Adventure (role-playing games)

An adventure is either a published or otherwise written collection of plot, character, and location details used by a gamemaster to manage the plot or story in a role-playing game. Each adventure is based upon a particular gaming genre and is normally designed for use with a specific game or gaming system. However, skilled gamemasters can often convert an adventure to different game systems, and many adventures are designed with such conversions in mind.

Generally an adventure will have an overall goal to be accomplished by a party of player characters, and guidelines about the prerequisites for success. It then subdivides the plot into a set of scenes that the players could encounter during the course of play, and provide descriptions of the locations, details on creatures and other characters that could be encountered, and information concerning potential obstacles and hazards. The adventure will often contain one or more maps that the gamemaster can use to locate points of interest and manage movement.

"Dungeon crawl"-style adventures for combat-intensive games such as Dungeons & Dragons may allow or require large amounts of combat and little or no interaction with other characters outside of combat; storytelling games such as the World of Darkness games may focus on character interaction and provide little opportunity for combat. So-called linear adventures will restrict the actions of the players to a significant degree, requiring them to resolve each part of the plot in turn. Non-linear adventures are more flexible about the order of player activities, and allow the players a greater opportunity to "write" their own adventure.

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