Adventuring Extraordinaire

To create awesome adventures—

First of all, consider the basic building blocks of fun –

Excitement and suspense balanced with conversation and slower moments. Remember that it is all about interaction and contrast --

Fights

 

Conversations

Seductions

 

Seeing settings

Chases

 contrast with

Visiting friends

Surprises

 

Romance

Confrontations

Relaxation


These building blocks must have certain elements to be fun –
Whatever building block you are using, remember these things:

· A building block is fun to the extent that it is relating to something that the character cares about or is soon to care about.

· No blocks tend to be fun if drawn out beyond their natural lifespans.
The most effective medium for making a building block fun is to make it into a person or other entity that your characters encounter.
Good people encounters have –

· Personality – take a moment to think out the person’s basic thought-process, hopes, and desires.

· Appearance – a memorable personal appearance (messy hair, wild eyes, a necklace they always wear.)

· Emotions – remember that people can be unreasonable.

· Ambitions – remember that people, when confronted by famous or powerful characters, may have ambitions that they feel might be fulfilled by that person.

Put these people in settings– small, interrelated happenings which challenge the character. Remember –

· An adventure is fun if it relates to someone the character knows, or to something that has happened before or will happen after. Interrelatedness is key.

· The fun is in solving an adventure—challenges do not have to challenge every aspect of a character’s means – save these for very important times. For instance, a large fight might not challenge some characters on a power level, but perhaps it will on an emotional level. Or vice versa. A challenge that challenges a character’s power and emotions can break a character – save them for important, climactic circumstances.

· Remember to consider the relationship between real time and role-playing time. Adventures are most exciting if they are timely – if long pauses in actual role-playing will occur, try to make them at rest-points in the adventure or else where there is enough excitement present to keep things up. If you stop the characters in the middle of a conversation or battle, it can be difficult to regain the mood when you begin role-playing again next week.

· An adventure can be based on any sort of conflict – but those between people tend to be the most exciting. "Monster" encounters can be fun, but one-dimensional. If your enemy is a human, there is much more to consider – laws concerning killing a person, the possibility that your enemy has family or friends who will be hurt or wanting of revenge . . .

· Keep adventures from becoming vague and amorphous by personalizing them. Many adventures are small and personal. If they are large, such as a war setting, make one enemy stand out. A war in itself if pretty boring – but one in which a loved one is fighting, or in which you have a vendetta against one of your enemies, becomes much more exciting.

· An adventure can be given more life if the character is torn. It is easy to defeat an ‘evil’ enemy, but difficult to defeat one that you are attracted to. Any moral dilemma can be used.

· Adventures can create unattainable desires, or desires that are difficult to obtain. This can add a lot to role-playing. For instance, consider a romance which has a lot in the way of it, or an item that is in another’s possession.

· Remember the consequences of adventures – stolen goods will often be sought after, dead people avenged, and emotional outpourings or impropriety remembered by those of high esteem. A series of ‘successful’ adventures can make for a slew of enemies and a bad reputation among common or high-class folk.

· Never solve a problem for the character – it takes all the meaning out of the previous adventure. You can help them out if they are frustrated, but don’t bail them out.

Reality – Finally, all the adventure of the world must be tempered and contrasted with reality. This will add great contrast. Just make reality an occasional rather than a usual addition. This will keep characters remembering that the ‘real world’ can step in at any time, but without constantly making role-playing tedious.

Consider –

· Annoying situations or characters

· Angry reactions to benign actions.

· Rumors

· Sickness

· Embarrassment

· Boredom

· Things not turning out as you desire

 

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