Need Help Improving my Adventures/Ideas

[SoulDragon298]

Lately, I've been feeling like the adventure ideas I've been coming up with are fairly generic. TARDIS crew arrive, aliens are afoot, shenanigans ensue. I often look at this forum and I see really creative, thought out, and complex stories that sound like a lot of fun. It just makes me look at my ideas and think they could be a lot better but I don't know exactly how to improve them. I'm a fan of history, but I'm not as well read as some people here, so my stories that take place in history are a bit limited, and my sci-fi concepts feel very basic.

I don't know if this is the right section of the forums, but I'm just wondering: How can I improve my stories and make them more fun and engaging, but also not make them overly complex?

[Catsmate]

Hmm, a good point you make. Here are a few quick and disorganised ideas.

1. Evil Must Not be Fought
I like a good moral dilemma myself. Dropping the characters into a situation where they're forced to either observe without acting in a morally repugnant situation (Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius) or actually assist in having history continue along it's fore-ordained course. Just remember to allow for a wench with an addled mind...^[1]
Just don't have them save Hitler, it's hackneyed.
History is full of really nasty happenings. Drop them into Eyam in the summer of 1665 and see what they do.

For a more sci-fi take, why not drop them on a planet experiencing a world devastating catastrophe due to an alien device they've found. The planet's orbit is changing and billions are doomed. Naturally the PCs try and help.
Then they learn the planet's name: Mondas.


2. Disrupting the tropes.
In one Who game, many years ago (pre AITAS in fact) we had a denouement on a ballistic missile submarine. Yes I know it's been done at least three times^[2] but it was new-ish back then. When the principal antagonist uttered the phrase "You dare not shoot, you might hit a missile tube" one of the PCs shot him. Several times. And then made very sure.
The GM (not me, I do my research) was shocked until the player pointed out that the launch tube was designed to withstand projected a missile weighing many tonnes through tens of metres of seawater. A bullet wouldn't scratch it and her character would have known this.
This probably isn't a great example for a GM but I hope you get the idea.


3. Clean up your mistakes.
Time travellers screw up. Eventually the minor actions come to haunt them. The classic Who examples are the novel Just War. and, and a rather different way, The Ark.
They did something in "the past" and now need to fix it. This offers many possibilities for nearly meeting themselves (which shouldn't happen^[3]) and really confusing the ephemerals.


4. Memorable Characters.
Longer term plots, introducing a character that the protagonists interact with multiple times. Maybe it's that human who betrayed them and joined with The Master, the calculating and supercilious Time Lord agent who knows more than they do, that suspiciously similar character they keep bumping into^[4], the sociopath who's not out for power but has other tastes and may be too difficult to defeat, the time travelling historians who keep popping up and getting into trouble, the far future disaster tourists.


5. What really happened?
Time in the Whoniverse is relatively inflexible; it's not trivially easy to alter events, except at certain points. But an observer's understanding of them can be flawed. If someone is seen to die, well that might have been themself from a handy parallel universe, a clone, or a shapeshifting robot.

Likewise there is a lot of history that is unknown. What really happened at the empty lot behind the McFly place (the OK Corral was down the street^[5])? Drop them into history as they think they know it and have them discover reality is more complex.

Also here are Time Twists, where the PCs encounter a situation/group/person multiple times, but not in chronological sequence.


6. The Quest
Who's done it twice, The Keys of Marinus and the Key to Time arc so you can too.
You need a MacGuffin (feel free to borrow the Moiralith), some antagonists (I'd suggest two or three) and a reason to seek the artefact out.
Many sci-fi series of the eighties aimed at younger viewers used this premise.


7. It's not plagiarism, it's research.
There is a lot of good material out there, historical, sci-fi, time travel, horror, conspiracy that can easily be borrowed from.
I recommend the following.

• Time Lords, the old BTRC time travel RPG, especially the two Time Capsules adventure books. Unfortunately the rebooted edition currently available is terrible and difficult to adapt to Who also.
  
• Time Wars, the series of twelve novels by Simon Hawke.
  
• Time Riders, an odd one-off time travel supplement for the Space Master/Rolemaster RPG. Interesting background, good characters and some wonderful ideas. Available in PDF I believe.
  
• The Chronicles of St. Marys series by Jodi Taylor^[6], brimming with ideas to reuse.
  

Don't hesitate to reuse a current but entirely different series/book for background. Drop the PCs into modern day San Francisco and have the thinly disguised cast of NCIS:LA become involved.
Have them mingle with any number of police procedurals and try and keep the inquisitive investigators from  arresting them or finding the truth.

• I'm rather fond of reusing Golden Age mysteries for this purpose. Plenty of locked room mysteries can have other explainations
  
• Relocate the Sun Hill division to include Coal HIll School.

Alternatehistory.com is full of interesting ideas, and people who are helpful and knowledgeable. I'm a member there myself. Pop over sometime.


A few examples that I used in another thread. Massive spoilers below.








1. The Harpole Report by J. L. Carr
This is I think, by far the most difficult to convert into a RPG scenario, though it's an excellent novel. It's about a teacher, placed is temporarily in charge of a urban primary school in a North of England mill town in the early 1970s, and his various encounters, and how he's changed by them.
There is no science fictional or horror content at all. However the book does fit in the vein of the various Who stories set in schools, complete with a strange replacement teacher, with different ideas on education, and an oddly knowlegeable pupil. Then there's the question of what happened to Harpole's predecessor? Did he really retire, or are the authorities covering up his mysterious disappearance?

And if so, what happened to him? Is he still on the premises? A rotting corpse perhaps (reanimation by alien technology optional). Perhaps he's just been horribly mutiliated/mutated by an encounter with alien forces and his hiding in the basement? Or he's now head-in-a-jar (remember that strangely brilliant pupil?), brain in a Mi-Go cylinder or integrated into a Dalek battle computer?

What's up with the replacement teacher? Why is she trying to teach children to think for themselves?
The sinister caretaker, why do the teachers defer to him? Mind control?
The genius pupil: is this natural or not? Does he have a future role in history? Or is he fated to die?
What's with the railway carriage Miss Foxberrow was so interested in? Has iy dropped through a hole in time?
Why does Mr. Pintle not want to move with the times? Just how old is he?
What is the Sinister Secret of Tamping Longlife Thread? Alien nanotech? Human sacrifices at the full moon?


2. Flesh by Richard Laymon
This is a short horror novel by one of the better authors in the genre, now deceased. It's set in the (more-or-less) modern day and revolves around a strange parasite that infests humans and causes them to engage in acts of violence, and an attempt by some people to stop it. The setting is a small US college town. Reasonable plot (including suggestions that there's a group who know about the parasites and fight them and links to the Incas) and good characters.
Turning it into a game scenario is pretty simple. Depending on your group they could either arrive accidentally and become embroiled in the action (perhaps knowing something of the parasites) or be called in to assist. They'll have to investigate, track the creature and figure out what's going on. A couple of the characters would make decent DW Companions as well.


3. The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr (Carter Dickson)
This is a classic 'Golden Age' mystery of the 'locked room' variety. In fact it's one of the best and best known of the genre. Two brothers are murdered, seemingly in a manner utterly impossible unless the killer could fly or teleport. However Dr. Fell provides a more down to Earth solution to the mystery.
But why limit yourself? A seemingly standard mystery could have a very odd solution indeed if aliens or advanced technology were available, unknown to those investigating. The TV series tried this in The Unicorn and the Wasp
but it's more interesting (IMO) if the party had to solve the mystery without revealing the alien or whatever was behind the crime, and satisfy the investigators.

Interestingly in the 2005 Doctor Who annual there's a story ('Doctor VS Doctor') which pits the ninth Doctor against a pastiche of Carr's Dr. Fell.


4. War with the Newts by Karel Čapek
While Čapek is best known for RUR and introducing the term 'robot' to science fiction "War With the Newts" is (IMO) a better story. It's mainly a social commentary on 1930s global (mainly European) politics using the device of a race of enslaved aquatic creatures called Newts.
However if you move the action to another planet, a human colony on the fringes of space which has regressed technologically to a similar level as Earth in the 1930s it's a surprisingly easy plot to borrow from. A scenario could be set at any point from the discovery of the Newts to the war between them and humanity (or after, this is an interesting idea on how things could have continued). Perhaps the colony is contacted by some outside power and this changes the whole Newt/Human paradigm; Cybermen wouldn't be interested in them, Daleks would consider both races as fit only for enslavement or extermination, while something like the Galactic Federation might try to negotiate a peace.
Of course this doesn't answer all the questions, such as just where did the Newts come from? Were they created by the original colonists? Native to the planet? An experiment by someone else?


5. Carry on Screaming (DVD)
My favourite of the 'Carry On' films, no Sid James for a start. Like Lair it's also got a few Who actors on screen.
The plot is simple enough, in Edwardian Britain (the exact location isn't obvious but reasonably suburban) women are disappearing and there are traces of a monster. Add a strange scientist with unusual medical issues, a sinister house and it's pretty classic Who fare.
A game adaption would probably have to come up with a better reason for the kidnappings, sinister experiments of some sort, perhaps with an alien (Silurian?) advising the principal villain. There are several sub-plots that aren't really explored.
Not great cinema but amusing, and a few characters who'd make good Companions.


6. NCIS - LA (DVD boxset)
Hmm, covert group of government agents investigate stuff. It's Torchwood but with more sun, even worse acting and very few engaging characters (except Hetty).
Relocate to (say) San Francisco and have them busy investigating the things that the pop through a Rift in space-time there.


7. The Lair of the White Worm (DVD)
This actually formed the basis for a Big Finish audio (and a pretty poor one IMO). The film is excellent (including one future Doctor, kilted, one sort-of Doctor, and one Who villain). Just replace the supernatural with alien elements (or not if you prefer that style) and drop in your party. Sinister aristocrats (and a sinister butler), bumbling local police, mysterious disappearances, odd things due up by an archaeologist, local legends, it's an easy rewrite though you'll probably need to tone down the sex (depending  on your players). Also you've got some useful music for background.




If you have any queries, want help reusing any ideas I've posted previously or want to bounce ideas around I'll try and help.



1. References to the Virgin New Adventures novel Sanctuary BTW.

2. The Face of the Enemy, Cold War and The Nautilus Sanction.

3. Except as a well considered plot device of course.

4. It's not GM laziness if it can be explained as a bit of temporal weirdness.

5. The First Doctor Sourcebook discusses the oddities of The Gunfighters in some detail. The Time Wars novel The Six-gun Solution also has it denouement at that particular place and is well worth a read for ideas.

6. Not to be confused with any other Jodi Taylor.

[SoulDragon298]

Sorry for the late response, but I'll consider what you've said.

I'm also hoping to create memorable enemies, ones I can use as potential recurring villains, but I can't think of anything truly unique or interesting.

[Catsmate]

Hey, if there's anything I can help you with go ahead and ask. In thread or by PM.
Bouncing ideas around can be fruitful, and fun.

[SoulDragon298]

Will do! I'll shoot you a PM if I think of anything.

[Stormcrow]

Jul 1, 2019 2:50:29 GMT SoulDragon298 said:

I'm also hoping to create memorable enemies, ones I can use as potential recurring villains, but I can't think of anything truly unique or interesting.

The key to making unique and interesting villains is to avoid tropes and gimmicks. What you need is a villain whose motivations are profound and self-consistent. A villain who laughs maniacally while seeking Ultimate Power is a trope. A villain who is willing to destroy whole planets to get revenge on the Daleks for exterminating their family, and who occasionally suffers from flashes of guilt about their actions, is a more interesting villain. Can this person be rehabilitated? Do they deserve to be? How do they justify their actions to themselves? What sort of action would be too far for them to go? Are they mad?

Avoid overusing your villains onstage. Villains who deliver a monologue every time you see them get boring very quickly. A villain who only appears at the climax of an adventure and whose motivations remain mysterious can remain interesting for much longer. Just make sure your players manage to learn a little about them every time they encounter them.

Also avoid making entire species into villains. It's a common trope in Doctor Who, and you can certainly create villain species, but you need a personal villain. A personal villain isn't evil just because their species is evil; they need their own reason, or else they're just a generic minion of the species. Your villain can be an alien, but don't make them a villain because they're an alien or because of the powers they may have. Make sure the villain's motivations are exceptional.

[Stormcrow]

Also, a villain with a bit of tragedy about them is always better. A lying, sneaky murderer trying to steal your Power Gizmo is one thing. A perfectly ordinary person who was, through no fault of their own, turned into a lying, sneaky murderer by your Power Gizmo and is now so addicted to the Power Gizmo that they have to take it back from you by any means necessary is compelling. Yes, precious.

[Catsmate]

I rather like the Sympathetic/Tragic Villain (OK it's a trope). In Who terms perhaps someone from an aborted timeline that survived the 'remediation' of their entire world and wants to recreate it? Possibly a world notably better than the one the PCs are attempting to save...