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In another thread, some of us started talking about the monomyth / hero’s journey, an archetype which plots out some common themes in world mythology, and how a similar template for rpg APs would be interesting and useful. From a literary perspective, what tropes and themes do good/popular APs have in common? Is there a single ‘Adventurers’ Journey’ – or a handful of such archetypes – which describe the majority of APs?
I.e., “A ragtag gang of zeroes run into an evil which threatens their one-horse town…And finally, the gang of zeroes-turned-heroes tracks down the BBEG behind all of the lesser evils they’ve confronted, and match themselves against him/her in one climactic confrontation.” (What is hidden within that ellipsis?)
From a personal perspective, I suck at writing adventures. Whether I start with a BBEG or with some small-scale dilemma of unknown cause, I quickly lose focus for lack of structure. I’d love to have some sort of structured guidelines from which to write – not necessarily anything of Paizo’s caliber – but something that plays well enough and can be tinkered with as desired.
So when we compare the APs that we’ve read and played, what common structures emerge? I personally have very little experience with APs, so my contribution to this discussion is going to be mostly questions. I’m keeping it general here, but given this is the Paizo forum I naturally expect a lot of focus on Paizo APs.
NOTE: Naturally every commonality will have exceptions, and sometimes an exception will make a particular AP stand out in a good way – but if a majority of APs share a broad identifiable theme, that theme is considered part of an Adventurer’s Journey.
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I would definitely say that there's an increase in scale beginning with the hook each AP links in its character traits, and these will often tie into the larger looming threat.
For example, Iron Gods:
Crimson Throne, by contrast
So I suppose one of the first things to consider might be how long-lasting you want the initial hook to be. Will it connect them to the overarching threat immediately, or will it be a one-off quickly replaced by the real plot? Is it connected to your BBEG's grand plan, or is it an isolated incident that merely sets the tone and the stakes?
.4later!
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Elaborating on this a little further...
By and large, the APs center on a unified theme. Council of Thieves and Crimson Throne are both urban-focused in a country leaning strongly LE, so there are problems centering around that setting and ultimately leading the party deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole toward crossing paths with the BBEG.
CoT
CotCT
All of these things are neatly tied in with the established setting, and it is reinforced by encouraging PCs to be locals who care about their home. This hook would not work so well for a more adventurous AP where they are expected to trek around the world in search of a monster.
Contrast to Kingmaker, which begins very much as an open sandbox with little influence from prior civilization, but there are still encounters present as the plot progresses that also tie into the BBEG of that campaign.
However, a glance through the KM forum will show that there are two types of DMs: those who play up the fey hooks in the above spoiler as well as the NPCs such as Perlivash, and those who downplay them to focus on the other primary theme of the AP: international political intrigue.
So, find the theme/s the AP is built around or that you want to build it around. Some chapters focus more heavily on it/them than do others, and this could be done to ease the party in and let them get used to these sort of threats before the stakes start getting truly high.
What kind of steps can you break your BBEG's ultimate goal into? The key points could serve as plot seeds to hint at in earlier chapters. Or give to henchmen sub-bosses. Does your BBEG have a rival who also wants to kill the party and could monologue at them before being magic missile'd to the face? For the chapters that tie in less strongly, how can you make sure your party doesn't sidetrack from the overall plot? What seemingly unrelated errands can your BBEG's henchmen run that remind the party that there's still a gloating overlord of some fashion waiting down the line?
And that's another thing - a lot of APs tend to have That One Chapter that just feels...off. When I was playerside in Kingmaker, it was The Varnhold Vanishing.
But the core plot seed of that chapter, which is likely fairly intuitive from the title, still connected to the international politics theme of the AP, if not the BBEG of the campaign as a whole.
Fascinating.
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On the subject of Kingmaker, as mentioned by Scint:
Kingmaker suffers from an issue that ultimately many of the other APs - especially the more critically-acclaimed ones - don't: the information that connects the villain to the rest of the plot either never makes it to the PCs or only does so vaguely or at a point very late in the plotline.
There are multiple threads on the KM forum that basically point out that if the GM makes no effort to introduce this information earlier in a way that the AP itself does not blatantly tell them to do, it is very easy to reach book 5, have the (literal) exposition fairy do her information dump, and the players respond with "Who?"
Most of the other APs do not have this issue. A couple of examples:
By contrast, the APs that share this issue with KM tend to be regarded as the weaker ones: Second Darkness, Legacy of Fire, Council of Thieves, as a few examples. All three of these lack the clear connection to their villain provided early in the plotline and in a method that ensures the PCs will be able to acquire the information without the GM adding extra exposition not already provided by the text. SD and CoT are especially infamous for constantly seeming to shift the goalposts, changing what the PCs are doing and the expectations and desires of them and their allies almost from book to book.
Obviously a GM can alter this (and many other things) to provide the information to the PCs in a way that better threads the plot together and keeps information and activity flowing, but I believe it's best to assume we're speaking "as-written" here.
I would definitely say that there's an increase in scale beginning with the hook each AP links in its character traits, and these will often tie into the larger looming threat.
For example, Iron Gods:
** spoiler omitted **Crimson Throne, by contrast
** spoiler omitted **So I suppose one of the first things to consider might be how long-lasting you want the initial hook to be. Will it connect them to the overarching threat immediately, or will it be a one-off quickly replaced by the real plot? Is it connected to your BBEG's grand plan, or is it an isolated incident that merely sets the tone and the stakes?
Okay, so the Adventurers' Journey begins with one or more in-character hooks which provide personal reasons for the characters to begin their Journey. (As opposed to the OOC reason "Because we're playing this AP.") This hook may be temporary or long-lasting.
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Essentially. If you want to keep PCs interested, there has to be something to make them want to keep on keeping on, and this focuses more on roleplay-heavy groups whose characters might have backstories that would otherwise prevent them from continuing. I actually had this come up in my Crimson Throne game the other day.
The rest of the party convinced her to keep going with them to find the source, but the concern has been raised. Given that CotCT has short-term hooks with the intent of defending Korvosa from Ileosa as the overarching hook, that initial trait has the potential to be insufficient to retain a PC for the long haul.
The goal of that first chapter is to ensure that your party is committed to continuing with the quest. It can do this with traits, memorable recurring NPCs, and investigative plots. Different APs will choose different approaches, but these need to be balanced to account for wildcards.
Jade Regent, for example...
Elaborating on this a little further...
By and large, the APs center on a unified theme. Council of Thieves and Crimson Throne are both urban-focused in a country leaning strongly LE, so there are problems centering around that setting and ultimately leading the party deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole toward crossing paths with the BBEG.
Okay, so the Adventurers' Journey follows a strong setting theme. Sometimes that theme is simply 'pseudo-medieval D&D fantasyland,' but is it fair to say that most Paizo APs add a twist or a focus to this theme to make them memorable? International politics, resistance against LE authority, pirates, a looming giant-kind threat to civilization, etc..
Further, the Journey's BBEG plays into its setting theme and most chapters and villains follow its setting theme. Chapters and villains who don't directly tie into the Journey's theme tend to cause dissonance to the players, and may distract them from the plot.
From a writing standpoint, the BBEG's scheme should be split up into multiple stages, which then translate into chapters of the AP. More thoughts on this point later...
An Aside: It might be fun to bring the original AP into this discussion -- the Dragonlance Chronicles. This is just an idle thought though, as reading the novels as an adult makes me wince, and I'm not motivated enough to go looking for the probably out-of-print module.
On the subject of Kingmaker, as mentioned by Scint:
Kingmaker suffers from an issue that ultimately many of the other APs - especially the more critically-acclaimed ones - don't: the information that connects the villain to the rest of the plot either never makes it to the PCs or only does so vaguely or at a point very late in the plotline.
There are multiple threads on the KM forum that basically point out that if the GM makes no effort to introduce this information earlier in a way that the AP itself does not blatantly tell them to do, it is very easy to reach book 5, have the (literal) exposition fairy do her information dump, and the players respond with "Who?"
Essentially. If you want to keep PCs interested, there has to be something to make them want to keep on keeping on, and this focuses more on roleplay-heavy groups whose characters might have backstories that would otherwise prevent them from continuing. I actually had this come up in my Crimson Throne game the other day.
So making clear the BBEG's connection to each and every chapter is very important to maintaining a sense of continuity and purpose, and to avoid potential casualties to "What's my motivation...?" ;)
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Yep! But you want to make sure it's not completely samey for every chapter. A lather, rinse, repeat adventure can lose people, too.
So despite the relatively straightforward "I make someone else do this for me" setup, it feels very different to the party as they encounter and foil each.
Apologies if I've missed details; I'm going from player memory in a heavily modified version of KM. I could be off as a result.
But yes. Know your BBEG's ultimate goal and find a variety of things they need to have in progress for it to happen/be about to happen when those meddling kids and their dog get there. Even if it's not obvious the BBEG is behind everything right away, there should be some sense of connection and continuity.
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the simple dungeon crawl follows the archetype, although grossly simplified. Simply put, the hero hears the call (there's treasure in them thar hills), probably faces some threshold guardian (random encounters before reaching the dungeon), enters into the underworld (dungeon), faces challenges (encounters), faces a great challenge (boss encounter), and receives a great boon (sweet loot!) to return with and serve their homeland (fight bigger and badder monsters).
From a writing standpoint, the BBEG's scheme should be split up into multiple stages, which then translate into chapters of the AP. More thoughts on this point later...
Let’s talk more about this, because expanding “A BBEG has a plan to do a big bad evil thing” into 20 levels worth of sub-plots and encounters is possibly the most difficult part of adventure- and AP-writing. What happens between the adventurers getting wind of some BBEG and them arriving at his doorstep to bring him and his evil plans crashing down?
Are there common themes among the various APs?