Adventure Structure

You have the core elements of a great adventure in mind – a hook, a goal, stakes, opposition, locations, NPCs, and opportunities for player choice. Now, how do you arrange these elements into a playable sequence? The Adventure Structure is the framework or organizational pattern you use to connect these components, guiding the flow of gameplay from the initial hook to the final resolution.

Choosing an appropriate structure is vital for managing preparation, pacing the session, ensuring logical progression, and balancing player agency with narrative direction. Different structures lend themselves better to different types of adventures and play styles. Alacrity’s flexible system can accommodate various structures, but understanding their strengths and weaknesses helps you select or adapt the best framework for the story you want to tell.

This section explores common adventure structures, discusses their characteristics, and provides guidance on designing the flow between scenes within your chosen framework, all while keeping player agency and Alacrity’s core principles in mind.

Common Adventure Structures: Frameworks for Story

Think of these structures not as rigid blueprints but as common organizational patterns. Many adventures blend elements from multiple structures.

1. Linear Structure (The “Railroad”)

This is the simplest structure, presenting a predetermined sequence of scenes or encounters that players progress through in a fixed order. Event A leads to Location B, which contains Challenge C, leading to Climax D.

• Characteristics: Fixed sequence, limited deviation from the main path, clear progression towards a defined endpoint.
• Strengths:
  • Easy to Prepare: The GM knows exactly what scenes and encounters are coming next, simplifying preparation.
  • Clear Narrative Arc: Easy to build dramatic tension and ensure key plot points are hit.
  • Controlled Pacing: The GM has significant control over the flow and timing of events.
  • Good for Beginners: Can be less intimidating for new GMs or for running published adventures designed this way.
• Weaknesses:
  • Low Player Agency: Can feel restrictive if players attempt to deviate significantly. Their choices might feel like they don’t truly impact the direction of the story.
  • Risk of “Railroading”: If the GM forces players back onto the path despite their choices, it can break immersion and frustrate players.
  • Less Replayable: The fixed sequence offers little variation on subsequent playthroughs (if applicable).
• Alacrity Fit: While Alacrity emphasizes agency, a linear structure can work, especially for introductory adventures or specific, time-sensitive scenarios. However, the GM should leverage Alacrity’s flexibility within scenes. Even if the sequence of locations is fixed, allow players to use diverse skills (Stealth, Persuasion, Magic, Thievery) to overcome the challenges at each location in creative ways. Avoid invalidating clever solutions just because they bypass a planned encounter within the linear sequence.

2. Branching Path Structure

This structure presents players with choices at key decision points, leading them down different paths or sequences of events toward the ultimate goal. Path A might lead to Location X and Challenge Y, while Path B leads to Location Z and Challenge W, both eventually converging back towards the climax or offering different routes to it.

• Characteristics: Multiple paths, key decision points, player choices determine the sequence of some scenes/challenges.
• Strengths:
  • Increased Player Agency: Offers more meaningful choices than a purely linear structure. Players feel their decisions impact the journey.
  • Replayability: Different choices can lead to different experiences.
  • Varied Challenges: Allows the GM to design different types of encounters tailored to different paths (e.g., a stealthy route vs. a combat-heavy route).
• Weaknesses:
  • More Prep Required: The GM needs to prepare content for multiple potential branches, some of which might not be explored by the players in a given playthrough.
  • Potential Bottlenecks: Requires careful design to ensure all paths eventually lead towards the goal or provide necessary information, and that players don’t get permanently stuck on a dead-end branch.
  • Illusion of Choice: If not handled well, the branches might feel superficial, all leading to the exact same outcome regardless of the path taken.
• Alacrity Fit: Works well. Player choices at branching points can be resolved through skill checks (Navigation to choose a path, Persuasion to convince an NPC to reveal a route, Investigation to find a hidden trail), dialogue, or simple declaration. The GM needs to be ready to run the content associated with the chosen branch.

3. Site-Based Structure (Location Crawl)

This structure focuses on a specific, self-contained location filled with interconnected rooms, areas, encounters, and points of interest. Classic examples include dungeons, haunted castles, ruined cities, large space stations, or even dense wilderness areas like a specific swamp or forest mapped in detail. Players are free to explore the location in any order they choose, dealing with challenges and making discoveries as they go.

• Characteristics: Non-linear exploration within a defined area, focus on environment interaction, player-driven pacing, often uses detailed site maps.
• Strengths:
  • Very High Player Agency (within the site): Players have complete freedom to decide where to go, what to interact with, and which challenges to tackle next.
  • Rewards Exploration: Encourages careful observation (Perception), mapping, investigation (Investigation, Lore), and dealing with environmental puzzles and traps (Thievery, Athletics).
  • Immersive Environment: Allows for deep detail and atmosphere within the chosen location.
  • Easy to Prepare Incrementally: The GM designs the location and its contents; the players determine the sequence of exploration.
• Weaknesses:
  • Can Lack Narrative Drive: Without clear goals or external pressures linked to the location, exploration can become aimless wandering. Needs strong hooks and objectives tied to the site.
  • Potential for Imbalance: Players might stumble into areas far too dangerous for them early on, or miss crucial clues if they explore randomly.
  • Requires Robust Location Design: Needs enough interesting content (encounters, treasures, secrets, environmental details) to sustain player interest throughout the exploration.
• Alacrity Fit: Excellent fit, particularly for dungeon crawls or ruin exploration. Alacrity’s wide range of skills (Athletics, Acrobatics, Stealth, Thievery, Perception, Investigation, Lore, Survival, Magic Effects for utility) provides numerous ways for players to interact with and overcome the challenges within a site-based adventure.

4. Event-Based Structure (Timeline / Scenario)

This structure is organized around a timeline of events that will occur regardless of the players’ specific location, unless they actively intervene. The focus is on reacting to unfolding situations and trying to influence outcomes before certain deadlines pass.

• Characteristics: Time-sensitive, driven by external events, players often react rather than initiate, emphasis on deadlines and consequences of inaction.
• Examples: A city under siege where specific walls will be breached at certain times unless reinforced; a ritual being performed by cultists that reaches key stages over several hours/days; a plague spreading through a region with worsening effects over time; a political coup unfolding with key assassinations or power grabs scheduled.
• Strengths:
  • Creates Urgency and Tension: Time limits force decisive action and create high stakes.
  • Dynamic World Feel: The world feels alive and events progress even if the players are elsewhere.
  • Promotes Proactive Play (potentially): Players might try to anticipate events and intervene before they happen.
• Weaknesses:
  • Can Feel Restrictive: Players might feel like they are constantly reacting and have less control over the narrative direction.
  • Difficult to Pace: Managing the timeline and ensuring players have enough information and opportunity to act before key events occur can be challenging for the GM.
  • Risk of Failure: If players fail to intervene effectively, the predetermined negative outcomes occur, which can sometimes feel unsatisfying if they had no real chance.
• Alacrity Fit: Can work well, especially for dramatic scenarios. The GM needs to clearly communicate the timeline or the signs of impending events. Alacrity’s action economy and skill system allow players to attempt rapid interventions, but the GM must be fair in adjudicating whether their actions are sufficient to alter the scheduled event based on the time available and the success of their rolls.

5. Goal-Oriented Structure (Pointcrawl / Node-Based Design)

This structure defines the key components needed to achieve the adventure’s goal – specific locations to visit, NPCs to contact, clues to find, or objects to acquire – but leaves the order and method of interacting with these “nodes” largely up to the players. The GM knows what needs to happen (e.g., find the map, talk to the hermit, retrieve the key, enter the tomb), but not necessarily how or in what sequence the players will accomplish this.

• Characteristics: Clear overall goal, multiple key components (nodes), non-linear path between nodes, player choice dictates sequence and method. Often visualized as nodes connected by potential travel routes or investigation paths.
• Strengths:
  • High Player Agency: Players decide which lead to follow next, how to travel between locations, and how to approach each node (combat, stealth, social interaction).
  • Clear Objective: Provides direction without dictating the exact path.
  • Flexible Preparation: The GM prepares the individual nodes (locations, NPCs, clues) but doesn’t need to script every possible transition between them. Allows for easier improvisation.
  • Good for Investigations and Quests: Works well for adventures involving gathering information, finding multiple objects, or visiting several key locations before a climax.
• Weaknesses:
  • Requires GM Improvisation: The GM needs to be comfortable improvising the transitions between nodes and reacting to the players’ chosen methods.
  • Potential for Missing Clues: Needs careful design to ensure players can find paths to essential nodes, possibly through multiple avenues (redundant clues).
  • Can Feel Disconnected: If the nodes aren’t thematically linked or don’t contribute clearly to the overarching goal, the structure can feel fragmented.
• Alacrity Fit: Very well suited. This structure leverages player agency and diverse skill use. Travel between nodes uses Navigation and Survival. Interacting with nodes uses Investigation, Lore, social skills, Stealth, Thievery, or Combat as appropriate. The GM uses the Difficulty Ladder and contested rolls to adjudicate the success of the players’ chosen approaches at each node.

Blending Structures

Often, the best approach is to combine structures. A regional campaign might use a Pointcrawl structure for travel between major locations, but zoom into a Site-Based structure when the party explores a specific dungeon, and incorporate Event-Based elements (like a progressing war or plague) happening in the background or Triggered Events based on player actions. A primarily Linear adventure might include a Branching Path section offering a choice of routes through a dangerous forest. Be flexible and choose the structure(s) that best serve the specific needs of each part of your adventure.

Designing the Flow: Connecting the Scenes

Regardless of the overarching structure, you need to consider how the adventure flows from one scene or challenge to the next.

• Pacing: Vary the intensity and type of activity. Follow a tense combat encounter with a period of investigation or social interaction. Allow for moments of rest and recovery after significant challenges. Build towards climactic moments, but provide lulls to allow players (and the GM) to catch their breath. A constant barrage of high-stakes combat can be exhausting; endless investigation without progress can be frustrating.
• Information Flow (The Three Clue Rule): Ensure that players have opportunities to gain the information necessary to progress. A common guideline is the “Three Clue Rule”: for any critical piece of information the players must have to move forward, place at least three distinct clues pointing towards it, accessible through different methods (e.g., finding a note via Investigation, overhearing a conversation via Perception or Stealth, convincing an NPC via Persuasion). This makes it much less likely that the adventure grinds to a halt because the players missed a single vital piece of information.
• Logical Transitions: Make the movement between scenes or locations feel natural within the narrative.
  • Travel: Use overland or local travel rules when appropriate.
  • Investigation: Clues found in one location should logically point towards the next.
  • NPC Direction: NPCs might provide directions, quests, or warnings that lead the party onward.
  • Faction Actions: The actions of allies or enemies might force the party to move to a new location or react to a new situation.
  • Consequences: The outcome of one encounter might directly lead to the next (e.g., capturing a prisoner leads to an interrogation scene; setting off an alarm leads to guards arriving).

Flexibility and Adaptation: The GM’s Role

No adventure structure should be a rigid prison. The GM’s most important role is to adapt the planned structure to the reality of play.

• Listen to Player Choices: If players latch onto a minor detail or NPC you hadn’t planned much for, be willing to develop it if it seems interesting. If they come up with a brilliant plan that bypasses a planned encounter, reward their ingenuity rather than forcing the encounter anyway.
• Improvise Within the Framework: Use the structure as a guide, not a script. Be prepared to improvise NPC reactions, environmental details, or minor encounters based on where the players go and what they do, especially in less linear structures like site-based or pointcrawl adventures. Alacrity’s reliance on skill checks and GM judgment facilitates this.
• Adjust Difficulty on the Fly: If an encounter proves much harder or easier than anticipated, subtly adjust enemy tactics, environmental factors, or even NPC capabilities (within reason) to maintain an appropriate level of challenge. Use the Difficulty Ladder dynamically.
• Combine and Modify: Feel free to take a published adventure structure and modify it, blending elements or changing sequences to better suit your group or campaign.

The structure is a tool to help you organize the adventure; it should serve the story and the fun at the table, not constrain them.

Choosing the Right Structure

Consider these factors when selecting a structure for your adventure:

• Adventure Goal: A dungeon exploration naturally fits a site-based structure. An investigation often suits a pointcrawl or branching path. A desperate defense might be event-based.
• Desired Player Agency: How much freedom do you want players to have in determining the path? Sandboxes and pointcrawls offer more; linear structures offer less.
• Campaign Style: Does the structure align with the overall campaign style (sandbox, plot-driven, character-driven)?
• GM Prep Time & Style: Linear adventures are often quickest to prep precisely. Sandboxes require significant upfront location/faction design. Pointcrawls require node design but less connective tissue. Event-based structures require careful timeline management. Choose a structure that fits your available prep time and comfort level with improvisation.
• Player Preferences: What kind of structures does your group seem to enjoy most based on past experiences?

Conclusion: Building the Narrative Path

Adventure structure provides the narrative path that connects the hook to the resolution. By choosing an appropriate framework – whether linear, branching, site-based, event-based, goal-oriented, or a hybrid – you create a coherent flow for your adventure. Designing effective transitions, managing pacing, ensuring information flows to the players, and crucially, remaining flexible to adapt to player choices are key to making any structure work well. Use structure as a powerful tool to organize your ideas and guide gameplay, but always prioritize creating an engaging, interactive, and memorable experience within the dynamic world of your Alacrity campaign.

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File Created: 05/07/2025
Last Modified: 05/07/2025