Novice Game Master looking for advice

[RobJN]

"After that, it's just a matter of coming up with the adversary's plan, how that presents itself as adventure hooks (how the PCs get involved), as the plan unfolds in the background and those adventure seeds get dropped, how the PCs can pick at those threads, and then map out where those go as they unravel."

Well, I was kinda hoping you could rephrase that part. I not sure I understand how all the ideas those words bring to my mind fit toghether. Kinda of like when you look at 3d illusion art the wrong way, but then when you change the angle of the picture it just hits you. "oh hey there it is!"

Most adventures, like stories, arise from conflict: The offbeat cult of frog lovers in the swamps have suddenly become a cohesive, tangible threat to the fledgling Kingdom, and must be dealt with before their evil spreads any further. The Afridhi have gained the means of creating an artifact that could ensure their victory in the war with the North, and it must be destroyed at all costs.

Driven either by a main villain or, in some cases, circumstance, the plan or disaster will unfold if nobody acts to stop it.

Enter the PCs. The villain may or may not be aware of their involvement, but certainly, after a few of the cogs in his Nefarious Plan™ slip, the PCs are sure to draw his attention. Thus, the villain can go from a big picture behind-the-scenes mover-and-shaker to direct antagonist. This could happen over the course of a single adventure, or span several strung together one after the other, depending on how you run your campaign.

In other cases, the adventure may be solely about exploring a strange location, where the set-pieces themselves are the adversary. The wreckage of a city that fell from the sky, and its (surviving) inhabitants, for instance. Not necessarily bad guys, just obstacles to the PCs' exploratory efforts. Do the PCs mercilessly kill these interlopers? Do they seek parley with them, or seek to aid them? That is up to the players. ("I bet we could fetch a pretty penny for those pretty glowing crystals all tangled up in those pipes!.... Why is that siren going off, and why are the lights all red all of a sudden??")

I'm not sure how all these fit toghether, especially with what the original example was. I think I'm just looking at it the wrong way again. Oh! And also apoligize that I'm not sure how to make that grey quotation box appear. :oops:

Steps along the path to adventure: what begins as the PCs intervening to save a celebrity spirals deeper into the mystery of her origins, which are tied to the demonic influences that have found their way into the heart of the Empire. But the adventure didn't just start with one of the Ministers of Defense running into the PCs in a bar and saying "Hey, we think elements of the Regency Council are working with our enemies and by the way would you please root them out and stop them, if possible?" Because, then, you know, the PCs would likely want some kind of reward, and why should the Crown pay both sides of the conflict?

The "gray box" is the result of using the "quote" button, and then breaking it up with the tags to close and re-open a PhPbb board quote. {quote="E_A_Poe"}Quoth the Raven...{/quote} (replace curly brackets with regular ones [] ) (You'll see the quote-coding as you compose your message, too, so you don't need to memorize any of that)