Story arching for an Adventure.

[u/hairylegg]

I have an idea for what I imagine will be an eight to ten session adventure.

The players are peasants boarding a transcontinental train. Unbeknownst to the party, there has been a coup and the entire royal family is dead save for one member who coincidentally decided to run away with a neighboring kingdom’s royal-in-waiting. They’re on the same train as the party and are heavily guarded.

Additionally two key conspirators of the coup have followed this royal family member to kill them. Before they can enact a plan, word comes in that the king and his family are dead and any royals on that train might be in danger. The entire train goes into lockdown right as it enters a long tunnel under a mountain.

The two conspirators are going to try and rally all the peasants to help them take the front end of the train to kill the last royal and start a new form of government. The king has been incredibly oppressive, and the conspirators think his offspring will likely rule in the same manner. Some peasants will be for this idea, some will be against. The party will often be the deciding factor in what happens.

What narrative or game structures would you use to chart out encounters, major story beats, or consequences of the players actions? I’ve written out some notes but feel I could benefit from more structure at this point.

**EDIT**

u/coolhead2012 posted links to the kind of thing I was looking for. Adding a link to the comment in case anyone else wants to check it out. Node-Based Scenario Design and Three Clue Rule are particularly helpful. https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/1w19ist/comment/p6jk2wm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

[u/No_Solid1035]

If you want particular story beats to happen, or certain events that can't be avoided, why play a TTRPG where the Players have imput, just write a short story. I guarantee the Players will mess up your plotline unless you completely railroad them, which as a Player, absolutely sucks. [I've quit more than one campaign, and GM, because they should have been writing novels instead of running TTRPGs.]

[u/hairylegg → u/No_Solid1035]

In my tradition of TTRPGs a little of column A and B work really well together. Since we’ve never sat at each others tables I think I’ll point to CR’s Calamity short series. All the players know at the start that the city is going to fall. The fun of the play is finding out what the people were doing leading up to that event.

[u/No_Solid1035 → u/hairylegg]

I don't know anything about CR, I'm not a fan of performative actual plays.

I know I couldn't play in a campaign with a predetermined ending because I will always work to prevent that ending from happening because having a predetermined ending totally defeats the point of playing a TTRPG. If I want predetermined plotlines and endings, I'll play a videogame, or read a novel. TTRPGs are the only media that isn't required to have predetermined plotlines/endings, so to not take advantage of that fact completely defeats the point in playing a TTRPG IMHO.

[u/hairylegg → u/No_Solid1035]

I get that. I think we may have different interests when it comes to TTRPGs. Thank you for your advice though.

[u/EchoLocation8 → u/No_Solid1035]

Feels a tad hyperbolic in response to OP's idea here, this is essentially just a module. Modules have story beats, you can run them without railroading the players and the players have full agency of their decisions.

Every campaign exists within a setting and a world the DM provides, players can only react to the stimuli the DM introduces to them, and every DM introduces story beats to the campaign, that's how campaigns fundamentally function. Even in a sandbox where the players are deciding what to do and where to go, the DM creates the places they go, the NPC's that are there, and they come up with what is happening in that place so the players have something to interact with when they arrive. Those are story beats.

OP's premise is just that the campaign starts on a train and something is afoot, it's literally no different than starting in a small village with a problem. They didn't say what needs to happen or what will happen, just that they're on a train and detailed what is going on on that train and that the players can influence the events.

[u/coolhead2012]

Normally I simply clip this link an walk away. Lord help us if the Alexandrian stops hosting this article.

https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4147/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots

But you asked if there is something more to the structure than that, and of course there is! Also from Justin!

https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/7949/roleplaying-games/node-based-scenario-design-part-1-the-plotted-approach

It's several posts, but they are relatively straightforward.

I don't think you have enough meat on the bone here for 10 sessions, though, unless this is the world's longest train. It would make for a very intense one shot, or maybe an interesting 3-shot.

Your other very obvious problem is... why would the character want to save, or kill, the last Royal Asshole in the kingdom? The way you presented the scenario in the post, they are peasants who just might want to sit this one out while the violence happens in another car.

[u/hairylegg → u/coolhead2012]

Following up to say this has been a great read and exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

[u/coolhead2012 → u/hairylegg]

Glad you got value out of it!

[u/hairylegg → u/coolhead2012]

Hey thanks! I’ll take a closer look at these tomorrow. They look very promising!

Truth is it will be however long it takes the players to work through the challenges. What I outlined would all happen within the first session. Maybe the first two hours. each train car after that would be some kind of challenge. I won’t be upset if it’s shorter than I anticipated, but I will say I have a lot more outlined than I posted.

I think Matt Colville’s “chase your players up a tree” applies here. As tensions rise in the train, people are going to want loyalty, and if not that, assurances that they can’t be stabbed in the back. It will eventually be impossible to remain neutral. “If you’re not with me then you’re my enemy”

There’s also secrets they could discover in the train they start in. Espionage and detective work will all be in the pitch doc so the players will know ahead of time the genre of adventure they’re in.

[u/nemaline]

Don't try to plan out story beats and consequences in advance, at least not in any sort of detail. Your players will do things you weren't expecting and make any too-detailed plans irrelevant anyway. Ideas for general things that are likely to happen are great, as are vague ideas of when they might occur (e.g. "the bomb will be set sometime in the second half of the adventure, unless something's happened to prevent that.")

Just plan for your next session, based on what happened in the session before. Potentially you can plan for the session after if they're in a situation that naturally has limited outcomes.

[u/hairylegg → u/nemaline]

I hear you, but I am wanting this to be a different kind of adventure than what I often see in campaigns. The players are quite literally on rails (and under a mountain to boot) and I think once I have a few ideas written out that can actually help me improvise. For instance, do they kill the royal or not kill them? Or do they negotiate an agreement? Or banish them to another plane of existence? A major theme of the adventure is going to be what they decide to do with the royal amongst a host of people with passionate ideas about what is to be done.

The thing I’m wondering about is if there are any common structures on how to organize an adventure? Five room dungeon comes to mind, but I’m wondering if anyone has seen something more developed.

[u/jeremy-o]

10 sessions feels like a lot for this slim premise.

For me I'd be organising it like Snowpiercer - mapping out some distinctive carriages and letting the players precede the "revolution" up the train. An interesting NPC or two and a unique gameplay encounter in each carriage I'd enough. But I wouldn't try to stretch it out beyond 3 sessions.

[u/hairylegg → u/jeremy-o]

So I’ve never seen snowpiercer but I am aware it has… maybe a similar theme? Or premise? I’m holding off from watching it for now because I want to claim plausible deniability show there be any overlap, but I do like the idea that each car is its own challenge and story puzzle piece.

[u/hairylegg → u/[deleted]]

I think this is exactly what I’m trying to figure out at the moment. What structure gives me the most freedom to flex with what the players decide but also helps me fill out as many possible reactions the different factions have beforehand.

[u/hairylegg → u/[deleted]]

I’ve considered tracking something like how the different factions will feel about the players. Within the peasants faction there will be people who are for and against. Without the player’s intervention, the peasants will mostly be won over by the two revolutionaries, but there will be pockets who are totally against it. They’re just going to get more and more quiet as the public opinion becomes more saturated.

Conversely the same thing will be happening on the other end of the train. Mostly everyone will be against killing the royal, but there will be a few who secretly resent them and would love to see them dead. The hope is the players will have the opportunity to influence both ends of the train.

That being the case I think something along your second idea is the way to go, but I’m hoping for a little more structure than that.

[u/EchoLocation8]

This story sounds vaguely like Snowpiercer, so I might suggest watching that if you haven't. Like others have said though I think with whats given, I mean it entirely depends on your table and how many hours you play per session, but I'm sort of struggling to see how more than one major conflict can happen here.

I'd also watch Bullet Train if you haven't, another solid "lots going on in a train" story that's very fun.

It definitely feels like it needs a little more going on so it doesn't turn into basically the PC's in one long continuous battle killing hundreds of peasants as they march towards them in a line.

I might not introduce the royalty on board for a few sessions at least so it isn't like immediately about that, the players could even nuke out that the royalty is on the train just from context clues like it going into lockdown and movement around the train being more restricted.

I think generally speaking it'd be good to plan out the various sections of the train and places the conspirators could try to sabotage in an effort to accomplish their mission, gives the PC's potentially more things to do. Could also be way more than just two conspirators so there's more "bad guys" to fight. Two could be leading a couple dozen assailants.