Friday, July 20, 2018

Discussion: Which Comes First, the Monster or the Adventure?

When making your own adventure, what comes first the monster or the adventure? By this I mean, do you look to the lore behind the monster - or other opposition - and get inspired by that for how to use it in a story? Or do you make a story and then look for the opposition or monster to fit into that?

For the longest time I've been the latter.  I've made my stories, and then found the things that fit into it. With L5R and knowing the world this was easy to work, because all the clans have their villains so it was just a matter of figuring out which clan having a villain that did that made for the best kind of story.

However, as I've been getting back into D&D I've found myself doing the former more and more. There is a lot of cool information about most of the races to be found in the Monster Manual, and a lot of work has been poured into 'common' monster races - Orcs, Kobolds, Hobgoblins, Gnolls, etc - to make them more interesting. I find it easy to read about the race and let the information present ways that they could run across a party of adventurers for good or ill.

I don't want to say I'm converting. I think familiarity and just the variety in the two worlds is a big part of things. Still, it is interesting having stories form from the other direction. Hopefully the stories will play out to at least equal amounts of entertainment.

But how about you? Which do you choose first? The villain or the plot?

1 comment:

  1. I do both, but it depends on the core focus of the plot.

    If the core of the plot is the villain, or monster, I start with that and work out from there. What is the goal of the adversary, what are their plans, what will they do, what can they do, what will they accomplish if not stopped.

    If the core of the plot is what the players are doing I will work through to what they are facing to do so, and build around what the PCs goal is in opposition to.

    I like ending up with the villain because it means the PCs are being more proactive, but sometimes, the PCs are reacting, and that can be very fun. I've even run whole games around that core tenet of a single adversary or group with plans.