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Tabletop Role Playing Game Scenario Design Recipes
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ttrpg-scenario-design-procedures.md

There are a number of different approaches to designing a scenario/adventure/module.

In a Five Room Dungeon, the basic formula is:

  1. Entrance or Guardian
  2. Puzzle or Roleplaying Challenge
  3. Trick or Setback
  4. Climax, Big Battle, or Conflict
  5. Reward, Revelation, or Plot Twist

Justin Alexander's 5+5 Dungeon Recipe:

  1. Scenario Concept
  2. Dungeon Features & Corridor Themes
  3. Five Featured Rooms
  4. Five Scenic Rooms
  5. Mapping & Keying
  6. Finishing Touches

Justin Alexander's Node Based Scenario Design (also featured in So You Want to be a Gamemaster) is a little harder to summarize.

  • Nodes are "Points of Interest" such as Locations, People, Organizations, Events, or Activities.
  • Connections between nodes are Clues, Geography, Temporally, Randomly, Proactive Nodes, or Player-initiated.

Justin Alexander's 5 Node Mystery Recipe:

  1. The Scenario Concept
  2. The Hook / Opening Scene
  3. The Ending
  4. Three Cool Locations or People
  5. Connect The Three Cool Locations/People to each other and each to the Ending and Hook
More detailed version of 5 Node Mystery:
  1. Figure out what the mystery is about. Was someone murdered? Was something stolen? Who did it? Why did they do it?
  2. What’s the hook? How do the PCs become aware that there’s a mystery to be solved? If it’s a crime, this will usually be the scene of the crime. It could also be “place where weird shit is happening”. Or maybe someone or something comes to the PCs and brings the mystery with them.
  3. What’s the conclusion? Where do they learn the ultimate answers and/or get into a big fight with the bad guy? This will be your Node E.
  4. Brainstorm Three Cool Locations or People related to the mystery. Ex-wife of the bad guy? Drug den filled with werewolves? Stone circle that serves as a teleport gate? These will be your Nodes B, C, and D.
  5. You’ve got five nodes. Connect ’em with clues. Node A should have one clue that connect to each of the three cool nodes, and each of the three cool nodes should have a clue that connects to the other two cool nodes AND the conclusion (node E).
  6. In addition to the node-transition clues ("leads"), add at least three mystery-solving clues ("evidence") amongst the Nodes (if the node-transition clues aren't also mystery-solving clues).

You can add more nodes to make a more complicated structure (Funnels, Layer Cake or more exotic).

Justin Alexander further extends this process to a 5 x 5 Node Mystery Campaign:

  1. Design five 5 Node Mysteries
  2. Arrange the 5 Mysteries into the same diamond node pattern (Mystery A has clues that leads to Mysteries B, C, D. Mystery B will have clues pointing to Mysteries C, D, and E. And so forth. )

Michael Shea (aka Sly Flourish) in Return of the Lazy DM has The Eight Steps of Lazy RPG Prep:

  1. Review the characters
  2. Create a strong start
  3. Outline potential scenes
  4. Define secrets and clues
  5. Develop fantastic locations
  6. Outline important NPCs
  7. Choose relevant monsters
  8. Select magic item rewards

Robin D. Laws Adventure Crucible recipe to build a scenario from scratch:

  1. Pick the Structure you want to use (Dungeon, Mystery, Chain of Fights, Survival, or Intrigue). This might be a hybrid, if you’re feeling like taking on some additional complexity.
  2. Devise a Premise that engages you.
  3. Ensure that it will also engage the players by identifying, or adding, Emotional Stakes.
  4. Envision an opening scene that will Cut to the Fun.
  5. Conceive the key Obstacles, as determined by the structure you’ve chosen.
  6. Check how strong they are by breaking them down into Choices, Consequences, and Rooting Interest.
  7. Connect the obstacles by following the narrative direction of your chosen structure.
  8. Make sure that none of them are Fun Ruiners.
  9. Find a point of Escalation in your scenario.
  10. Bring it all home by devising an appealing Resolution.

In Kenneth Hite's Night's Black Agents: The Dracula Dossier used Elizabeth Sampat's Blowback instant scenario/campaign design:

  • Step 1: Arrange a deck of NPCs (or Group of NPCs) cards semi-randomly into a 6 layer Conspyramid like this:
    • Layer 1: 6 Neighborhood level NPCs
    • Layer 2: 5 City level NPCs
    • Layer 3: 4 Provincial NPCs
    • Layer 4: 3 National NPCs
    • Layer 5: 2 Supranational NPCs
    • Layer 6: 1 Core Leadership NPC(s)
  • Step 2: Draw 1-4 connections between nodes on the same layer or to the next layer
  • Step 3: Create a 6 layer Vampyramid that is how the Vampire Conspiracy responds to you messing with the Conspyramid nodes of the equivalent level.
    • Layer 1: 6 Reflex responses
    • Layer 2: 5 Containment responses
    • Layer 3: 4 Deflection responses
    • Layer 4: 3 Embrace responses
    • Layer 5: 2 Entrapment responses
    • Layer 6: 1 Destruction response

In Jeremy Keller's Technoir, the "Transmission" process of scenario design:

  1. Create 6 each of Named Connections (NPCs that are well known to PCs), Events, Factions, Locations, Objects, or Threats, to make a Master Table of 36 plot nodes.
  2. For each Connection (NPC), randomly create a Connection Table of 12 plot nodes, 6 un-connected to the existing plot, and 6 already connected.
  3. Every Connection(NPC) should have at least two Favors, and some may have three or even four Favors. (technoir Favors are: Chop, Date, Deal, Fence, Fix, Ride, Shark, Splice). You should have a total of thirteen to fourteen favors split up among the transmission’s six connections.
  4. Create the initial Mission Seed: Using the master table to randomly (2d6) add the first three nodes to a blank plot map in a triangle pattern.
  5. Draw lines connecting the mission seed nodes and invent their relationships. Is that connection the rightful owner of the object or did he steal it? Is that threat staking out the location hoping for something to go down or is it where they will be ambushed? Is the faction being hurt by the event or did they instigate it in the first place?
  6. Instigation / Opening Scene / Scenario hook

S. John Ross, the creator of Risus, wrote a fairly exhaustive list of RPG plots (also available as free PDF) for inspiration as Scenario Concepts.

The Delta Green Handler's Guide method

  1. The Hook:
    an inciting event; an unnatural twist to something mundane → this is an entry point to the mystery, the explanation doesn’t matter yet.

  2. Non-Player Characters:
    the movers and shakers, and their motivations and allegiances

  3. Leads:
    chains of causality and action; they connect NPCs with the Hook and can be discovered through investigation and different actions by the Agents.

  4. Dead Ends:
    a few Leads should not aid the solving of the mystery

  5. Creepy Moments:
    two or three memorable moments, unexpected and/or unnatural

  6. Events:
    actions carried out by the NPCs and threats (essentially a timeline if the Agents don’t interfere)

  7. Trouble and Interruptions:
    how will the NPCs or threat react to the Agents’ actions? What could go wrong?

  8. Resolution:
    what is the source of the mystery/incursion?

  9. The Cover-Up:
    What steps will be necessary for the Agents to cover up the unnatural and their involvement

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