Turning plot seeds into adventures - how?

[moondragon007]

Anyone have any advice on how to turn a plot seed into an adventure? I'd like to take a flyer at guest gming in a campaign that's coming soon (Mr. GM promises! ), but I'm complete crap at coming up with my own adventures.

[Stormcrow]

For official advice, see the new GM's guide.

But put simplistically, a Doctor Who game works very well by just improvising. The use of Story Points means you can put players in no-win situations and they'll still find ways out. As I've said before, a Doctor Who adventure should be a deathtrap to anyone without Story Points.

Think up the villain's motivations first. Put them in an interesting setting where the players will run into some interesting characters. Assume the villains will win and achieve their horrible aims—what will that look like?

Now dump the players into the midst of this and let them have at it. Let them do whatever they want. Throw hooks at them if they seem lost. If they are moving too quickly, and you're going to run out of adventure before you want to, use the villains' Story Points (or those of their minions) to "cheat" and add in new stuff. The GM's use of Story Points always makes the game last longer. Only do it if that's what you want. Don't be afraid to end a game that has come to its natural conclusion. Don't try to save a player character from death—especially a Time Lord. But don't go gunning for them, either. The bad guys might want them dead, but you shouldn't have an opinion one way or the other. Their Story Points will keep them alive. (And if they're running out, remind them of how to get more. This also makes the game last longer.)

Y'know all those long adventure write-ups that get published? They're nice and all, but they're not really necessary for a good game of Doctor Who. They're only long write-ups because (a) companies want to sell you stuff, and (b) just handing you a sheet of stats and one-line notes wouldn't get the idea across. But your adventures can stay in your head and they'll work just fine.

[senko]

One fun thing I like to do (as I'm lacking in time to play/gm sniffle) is to make tables of similar ideas e.g.

Threat, Location, Allies, Method
Daleks, Earth, Unit, Invasion
Cybermen, Skaro, Shadow Proclimation, Infiltration
Virus, Hidden Base, Survivors, Accidentally Unleashed
Mutants, Spacestation, Military Squad, Deliberate Test

Then roll on the table to see what comes up e.g. a virus threat, on a spacestation where the parties allies are the Shadow Proclimation are dealing with an infiltration. Then you can work from there say by rolling again till you get a creature and a reason and so on.

This way you can get all the nice little basics of an idea (or grab one of the story seeds here) which brings us to what you want to do which is expand it into a adventure. As stormcrow said this is a game system that lends itself well to improvisation so rather than the adventures you have (X causes Y) you can create a nice little set of moments. For example . . .

Moment 1: Introduction
what is happening and why are the players there in the first place. Lets say they're in Japan around 2121 on holiday (could also be responding to a call for help or have crashed or anything else). So what kind of things does that holiday involve give them a bit of time to walk around and enjoy themselves e.g. player A lounges by the pool in the sunlight, B takes a trip out to nearby onsen to enjoy the traditional baths while C and D are skying on the nearby mountain. Describe that let them settle in and enjoy themselves a bit.

Moment 2: Revelation
The part is how do the party find out what's going on (may also be involved with moment 1). So player B at the onsen sees something weird screaming at the onsen or C and D find a sack of a human on the mountain with all the bones missing. If you can plan out what you're going to be doing with them in moment 1 you can create different possible moments e.g. moment in the baths, moment in the pool, moment on the mountain, moment in town and then use whichever ones you want possibly even giving the players different clues depending on where they are.

Moment 3: Investigation
Lots of little clues and encounters can be placed here e.g. a lab with information on the threat and how to deal with it, battle locations, negotation scenes, opportunities to save people etc. The players can run into some/all/none of these depending on what they choose to do and where to go.

Moment 4: Confrontation
How you want the final threat to be dealt with depeending on what the party decide to do negotiate/fight/run away.

Then you just throw the players into the introduction and let the players go/do what they want as you'll have lots of potential opportunites to affect the outcome and actually feel like their choices matter rather than being railroaded.

[moondragon007]

A lot of people say start with villain motivations. But what if there is no villain? What if the situation is a natural disaster, disease outbreak, or something like that?

[Hedgewick]

Mar 30, 2017 20:31:51 GMT moondragon007 said:

A lot of people say start with villain motivations. But what if there is no villain? What if the situation is a natural disaster, disease outbreak, or something like that?

This says an awful lot about the formula for Doctor Who established during the Troughton era.

Whether you start with a villain or with a faceless force of nature, the driving force behind any story is conflict. The quickest and easiest way to establish conflict is to choose an antagonist, of course, a villain to oppose our heroes. If you'd rather craft an adventure around a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, an impending asteroid strike, or the like, then you have to determine the source of the conflict. What is the nature of this impending doom? What sort of problems will it generate? What sort of a reaction would it prompt? How will NPCs react? How will the players react? And how might our heroes find themselves in conflict as a result of these events? Planning an adventure is all about establishing a set of obstacles, both big and small, that your players will have to overcome.

[senko]

Mar 30, 2017 20:31:51 GMT moondragon007 said:

A lot of people say start with villain motivations. But what if there is no villain? What if the situation is a natural disaster, disease outbreak, or something like that?

It has no motivation, no way to reason with it only run or neutralise it (assuming it wasn't generated deliberately)

However as was said above that doesn't mean the same theory doesn't apply. You start off by marking N/A in the motivation box and move on to impact and responses.

There was one superman fAnfic I read where while rescuing a plane from a storm he wound up passing through into another dimension where more and more transdimensional portals where opening with terrible storms accompanying them.. The Clark Kent in question had never stopped hiding his powers and become superman. Anyway point is the storms and portals had had no motivation they just where. All the drama/action involved his character growth from a Clark Kent afraid to show his power to a Superman flying around the world openly saving who he could and trying to figure out why it was happening before the events killed millions. Not a bad story actually.