As an aside, I attended GenCon last month and did ask around for good RPGs for duet roleplaying; two mentioned were Mars Colony and Murderous Ghosts which I'll review in some fashion in the next few months after getting a chance to read them over and run a game or two. However, this month we are going to try to wrap up adventures.

Quests, Mysteries, and Interactions

Duet adventures come in three flavors: seeking (quests), solving (mysteries), and sorting (interactions). Good duet adventures have a little of all three but it's useful to understand the basic formulas for adventures.

Quests

Quests are the default for roleplaying; the hero sets off to find a treasure, rescue a princess, or slay the monster. The structure of these adventures is pretty straightforward: hook, journey, big fight, treasure. Sure, things can get complicated but the simplicity of quests is why they're so popular with both narrators and players. The challenge with quests is pacing and balancing the player's investment with the final reward.

Mysteries

Mysteries are a pain. If the narrator and player can pull off a good mystery adventure with the PC solving the question that drives the plot then you've accomplished something. The problem is that usually the mystery will be botched, go off course, or simply fail in some way. The trick with mysteries is that they require both good planning and execution.

Interactions

Interactions are far more common to duet than group campaigns; these are adventures when it's all about roleplaying and interacting with NPCs. The PC might spend a whole adventure sorting out matters at her castle, dealing with problems with her congregation, or supervising repairs to her starship. With group campaigns, you usually sweep these sorts of adventures under the rug but with duets they very much ground the campaign. There is usually some overriding event for these adventures but the goal is to roleplay and deliver some background information from the NPCs.

Structure

Tons has been written on adventures and how to write and structure them. My approach isn't that original but I've found that it works very well for duets.

Prelude

There are two types of preludes: one that connects to the adventure and one that is an independent scene or vignette. The independent scene approach is simply a way to start things off. If you have an adventure with a lot of roleplaying planned and your player is antsy for combat then throw some action at the PC right off the bat. This sort of prelude can be a random encounter, a follow-up to an earlier adventure, or just something whimsical you come up with. There are a couple of reasons for doing this. First, you are misleading the player about the nature of the adventure. Second, you are warming up with a self-contained scene that can help you gauge how the player is functioning.

The other type of prelude is a scene that connects to the adventure. This isn't necessarily the hook (see below) and it might not be in this adventure. Let me give an example. My wife is DMing me in a Pathfinder campaign and she had a quasi-random encounter with undead humans in an undersea adventure. The undead humans were odd and had strange necromantic pendants. This was a mystery that got my character interested and he kept digging around about these undead. He's learned the amulets were part of a cult among sailors who acquire the amulets to protect them from drowning but in reality if they drown while wearing the amulets, they become undead. At some point, she's going to spring an adventure about this cult and these undead sailors but for now it's in the background and she's patiently developing it. That's the ideal prelude because when the real adventure comes around the PC is already hooked.

Hooks

The hook is how you catch the PC to pursue the adventure. This can be really simple if you have someone who is in command of the PC who just orders the PC to do something but often the PC has the freedom to pursue or not to pursue an adventure. You want the player to willing embrace your adventure. Forcing an adventure on a PC is a recipe for failure but it can be difficult to get a PC to bite on a hook. Thus the narrator has to master the illusion of choice! To create an illusion of choice the PC must be given real choices during the campaign. This can be picking a side in a civil war, choosing who to adventure with, perhaps deciding where to live and adventure, and so forth. As a narrator, you must be prepared to accept that the PC determines where the story goes and can make meaningful decisions. However, sometimes you'll want to stack the deck so the PC picks the adventure you have designed. To do this you need to invoke the illusion of choice by "nudging" the PC in the right direction.

1. Call for help. Often the hook invokes a plea for assistance and if this comes from a NPC who the PC likes, then you've increased the odds of success. If the adventure involves someone the PC doesn't know then you need to stack the odds in favor of the PC responding favorably. This could be making the NPC poor, likable, attractive, whatever works, but an even better way is to begin with the NPC in some danger to which the PC will most likely save the NPC. If the player saves a NPC once, then she'll be more likely to do it again.

2. Connect the dots. Try to tie the adventure to a story arc or earlier adventure. For example, if the town in trouble is plagued by a bandit group that the PC routed months ago, that once again establishes a connection.

3. Sweeten the pot with rewards. If there is some tangible reward in the offering, then that will be a strong incentive to the player. Related to this is downplaying the costs of the adventure. If the PC is trying to get to the capital and the adventure will delay that journey then the PC may be reluctant to take the hook, depending upon her business in the capital. However, if the adventure could provide a pass through the mountains saving a few days travel then that will help convince the PC.

4. Use choices that aren't choices. Okay this is a risky trick but sometimes you can give the PC a choice in 4-5 directions. You have one of them drawn up and another of them is similar enough you could tweak your work and wing it. The other three are different adventures but ones you don't think the PC will take. Really though you shouldn't ever give an option you don't want to have to utilize, but if the PC takes the odd hook then you can delay (see Vignettes below).

5. Tell the player. Sometimes if you have an adventure you've toiled at for hours designing, then tell the player and you're good to go. This loses a little immersion but it can be useful also for signaling the player if the adventure is different than normal.

Scenes

All adventures are composed of scenes. You should have an idea of the key locations and NPCs that should be in play but there's good odds the PC may bring in new locations or NPCs. This isn't that big of a deal, especially if you have a few tricks in play, which we'll discuss but it's important to think of scenes as building blocks. You might have nine scenes planned but really you only need maybe five of those for a complete adventure. When it comes to pacing don't hesitate to keep things moving by dropping scenes or if things are moving too quickly to use a vignette or stretch out a scene.

1. List of names. You should always have a list of names for NPCs so that when the PC asks the waitress' name you aren't stumped.

2. Be organized. Quests are linear and fairly straightforward while mysteries require you to know who knows what. However, I strongly believe that you just need bullet points for your narrator information. Running an adventure is an open note test where you really don't have time to look at your notes.

3. Reactive vs. Proactive. An adventure should have a mix of situations where the narrator is reacting to the PC and where the NPCs are causing problems. You should jot down a few scenes about how the NPCs might act. Such as a nighttime goblin attack, a vixen's seduction attempt, and so on. Generally reactive scenes are required because the PC has acted and the NPCs have to react ,while the proactive scenes are optional and depending upon pacing can be expanded or contracted.

4. Reject climax/railroading. I can't say this enough. Dump your desire to have that perfect climactic battle atop a rooftop.

5. Adapt. Now you should avoid railroading but if your adventure is stumping the PC then you might need to drop a few clues, bring in some reinforcements, or do something to move the adventure to the resolution. Additionally, if the player comes up with a better explanation for why a NPC is doing something then use the player's explanation. This rewards the player for good reasoning and rewards you with a better nuanced NPC.

Vignettes

Vignettes are stand alone scenes. They should be wrapped up fairly quickly but are a way to spice up an adventure that's dragging. It is very possible to string together a series of vignettes and fill up an entire adventure - this is especially true when traveling between two locations as a few vignettes can fill up the time quickly. This is useful if the PC goes off in a direction you didn't expect. You can use vignettes to occupy the PC and fill up a session so you don't have to launch into an adventure unprepared.

Resolution

The success of an adventure is 75% the journey and 25% the resolution. If you sacrifice the journey for the resolution you've really hurt yourself. Let the resolution play out as it plays out and don't try to force it to being something it's not. If your PC comes up a cunning plan that defeats the bad guy with minimal fuss then go with that plan. If you scrap that plan to ensure your climax then you are encouraging the player to not think and merely follow along. The whole goal with duets is the empower the PC and the player. Another point with resolution is that if an adventure is dragging, a climax has been reached, and it's time to move on - then do so. The PC managed to slay the dragon but there remain his goblin servants holding some rooms - just hand wave the PC's victory and move on. Pacing is everything in roleplaying. Too fast and the players lose track of things but too slow and players get bored and frustrated; it's better to err on the side of a quicker pacing. Though definitely give the PC some time to savor her victory or perhaps defeat. That said also take your cues from the player. If the PC really wants to interact with the goblin servants and try to take prisoners and wrest some secrets from them then you might as well do so.

The best resolutions should point to future adventures. This is also a time for a NPC to ask the PC what's next on the agenda or perhaps the narrator can ask the player directly. This helps the narrator know where things are going and to plan accordingly.

Okay that's all for this article. It's an expansive topic but pacing is everything so time to move on from adventures.