Starting to build a homebrew module

[thCRITICAL]

I'm still fairly new to the game, only been playing for about a year and a half in one game meeting semi-regularly on weekends. I have DM'd a short storyline within the (also homebrew) campaign that my DM runs, so I have sooome experience but I definitely have a way to go

Anyway enough of that. I'm expanding my goals and trying to build a module that can be used as a level XX one shot or a full (short campaign) all from notes

The basis of the story is based around the party getting pulled into another plane via a tear in space-time (IE a Rift) by a malevolent demon who controls the rifts within the plane, and the final battle would be against an NPC who has been possessed by said demon (similar to the pfsrd demon possession but not willing)

I have hit a bit of a snag where I haven't been able to add any structure before it becomes too unorganized and I haven't quite figured out how I want to structure it other than having to roll to see what the players are heading towards next (encounter, quest, puzzle, trap, etc)

Any suggestions?

[Brother Fen]

Take a look at the 3.5 module Beyond the Vault of Souls. It involves the PCs searching for various shards across several planes. The story could easily be expanded with more shards across various levels.

[Gark the Goblin]

When I am building homebrew adventures I try to draw from the published adventures I'vre read in the way I lay out the structure. See Brother Fen's post.

But to sum up that structure, I: hAve an idea of what causes the PCS to take interest in the story, I write some background for the adventure (who is the demon, why did they grab just the PCS, is there anyone who's tried to stop them in the past), I figure out the iconic encounters of the adventure (NPCS, battles with monsters, etc - rolling can be fine here to give seeds for encounters), and then I write a summary of how I think the adventure is going to go. After writing the summary, I go back and flesh out the encounters and the background - each encounter should have a reason for being in the world, a story to tell. Also think about who your party might be - vary challenges to match their likely skill sets (a luxury you don't have in a prewritten game)

Hope this helps! It's daunting to start writing your own games but it sounds like you're on the right track.

[thCRITICAL]

Thanks for the ideas, I'll definitely have to see how my ideas mesh with those. Hopefully I can finish it and test it within a reasonable amount of time. It will be nice to have a structure to base it off :)

[Andre Roy]

Encounter tree.

When I build homebrewed adventures, I usually start with an encounter tree with the first and last encounter at he top and bottom of my sheet. Then, I "place" the other encounters I've planned/considered in boxes between these 2 points (they don't need to be linear). Afterward I draw lines between the boxes for the paths that eould interconnected these encounters. Finally I detail the encounters with enough detail to be able to play them, but also adlib part of it too.

This gives me an organization of the module, but keep it flexible enough to skip, revisit or "change the order" of some of them.

[thCRITICAL]

Sorry for the lack of updoots, was waiting until time permitted that I had enough to share. I have a very early version of the first structured part, next I will work on the ending since I have some content for the prepared, but here it is in all of it's basic text glory https://pastebin.com/QhExAdCY

[Warriorking9001]

Sorry if I kinda seem to come in kinda randomly but I wanted to thank Fen for mentioning Vault of Souls because... I kinda had an idea myself for a campaign but had no real idea how to make it work overall, push the plot forward, and have NPCs.. But this works out perfectly.