The Great Escape

Last week, I wrote about a couple of ideas on how to extend an adventure that has PCs seeking and finding a boss creature in its base of operations. This runs the usual path of having the PCs start from outside a location, with the crux of the adventure challenging them to work their way in.

This post will propose the idea of flipping that notion, and instead of working their way in, share a couple of ways the adventure could be having PCs find their way out of a location.

Before talking about those steps, it’s important to first take a step back and thoroughly consider how PCs get into the location you want them to escape from. How they get there may play a large part in the plan of how they can get out.

Getting In

Mysterious Portal

The PCs find some lost, ancient artifact, and upon triggering it, get transported to some lost, ancient place.

Captured

The PCs are on their way to confront the next Big Bad, but get overpowered and captured before they get to it, or when they get to it.

Unknown

The PCs are having a normal meal together at a tavern, when suddenly they get knocked out from an unknown source.

SHTF

Somewhere, somehow, somebody done something wrong, and the shit hits the fan in the form of some terrible cataclysm.

Once the ‘how they get there’ plans are in place, you have a starting point from which to grow the ‘how they get out’ adventure. Try these suggestions based on the four above examples.

Getting Out

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mysterious Portal

Ever watched the Dungeons & Dragons TV series? It’s a 1980s cartoon about some ordinary kids who get whisked away to D&D land and become characters and are given special powers and magic items and an annoying little unicorn. The idea is that PC get transported to some place and must find their way back. This premise could be merely one or a few adventures, or could span an entire campaign, much like the cartoon series.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Captured

Taking inspiration from The Great Escape, the PCs get caught and imprisoned in the heart of Big Bad’s stronghold. If war movies don’t inspire you, then think of The Fellowship’s escape from the Mines of Moria, The Escapists video game, or another excellent movie, Escape from Alcatraz. For added complexity, have something pursuing the PCs, something they cannot best in a fight.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unknown

The PC wake up in a single, large, square room, with nothing visible but a single door in the center of each wall, including the floor and ceiling. Does that premise sound familiar? If may if you’ve seen the movie Cube. This is one adventure I’d personally love to run, without the math involved in the movie, of course. Ramp up the suspense by splitting the party and placing each PC in their own room, and have them work towards regrouping. Or not.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

SHTF

In Half-Life, Gordon Freeman was having just another ordinary day in the bowels of Black Mesa Research Facility, when a simple experiment caused a resonance cascade, and all hell (or in this case, Xen) broke loose. A similar premise could have PCs actively causing the cataclysm at the location they must now escape from, or simply being bystanders at the location where the event occurs.

These are just a few examples, of course. Pretty much any location PCs could try to get into is also a location they could try to get out of, and is an adventure waiting to be developed and played. Have you DM’d or played in an adventure involving a great escape? Tell us about it in the Comments below, on my Google+ profile, or @RoleplayingDM on Twitter.