10 Ways to Find Adventure Ideas

We’ve all been there–the PCs finished the last session of a grand adventure and we’ve spent most of the last week trying (and failing) to come up with a new adventure. In my new book detailing how to write adventures*, I cover a few ways to develop adventure ideas, such as using an idea map, rummaging through your PCs’ background, and listening in on player conversations. But those certainly aren’t the only ways a GM can develop an adventure idea. Below are 10 more ways to get your creativity flowing:

1. The Internet. There are a number of sites offering adventure seeds and ideas, one of my favorites being “The 36 Plots” (http://www.rpglibrary.org/articles/storytelling/36plots.php). Just do a search on “adventure plots” or “rpg adventures”.  Of course, we also have our own fledgling category of Adventures to Steal here at the Shack.

2. Your players. Ask your players to write down five (or two or ten–however many you want) adventure ideas they’d like to play.

3. Other GMs. If you’ve got other GMs in the area or can meet on-line, run a brainstorming session for adventure ideas. Sure, everyone’s going to come out of it with the same list of ideas, but each of you will use those ideas differently. It can be fun to get together again at a later date and share what you did with the ideas. That could generate even more ideas…

4. Games you’ve played. If there was an adventure you particularly enjoyed (such as at a convention), don’t be afraid to steal the basic plot and even event details and adapt them to your own group. As long as you’re doing this for you and your group’s own enjoyment (and not intending to publish it), you can steal as much of the idea as you want. And truthfully, by the time your players get done with the adventure, it’s going to be very different from the version you played in anyway. It’s polite, though, to give credit to the GM you got the idea from.

I run the BEST games while in this suit.

5. Movies.Take the plot of any movie, move it to a different genre, file off the identifying information (NPC names, locations, etc.), make any necessary changes to make it fit your game setting, and use that as the basis for your adventure.

6. Wing it. Give your PCs a specific goal, then let them figure out how the go about doing it. This works better for a short, light-hearted, one-session adventure (perhaps as a break from your regular fare) than for a multi-session serious crucial-to-the-campaign adventure. I’ve done this several times and both I and my players had a blast with it. You do have to be ready to improvise details and results on the fly.

7. A map. Take a map from any other adventure or from a set of generic maps, then apply the 6 W’s to it: who made that location, what it was used for originally, when it was built, where it’s located, why it’s there in the first place (and why it’s still there for the PCs to explore now), and how it’s being used right now. Don’t take information about the map from its original source–just the map itself.

8. Printed modules/scenarios. Take two different published adventures (preferably from a different game system and/or genre than your current game).  Combine them and modify them as necessary to fit your game.

9. Adventures you’ve already run. Take an adventure you’ve run before, then list all of the results of the PCs’ actions. Then find a reason for those results to make life difficult for the PCs.

10. Opposites. Take an adventure or idea (yours or someone else’s) and turn it on its ear. Then  figure out why those opposites would happen. Finally, run this new idea through the 6 W’s (see #7, above). Example of opposites: instead of killing a dragon, the PCs are hired to protect it; good-aligned PCs have to rob a bank.

Of course, there are even more ways than I’ve listed here. I’d love to hear any methods you use to generate adventure ideas.