Step 1 for Writing Super Hero Adventures

Step 1 for Writing Super Hero Adventures

I’ve played a lot of games in my years with the tabletop RPG hobby. I’ve Called Cthulhu, fought a Dungeon in a Dragon, and sailed the 7th Sea as a pirate. I’ve traveled to Worlds most Savage and even told a Tale around the Loop a time or two. With all of those games and all of those characters I have never had as much fun as when I sit down and strap on my imaginary spandex to take on the role of a super hero. I love being able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, taking down melodramatic supervillains, and grappling with obstacles that would shake the heart of even the most stalwart paladin.

That being said, being the Game Master in this genre is definitely a challenge, and can seem overwhelming if you’re coming from a game genre that is more interested in telling players what they can’t do, rather than can. In the following piece I will provide some advice that will help you in the first part of designing a super hero adventure. This is the first in a series of articles covering super hero adventures, from design to execution.

1. Purpose: The first question I ask myself before I sit down to brainstorm my ideas is, “What is the purpose of this session?” Is this a convention one-shot? Is it a demo of the RPG you designed? Is this episode one of a new campaign? Is it episode 323 of an ongoing campaign? Narrowing down the reason for the game you’re writing is crucial before you start thinking up ideas about it. If a game is only going to last 4 hours for strangers at Gen Con, your needs are going to be different than running for your friends at home. This will help you come up with ideas that are either self-contained or can lead to an ongoing story. If you only have one session, you don’t want to come up with such an elaborate plot that the heroes can’t realistically investigate and solve in one go. Likewise if you’re running an overarching campaign, you don’t want every story thread to be wrapped up at the end of the game. This is also generally where I ask myself if this is going to be a custom story (ala my Titan City Chronicles series) or a licensed game (like our Justice League Dark Gen Con stream from last year.)
2. Brainstorming/Synopsis: Once you’ve sussed out your purpose for the scenario, it’s time to start brainstorming so you can come up with a one-two sentence synopsis about the story. That synopsis is critical because it will trim all of the excess off your idea and focus it onto the meat of the story. This phase looks similar for me if I’m running a custom game versus a licensed one.

   I’ll begin by going over my world-building notes (or a DC/Marvel wiki about the characters I want to showcase) or my campaign notes to see if there is anything that jumps out at me that I simply HAVE to tell a story about. This can be a location, a character, an object, a situation, anything that jumps out at my lizard brain and says tell my story. Once I have this picked out, I’ll go to a journal or open a Word document and write down that thing or person, then I’ll do a stream of consciousness exercise. I’ll write whatever comes to mind as I’m mulling over that concept. I’ll do this, uninterrupted for five-ten minutes and then step back to review it once the time is up. Using the words I’ve vomited all over the page, I’ll begin constructing my synopsis. For example, I’m running a Sinister Six scenario at Origins this year. After my brainstorming led me to, “Wouldn’t it be neat to fight Symbiote Spider-Man,” I came up with the following synopsis: “The Sinister Six are all that stand between New York and an army of ravenous symbiotes.”

   It’s short, it’s sweet, and it tells me everything I need to know and research to begin laying the foundations of my adventure. Armed with the synopsis I can move on to my next step.

3. Research: So now that we have our idea, we can really dig into it. This is where I will deep dive into the resources I mentioned above. Looking through back issues of Sinister Six and the Marvel wiki in this instance. This information forms the backbone of my design decisions. If an event I want to cover in a game has already happened in canon, I’ll look through it in depth to make sure I know what has come before and how I can put my own spin on it. If it’s a one-shot I’ll look through the roster of various hero (or villain) teams and start selecting who the pregen characters will be, or I’ll decide to allow people to bring their own characters at this stage.

   If I’m designing a campaign scenario, I’ll consult my campaign journal to see which plots or subplots I haven’t touched on in a while and try to find a way to forge a connection between the last story arc and the next one. I like to do my supers game in arcs of 3-6 adventures, so I’ll begin brainstorming this next connection around the halfway point of the current arc, so I can make sure we have a driving point and ensure that we have an organic hand off from story to story.

4. Characters: The next step is to finalize the PCs who are going to be going through your super caper. If you’re designing an adventure for your ongoing campaign, this step is super simple. You’re going to keep using the characters who have been in the story so far, unless someone is switching characters or replacing a lost hero. In that case take this step to brainstorm how those new characters are joining the team. Extra points if their introduction is tied to the story arc or event that is coming up in the next session!

   If I am bringing pre-gens I’ll also decide if I want to go narrow or wide with character options. Some scenarios I’ll bring 80+ pre-gens so players have the chance to play that one super hero they’ve always wanted to. Other times I’ll narrow it 6 and ensure that each of those characters has a specific spot to shine in the encounters I’m preparing. If you bring a ton of pre-gens, it is important to make sure your scenario (or your GMing style) is flexible enough to allow creative problem solving. For example, if you’re running a DC game and the party is Superman, Supergirl, Superboy, Krypto the Superdog, and Mon-El they’re going to approach the game a lot differently than if everyone picks a member of the Bat Family. I’ll go over how to design adventures to accommodate a wide variety of abilities in the following article.

So now we have a purpose, we’ve brainstormed, we’ve done our research, and we’ve selected our PCs. Now it’s time to begin designing the actual adventure itself. I will cover how to go through this design in another post next week or the one after! For now, start gathering those ideas and brainstorming new nefarious ways to challenge your heroes. Thank you for reading and may all your hits be crits.