Types of adventure design

[ewilen]

For a long while I've been wanting to write up a model of adventure & setting design for some types of campaign that I want to run. I was influenced by John Kim's list of adventure models; this thread from theRPGsite is also worth a look

Comments

[jimhenley]

I believe you will find Rob Donoghue's "How to Tell a Random Story" relevant!

thanks

[ewilen]

Hm, that's an interesting tool in general. Algorithmically, it's like a simpler version of the tables that can be found in some of the Better Games issues of Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer. In those, you've got a great big table that you roll on repeatedly, and some results yield a contest that can take you directly to another result. Some results also impart a modifier to subsequent rolls, which basically means that table goes through "phases" until you travel all the way to an end-condition.

In general I think of the hybrid model I'm working on as a series of "overlays" on top of the primitive map of the setting. (And when I say "working on", I mean, "thinking about from time to time".) This type of table falls under a general class of dynamically interacting campaign gauges--if X happens, then it changes/modifies other procedures. In this case, by removing elements from a table; in other cases it could add elements, or a modifier