Scenarios - Overview

Send comments and/or criticism to Simon E. Phipp
Created On 3 February 2001
Last Updated On 3 February 2001
Copyright © 2001 Simon E.Phipp

Over the years I have written many scenarios as part of my own campaign or as part of the multi-GM campaign that I was part of. Many of those scenarios have been lost or were never written down. However, I have kept notes on some of the early scenarios. As I became a more experienced GM with a single GM campaign my scenario style evolved and became minimalist.

At the end, my scenarios took the form of bullet point notes with explanations of the NPCs, scenarios which I think cannot be published without a great deal of fleshing out. This was because:

These scenarios were based around character interaction, not combat
Scenarios were political rather than physical
Combat rarely took place except with Heroes - there was no point in writing minor stats and Heroes were too complex tom write up properly
I could see no point in taking a couple of weeks writing the stats for a group of NPCs that would last no more than half an hour real time

Most of the early scenarios took the standard form:

Trek through the wilderness
Find the location of scenario
Search/loot outer rooms and kill minor opponents
Find Central Room and fight major opponents
Face the Greeblie
Pick up treasure
Return through wilderness
Divide up treasure/roll experience

This was a form that had many variations, sometimes there were several locations or several Main Rooms, sometimes there was a multi-part scenario that consisted of many sub-scenarios. Quite often there were sub-plots and twists, characters encountered through several scenarios as friends, enemies or both.

Most of the scenarios I will be writing up are of this Standard Form. People may think they are shallow and one-dimensional, but you must bear in mind that this was the style of play that we all enjoyed, this was how we liked our scenarios and departing from the Standard Form for long resulted in disappointment and lack of enjoyment among the players. We did not go in for long detective scenarios, problem solving scenarios, loving scenarios, political scenarios and so on. We had a tradition of Fluorescent Arrows that pointed the way for players too dense to spot the obvious clues that the GM had put in the scenarios, so this made for quick and exciting play rather than long drawn out windbaggy scenarios.

So, if you don't like that kind of scenario or think that RuneQuest/Glorantha should be more than this, then I would advise you not to look at the Scenarios.

Where possible, I will try to include maps and diagrams unless they are too complex. I will include stats of the opponents faced, descriptions of major opponents, rationales for the NPCs, magic items, scenario plots, scenario hooks and further scenario links.

The stats for the NPCs will contain samples of individual NPC types, perhaps one sample per type, together with detailed stats for the leaders and major NPCs. Most of the descriptions will be cameos and will hopefully give an idea of what the NPC is like. After all, most of these will be killed during the scenario so they are not that important.

Hopefully, this will help people use the scenarios as part of their campaigns and will spark ideas for other scenarios.

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