Adventure Structure

The overall structure of an adventure consists of two sections: The front page(s), and the content. Lets
look at the front page(s) first:

Title
The front page(s) contain a lot of different pieces of information. The first is the title of the adventure,
rendered in a legible font that captures some of the style of the adventure, in a fairly large font rarely
less than 24 point, and occasionally more than 72-point. I dont care if anything else fits on that page or
not this is something that I can hold up like a movie trailer at the start of play. In general, I wont use a
graphic, for two reasons: Clarity (I want the players to be able to read it at a distance) and Time (which
can always be better spent elsewhere).

Subtitle, Campaign
As a subtitle, I will usually indicate which campaign the adventure is for. This is helpful when you go
looking for campaign notes several years later, saving you from having to locate named characters to
work out which campaign theyre from. In the meantime, it helps focus the mind on the unique attributes
of that campaign.
Anticipated Participants
Either on the same page or at the top of the next, Ill have a list of the characters I expect to participate in
the adventure, in the following order:
PCs & Players PCs and the players who own them are at the top of the list. These are the stars of the
adventure, or should be. This also serves as a useful reminder of character names. I try to always
address people by character name unless Im instructing the player to do something. This is also a
convenient place to jot down xp rewards after the adventure!
Key NPCs I sometimes follow that with a list of the major NPCs, in the anticipated order of their
appearance. If I find time, Ill put a page number after the character name to indicate where the
description is, but I so infrequently have the time that this is a convention honored more in the breach
than in the observance.
NPC Illustration Checklist After each NPC name, Ill put a pair of open brackets separated by a space,
like this: ( ). When I find and save an appropriate photograph or illustration (or create one) for a specific
character, Ill make an angled mark like this: (/). After Ive done any editing or resizing needed, Ill change
the slash to an X by putting in the other stroke. When Im getting everything out ready for play (or
packing, if the days play is to take place away from home), Ill add a horizontal mark, indicating that the
image has been printed and/or copied to a memory stick for use on the laptop.
If the adventure is anticipated to take more than one game session, Ill add as many sets of parentheses
as there are expected to be sessions. The goal is to make sure that I always have what is needed to run
the adventure.

Prop & Game Aid Checklist

The same technique is used for a list of any props or game aids that I want to be sure to take. The
number of times this has saved my bacon is embarrassing to admit and the number of times I wished I
had taken the time to compile such a list for an adventure is even greater. And yes, character sheets and
the scenario printout are both items to include on the list!

Dates
Sometimes, these will be followed by a number of dates.
Date Written The date the scenario was written is of obvious use, since it permits different drafts and
revisions to be distinguished.
Date Play Commenced The date play commenced or was expected to commence is of obvious
value in sorting the adventures chronologically. Sometimes I will number the adventures instead,
especially if the third batch of dates listed below are to be used.
Local Date This is the in-game date when the adventure is expected to start, and is usually followed by
the in-game date when the adventure is expected to conclude. Some campaigns which involve time travel
or interdimensional travel may have multiple dates shown. Ive had to recreate the local date, or work out
from scratch what the local season is, too many times. The Local Date is something I always like to
include. If Im not sure how long a preceding adventure will take, Ill leave a space to write the appropriate
local date in, and use a relative indicator for the end date: Local Date (_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _) (+5), for
example showing that while I dont know when the adventure will start, its expected to take five game
days to complete.

Synopsis & Structure

The dates (if any are shown) are followed by a brief synopsis of the adventure. Heavy emphasis on the
brief. If its longer than 4 printed lines, its too long. This is an important and useful summation for me, as
GM it provides context for everything that follows.

General GMs Notes

Thats followed by any general reminders that Ive made to myself. In addition to anything else that might
be there, this will include three specific notes:
Metagame Function What relevance does this adventure have in relation to others that may be
planned or may have already occurred? This is vital information; in the event that Ive somehow
completely fouled things up, salvaging the metagame function of the befouled adventure is priority
number one. Ive written adventures specifically to introduce a character who will become important later
in the campaign, or to establish a theme that will become significant, or to wrap up a plotline. Ive written
encounters whose sole purpose is to advance some background plot or other. Blair and I wrote a plot
whose sole purpose was to justify the FBI taking over the Adventurers Club in the pulp campaign of the
same name for various reasons.
Style, Tone, & Pacing Notes What sort of mood am I shooting for in the adventure? Creepy? High-
Octane? Paranoid? Mysterious? Romantic? Slapstick? Melodramatic? Sad? Thats the tone. How do I
plan to achieve it? Thats Style. Do I want to push the pace or linger over details? Is there some portion of
the adventure that should be especially frantic? Or perhaps there is a particular tone that I want to avoid
thats been the case more than once. These questions should form the basis of everything in the plotline
that isnt there to serve the metagame function. Props, for example: if theres a photo, rendering it in
pastel colors and giving it a frame of love-hearts (things that my art packages make easy) gives
everything a romantic overtone.
Moreover, if things get fouled up, salvaging the mood is the number two priority. Any decisions or action
that I ad-hoc should still fit within the overall tone of the adventure so that it is not completely obvious
that I am ad-hocking the adventure!
Absentee Notes What will it do to the adventure if one of the expected players cant make it? Whats
my strategy? Are there any absences with which the adventure could not cope at all? I only make notes
under this heading when I absolutely have to, but there are times when its inevitable when a plotline is
designed to be a star vehicle for one particular PC, for example. If that PCs player cant attend, there are
only three options: Cancel the game session, run the next adventure in the sequence (assuming that its
finished and the metagame considerations dont make it impossible), or run something else more-or-less
off the cuff (even if its an out-of-continuity adventure). Under most circumstances, there are still more
options available you can brief the player and get key decisions in advance, and/or run the PC as a
temporary NPC for the session, for example.

Content Structure
The final category of information to form part of the preliminary pages of the adventure is the content
structure. Is this a three-part adventure, or a two-part adventure, or a one-part adventure, or a five-part
adventure and why? In general, if there is a major shift in focus or tone, its better to break the
adventure into two parts at that point. Sometimes these parts will be given unique subtitles, sometimes
they will simply be called Part 1, Part 2, and so on. Sometimes adventures end on a cliffhanger, and at
other times they reach a firm conclusion with some downtime for the PCs before the next adventure
starts. Thats the sort of information that I place in the content structure notes.
For example, the final adventure of the previous Zenith-3 campaign had the overall title of The Light Of
Morning, which was a somewhat poetic allusion to the coming of a New Dawn within the campaign. It
was an adventure in five parts.
Part One was subtitled Elements Of Perpetuity and was all about lasting impacts and the preparations
by Zenith-3 for their retirement and their replacements taking over. At the same time, two of the team had
retired to serve the newly-elected President one as Chief Of Staff and the other as chief advisor and
wife and were in the process of moving into the White House. There were a number of difficult policy
decisions that had to be made. So the subtext of this part was After were gone. It ended with a
cliffhanger an explosion in Southern Arizona creating a crater 32 miles across and 8 miles deep, which
quickly began filling with Lava while Temporal Warning alarms went haywire all over the teams
headquarters, signaling a massive incursion from off-dimension.
Part Two was subtitled Elements Of Conclusion and was all about wrapping up outstanding plot threads
(including some that the team thought had already been dealt with). Ironically, some of them led back to
the crime boss they came across in their very first adventure. The explosion was the literal destruction of
one of those plot threads. The temporal incursion was not explained, but side effects like the Daleks
who were invading Korea dropping like flies show that if anything its even bigger than they thought.
This also ends in a cliffhanger (one which would take too long to explain here).
Part Three was subtitled Elements Of Transition. The solution to the two cliffhangers was revealed,
leading the retired ex-members to return for one last mission. It transpired that the real villain of the entire
campaign (who had just been defeated in his bid for the Presidency) had one final card up his sleeve a
desperate plan for a suicide mission to achieve his true goals, one which united the power of the three
biggest threats that the PCs had encountered in the course of the campaign within his body. Mutually as
compatible as matter and antimatter in collision at close to light speed, the combination turned his body
into a huge bomb capable of destroying almost anything. This was all about the changes within
characters both the PCs and the villain.
Part Four was subtitled Elements Of Resolution. It brought a permanent (is there any such thing in
superhero comics or games?) end to the villain, and resolved the central themes that had been part of the
entire campaign unstated at first, hidden for a time, and then overt for the final year or two. And it ended
with the godlike beings who had been protecting and surreptitiously guiding the PCs for the entire
campaign going away to rest and recuperate. For now, you are on your own.
Part Five was subtitled Elements Of Regeneration. It featured Inauguration Day of the new Presidency
that the PCs had brought into existence, the final departure of those characters who were going to move
on to the new campaign, and the arrival of the NPCs who were taking their place. The theme for this part
was the new beginnings for that campaign world.
The first three chapters were all buildup; the fourth was climax; and the fifth was conclusion and
denouement.
Where there is no major change in tone, but the adventure is deliberately planned to span more than one
game session, I will divide it into Acts instead. Theres no real difference in practical terms, but this
nonclemanture shortcut helps me keep the overall structure straight.
Some plotlines have more complex structures. Blair and I once ran an adventure that was actually four
simultaneous plotlines, one of each PC, in different times and places. We cut from one plotline to the next
at the conclusion of a scene in one of the plot threads. This permitted cross-connections between the plot
threads. There were two metagame reasons for doing so: First, it gave us the opportunity to show the
PCs how much their lives had changed since they started play within the game; and second, it let us try
out, and get experience in, the technique, which we knew we were going to need in the future.

Part or Act Structure

Okay, so those are the constituents of the front pages of the adventure. In a pinch, if youre good at off-
the-cuff adventures, that might even be enough; Ive done it before, and used to do it regularly. But, in
general, I find it helpful to have an actual written adventure, no matter how brief the writing might be.
Each Part or Act has the same overall internal structure. Some Parts are further subdivided into acts,
especially in a threaded plotline.

Jump Flag
The first thing that might be encountered on the same line and in the same font as the title (see below)
is a Jump Flag. Thats a number preceded by a trio of hashmarks, like this: ###2. Ive tried using fewer,
but I find that the repetition of three makes the jump flag stand out when just glancing at the page. Each is
also followed by a space.
A Jump Flag works similarly to an Anchor or Target in HTML its a destination that indicates that players
might arrive at this point having bypassed some of the plot. In other words, its a point in the plot to which
the characters might Jump hence the name. Ill talk about Jump Flags and their use in Scene Structure /
Choices & Navigation, below.
Plot threads (if any) are identified by alphabetic character as part of the Jump Flag. This is incredibly
useful in writing the adventure because it permits the writer to focus on one plot thread at a time within an
Act or Part, complete the current iteration of drafting/writing content for that plot thread, then move on to
the next.
Act Titles
All parts or acts have a title, even if its just Act I or Part 3. Some have specific titles, as is the case in
the example offered above. This will again be rendered in a decorative font, usually in 14- or 18-point
type.
The font chosen might be the same as that used for the adventure title, which has the advantage of
providing an ongoing thematic consistency; or it might be a separate font if legibility is an issue.

Scenes
Each act consists of one or more (usually more) scenes. Each time the action takes place in a different
location, it happens in a different scene.

Next Act
Each Act concludes with any notes about what action or interactions be resolved before the next act can
begin, and any notes about wrapping up the Act.

Scene Structure
Scenes also have a standard structure. There is a header line and then the content.
The header line consists of up to 4 elements: Plot Thread ID, Scene Number, Location, and Estimated
Playing time.

Plot Thread ID
The first is an identifying thread code, if necessary. These are exactly the same alphabetic character used
for Act jump flags.

Scene Number
And, like Jump Flags, scene numbers follow. These are in the format Act-decimal-scene number.
Where a scene is written in more than one way reflecting changes in the plot as a consequence of
anticipated character decisions made by the PCs it may be followed by a lowercase alphabetic
character indicating which version of the scene it is. So scenes 1.3a and 1.3b are variations on scene
1.3; only one of the two takes place, and the end of each scene will have a jump flag to the next scene in
that particular thread and variation.

Location
Where does the scene take place? This is just a summary or location reference, not a full description. It is
on the same line as the scene number.

Estimated Playing Time

Sometimes I will include an estimated playing time for the scene. This is especially important in threaded
plots that are eventually expected to coalesce back into a single plotline. If there is one, it will be in
brackets on the same line as the location and scene number.

Pacing Notes
Immediately after the header will be a line with any pacing notes to observe in the scene. These are only
included when the pacing of the scene is noteworthy. I have sometimes employed a technique in which
one or more players are sent away from the table (and out of earshot) for exactly X minutes; the result
being that characters not sent away have just so much time to act before they are interrupted by the
arrival in the scene of the other PCs.
Pacing notes are preceded by three percentage signs and must fit on a single text line, for example:
%%% slow and deliberate until the wolf howls, then v.fast

Introductory Narrative
Every scene has a description of something. It may be a location, it may be the action being performed by
an NPC, it may be a list of those present. This narrative is intended to be read to the players verbatim.

Timecheck
Where its important, the narrative passage may conclude with a timecheck what time it is where the
PCs are. Coordinated threading is almost impossible to get right without timechecks.

Referring to Players
For anything relating to game mechanics calling for a skill check, for example the players name is
used. Everything else refers to the characters by name. Tenses are used appropriately for the narrative to
be read to the players, as are first and third person usage.

Dialogue & Action

Dialogue is separated from narrative or other dialogue passages by a blank line. It is written in the style of
a script (though aligned left) character name (in bold), with a colon, and with subsequent lines indented.
I will usually use quotation marks to distinguish dialogue from actions employed instead of words. Italics
are used for any foreign language.
For example:
Girlfriend: Ludo, sweetie, does this mean that we wont be going to Casablanca after all, mon
capain?
If a PC is expected to respond, especially the case if this is a conversation with the PC or a question to
one, I will put (reply) after the line of dialogue. If a PC is expect to respond to an action or announcement,
I will put (react) after the dialogue/action. In both cases, the bracket means pause for PC(s) to do
whatever is in the brackets.

GM Notes
These are quite common, and include any instructions to me as GM. They are preceded by a row of three
asterisks and a space, like so:
*** Describe the journey to Nassaud, Romania. Aprox 106km, 3hrs by hired car or train.

Choices / Scene Navigation

Sometimes the PCs will have a choice that has more substantial repercussions than can be contained in
a single scene. These will be preceded by a less-than greater-than pair, a space, and then the decision to
be made. Indented on the following line will be navigation directions within the adventure. For example:
<> How do PCs react?
Break down the door: goto scene 3.13a
Shoot out the lock: goto scene 3.13b
Pick the lock: goto scene 3.13c
Find another entry point continue
Note that the most likely choice continues within the current scene, presumably scene 3.13.

Props & Handouts

Amongst the other GM instructions that may given are those which involve props and handouts. If these
are simply given to the player to read, I use the normal GM Notes indicator (***) but if the player is
expected to do something more than that, I use a trio of ampersands instead: &&&. This is followed by
some means of identifying the prop or handout. There are two ways of handling the question of what the
player is to do with the prop: a standard GM note (*** )on the following line, or a Choice Flag (<> ).

Act Exit
Choices, actions, NPC dialogue, or even a descriptive passage of narration can signal the end of an act,
or even of the entire adventure. Something has to go last, after all. Two equals signs followed by a
greater-than signifies the end of the act, and is followed on the same line by the jump flag code that
identifies the next Act in the adventure. If theres no flag code it means go to the next act in sequence, i.e.
the next passage of text that starts with the words Act XX. If, instead of a flag code, the direction is PCs
Exit, stage left or fade out or any of half a dozen other terms that mean the same thing, they are to be
read to the players and signify the end of the Adventure. While I sometimes use these terms at the end of
an Act for dramatic effect (by putting the text on the line after the Jump Flag), it is more usual to reserve
them for the adventure exit.

Break Points
Three exclamation points in a row signify a Break Point. These come in two varieties: minor and major.
Minor Break points are points in the action which are suited to letting people get up and stretch their legs,
go to the rest room, have a cigarette break, etc. These will have the advised length of the break shown in
brackets after the Break Point signal; this is followed by anything that the plotline requires me to do as
GM during the break. The estimated time to complete the task is included in the break length so its not
impossible to see things like
!!! (20 mins) setup battlemap town #2.
That might include a 10-minute break for me as GM and 10 minutes to set up the battlemap, or 5 and 15,
or whatever. I will usually set up the map and then take the break, but sometimes Ill do it the other way
around especially if Ive told the players to stay away until I come and get them (a sure sign that I want
the layout to come as a surprise).
Major breaks are exactly the same as Minor Breaks except that these are also suitable cliff-hanger or
dramatic beats on which to end the days play. A Major break is signified by simply underlining the
exclamation points.
I will also, on rare indications, wish to indicate dont take a break at this point! That is usually the case
where the plot would seem reasonably suitable for a break based on what has just happened, but that the
action that follows is unsuitable to restarting after a break, or it might be because there is a better
breakpoint a couple of minutes away.

Next Scene
The final element of a scenes structure is any *** goto instruction pointing to a jump flag or new scene.
This is only present if there are some scene variations to be skipped. For example, Scene 3.13 is to be
followed by variant scenes 3.13a, 3.13b, and 3.13c according to the earlier decision example. At the end
of each of these (except 3.13c, obviously) there is a notation to proceed to scene 3.14, or perhaps to Act
4.

As We Play
Two things will happen as we play. The first is that I will take notes on the printed page of the adventure (if
necessary using the back of the preceding page for extra room). This will usually include noting the
choice of figures used to represent various NPCs.
The second is that I will color code the electronic copy of the adventure. Gray indicates a scene thats
been skipped, Red indicates a scene that had a radically unexpected outcome, and blue indicates a
scene or act that proceeded more-or-less according to plan.
The big advantage that is conferred by this color-coding method is that I can review the adventure days or
weeks later and make any adjustments necessary as a result of any red-flagged sections. They serve as
a mnemonic device that can be invaluable even if its only for preparing a synopsis of play for the start
of the next section.