Designing my own D&D Adventure

Question

Currently I am part of a my first campaign of D&D(4E) as a player and been having fun.

Sometime in the near future I would like to host my own game of D&D with my own adventure. So far I have nothing set up but got a good idea of what I may need. My main issue is coming up with an initial story and quests.

Things I have:

• Players Handbook's 1-3
• 3 sets of Standard Gaming Dice
• 12 D6
• Giant Journal to create the adventure in(and record progress)

Things I plan to get/make:

• Maps of the regions
• Dry erase board with grid squares(for dungeons and such)
• Dungeon Master's Guide
• Monster Guide

Sources for ideas:

• Wikihow - Create a Dungeon in D&D
• Wikihow - Be a Dungeon Master
• Wikihow - Create a Dungeons and Dragons World

I plan for my campaign to take place on an island roughly quarter the size of Australia, and divided into 5 regions. The layout is still in the works, but I plan on one region to have a mountain range form a natural boarder. Another region is going to be heavily forested. There may or may not be a desert, but that depends on how much my current DM favors his desert area(populated with monkeys.

My main problem is I know how to create the towns and land for my game, but have no idea on creating the quests and goals needed. What would be the best advice other than read the Dungeon Master's Guide(I am currently reading the Player's Guides cover to cover).

Answer 1

I'd recommend the 5x5 method which discussed on the in detail on the critical-hits.com blog in the context of both adventures and campaigns

The basic idea of this technique, is that you take 5 ideas:

• Overthrow the evil empire
• Prevent the sorcerer from ascending to demon-hood
• and 3 more...

and so on, and then for each idea create 5 milestones that will happen along the way.

e.g. for overthrow the evil empire

• meet up with the rebel alliance
• learn the weakness of the death star
• and 3 more...

and for prevent the sorcerer from ascending to demon-hood

• steal the orb of power from the temple of evil
• kidnapped by the sorcerer's lizard man minions
• and 3 more

Put that on a grid:

Overthrow the evil empire   Prevent the sorcerer from   Thing 3   Thing 4   Thing 5
                            ascending to demon-hood

learn the weakness of the   steal the orb of power      ....      ....      ....
death star                  from the temple of evil

meet up with the rebel      kidnapped by the sorcerer's ....      ....      .... 
alliance                    lizard man minions

....                        ....                        ....      ....      ....

....                        ....                        ....      ....      ....

....                        ....                        ....      ....      ....

And then using that as scaffolding build around them.

One of the nice aspects of this method is that you can give your players control over the paths they take. They can chose to ignore one of the lanes that you have sketched out without derailing you completely. And you can spring natural consequences of their actions on them, that make sense in the context of what has gone before.

critical-hits.com also has a summary of other places on the internet that talk about this idea

Answer 2

It's pretty simple but it is challenging if you haven't done it before, here is my advice.

An adventure is solving a problem, so come up with a problem, that problem will be the basis of a quest so let's say "The Earl's daughter has been kidnapped." that is the problem, then you come up with a villain so let's say " Cultists of Orcus (I'm using him because he's in the Monster Manual.) are responsible for kidnapping the Earl's daughter." Then you need to come up with a motivation for your villain we will say "The cultists need a virgin of the royal blood line for a sacrifice for a mysterious dark ritual." So right there we have an adventure " The Earl's daughter has been kidnapped by demonic cultists of Orcus for a mysterious sacrificial ritual." The next thing is you need a location so we will say that this cult resides in a few miles north of town. Next we need a hook to pull adventurers in so that they will actually go on the adventure. The Earl could approach the characters and offer a reward or maybe one of the characters is in love with the Earl's daughter, or maybe one of the characters has broken the law and is offered a clean slate. The possibilities are truly endless. So now we have a problem, a villain, a location, and a hook.

That's a basic adventure it is a good method for beginners, I suggest watching this five part series on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCg-YPC8ajo that is episode one. It is an adventure building workshop from WoTC it is essentially what I described above but the videos may clarify things.

Also remember that your job is to make a problem let the players solve that problem. You may also want to check out some DM advice websites, there are literally dozens of these websites dedicated solely for GM advice. They helped me out a lot when I was starting.

Good Luck, Welcome to the site we're all here to help whenever you need it!

Answer 3

Here is a basic approach that will carry you through about 2-6 months of campaign games.

Make a simple starting town

The purpose of this part of the campaign will be to provide the players a couple of modules to become comfortable with their characters, learn the game mechanics and outwardly express some personal goals.

Ingredients

• A name and theme for a bar
• A name and 3 NPCs for a town
• 1-2 quests that will be available in the town
• Make a rough sketch of the town
• A dungeon
• A bearing and name for a city
• A hook that leads players into the city

Your first module will consist of throwing the players into a bar where they can decide how to interact with one another and customers within the bar. Through the first 15-30 minutes of the game, look for opportunities to introduce some of the town NPCs (as bar patrons) and offer up one of the quests you have come up with via the NPC. The objective here is to goad the players into selecting some of your pre-structured quests.

Keep it simple for this first quest. Offer a few types of quests while they are in the bar. Players will usually accept the first quest offered but wait for them to debate over it to see if it's something they want to do. It's okay if you are a little heavy handed in this first interaction, but get used to players conditionally accepting missions. Decide on one map design and fit the player's chosen quest to the map you drew. Be sure to provide adequate rewards, and elude to them early.

Use the DM Guide to build encounters of different types and get used to encounter design. If the players overcome your challenges, reward them monetarily and gradually increase their approval level in the town.

Moving on to the big city

The above section of the campaign can go on for as long as the players are having fun. If they want to power level or roleplay you can keep feeding them simple dungeon crawls. Eventually, they will want to purchase magical items and go to bigger and better places. When they are ready to leave their starting town they can travel to the city.

Ingredients

• Name your city
• Come up with a couple of stores
• Make a few bars
• Come up with a government and a leader/king
• Choose between 2-5 threats to the city
• [option] choose a large threat

By this point (2-3 games into the campaign) you should be pretty familiar with the party's motivations. Keep throwing NPCs at the party to provide them opportunities to express their goals.

At this point, try to throw new quests at the party that compel the players to ...

• Accept missions critical to their own character development
• Challenge their character choices
• Tempt them with amazing rewards
• Confront them with profound moral causes

I realize that this is omitting much, but this my basis for starting a campaign.

Answer 4

I feel it is in your interest to have an over arching objective, ideally with some sort of time urgency.

That said, what is more important to me as a player is to have varied and diverse combats. Generally it is good when you coerce players into raiding a dungeon for mystical item A. Then once they are inside try and do a variety of combats with only short rests in between. To vary the events maybe do one room with a few traps and a couple fairly easy monsters. Do another room with a bunch of enemies that are the players level. If you can throw in another encounter with 2-3 decently strong enemies with a bunch of minions, even better. Lastly finish it off with an elite solo and voila one dungeon done.

My DM is bad for doing skill challenges, but they can be fun too. For an example, if there is a river, you can have the players ride a rickety raft and do acrobatics and athletic challenges to see if they hang on once the raft hits rapids.

Just keep mixing it up and with a good attitude, I'm sure you'll have some great D&D sessions.

Answer 5

I would reccomend starting small - dont build the world, build a problem. Make the problem something satisfactory enough, so they have a motivation to solve it, complicated enough so it makes sense for a party of adventurers to be hired, and yet unimportant enough, so they can rise to much greater challenges later (I am assuming you are planning a 1st level adventure, if not, feel free to add demon princes and evil gods planning invasions).

Then find out how your players want to play, if you dont know that already - hack&slash? puzzles? serious roleplay? The best way to find out (I think) is by trial and error - try different approaches over the first few sessions (you will have to take this into account when planning your first adventure), and find out what suited them the best. Dont be afraid to ask the players for their impressions.

Then become the villain - you are the stupid orc cleric who is overseeing his kobold minions, you are the long dead wizard who built a riddle filled vault to store his possesions in, you are the Duke who wants you to attack the wizards guild in fear for his power. Direct your minions, design your dungeon, parley with the PCs, and do everything you can to slow their progress to approaching their goal.

And then add a way for the players to succeed, whether it be weak kobold guards at the entrance, hints in the labyrynth corridors, or helpful NPCs at Dukes court. (however, be careful with the Deux ex machina strategy)

And then you come to the point where you design everything else - NPC quirks, random encounters while traveling, the strategy of orc assasins sent to kill off your PCs, the treasure, anything else, and the story. As you gain more experience in making adventures, you can place the story on the first place in the list, but for now, just think of a way to tie different adventures together.

EDIT:

Dont be afraid to rely on different resources off the internet - dungeon maps and generators, puzzles and riddles others have written down, and about just anything that you feel would ease your job and make the adventure more fun. The only thing you should watch out for - make sure it ties into your lore. You cant stick a nigh impassable trap into a corridor kobolds use everyday, and a totally cool (but living) monster into a vault that hasnt been stepped into for thousands of years.