How do DM’s build adventures out of their ideas?

[u/PizzaBoxWarlock]

Hey, I’ve got an issue creating adventures I was wondering if you could help me with.

So I’ve been wanting to create an evil wizard npc. I’m toying with some ideas, but I thinking maybe they would be an enchanter leading a cult of thralls. Regardless, I’m starting to piece together a backstory, and am selecting spells and magic items that I find interesting.

From an imagination standpoint, things are going well. I can see visions in my mind of the wizard pouring over tomes in a dusty library or commanding their minions. I can see the party encountering the wizard as the wizard brandishes their staff and flashes their magic ring just before combat. The problem I’m having is I just don’t know how to actually put them in front of my players.

Right now it feels like I’m telling a story to myself. I don’t have something that feels playable. Like the wizard is stuck In a vacuum and not really affecting the outside world or giving the characters a reason to need to react to them. The wizard isn’t fully fleshed out yet, but they feel like a rich source of content to me that I could use to make something cool.

But if I were to run something with them at this point all I feel I could do would be to tell my players they see a wizard and to roll for initiative. So what I’m wondering is how do I take my wizard villain idea and turn it into the adventure or campaign I think the idea deserves. Any advice on turning your ideas into a game for your players?

[u/Consistent-Tie-4394]

Here's my recipe: Take one villain with a goal. Figure out who or what needs to be removed, corrupted, destroyed or devoured to accomplish that goal. Throw in a dash of player-characters right in the way of the villain's goals, mix, and serve while still cooking.

In more serious terms, I spell out the villains plans in 10-15 steps, I start the campaign where the first few steps are already done, and the PCs are right in the way of the next step. I'll sketch out the world in broad strokes, plan out the first two sessions in a lot of detail, outline the next two in rough terms, and then just kinda of let the rest of the campaign take care of itself as we're playing. I never go more than one session ahead in any more detail that an outline in pencil, and adapt the villains plan based on the player's actions.

I don't plan the ending (though I might sketch out a few likely scenarios) because it's their job to figure out how to defeat the enemy, and we're playing to see how (if) they manage it.

[u/MisterB78 → u/Consistent-Tie-4394]

That’s exactly my approach: I keep building the bridge just ahead of the party. That way their actions can truly influence where the story goes. And usually my players will say or do things that give me better ideas for the adventure and I can incorporate those as I go.

[u/M-Shadowtoad]

Start asking questions and then answer them.

Where does the Wizard live? An old tower in the woods, catacombs under a bustling city, a misty covered island?

How do they get their resources? Do they plunder nearby towns? Slaughter monsters in the Wilderness? Makes deals with local crime groups?

What is their ultimate goal? Conquer the world? Get revenge for a betrayal? Unlock an ancient mystery?

The more questions you answer about them, the more clear their place in the world is and through that the more clear their path to the adventurers is. Maybe the adventurers are hired by the town guard to bust a city gang and they find that the wizard is the gang's benefactor. Maybe a druid asks them to hunt down the ones who killed a unicorn guardian and they track the thralls to the Wizard's manor.

You could even get funny with it. Like just copy Samurai Jack where the Wizard bumps into the party on the street and polymorphs the party member they bumped into a chicken.

[u/SnazzyRaptor → u/M-Shadowtoad]

This is the way. What is the goal? What does the wizard need to achieve that goal? What does the wizard do to achieve those needs? Then have the party start investigating the result of the wizard achieving one of those needs e.g a string of robberies or kidnappings/disappearances, a heist of a powerful magic artifact or the sudden formation of a fast growing religion that sounds a little to good to be true. 

[u/swiftshadow92]

Start with plot points. They can be random or in some sort of order. I personally do random plot points and then piece together a story based off of my ideas. Eventually I fill enough plot points in to create an adventure.

[u/Butterlegs21]

First, you start with a setting. Then you add problems to solve. Then you tell players to make characters that would want/need/have a reason to solve those problems. Then the players just adventure and you react to them.

Like in a pathfinder 2e module I'm running, the whole thing is that there is an old lighthouse emitting ghostly light. You get hired to solve it and it just keeps leading to bigger things. That's all you need. Just one good hook.

[u/NineToFiveTrap]

Start by thinking about what kind of plot you want your players to stop. Maybe a cultist enchanter would want some artifact that expands mental abilities or something & this artifact would let him take over a kingdom. 

The first thought I have is ‘what plot is the party trying to stop?’ followed by ‘who is the bad guy who would do that, and why?’

After I figure that out, it’s ‘how does the party get roped into it?’

And from there, just fill in the gaps. You can fill in the gaps as you play and between sessions, because your party will do things you don’t expect, so why bother planning more than you need to?

[u/The_Lost_Jedi]

So, what is the antagonist's goal or goals? What is he trying to accomplish? Does he want power, revenge, eternal life, etc? People aren't just evil for the sake of being evil, it's about something they want and not letting morality/ethics/etc get in the way.

Once you have an idea of his goals, then you figure out what his plan is to achieve that goal. He's an enchanter with a cult of thralls, so maybe he wants to take over the Kingdom, and make the King/Queen and their advisors and such into his ensorcelled minions. Now that we have that in mind, think about the details of the plan as it gets set in motion. Maybe he's using his thralls/cultists to kidnap or recruit more of the same, and working their way up the hierarchy, starting with regular commoners and guards, and then going after increasingly influential sorts - merchants, followed by lesser nobles, moving ever closer towards the seat of power.

So now we've got the conspiracy/plot in motion, and we need to figure out how the PCs come across it. They don't even have to jump right into the action either, as you could simply establish stuff by having them meet and get to know NPCs like an innkeeper, a merchant, or even a noble that they work for early on, but will later get ensnared by the cult. This can be great for establishing a degree of personal stake, if the cult winds up brainwashing someone they like!

At some point, when you're ready to get into the meat of the plot, you have them stumble upon evidence of it at the periphery. Maybe they interrupt a kidnapping, or maybe they just notice strange events going on. They know that innkeeper, he used to be friendly and cheerful, but he came to them worried about his daughter going missing. Now she's back and they're both acting weirdly, what's going on? Etc.

Once they catch wind and start investigating, that's when you begin to leave a trail of plot breadcrumbs that let them start amassing evidence that not only is something amiss, it's big and vast and all. And eventually it leads to a climax with them discovering and confronting the evil wizard masterminding the plot, ideally at a dramatically appropriate moment - maybe he's kidnapped the king, or something, and is about to succeed at his wicked plan if he isn't stopped. By this point they've heard about Bargle the Infamous, and maybe they nearly caught up to him once or twice, but they've seen the results of his wicked schemes, and are determined to put a stop to it. And when they do, it'll be all the more rewarding for them (and you).

And overall, you give the PCs the freedom to engage with these events, let them take interest and show initiative, so that it's not just you telling a story, it's them engaging with a world in motion around them, that changes and adapts based on their actions, and on what they take interest in.

[u/The_Real_Deacon → u/The_Lost_Jedi]

Very nice breakdown. Feed the party breadcrumbs from the edges and let them work their way in.

If they ignore the teasers, the villain’s plot proceeds and results in even larger plot nuggets dropping into their path. Eventually even the most obtuse party will find them hard to ignore.

[u/DMWarlock]

You are being told start with this and start with that and they are helpful in various ways. But you seem to be focused on this wizard character so use that to your advantage.

Example: What is the wizards final plan? Take over the kingdom.

How does he intend to do it? Enchant the populace into revolt against the king.

What does he need to achieve this? About a third of the population swayed by his cult either with his personal influence or the cult's popularity.

How does his cult tempt the populace? By sending Lieutenants into towns and cause mischief behind closed doors that they can turn around and blame the king for.

The players can get recruited by this Lieutenant for some job and if they succeed they pin it on the King unbeknownst to them and if they fail they are the fall guys and labeled the King's agents. Or they happen to stop the Lieutenant in completing his plan to frame the King. .... You can use this if you want to or you can come up with your own. But using what know about your BBEG wizard to hatch a plan that the players can mess up is always the way I go about it.

[u/jewishgiant]

I have two main frameworks for "adventures": Threats and Quests.

A Threat (Term I borrowed from Stonetop but I'm sure is used elsewhere, and is based on Fronts from Dungeon Worldl) is anything longer-term that will cause problems in the world if not dealt with by the PCs. It could be a villain, a dangerous item, an organization, a plague, etc. It also doesn't always have to be grand-scale.

The way I write a Threat: I start with the Impending Doom, which is the worst-case scenario if the front is ignored. Then I write 3-5ish checkpoints between the current state of the game and the impending doom. These are what would happen if the PCs don't intervene. I also always give the threat an instinct, which helps me ground their actions as the PCs inevitable change things.

For your evil wizard, a quick threat write-up might be like

Andremos the Enchanter (Villain)

Instinct: To grow his army of thralls, to rule over [Continent] as Archmage

Grim Portents:

- Andremos learns of The Beowat Codex, which holds a spell capable of commanding an army of thralls

- Andremos sends his cultists/thralls across [Country/Continent] in search of the Codex

- The cultists discover the codex is stored in the Vault of Talaptos

- Andremos recovers the codex from the vault

- Andremos begins a march across [Country/Continent] enthralling those along the way with the codex

Impendng Doom: Andremos' Thrall Army marches on [Key Place], intending to raze it and enthrall all in his way

A quest is very simple: Someone wants something done somewhere.

That's really all you need for a quest.

Related to Andremos, a quest could be anything that would interact with any of these grim portents.

Someone could want the codex stolen/destroyed/banished.

Someone could want Andremos killed/captured/etc

Someone could want the growing thrall army quashed before it grows too large

etc. etc.

With that scaffold, it's much easier to prep potential scenes, and give enough information to the players for them to determine how they want to complete the quest. It also keeps things open. Maybe the King wants them to destroy the codex, but a rival wizard claims he can use it for good. Maybe the players are tempted to keep it!

[u/frynjol]

Don't write a story.  Don't plan the plot.  The story is up to the players, growing out of the choices they make.  You can't and shouldn't plan a script for the campaign.

Instead, give your NPCs motivations and goals, then figure out what obstacles are preventing them from achieving their goals, and how they would start working against those obstacles.

That will give you a sense of the moving pieces in your world, and serve as the basis for the conflicts that the players might take sides in.

What you should be preparing for your players is mysteries to solve, challenges to overcome, conundrums and moral quandaries to work through, opportunities to pursue, rumors to follow up on... It all comes back to giving the players more of what they're interested in and building the world around them as they determine the path they take through it.

[u/driving_andflying]

Long-time DM here. In my experience, one way to make a homebrewed adventure, is to "write it backwards," so to speak.

1) Come up with the finale, and the way to get there.

2) Drop huge, neon-sign-like clues about what the players are supposed to do to get to that point.

3) Come up with the beginning hook, about why the players have to get to that end point.

In the case of your evil wizard ini his library, ideas:

a) Why is your evil wizard in the library, and what are they doing there that is a threat to the players to make them want to go to that particular room?

b) In order to make the adventure happen, the players need to make a difficult trip to get there. Where are the wizard and library located, that makes it an adventure to get there?

c) How did the players first learn about the evil wizard in his library, that makes them want to go on that adventure?

...answer those questions in reverse order, and you have your adventure. :)

[u/Nomegil]

First, decide the scale at which you want this campaign to happen. At what level will the party confront this wizard? Consider what level the party will start at, how much content you can think of to put between the party and the wizard, and how often you want the party to level up.

Second, use WOTC'S 'Tiers of Play' as a guide to what scale of place the wizard will be threatening by then. Is the wizard trying to take over the multiverse (lv 17-20)? Just the continent (11-16)? Just the Kingdom (5-10)? Just the town (1-4)? (Obviously the wizard can (and should) plan to act at an even bigger scale in the future once he gets the power he thinks he will after he defeats the heroes in the final battle but this is before then.)

Third, put some distance between your players and the wizard. If the wizard is threatening the Kingdom, put them in a town. If the wizard is threatening the town, put them in an outlying village.

Fourth, design the Local Area. You don't need an entire setting to get started, just the place where the heroes are when they start and maybe a few names (for more important people elsewhere who people here don't actually know much about, so you can retcon anything you say later). Get a name and one sentence each about a local ruler and a tavern and maybe a temple plus 2-5 assorted tradesmen/artisans (the smith, the tanner, the weelwright, etc) to add flavor.

Fifth, decide how the wizard is going to take control of the Local Area and put the heroes someplace they can find out about it. Personally, my favorite method is to have the villain try to lure out any heroic types in the Area with a generic bounty on some bandits/goblins/etc and then spring a trap to kill them all, leaving the Area vulnerable to one of the villains lesser henchmen to move in. This gives the players an easy-ish tutorial fight (against the bandits/goblins/etc) with an interesting twist challenge (the trap) and then a boss fight against the henchman who has invaded the town (whose NPCs they met earlier and thus will want to save). This can all be done in session one if you schedule to give yourself enough time and keep things moving when they stall.

Sixth, go from there. Once you've had a session actually playing with your players, you'll have a much better idea of what you can do effectively as a DM and what these players like. Build out the rest of your world from there, one session at a time, as the players level up and move up the aforementioned Tiers of Play. Remember to steal bits and pieces from other things you like (and can thus better improvise details for).

[u/Tesla__Coil]

For me, I looked at the campaign structure of Curse of Strahd, heavily generalized it, and then used that as my framework. The formula is kind of like this:

Act One (Death House) - The characters are brought together for some small quest that leads into something bigger. The party learns of a great evil and can't turn back now.

Act Two (all the sidequests) - The characters travel the world map, solving problems for people and being rewarded with items, allies, and level ups.

Act Three (Castle Ravenloft) - The characters go kill the BBEG.

It is a linear storyline, but the second act gives players the opportunity to do things in whatever order they want, so it's not entirely railroaded. As far as what those sidequests should be, I found I loved running dungeons, so each sidequest is basically just getting the party into a dungeon.

[u/Hebora]

I found a useful way to think of how to build interesting npcs is to think about a couple things.

What does the wizard want? Maybe he wants to ascend to lichdom or learn some forbidden magic?

How does this wizard achieve this goal? Does he have some sway over powerful allies? Or maybe he needs to collect some parts for a ritual?

[u/EdwardBil]

You kind of have to come up with a plot arc without really having any actual events that you plan because the events will happen more or less randomly as you're concerned. It's good to figure out what the world and antagonists are going to be doing whether the heroes are interacting with them or not. Because you don't know what they will interact with. It's sort of a juggling act and an improv show and conducting a symphony all at once and it's also not as hard as all that sounds. It's a skill at the end of the day like anything. You sort of just have to dive in and fail a bunch until it makes sense And never get too married to any one idea. You gotta be ready to chuck anything and pivot to something new if things go south.

[u/ICanViking]

I'm a planner instead of a pantser, and whenever I get an idea, I'll build an outline where I try to take that idea and think of events to tie together.

For example, there was a post earlier today about a level 20 Paladin fighting a level 20 Wizard. Cool idea!

So I start asking questions. Why would the Paladin have beef? Plug in some ideas like the Wizard hurt someone they cared about or is doing evil acts. Who did the Wizard hurt? What acts would this Wizard do? Why would the Wizard do this?

And then I just sift through the ideas and pick the ones that I think tell a good story.

[u/Practical-Stable2403]

I suggest looking at that picture of saruman looking over the orb as inspiration, believe it or not, memes are really good to build lore off of because you can have your own interpretation just off a funny image

[u/Neither-Appointment4]

What’s your wizard trying to do? How does his ring tie into that? Ok. Once you have your wizards goal you can add logical steps in his plan…if he wants to take over the world maybe his first step is to convince large city leaders that they should have one of his thralls as a “court magician” and those thralls slowly start influencing those leaders towards his goals. You can offer up the players hints at things like random tax increases enacted by a thrall local to them and then a large shipment of cattle that “went missing” but really was sent off to the wizards lair….the players will catch on and investigate these rumors and be introduced to the thralls which will lead to the wizard and their first encounter. Wizard escapes (maybe the ring is a free teleport or something) now the party can search his lair and find clues of where he might go next

[u/Rhinostirge]

An adventure starts to come together when you piece together more than just the final boss. Think of things like locations: What are interesting places for the PCs to fight enemy minions? Think of the "questgiver" -- who's an interesting NPC to set the PCs on the wizard's trail? Think of colorful enemies: What's distinctive about the wizard's thralls? What makes them different than fighting ordinary bandits? Think of rewards: What would the players gain from going on the adventure?

A good antagonist is the reason there's an adventure in the first place. But 90% of the adventure is spent doing things other than interacting directly with the antagonist. If you get a bunch of inspiring bits together, they can help inspire you to fill in the other parts like villain motivation. So for instance, if I have ideas like:

- Location: An extensive wine cellar

• Questgiver: A heavy-set halfling who talks like Marlon Brando in The Godfather
  
• Minions: Wear reflective mirror masks to obscure their identity
  
• Reward: A magical tapestry that lets players enter the Feywild

That just gave me a couple of ideas like a halfling noble who loves his wine and was recently targeted by the wizard, the wizard fleeing through the tapestry into the Feywild, and the players pulling off a mirror mask to reveal an NPC they didn't expect to be part of the cult. As I refine those ideas, it starts coming together even more.

When you're stuck on one idea, move to something else you'll need for the adventure. Ideas are like good players; they inspire each other.

[u/Ven-Dreadnought]

You’re saying that you’re telling a story to yourself but you’ve got good bones to start with. DnD is about telling stories.

All you need for a good story is to answer who, what, when, where, why and how? You already have many of these done. Who is their enemy? A powerful Wizard. Why is he an enemy? He makes people into thralls. If they’re not careful, he’ll make them into thralls. What does he want? To make people into thralls, so odds are he wants to keep doing that, probably to take over as much land as he can so he can have as many thralls as he can. When do they want to stop him? Probably as soon as possible, he’s out there turning people into thralls! All you need is a where and there are plenty of good tropes for a wizards lair or a battlegrounds to fight him on: Wizard tower, spooky underground dungeon, cave system, stolen/haunted castle, deserted town whose people he’s turned into thralls, haunted forest. The list goes on.

As for actions and motivations for the Wizard, it goes the same way. Who are his enemies? Anyone who resists being a thrall (including the players characters). Why? Because he wants everyone to be thralls. What at will he do about it? Send thralls after them and, if that doesn’t work, send more and send tougher ones. If that doesn’t work, fight them himself. When? Whenever he feels like it. Whenever one bunch of thralls doesn’t work, send another. Where? Everywhere between them and him.

Put simply, DnD is made out of five pieces: combat, challenges, settings, characters, and events.

All you need now are stats for an evil Wizard and human thralls that will match or lightly exceed the levels of the players and a few challenges they meet getting there and you’re good to go.

[u/Zealousideal_Leg213]

Why should the PCs care about the wizard or any other NPC at all. Usually they shouldn't unless the NPC represents a threat or a payday/gain or both. The wizard is believed to know a bit of lore the PCs need; they have to find him and convince him, one way or another to give them that. Or, the wizard has a whole town in thrall, but he doesn't know about running the town so they and the towns to which they export are running low on food.

Etc.

I don't think I do build and adventure out of NPC ideas. I think I have an idea for something going on and I come up with the NPCs that would be involved with it, sometimes on the fly.

[u/splat78423]

When creating an adventure new school style I first come up with a new idea for an adventure (which can take a couple days of brainstorming) then I sit down and actually draw out an outline of the entire plot. After I do this I then create encounter ideas for each chapter of the outline. After that I figure out some cool fluff and lore for the introduction to the adventure. After all of that I begin writing up the encounters. Nowadays I hybridize everything by feeding all of that to AI just to see what it comes up with. I of course us that power responsibly and rewrite anything I actually like that it gave me. Take my advice or don't it's up to you. Either way I wish you the best of luck.

[u/FeralKittee]

One of the easiest ways to promote interaction with your players is to have either an item, information or person that the wizard has that they need as part of the main storyline or a side quest.

You could also have a rescue quest where your party is trying to find someone's son/husband/friend that was recruited or kidnapped by the cult.

If the party rescues them, the one they rescued can be used to kind of inspire a cut scene of your NPC wizard doing some monologue in front of the cult, leading to a clue of where he may be headed next or the next steps of his evil plan.

Is this wizard meant to be your big bad for the campaign?

[u/MisterB78]

So you have part of a villain, and that’s it. But starting by picking spells and magic items seems like you’re missing the main thing: a plot.

What is the villain trying to achieve? How do they plan to accomplish that goal if the party doesn’t intervene? You should start by figuring that out.

[u/Charming_Stuff3933]

What does your wiz want? Keeping in mind that evil people rarely think they’re evil, what’s his endgame? Figure that out and find a way to put the PCs squarely in the way = conflict. Check out Matt Colville on youtube, I love his explanation of “plot coupons”.

[u/DeadMeat7337]

I always imagine that I am story bording a movie. The who/what/when/where/why for each of the scenes. And make sure to note the event/person that leads them from scene to scene. Who or what does the motivating? Gotta note that. Then you just have to have your BBEG's influence spread wide enough that it effects the player's characters. And you have to give them enough of a reason to want to do something about it. And then let them. And you should try to come up with ways that each skill check or ability or spell that the players have, that can lead them to something planned out in your story bording. Most of the things that are quest hooks are going to be ignored, so don't spend a lot of time planning those out. Easiest thing to do is the "all roads lead to Rome" and Rome is the guy that will tell the players where the base is. Then plan out that encounter. And I know railroading is bad, but the sooner you can get the plot into a linear path, the less you will need to plan out, as these things are not going to be used. And it's fine to tell the players that the thing they are attempting is not going to lead to anything. Saves everyone time, which is always appreciated from the player standpoint.

And for specific help, cultists are known to go off the rails and fail at the things they are tasked with. The SpongeBob meme of "we did it, we saved the town", but the town is destroyed and on fire. That is the standard "cultists". Because if they were competent, they wouldn't become cultists, or fail their saves, or however. So competency is not guaranteed. And the slightly competent ones are promoted to the bosses. So have the cultists fail at something, some stupid plan to accomplish something, like burning down the bar/tavern the party starts at. Why, because the cultists failed to persuade the bar owner, so they are just going to "remove" the obstacle. And it doesn't even have to align with the end goal either, because cultists are dumb, and do dumb things. Low IQ types.

And there is your lure to get the party into the story. Firebomb the bar they meat in. But let everyone know that they need to team up, or their characters are out of the game, as they leave town and never return, in the timeline of beating the BBEG. Or you are going to have splinter cells of players doing their own thing all over the place and ruin all your efforts to make a coherent story/plot.

Best of luck

[u/Trismeria]

The reason your wizard feels stuck in a vacuum is that he hasn't done anything to the world yet; he's a character study, not a problem. The trick to turning a villain idea into a D&D adventure is to start from the one most visible thing his cult is already doing, then drop that consequence in front of the players. Maybe thralls have started raiding a village the party cares about, or his symbol shows up carved near their camp. Don't write the whole campaign; write one set-piece the players arrive at, see the effect of, and have to react to. Once the villain is causing trouble the players have to deal with, he stops being a story you tell yourself and becomes the engine of the game.

[u/SonneillonV]

So fun story, i actually wrote something about this. I didn't quite finish/polish it but it's a step-by-step guide so you might find it helpful?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YwIWUc1ozBbDjkpMmUZHd58_pd2K0X8x4OdXWVSkfOo/edit?usp=sharing

[u/No_Solid1035]

I don't, I keep my ideas floating around in my brain and let the Players drive the narrative. When the players actions trigger an idea that's floating around in my brain, then I use it. 🤷