Role-playing games, at their heart, are all about adventure! But are the stories you’re telling and sessions you’re building really creating “an adventure” your players will enjoy? How do you build focused, engaging, self-contained quests that span 3-6 sessions (roughly) with a tight theme, clear goals, fun ways to achieve them, and satisfying rewards at the end?

In this episode of 3 Wise DMs, Thorin, Tony and Dave talk about how they build adventures — and sometimes fail to — to keep players happy and the DMs in business.

1:00 What makes an adventure? Thinking in terms of movies, series and books.

10:00 Working adventures into your world and long-arc story

13:00 What makes a great adventure?

18:00 Are we focused so much on campaigns that we’re forgetting to run adventures?

22:00 Theme and plots: How do you put an adventure together?

27:00 Getting players to take the hook … and to see it clearly

32:00 Tricks and ideas to make sure the players know what they need to do

38:00 Does your treasure suck? How we give it out.

45:00 How do you make sure the adventure is engaging and fun?

48:00 Organic dungeon building: Motives maketh the monsters

54:00 Manipulating the story so the PCs stay motivated and can’t just walk away

63:00 What makes a good goal/villain to drive your adventure?

69:00 Do we put enough thought into what makes a good adventure vs. the session or the long-arc story?

73:00 Final Thoughts: Hook the party, clarify what they need to do, and focus them on doing it.