Hey there, Campfire Backers! We've exciting news, as we just broke the $1k mark.

We still have $3k to go! The more we can share on social media to get the word out, the better. And we also have a few upcoming email blasts that we hope will move the needle.

Most of all, if any of you have any suggestions on how to reach a wider, ideal audience of RPG enthusiasts who have students or kids, just let us know! We want your ideas.

As for our team, we're now putting the final touches on art, and the user-generated module. Campfire's chief author, Wojtek Borowicz is leading that effort, and contributed a Devlog sharing his thought on adventure design. Check them out below, and stay tuned for more updates soon!

How to write a great RPG adventure?
-Wojtek Borowicz, author of Campfire

Writing a good story is one thing. A good story, however, won’t necessarily play good at the table. It’s like that famous military adage: no plan survives contact with the enemy. Twenty years of GM-ing taught me that stories often don’t survive contact with the players, either.

So, what do I do about it?

When I write RPG adventures I often start with the framework known as the story stack. It’s a popular tool for video game writers and narrative designers - I learned it from Susan O’Connor (Bioshock, Tomb Raider) and as far as I know it originated from Jason VandenBerghe (Red Steel 2). I haven’t seen it discussed as much in the tabletop space but it’s a tremendously useful tool for writing fun adventures.

It divides a game’s story into five layers:

They go in order from the least flexible to the most flexible. If your first reaction is wait, how is plot the most flexible part of the story? Surely it’s the other way around - that’s fine. Many game writers find this counterintuitive at first but it becomes natural as soon as you start working with the stack.

Player fantasy is the most powerful and foundational element of any narrative experience in games, video or tabletop. We fantasize about being heroes, villains, wizards, scoundrels, and countless other things. What we seek in games is the expressions of those fantasies. Say, your players want to be a pirate crew stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. There are dozens and dozens of plots to fulfill this with. Multiple worlds even: they could be sailing the seven seas or be space pirates in a faraway galaxy. But they do need to be pirates, doing pirate things: looting, exploring, looking for treasure. No matter how meticulously written the story and how deep the NPCs, it won’t work if the fantasy is unfulfilled.

How to translate this into practice? Let’s look at Midnight Heist, one of the adventures in Campfire. It’s an adventure for players looking for a sleek caper story. Ocean’s Eleven, Italian Job, and the like.

Here’s my story stack:

I’m sure you can see how the world and plot could be different: we could be robbing a casino in Vegas or a billionaire’s penthouse in Dubai. But whatever the choice, it has to support the fantasy. As long as you stick with that rules, your adventures will be heaps of fun to play.