The Seeds of a Great D&D Adventure

Recently, I’ve been looking at Dungeons & Dragons (DnD) adventures released in the 2024/5.5e era of the game. They do follow a certain formula. I know writers and creatives often cringe when they hear the word “formula” associated with any form of creativity or art, but the fact is, all artwork follow formulas.

Constraints = Creativity

The art we deem most creative still follow formulas, albeit less restrictive formulas. A “formula” is a set of rules or constraints. Many artists like to say they don’t follow rules or constraints, but those artists have a narrower definition of formulas, rules, and constraints. The fact is, creativity requires rules and constraints.

If I gave you instructions to “go make art,” you’d probably come back to me with something pretty crappy that few people would consider “great art.”

If I gave you instructions to “get a sheet of unlined paper and with three different colors of pens, write exactly 200 words about depression without using any words synonymous with sadness,” I think you would come back with a great work of art.

It’s the constraints that steer our thinking towards art.

Modern DnD Adventure Design

Coming back to DnD adventures, the 5.5e Dungeon Master’s Guide provides a formula for writing adventures. It goes like this:

1. Title
2. Character level
3. Situation
4. Hook
5. Encounters

Title and character level are self-explanatory.

Every adventure starts with a situation. The situation is the overall idea for the adventure. Examples (from The Lazy Dungeon Master, by Michael Shea): Dwarven explorers uncover a mad wizard’s vault. Undead attack an old monastery protecting an evil artifact. An isolated village seeks heroes to defend it from monstrous attackers.

The hook is the encounter that draws the players into the adventure. Examples (from Dungeon Master’s Guide, 5.5e): A town crier announces that someone is hoping to hire adventurers. While preparing spells, one character receives a quest from a god or patron. A magical mishap places the characters in the adventure situation.

Encounters are the meat of the adventure. Every location they explore, every NPC they meet, and every monster they come across are all encounters. The bulk of the adventure will be descriptions of encounters.

The Seeds of a Great Adventure

Given that encounters make up most of an adventure, it’s natural to assume that the encounters are the most important part of an adventure. However, I would say that it’s the “situation” that is the most important part. The situation is the overall premise of the adventure. It is the main idea in one sentence. It is the seed that sprouts into everything else.

Where do you find these seeds?

They’re everywhere. The seeds of an adventure can be found in any DnD book you have. Any monster can be a seed. Any rule can be a seed. Any spell can be a seed.

You can even find seeds of adventures outside of DnD books. Get ideas from movies, novels, news articles, or even observations of people you come across in real life.

Here are some ideas:

1. Pick any monster from the Monster Manual and think of how the players can cross paths with that monster.
2. Choose any rule you’ve never used before in the Player’s Handbook or Dungeon Master’s Guide, and think of a situation that relies on that rule. For example: Following rules for dehydration while the players hurriedly cross a desert on short notice. Or following chase rules after a thief snatches a player character’s prized magical item and runs away with it.
3. Find a spell you’re unfamiliar with in the Player’s Handbook, and think of how an NPC can use that spell to cause trouble.
4. Think of how the plot of your favorite movie can be repurposed into your own campaign. You can do the same with your favorite novels, which don’t even have to be in the fantasy genre. (Caution: stories don’t translate well into adventures, since stories are linear and the characters must act a certain way for the story to move forward as written. Use only the basic premise and see where the characters go from there. You will probably end up with a completely different story.)
5. Let real life events inspire your game. Did you read a news article about a wife poisoning her husband? What if the queen poisoned the king? Did you meet an interesting person today? What if that person were an NPC in your campaign?

Once you have your situation—the seed of your adventure—you can build everything off of it. The hook and every encounter will be based off of the situation.

One final thought to keep in mind while writing adventures: characters drive the story. That’s right. You can have many encounters, but no story. To have a story, you need to add NPCs and their motivations into the adventure.

In conclusion, if you want to write good adventures, come up with a good premise, draw up some interesting encounters, and create NPCs to drive the story. But it all starts with the seed.

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