Adventure Structures for RPGs - Adventure Crucible by Robin Laws

Mike discusses the book Adventure Crucible by Robin Laws and common adventuring structures we can use in our tabletop RPGs.
Video Contents
00:00 Show Start
01:44 Adventure Types
07:53 Hybrid Structures
09:17 Common Pitfalls
10:29 Read Books Instead of Social Media
12:19 Adventure Models from the Lazy DM's Companion
Links
Subscribe to the Sly Flourish Newsletter
slyflourish.com/subscribe/
Support Sly Flourish on Patreon
/ slyflourish
Buy Sly Flourish Books:
shop.slyflourish.com/
Adventure Crucible - Building Stronger Scenarios for any RPG (Affiliate Link)
www.drivethrurpg.com/product/...

[@snobgoblinDK]

Something that could be cool for all of this stuff is some sort of template that contains the useful questions and prompts that will lead you to create a high value adventure.

[@chazzitz-wh4ly]

As someone who likes order, but is disorderly, that kind of thing helps me to sort out my ideas. I get so easily distracted and sidetracked that I have a hard time coming back to projects I put down. Before you know it I have seven different pages with a bunch of various ideas that I get annoyed trying to sparse it all out.

[@AvengerYouT]

I love how much there is to read about scenario structures ("types of adventure") nowadays. We have adventure crucible, your blog and lazy DM companion, and now the book So You Wanna Be a GM.
Thinking about the adventure in terms of scenario types really improves the quality of ones game.
I'm running Curse of Strahd right now, and for every chapter I think about how I'm going to structure the exposition/navigation of the content, and how to use the lazy steps to allow for more freedom.

[@neem4138]

Hey Mike thanks for having been improving my games for nearly a decade!

[@SlyFlourish]

Thank you!

[@utb15281]

Robin Laws is the man.

[@keithgaspard9950]

Mike, do you have a video or a resource that contains a list of books like this that inspire your? Maybe even that and then your top 5 or top 10 must reads? Thanks for the video, I think I'll pick this up.

[@TabletopTiger]

I like this! I think writings like this that distill the composition of good quests, stories, adventures help with the understanding that leads to strong, confident game masters.
Regarding your point about GURPS and Fate, those are systems not necessarily games so them claiming to do anything is true because the system is the framework. If we specify like 5e, then it starts to get more sticky.

[@thekaxmax]

I have all his design and process books. And a few of his games.
Hamlet's Hitpoints is exactly what he used for the Quest Worlds system.

[@JoesphEKerr]

I learned something from this video - as I do from many of your videos - which is why I enjoy your channel. Thank you.

[@SlyFlourish]

Awesome, thank you!

[@WritofPassage]

Lazy DM doesnt make Lazy content, thats for sure.

[@mikecarson7769]

oh yeah, "Hamlet' Hit Points"!!! i very much enjoyed this book, and i will be eager to read the latest book

[@jf649]

Where do one gets this?

[@michaelmullenfiddler]

I have read his first book--Robin's Laws--repeatedly over the years.

[@GiganticPawUnit]

I think Fate actually gives a pretty strong idea of what it can and can't do well, but it's very high-level conceptual stuff. It lets players participate in the direction of the narrative outside of their character's actions, which is a pretty rare thing. Something it doesn't do, however, is micromanagement or "simulation" stuff. It doesn't do any mechanical representation of a character's equipment beyond something like "they have a signature weapon". Fate certainly presents itself as fitting into any genre, when you take genre to mean setting, time period, amount of realism/fantasy, etc. Fate is very much meant to play as a certain genre, though, in the sense that not all movies with gunfights in them are "action movies". Fate is going to have the pace of an action movie, whether it's on Earth, in space, or in a fantasy world, whether it's got guns, swords, or whatever. It doesn't do the detail-oriented verisimilitude that some people really, really like in their RPGs.
(and this just supports Laws' assertion that a game benefits from defining what it can do; the level of abstraction supports the exciting pace and mood that Fate is meant to have, and it excludes a lot of conventional RPG mechanics that would slow it down.)

[@misomiso8228]

Fantastic video. Really interesting discussion. I love 'fastforwarding to the choice!'

[@rogerfarley3300]

Bought the book! Thanks for the heads up.

[@tylercomstock1893]

I would love a version for encounter types.

[@stevenking2088]

Conrad

[@bonderoff]

Save the Cat, anyone?