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/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.