WHERE TO START
You’ve sorted out the tone after much deliberation and perhaps some discussion with your players. Now, you’re ready to begin work on the story of the adventure itself. Once again, you’re confronted with the conundrum of where to start. Maybe you have a few ideas, but they lack direction. You may be able to focus on one and go from there, but I would like to propose a more analytical approach.
Looking at the different elements of the story and examining them for flaws or spaces for improvement provides both direction and structure, but there are two ways to go about it. You can begin from the top-down, or do the reverse. I tend to work from the top-down myself, so that’s how I’m going to proceed from here. You may jump to the next post (once it’s released) and then jump back here if you prefer working from the bottom, up. For now though, I’ll break down the differences between high level and low level story elements and get into it.
DEFINING HIGH AND LOW-LEVEL ELEMENTS
Before we go into what to edit, I think it would be useful to set up a framework on what qualifies as high-level or low-level for the purposes of overhauling published adventures campaigns. I would categorize high-level elements as anything relating to the overarching plot or story of the adventure of the campaign or adventure. Low-level elements meanwhile, are those related to story arcs and side stories/quests.
Examples of high-level elements include the backdrop or setting itself, the main plot, the major plot points within the overarching plot, as well as less concrete things like foreshadowing elements and major NPCs that the narrative revolves around. Low-level story element examples would be things like helper NPCs, side quest givers and their quests, main line quests/objectives, and certain foreshadowing elements. Things like encounters are their own thing and should not be considered as part of the low-level story elements.
The reason we are making these distinctions is because high-level elements will affect how you go about altering the low-level ones if you begin with the high-level, and the same applies in reverse if you begin with the low-level ones. If you, for example, decide that Imryth the ancient blue dragon in Storm King’s Thunder has some poor characterization and decide to pull from published lore which is not well demonstrated in the campaign. Say, for instance, her desire to ascend to great wyrm status, her whimsy, and her mastery with stone constructs. Your decisions to bring those more to the fore will change how final chapters of the campaign play out and how the quests around defeating her are structured (A frontal assault on a dragon’s lair? Seriously?). Inversely, if you believe the Kracken Society should have more story-important role, that will possibly change how the relationship works between Slarkrethel (the leader), Imyryth, and the Giants. As you change one dial, others will change by necessity or, even better, inspiration.
You’ll note I included foreshadowing elements as examples of both high and low level story elements. This is because the line between the two can become fuzzy at times. Is the foreshadowing of this organization with a major role in the story high or low-level? How much of a role does the organization play relative to its importance to the story? Are they there in the background since the beginning, or are they only introduced in the last few acts? Do I want to elevate them to make them a high-level story element to justify the foreshadowing? Do I want to downgrade them to make them a low-level element instead? These are some of the questions you’ll need to ask when something seems to straddle the line between high and low level elements.
Once you’ve made your decisions of which elements will be high or low-level, be confident in it but don’t be afraid to reassess if you think you made the wrong call later on. It may be that as you go through the process, the element in question ends up being more appropriate in one category over the other.
MY HIGH-LEVEL ELEMENTS
With all that said, let’s get a bit more practical with the high-level elements. I had listed a few things that I consider to be high-level edits, but I’ll list all I want to talk bout here for completeness. My high-level elements are: the backdrop, major plot points, major NPCs, and foreshadowing elements.
For “backdrop” I’m referring to anything that is foundational to the campaign or adventure’s premise. For example, both the setting itself and the inciting events of the campaign would both fall into this category. I would typically start here as it can provide a good framework for how the rest of the overhaul is handled.
Next are major plot points and major NPCs, which can be handled in either order or mixed together. Major plot points are usually the main point of a given chapter in published adventures (depending on layout and formatting) but can also be anything where a major event or revelation occurs. Major NPCs are the ones most closely tied to the backdrop or major plot points, not to be confused with the ones your players decide are major NPCs.
Finally, there are the foreshadowing elements which are the least concrete of these aspects as they’re basically anything that hints or even vaguely foretells your other high-level elements. Very few published campaigns or adventures bother doing anything beyond very basic foretelling to point the players to the next immediate step, so this will often be something you need to actually add in and keep track of on your own.
EDITING HIGH-LEVEL ELEMENTS
When making edits to these elements, I like to consider them in terms of roles, purpose, and motivations. I’ll give an example of each for each element to illustrate.
Backdrop
For an example backdrop change let’s look at the set up for Storm King’s Thunder. The ordning of giants, the divinely enforced social heirarchy that keeps order among all the giants, is broken by the head god of the giants because of their inaction during the uprising of the cult of Tiamat, the evil goddess of dragons. This causes the giants to begin jockeying to try and improve their clan’s standing in a hypothetical remade ordning (which may or may not be the outcome of the campaign). This, of course, becomes everyone’s problem.
The purpose of the breaking of the ordning is pretty clearly to act as an inciting incident to create conflict. It’s purpose is to spur the giants into action due to their previous inaction, spurring giants to reclaim their former ancient glory. In my edit, the role and purpose largely remain the same but I changed the motivation to be “the resignation of a slowly dying god wanting their children to forge their own course because he failed to guide them as their All-Father”.
Major Plot Points
SKT has a really pivotal chapter in which players finally learn why the giants are all up in arms and what’s going on with the main god of the giants. They find a temple housing an oracle, have to find some relics to get an audience, ask some questions, and then encounter Imyrth on their way out. The role this plot point fulfills is providing the party with a clear goal after going around the map doing random quests and encounters. It’s purpose is to clue the PCs in as to the reason for the giants acting up as well as allowing them to encounter a major villain in a tense situation.
I will be honest, I hate this plot point. There is a whole world the campaign is bending over backwards to show you but they don’t make use of the elements present to create a more compelling narrative. There are powerful factions and individuals in the Sword Coast and northern Faerun that could (and should) have at least an inkling of what’s going on, or how to find out. Instead, they are irrelevant while the players happen to find a forgotten temple and talk to an oracle. For my edit on this plot point, I culled it entirely and created a new one which meshed better with the other changes I made. In doing so, I gave the world some agency of it’s own and enabled the PCs to participate in a more meaningful way.
Major NPCs
For an example of a major NPC change, SKT has a lot for me to choose from. I’m going to focus on two in this case, because changing one affected the other: Slarkrethel and Imyrith.
Slarkrethel is the kraken who is the secret mast of the Kracken Society, a guild of thieves, spies, and the like. His story role is to serve as the power behind a critical plot point and his mechanical purpose is to be a timer and lose state during a particular point of the story. His motivation is to further his own designs while fulfilling his deal with Imyrith (also regarding said plot point).
Imryth is the ancient blue dragon and main antagonist of the adventure (her story role). Her motivation is to take vengeance on the Lord’s Alliance for thwarting the rise of Tiamat, and she does this by causing strife between the alliance and the giants. Her mechanical purpose is simply to be the final boss of the campaign.
For these two, I decided to change their purposes and roles in the story. Slarkrethel’s role is now to be the secret antagonist of the adventure while Imyrth becomes the fake-out villain who is being subtlety manipulated by the former. Their purposes reflect this, with Slarkrethel becoming the secret final boss of this campaign and Imryth becoming the false final boss. Their motivations work as-is and remain largely unchanged.
Foreshadowing Elements
For foreshadowing elements, I don’t have any examples from my current project to share. At least, not as high-level elements. So for an example, let’s a take a major plot point towards the end of a campaign that is the culmination of one of the central themes in SKT: the penultimate BBEG becomes completely consumed by their desire to undo the death of someone dear to them. After all attempts of resurrection magic failed, they become willing to work with the main BBEG in a plot to kill the guardians of the underworld. Doing so will enable the BBEG to consume the souls of all the deceased, powering their phylactery and becoming powerful enough to challenge and throw down the gods of this world.
Let’s say that allowing yourself to grieve and let go of those who have passed is one of the major themes of the campaign. A high-level foreshadowing element might include the players continually encountering this NPC throughout the story and witnessing their grief turn to obsession as each attempt fails to bring back the one they love. The role is to give the players subtle hints about where the story is going and make this NPC’s turn to darkness believable later on, when the party inevitably has to face them.
CUTTING HIGH-LEVEL ELEMENTS
Let’s rewind and look at my removal of the major plot point earlier. Removing elements is something else you’ll want to do when overhauling your published adventure or campaign. Whether it’s high or low-level, not everything needs to be saved when overhauling a published work like this. You will likely have to remove aspects of the published work for the sake of your own sanity and the story you want to tell. Whether it’s because your changes render the aspect incompatible or some other reason, don’t be afraid to make the call to cull something. Sometimes it just helps the flow of the story if that aspect is removed, sometimes it’s just easier to create something new in its place rather than try and overhaul it, and sometimes you just feel like it doesn’t fit.
Whatever your reason, make sure you consider why you’re cutting something. What are you trying to accomplish with the cut that making edits wouldn’t have solved? Is this going to increase or lessen your work load? Is there a player in your group might be particularly interested or disinterested in the element you’re cutting? Whatever your answer, what matters is that you have examined the cut well enough to remove the element with confidence.
SUMMARY
That’s all I have to say for high level edits. High-level elements contain major plot points, major NPCs, the backdrop, and any foreshadowing elements that tie into those. I try to think of them in terms of role (in terms of story mechanics), purpose (within the narrative), and motivation (within the character or from the author). Hopefully I’ve explained enough of my process to make it make sense. Next post will be about low-level edits, and encounter and mechanics will be the one after that (yes, I separate those).
Stay safe.
Have fun.
Your story matters.