Often, the approach we take to writing new adventures is to start with some really cool premise or idea. We’re watching TV or reading a really great book and we think, “wow, it’d be really cool to play an adventure just like that.” Or sometimes inspiration just strikes, and we think “holy hell, it’d be amazing to play an adventure where this one cool thing happens.” With that idea, we sit down, and start slapping together an adventure. This is what I term the setting-first or scene-first approach, where we come up with a premise or cool scene and build the adventure to focus on that one aspect.
It’s also the wrong approach for the purposes of this academy. Instead, we will focus on a the story-first approach where the very first thing we lay out for an adventure is the arc of the narrative being told.
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What is the story-first approach?
At the core of this academy is one simple motto: the story comes first. One meaning of this adage is that the story comes first on the priorities list. It is the most important thing. As such, it should be given the right-of-way for every major decision about the adventure you’re writing and running. Whenever you need to choose an aspect of the adventure, you should always ask yourself, “which choice helps the story best?”
The second meaning of the adage is the literal one. The story literally comes first before we write the rest of the adventure. How to do this well is the subject of the majority of the lessons in this course, but it’s important to understand why. Why do we have to write the story first?
There are plenty of analogies to dig out here, but let’s go with a cooking one, because cooking is something of a hobby of mine. When I decide to make a meal, what’s the first thing I figure out? What I’m trying to make. Sure, I may take a gander at what ingredients I have to guide my decision. After all, I can’t make an omelette if I’m out of eggs. But before I turn on the stove, or go look for a recipe, or pull anything out of the fridge, I have to figure out what it is I want to make.
It’s the same approach to writing an adventure. When I want to come up with a new adventure, I have to decide what story I want to tell. Sure, I may take a gander at what setting I’m in to guide my decision. After all, I can’t make a story about a revolution if I’m out of oppressive regimes. But before I pull out stat blocks, write down an awesome magical scene, or skim through other material from which to pilfer ideas, I have to figure out what story I want to tell.
The story is both priority one and step one to any adventure. The story comes first.
Sometimes we’re not the writer.
While the GMW Academy will focus primarily on writing, this is not the only way to use its lessons. We don’t always have the time to create a whole adventure from scratch whenever we want to play. But we still want to play, of course. In this case, we reach for adventures written by others, whether as a long-form campaign book or a short-form module or two. How can the story-first approach help us when using this kind of content?
When you first open the pages of that new adventure, you need to do one thing: learn the story. Figure out where the party starts, then go to the back and figure out where it’s expected to end up. Then wander through the middle and see how the author got there. If the adventure is well organized, it’ll hopefully have a flowchart at in the first few pages which summarizes this for you. Learn the story. Know the story.
By taking this first step, we gain a deep understanding of the adventure, which allows us the freedom to run it the best way possible. By knowing where the story needs to go, it’s easier for you to understand the importance of the components of the adventure. You know why Combat A or Social Encounter B matter, and can therefore run them appropriately.
Perhaps more importantly, knowing the story allows us to improve on adventures which are otherwise lacking. Writers seem to love tossing in an extra scene or two which serve no purpose aside from padding play time. There’s no shame in it, I’ve done it lots of times before learning to do things differently. Hell, I still do it when I write sentences, much to Chief’s chagrin. However, if we know the actual story of an adventure, its easy to see which scenes are superfluous, and then we can do something about it.
This is an especially useful tool if we need to strike encounters from adventures to save time. It’s crunch time, and you only have two hours, but three hour-long encounters left. Which one do you drop in favor of the other two? Easy. Get rid of the one that doesn’t progress the story at all.
This is also the thinking we use when trying to decide which one of several useful scenes to drop. Since we know the primary story of the adventure, we can evaluate which scene would have the least impact if we drop it. Maybe the story element of a scene can be delivered in a quick bit of exposition, or it can be lumped easily into another scene. We know the story, so we can make that call easily.
In the end, taking a story-first approach to prepping an adventure allows us to have all of the knowledge we need right at the onset. This saves time and energy when it comes to adapting them for our own tables.
Maybe the writing wasn’t enough.
Of course, this is all well-and-good assuming things go off without a hitch. Ideally, they should. After all, you’re the GM, so make it happen. But what happens when things start to go awry? What if the players do something unexpected? What if the dice do something unexpected? Well, the story-first approach saves us in these cases, too.
You should have a firm understanding of where the story is going before you sit down to run the table. This is non-negotiable. Then, you need to prioritize the story when running. Remember: the story comes first. So, when your players (or statistical flukes) start derailing the session, there is only one question you should ask yourself: what needs to happen now to progress the story.
This is a very powerful tool for recovering from a tailspin during a session. By knowing which story strokes are left to be hit, all you need to do is pick one and make it happen. The players don’t need to know that things went in an unexpected direction, and they’ll be none the wiser if your story unfolds properly. Sure, they went North when you were expecting them to go East, but you made sure that the story remained intact. The narrative flow was unbroken, even if it had to be redirected a bit.
Similarly, its much easier to turn sidetracked player musings into fun and fulfilling sessions of play by going story-first. Your players may absolutely get distracted by something you weren’t expecting and pursue some hook you didn’t even realize they saw. If you’re not on a tight narrative schedule, no problem! Take the hook and plan a short story arc for it. At first, you may need to write these down. But as you do it more and more, it’ll become second nature to think this way. If we take the story-first approach even when dealing with minor little plots, we not only generate better individual sessions, but the overall campaign feels like a richer experience for everyone.
The story comes first.
I’m going to end this introductory lesson with a beginning. What is the first thing we must do whenever we write an adventure? Figure out what story we want to tell. Where will the players begin? Where do we want them to be at the end? What changes will happen along the way? What decisions will we ask them to make, and why? These are the kinds of questions we have to ask ourselves right at the beginning.
If you prioritize the story of an adventure, you will write better campaigns and modules. Beyond that, you’ll also run a better table during your sessions. Being an effective storyteller means knowing the story in and out. You are the GM, so you are the expert on what story is being told. Prioritize that story. It has to be the first and most important consideration for everything you do.
The story comes first.
As always, I encourage you to send your questions, comments, and hate mail to our GMW Academy mail box: academy@legendarypants.net
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