Okay, so you have a plot for your campaign, and each adventure is somehow linked into that idea – a stepping stone toward the campaign’s goal, a sub-goal linked to that main one, or part of the story that is being created. For example, earlier in the Building Stuff series I posited a Nefertiti Overdrive game based on Star Wars: Rebels, in which the PCs are acting as a criminal gang in order to fund the opposition to the new dynasty. Let’s say the goal of that is re-installing the Princess’ cousin as Pharaoh.
Now, an adventure is either moving toward that goal or advancing the story that your group is creating based on that goal. I’m going to say that there is a strategically important town along the Nile which the PCs can’t really conquer – remember, they are working in the shadows – but can certainly turn the population against their new pharaoh, especially since the face of the new dynasty are Assyrians (not really historically accurate, but Nefertiti Overdrive is not about rigorous adherence to history). Let’s say this is Hermopolis, kind of the northern border of Upper Egypt and apparently a pretty swank place, second only to Waset/Thebes in the Third Intermediate Period of Ancient Egypt.
So, for an adventure, you can go all Robin Hood. The Assyrians are gathering a tax from the populace of Hermopolis. Let’s add another dimension to this and say that the new pharaoh – I’m calling him the Saite Dynast in Nefertiti Overdrive – has not ordered or even allowed this, but his factors in Hermopolis cannot control the Assyrians, who outnumber the Saite Dynast’s troops. This is a case of the PCs fighting the Assyrians and protecting the townsfolk, returning the wealth the Assyrians steal but also re-distributing what they can steal from the Assyrians and their Saite Dynasty paymasters. And the PCs might even find allies among the Saite Dynasty’s forces, since the Assyrians are actually robbing the Dynasty.
Breaking this adventure down into scenes – basically events, encounters, and challenges – is the next step, and for that I use Pivots.
Which I’ll explain next time.
You can find the Building Stuff series here.
You can find the free Nefertiti Overdrive Quickstart rules here.
You can learn more about Nefertiti Overdrive here and here.
You can read more about Hermopolis at Wikipedia.