It seems natural to me to follow an article about campaign structures with one about adventure structures. So that’s what I’m going to do. Furthermore, since the campaign structures addressed were specifically about Sandboxed campaigns, so will be this Adventure Structures post – though it can easily have relevance beyond those limits, that’s just a lucky coincidence.

When Eiffel first proposed the famous Tower that bears his name, there were many who did not believe it could support it’s own weight, just as there are many GMs who don’t think that a sandboxed campaign can support complex plot structures. Both groups were wrong.
Image by Edi Nugraha from Pixabay

Fundamental Sandbox Structure

When most people think of sandboxed adventures, they mean that the adventure is completely self-contained, incorporating everything that it needs – every NPC, every monster, every situation. Which of those situations the PCs then encounter is up to the players – that’s player agency.

Trigger events

Some of those situations (they are normally encounters but need not be so) are ‘triggers’ that advance the main plotline of the adventure, the concept at the core of the story. The first of these is usually the plot hook; beyond that it will vary.

Well-written modules / adventures are not static; the background will remain in a state of status quo until one of these ‘triggers’ is activated, and then everything will evolve as a result (usually) of PC and NPC actions.

The simplest way of doing this is to have one set of encounter parameters for each possible encounter before the trigger is activated and another set for after. But that’s a lot of work and potential redundancy, so most adventure writers simply spell out what’s changed and let the GM improv (perhaps with some guidance) the new encounter content.

Note that I’m using ‘encounter’ to specifically and predominantly mean ‘roleplaying encounter’ and not ‘combat encounter’.

Cumulative Triggers = Plot

Trigger follows trigger until the situation is right for the PCs to resolve the adventure. Until that point is reached, they usually lack some key piece of information that prevents such a resolution. The final trigger, then, makes it possible or even inevitable that the final piece of information can be obtained by the PCs. That might be a where, it might be a who, it might be a how or a when.

We can symbolize that adventure structure as a solid bar, like this:

Plot Breakdown

Or we could go so far as to subdivide it into the different phases of the adventure, separated by trigger events. There can be several different triggers that lead to a phase transition. I normally think of adventure phases as ‘chapters’ because I find it helpful to think of them in that context, but that’s not necessary.

That would look like this:

So, our plot consists of triggers that lead to chapters that eventually contain a new trigger until we get to the concluding chapter of the adventure – after which, new adventure begins.

Side-plots

Almost inevitably in any given adventure, some PCs will get a greater share of the spotlight because of some synergy between the character construction and the content of the adventure. If it’s an adventure about Undead, clerics (and perhaps paladins) will dominate. If it’s an adventure about a military situation, fighters and their variations will probably dominate. If it’s a mystery, puzzle, or about magic… well, you get the point.

To create greater equity at the game table, GMs share the spotlight around as much as they can, but there are limits because of that synergy. To make up the deficit, a lot of GMs will throw in what computer-based RPGs call a ‘side-quest’ and what we more literary types call a ‘sub-plot’ that features one of the otherwise somewhat-disenfranchised PC types.

These are at their best when they give the PC(s) in question a connection to the main plot, a motivation for assisting in the solution. They are at their next best when they connect the campaign as a whole to the character, even if they don’t link directly to this adventure.

Obviously, we don’t want any of these once the final trigger has been activated, when it would pose a distraction to the adventure conclusion. So they have to take place in earlier Chapters.

I can modify the structure diagram to display a couple of such subplots:

This example has one subplot occur prior to the plot hook, connecting the character who is featured with the main plot at the point of the plot hook; and a second subplot to take place later in the adventure in two parts, neither of which having anything whatsoever to do with the main plot. These relationships to the main plot are indicated by the yellow arrows.

Before The Plot Hook

It’s normal for there to be play of some sort before the plot hook sits down and introduces itself. This stems from anything the PCs said (at the end of the last adventure) that they wanted / needed to do before going on their next adventure, plus anything that they add at the start of the adventure of a similar nature. The GM will also frequently throw in something related to the main adventure in order to set the stage – establishing / reminding the players of a key part of the background, etc.

Notice that in the first two diagrams, there was just enough space for the PCs to specify what they are doing when the plot hook arrives, but this version allows considerably more scope for the PCs to simply be ‘living their lives’ (within the sandbox) until the adventure presents itself.

What the pre-hook section shows is that all the PCs are doing whatever the heck they want as play begins, and most of that will be unimportant in terms of the main plot – but there is one specific exception to that, in which events are intended to do nothing but ensure that a PC who would otherwise be unaffected has some skin in the game when the hook arrives.

This not only ensures that PC a greater share of the spotlight than they would otherwise receive, it makes them more receptive to the plot hook – a form of metagaming that is perfectly fine in my book, because it doesn’t dictate what a PC should think, do, or choose, it simply gives him or her some (possibly indirect) personal connection to the subject of the main plot – and, perhaps, an extra slice of the relevant background information.

Existing Elements

It should be clear that, by definition, these subplots have to derive from interaction between the featured PC and the existing game sandbox. This fact becomes of critical importance as we move to the next refinement of the structure.

Growing The Sandbox

What if either the main plot or one of these subplots needs to go beyond the established sandbox? In the campaign structures article, I made a point of discussing the concept of ‘nested sandboxes’ – each one of which consists of the prior sandbox plus some campaign element that hasn’t been mentioned / developed so far, and anything in between.

Not a problem – that’s the other thing that the pre-hook is for, establishing any background or additional material that the PCs need to know before the main adventure can begin.

We can quite happily add a few such items to our structure, as shown symbolically below.

This shows four such additional pieces of development – two that feed directly into the main plot, and one each that feeds into the two subplots (the aqua arrows).

The Unwanted Metagaming Connection

Unfortunately, there’s an immediate problem with doing things this way. The very fact that the GM is making a point of adding these pieces of information tells the players that they are important to the adventure when their players would not know this.

Really good players will be able to set that knowledge aside when occupying the persona of their respective PCs; less accomplished players may struggle to do so. Both groups will be completely aware of the fact as players, though, and that can influence decision-making and tactical planning.

The best way to solve this problem is to remove these chunks of pre-adventure and slot them into an earlier adventure as subplots – little pockets of play that have absolutely no purpose but to foreshadow and background things that will be important, eventually.

The Artistry Concern

Doing so is an art, there’s no question. It’s too easy to be heavy-handed, attaching greater immediacy of importance than you wanted, or too light-handed, letting the background element vanish into such obscurity that it might as well not have been there in the first place.

The goal is to hit a sweet spot right in the middle of these two extremes – making it not important enough or immediate enough to follow up on right now (when the PCs have more important fish to fry), but significant or interesting enough that it will be remembered when the right “button” gets pushed.

Long-range planning

If you’re the type that plans a long way ahead, like me, then you probably aren’t running a sandboxed campaign in the first place. There is a perception, after all, that sandboxes are inherently static and unchanging except perhaps in response to the PCs and their actions. In such cases, you can drop background information months or years in advance of its becoming important, and indeed some adventures in my Zenith-3 campaign exist for no other reason than to establish relevant background.

The sandboxed alternative

If you’re running a sandboxed campaign, then your prep is intentionally more focused on the immediate, short, and medium term, and less on the really long-term that’s required to employ this technique. Which means that an alternate strategy is called for.

There are several to choose from, some more effective than others.

One of the most common is simply to make something up out of whole cloth that accomplishes the immediate subplot sequence of events and then lurks in the background waiting to be used as a building block. I’ve certainly employed that approach in the past – and the problems with integrating them into a coherent overall plotline are what led me to my current approach. Throwing mud at the wall to see what sticks can be fun, creative, even innovative – but it can also be a black rabbit-hole that sucks your entire campaign into it’s gaping maw.

Limit the spread, Focus on the target, Distract with something else

This 1-2-3 approach is what I would propose as a more useful alternative.

  1. Limit the spread: If you think of the target PC as a vector for conveying the information to the party when the time is right, it helps define the level of emphasis required, almost subconsciously. As a planning tool, this helps reject subplots that place too much or too little attention on the subject matter.
  2. Focus on the target: Make sure that you establish some relevance between the information and the PC ‘vector’ at the time the information is given to the PC, while downplaying its relevance to any other PC. This is best done simply by being casual when imparting the information; there any number of techniques to achieve this. One of the best is to take advantage of the player propensity to ignore handouts (see: A Helping Handout for uses that mitigate that propensity) when they are busy actually playing – “I didn’t want it to get in the way, so I wrote it down for you to read at your leisure” can hide a multitude of sins. The real secret is not to rely exclusively on any one technique – mix and match and vary your approach as much as you can.
  3. Distract with something else: At the same time, you don’t want the other players paying attention to what you’re doing because it can be easily spotted by the casual observer who isn’t busy playing. So that means distracting the other players with their own situation, whatever it may be – and the best way of ensuring engagement with that distraction is to make it about something that the player already wants to do.
Migratory Backstory

But all that is still often not going to be enough to distract from information that isn’t directly relevant to an immediate subplot. And it’s not a good idea to slug players with too much background at once, anyway – that’s a recipe for important details to be overlooked and then reconstructed through the Plastic Memory with some romanticized imaginary content filling the gaps.

If you have a general idea of what adventures are going to be happening next – even if you’re only planning one adventure ahead of the PCs – then you can migrate the backstory into little mini-encounters in the previous adventure.

That removes three of the four items from the front of this adventure. The final remaining one may or may not also get migrated – the immediacy of its relevance to the subplot offers quite a bit of distraction in its’ own right, possibly enough.

But it also means that we have to find space in the current adventure for whatever additional backstory will become relevant in the next adventure, or maybe the one after that.

If I modify the symbolic structure to this new technique, it now looks like this:

Three of the four preliminary pieces of backstory have been moved to be at the center of a minor encounter in a prior adventure – so at the time that this adventure starts, they are established canon and part of the contemporary sandbox. The fourth connects to the pre-hook subplot, and through it, to this adventure.

At the same time, in the second, third, and fourth chapters (counting the preliminaries as ‘chapter 1’) new mini-plots have been inserted to provide necessary background for the next adventure or maybe the one after that. Readers may also notice that the GM has done something clever – the second subplot, the one that has no connection to or bearing upon this plot? It now carries the third piece of “future-relevant” background. So now it has a purpose beyond just sharing the spotlight around, and the GM is getting two things done for the price of one.

There has to be a twist

Even with those additional layers of sophistication, this is far too linear a plot for most GMs. Let’s insert a plot twist, and maybe an alternative outcome path, just for good measure.

Plot Twists

I’m sure everyone knows what a plot twist is, but in the interests of being comprehensive, and catering to the absolute beginners out there, I’ll define it anyway: A plot twist is a plot development that is completely unexpected and completely changes perceptions of what is going on. The villain is suddenly revealed to be a Hero? An ally is suddenly revealed to be the true villain? Yeah, you get the idea.

If you need help with your plot twists, especially if they seem too predictable, help is at hand. A two part article from here at Campaign Mastery dating back to Dec 2014 breaks down no less than 11 kinds of plot twist (one of them with 6 sub-variations). So consult Pretzel Thinking – 11 types of Plot Twist for RPGs, Part 1, and Let’s Twist Again – Eleven types of Plot Twist for RPGs pt 2 to add variety to your plot twists.

Alternative Outcome Paths

When there is more than one way that an adventure can end (disregarding the obvious one of a Total PC Kill), that’s an alternate outcome path. Note that the differences need to be fairly significant to qualify.

Alternative Outcome Paths usually imply an adventure somewhere down the track to “set things aright”, either by overthrowing the big bad who claimed power in this alternate history, or even traveling back in time to undo a mistake, or something similar.

Unless that sort of retroactive historical change is what the campaign is all about (for example, my Zener Gate campaign), you don’t want the circumstances that permit this act of correction to be too easily achieved. They are simply too dangerous to the campaign. Similarly, if the plan is for the PCs to overthrow the evil overlord they let into power, this shouldn’t be an easy task – gathering resources, gathering intelligence, making a plan, executing that plan (and throwing in a plot twist of some sort, to boot) – it may not be full-on epic quest necessarily, but it’s going to be a major part of the campaign (hopefully one that the players will talk about for years afterwards!)

Showing these structures

Adding a plot twist is just a 90-degree bend in the plot block followed by another in the opposite direction. Adding an alternative adventure outcome is just the same but in the opposite direction, and it’s usually sealed off from the expected outcome. I’ve added one of each to the structure below.

Final Touches

There’s one final part of the plot structure that needs to be added in – An Aftermath. This can be nothing more than the PCs listing things they want to do before their next adventure, or it can be realizing that the campaign world has just had a major shakeup and they were in the front row for the fireworks – it depends on the outcome of the adventure and what it implies for the next adventure.

Adding an Aftermath to each of the adventure resolutions looks like this:

Plot Dynamics In A Sandbox

I want to wrap this article up by pointing out how dynamic the plotline has become. Instead of a linear plot, we have a structure in which the plot itself changes in response to player choices. There is no set order for their completion, that’s also up to the players. They may not even have to complete them all – just enough to give them the tools to advance the plot. There are subplots to engage PCs and give them a fairer share of the spotlight, both of which serve multiple purposes at a campaign level. There are other mini-subplots that do nothing but set up future adventures and (perhaps) evolve part of the background. There’s a significant plot twist, and at least two outcomes are acceptable from a campaign standpoint – and player agency will determine which of those trees bears fruit, and when. Those outcomes can be anything from catastrophic reordering of the game world to “what’s for supper?”.

The whole thing remains thoroughly sandboxed, but that does not mean that it can’t be dynamic, evolving, and riveting. Player agency is sustained throughout.

Let’s briefly contemplate workflow and prep time. Without this structure, you would still have background material to prep; NPCs to prep; encounters to create (or at least outline); and a plot twist. You would also need to consider the possible consequences of the PCs failing to achieve whatever the goal of the adventure is (i.e. alternate endings). The structural changes remove some of this prep and replace it with the equivalent for use in a future adventure. In fact, the only prep time addition is having some vague idea of what the next adventure or two are going to be about.

That’s not a lot of additional prep investment for such rich rewards.

That’s why I have described these as “Stealth” Dynamics – you aren’t doing anything much different, but the dynamics ‘sneak in’ anyway. The sandboxing is still there, the workload is no different, there is no reduction in player agency, and the campaign is as open to improv as it ever was – but the outcomes are as different as night and day.

But Wait, There’s More!

The other thing to take away from this article is the power of iteration of even a simple process; at each stage of the development, a simple complication was introduced and massaged around until it was satisfactory, and that process was repeated until there were no more complications to add. The structure evolved right in front of you.

Adopt the same approach to designing your adventures, and you make them rich with detail for very little effort. Adopt it to the design of your NPCs and you make them believably complex without harming the core character that you needed for the plotline. Use it for the creation of magic items and house rules. Start your maps simple, then just embellish one thing at a time until the result is a place worth adventuring in. And, finally, use it for developing your campaign background – start with a simple concept, then add in one complication at a time, exploring the consequences and tweaking until satisfied – then move on to the next item.

It’s hard to overstate just how powerful a tool it is, and how simple it is to utilize.


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