Adventure, #4
From Everand
Chronicles of Adventure - The Ultimate RPG Campaign Creator Guidebook: Chronicles of Adventure, #4
Amy N Kaplan
No ratings yet
Random Adventure Generator 02
No ratings yet
Random Adventure Generator 02
3 pages
(Critical Hit Publishing) Cinematic Environs - Wetlands
100% (1)
(Critical Hit Publishing) Cinematic Environs - Wetlands
96 pages
Tricube Tales - Solo Rules
No ratings yet
Tricube Tales - Solo Rules
2 pages
Bold Universal PC Stories and Deeds Generator PDF
No ratings yet
Bold Universal PC Stories and Deeds Generator PDF
14 pages
Solo RPG
No ratings yet
Solo RPG
3 pages
Mythic Meaning Tables
No ratings yet
Mythic Meaning Tables
12 pages
Journeys in Time Black Hack Edition
100% (1)
Journeys in Time Black Hack Edition
75 pages
Recluse: A Solo Engine
100% (1)
Recluse: A Solo Engine
1 page
75 Fantasy Adventure Hooks
No ratings yet
75 Fantasy Adventure Hooks
9 pages
Doors, Containers & Traps - Ker Nethalas - Player Aid - v01122024 (Black)
No ratings yet
Doors, Containers & Traps - Ker Nethalas - Player Aid - v01122024 (Black)
1 page
Ruthless Heavens Boundless Fate Character Sheet
No ratings yet
Ruthless Heavens Boundless Fate Character Sheet
5 pages
XCC RPG Corebook Preview
No ratings yet
XCC RPG Corebook Preview
17 pages
Boss Fight Design
No ratings yet
Boss Fight Design
9 pages
ALMAIA Final
No ratings yet
ALMAIA Final
18 pages
Plot Unfolding Machine v5-5
No ratings yet
Plot Unfolding Machine v5-5
8 pages
HEXplore It - Klik's Madness - 04.chapter 2
No ratings yet
HEXplore It - Klik's Madness - 04.chapter 2
114 pages
Blades in The Deck Playerkit
No ratings yet
Blades in The Deck Playerkit
18 pages
(Critical Hit Publishing) Cinematic Environs - Blasted Lands
100% (1)
(Critical Hit Publishing) Cinematic Environs - Blasted Lands
44 pages
BumpInTheDark OneShotGuide
No ratings yet
BumpInTheDark OneShotGuide
4 pages
Spire Character Sheet
No ratings yet
Spire Character Sheet
1 page
Fate Versions and Licensing Guide PDF
No ratings yet
Fate Versions and Licensing Guide PDF
3 pages
Atelier Clandestin 100 Things at The Bottom of A Well
No ratings yet
Atelier Clandestin 100 Things at The Bottom of A Well
1 page
Goons and Ghosts - Department of Chaos v1.1
No ratings yet
Goons and Ghosts - Department of Chaos v1.1
6 pages
Ikezu-Ishi v0.8 Final
No ratings yet
Ikezu-Ishi v0.8 Final
125 pages
Cheat Sheet Technoir
No ratings yet
Cheat Sheet Technoir
5 pages
Bold - The Book of Legends and Deeds
No ratings yet
Bold - The Book of Legends and Deeds
14 pages
Mythic One-Pages Cheat Sheet v1.14
No ratings yet
Mythic One-Pages Cheat Sheet v1.14
33 pages
NPC Archetypes For Amazing Sessions - GM Binder
No ratings yet
NPC Archetypes For Amazing Sessions - GM Binder
8 pages
Berserkr Playtest Materials 0.1.5
No ratings yet
Berserkr Playtest Materials 0.1.5
176 pages
The Needle in The Thread V1.1
No ratings yet
The Needle in The Thread V1.1
2 pages
Camp D100 v1.1
100% (1)
Camp D100 v1.1
5 pages
Everline Demo v1.2
100% (1)
Everline Demo v1.2
18 pages
Random Tables - Class Trinkets
No ratings yet
Random Tables - Class Trinkets
4 pages
The Book of Random Tables Urban Fantasy - TPHtX2
No ratings yet
The Book of Random Tables Urban Fantasy - TPHtX2
63 pages
Into The Odd One Sheet
100% (1)
Into The Odd One Sheet
1 page
ARCADIA TheWorkshopWatches Color
No ratings yet
ARCADIA TheWorkshopWatches Color
15 pages
Adventure Outline Maker
100% (1)
Adventure Outline Maker
14 pages
Prompty Questions - Standard - Rev1-0
No ratings yet
Prompty Questions - Standard - Rev1-0
4 pages
Wildlings: Into The Ruins
No ratings yet
Wildlings: Into The Ruins
5 pages
Delve SRD
No ratings yet
Delve SRD
3 pages
The Presses Crewbook
No ratings yet
The Presses Crewbook
6 pages
Caught in The Rain v0.7
No ratings yet
Caught in The Rain v0.7
32 pages
Wild Words Thornflower SRD 14 Roughcut No Edits
No ratings yet
Wild Words Thornflower SRD 14 Roughcut No Edits
39 pages
Land of Eem Fillable Bard Reference
No ratings yet
Land of Eem Fillable Bard Reference
1 page
Castle of Memories
No ratings yet
Castle of Memories
30 pages
Horror 08 Night of The Bog Beast
No ratings yet
Horror 08 Night of The Bog Beast
22 pages
WRONGWOOD A7 Pages
No ratings yet
WRONGWOOD A7 Pages
8 pages
Greg Stolze - How To Play
No ratings yet
Greg Stolze - How To Play
10 pages
Sample
No ratings yet
Sample
9 pages
Kingdom D100 v1.1
No ratings yet
Kingdom D100 v1.1
5 pages
Mage Rats
No ratings yet
Mage Rats
7 pages
Tavern D100 v1.1
No ratings yet
Tavern D100 v1.1
6 pages
d66 Books To Find On A Forbidden Lands Bookshelf
No ratings yet
d66 Books To Find On A Forbidden Lands Bookshelf
6 pages
Pointy Hat - Character Creation Guide
No ratings yet
Pointy Hat - Character Creation Guide
3 pages
Blackbird: Tales From The Wild Blue Yonder: Chapter I
No ratings yet
Blackbird: Tales From The Wild Blue Yonder: Chapter I
16 pages
Urban Decay: Beat 'Em Up Roleplaying
From Everand
Urban Decay: Beat 'Em Up Roleplaying
John-Matthew DeFoggi
No ratings yet
Adventure Construction
No ratings yet
Adventure Construction
17 pages
Usital 2024
No ratings yet
Usital 2024
86 pages
D3e Paths of the Seekers EPIC CAMPAIGN Unofficial Variant Revn1
No ratings yet
D3e Paths of the Seekers EPIC CAMPAIGN Unofficial Variant Revn1
11 pages
Descent Random Dungeons
No ratings yet
Descent Random Dungeons
12 pages
20S-Victorum Rulebook
No ratings yet
20S-Victorum Rulebook
2 pages
6
No ratings yet
6
173 pages
Descent Inventory Sheet
No ratings yet
Descent Inventory Sheet
1 page
20S-SS Rulebook
No ratings yet
20S-SS Rulebook
2 pages
Wa0001.
No ratings yet
Wa0001.
10 pages
Tigris and Euphrates Player Aid
No ratings yet
Tigris and Euphrates Player Aid
1 page
Storyteller's Dictionary
No ratings yet
Storyteller's Dictionary
322 pages
Aptitudes
No ratings yet
Aptitudes
3 pages
100 Ironsworn Characters v1.0
No ratings yet
100 Ironsworn Characters v1.0
19 pages
O-S-Rchive Landing
100% (1)
O-S-Rchive Landing
12 pages
Shadowrun Product List
No ratings yet
Shadowrun Product List
47 pages
Shadowrun Slang Guidebook
No ratings yet
Shadowrun Slang Guidebook
2 pages
Sample
No ratings yet
Sample
15 pages
ShadowRun (4th and 5th Ed) Contents
100% (1)
ShadowRun (4th and 5th Ed) Contents
11 pages
Character Sheet A4
No ratings yet
Character Sheet A4
2 pages
White Wolf Magazine 01
No ratings yet
White Wolf Magazine 01
40 pages
Fragged Aeternum - Dark Born
No ratings yet
Fragged Aeternum - Dark Born
4 pages
2
No ratings yet
2
10 pages
Balutviking Balut
No ratings yet
Balutviking Balut
1 page
1D Oracle 1D
0% (1)
1D Oracle 1D
2 pages
Plight Digital (Spreads) v1.1
100% (2)
Plight Digital (Spreads) v1.1
42 pages
6
No ratings yet
6
70 pages
Sword World 2.5 - Start Guide Granzale
100% (2)
Sword World 2.5 - Start Guide Granzale
103 pages
6
No ratings yet
6
78 pages
Traveller Ref Emulator 2020-06-13
100% (3)
Traveller Ref Emulator 2020-06-13
4,202 pages
Starsmith Expanded Oracles May 15 23
75% (4)
Starsmith Expanded Oracles May 15 23
314 pages
NEXUS REVOSHIFT Shifter W/brake Lever: 7-Speed
No ratings yet
NEXUS REVOSHIFT Shifter W/brake Lever: 7-Speed
1 page
Grade 3 - 1st Quarter-2
No ratings yet
Grade 3 - 1st Quarter-2
122 pages
Atharva.K.kumbhar Internship Report (16!01!2024 To 20-01-2024) - 1
No ratings yet
Atharva.K.kumbhar Internship Report (16!01!2024 To 20-01-2024) - 1
4 pages
Stop Posting About BALLER - Copypasta
No ratings yet
Stop Posting About BALLER - Copypasta
1 page
Hrushit Divatia Sports Law
100% (1)
Hrushit Divatia Sports Law
8 pages
The Lumineers - Ho Hey
No ratings yet
The Lumineers - Ho Hey
2 pages
Killteam Teamrules Hierotekcircle Fre 02.10.24
0% (1)
Killteam Teamrules Hierotekcircle Fre 02.10.24
15 pages
Chain Identification (Motorcycle)
No ratings yet
Chain Identification (Motorcycle)
9 pages
Comet Catalog
No ratings yet
Comet Catalog
88 pages
10 Rondo Soccer Drills
No ratings yet
10 Rondo Soccer Drills
7 pages
WD19 SR StudentID 3
No ratings yet
WD19 SR StudentID 3
3 pages
Ed Resume Jackie Williams-June 20 2018
No ratings yet
Ed Resume Jackie Williams-June 20 2018
2 pages
Reviews From R'Lyeh - The Other OSR-Cairn
No ratings yet
Reviews From R'Lyeh - The Other OSR-Cairn
4 pages
A.C. Milan During The Week.
No ratings yet
A.C. Milan During The Week.
10 pages
How To Make A Rope Halter AQHA
No ratings yet
How To Make A Rope Halter AQHA
6 pages
ENGvsPAK 1a9ooz6601pvc 1 8313585363
No ratings yet
ENGvsPAK 1a9ooz6601pvc 1 8313585363
102 pages
Delta Product Quartzup4
No ratings yet
Delta Product Quartzup4
3 pages
National Amateur Chess Championship
No ratings yet
National Amateur Chess Championship
5 pages
Fabricate and Install Fencing: Standard Operating Procedure
No ratings yet
Fabricate and Install Fencing: Standard Operating Procedure
5 pages
1601-6005 FLARESTACK 3in 2021 - PDF
No ratings yet
1601-6005 FLARESTACK 3in 2021 - PDF
1 page
Story Map Template
No ratings yet
Story Map Template
1 page
HydroVertical PDF
No ratings yet
HydroVertical PDF
14 pages
04 LH
No ratings yet
04 LH
470 pages
Brainy 5 Short Tests Unit 5 Lesson 4 PDF
No ratings yet
Brainy 5 Short Tests Unit 5 Lesson 4 PDF
1 page
Topkek The Wolvar
No ratings yet
Topkek The Wolvar
5 pages
Kill Team Roster & Datacards
No ratings yet
Kill Team Roster & Datacards
9 pages
Delhi Police Asstt. Sub-Inspector (Shorthand Reporter-Hindi) Recruitment 2014, Delhi Police Asstt. Sub-Inspector (Shorthand Re
No ratings yet
Delhi Police Asstt. Sub-Inspector (Shorthand Reporter-Hindi) Recruitment 2014, Delhi Police Asstt. Sub-Inspector (Shorthand Re
10 pages
List of Eligible Candidates For Written Test For The Post of "Maintenance Assistant (Elect) (Trainee) " in BIOM Bacheli Complex
No ratings yet
List of Eligible Candidates For Written Test For The Post of "Maintenance Assistant (Elect) (Trainee) " in BIOM Bacheli Complex
77 pages