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Running Defense Adventures

by Mike on 1 April 2024

This article is one in a series where we look at types of adventures and examine

how we prepare them.
how we run them.
what pitfalls we might run into.
how we avoid these pitfalls.

These articles include:

Your own adventure types and how you run them may differ from mine. That's totally fine. There are many right ways to enjoy this game.

Robin Laws's book Adventure Crucible – Building Stronger Scenarios for any RPG inspired my thoughts on this topic.

Understanding Defense Adventures

In defense adventures, the characters defend a location and its inhabitants from invaders, bandits, or monsters. This adventure type is structured similar to infiltrations and heists in that players spend significant time planning for the attack before the attack itself. I often refer to defense adventures as Seven Samurai adventures because of how well the model of Akira Kurosawa's classic samurai movie fits as a fantasy RPG adventure.

The typical scenario for a defense adventure includes:

The characters are recruited by townsfolk (or someone similar) to defend a location.
The characters plan and prepare the location and inhabitants for the coming attack.
The attack begins with the invasion of a large enemy force.
The characters focus on their part of the attack while NPCs defend their locations off-camera. Things might change, forcing the characters to move around.
There's an aftermath.

Defense adventures don't have to follow this model perfectly but this scenario is a common approach.

Preparing a Defense Adventure

GMs can prepare for a defense-style adventure by

defining the theme. Who are the attackers? Who are the defenders? What's the location like? What themes or flavor can we wrap around the adventure?
finding or creating a suitable location for the defense and ensuring it has the right characteristics for a good defensible position.
further defining the "villagers". Who asks the characters to defend them? What's their secret?
preparing a menu of options the characters can choose to prepare the defense including training NPCs, fortifying defenses, spying on the attackers, preparing weapons or spells, or engaging in other activities to aid in the defense.
outlining the villains. Who are they? Who leads them? Where do they come from? Where are they located before the attack? How many are there? How will they attack?
preparing the remaining eight steps as needed.

Running a Defense Adventure

Like a heist adventure, the players plan their defense during the first half of the adventure. Give players time to plan their defense, talk to NPCs, scout the villains, and engage in other activities to prepare for the attack. Improvise ability checks to see how well their defenses hold up.

When the attack begins, focus the spotlight on the characters and their part of the battle. Describe the results of the larger battle based on the defenses the characters put up and how well they did on their checks but keep the spotlight focused on the characters.

Pitfalls of Defense Adventures

Defense adventures might suffer one or more of the following pitfalls.

The characters' defenses don't come into play – they wasted their time.
The characters' defenses are so good there's no threat from the villains.
The players don't know how to prepare the location. They don't understand how they should defend the location.
The location is too hard to defend. It's too wide open with no good choke points or defensible positions.
The characters split up instead of staying together making it harder to run the whole adventure.

Avoiding Pitfalls

GMs can avoid or mitigate these pitfalls by

ensuring the characters' defenses come into play by improvising the descriptions of the villains' attacks.
ensure there's enough variance to the attack of the villains to still make it a threat even with a very solid defense.
ensuring there's a clear list of options the characters can choose from to build up the location's defenses.
during prep, ensuring the location has clear defensible positions and choke points like ravines, rivers, swamplands, walls, towers, and other defensible positions.
Push players to keep their characters together during the fight so you don't have to run split battles all over the location.

A Fantastic Situation for Heroic Tales

Defense-based adventures stand as an excellent adventure style to give the players agency to shape their own story. It's a perfect example of situation-based adventures in which the GM sets up the situation and the characters navigate it. GMs and players play the situation out together, building a story at the table neither side could have guessed before it began.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

Last week I posted a couple of YouTube videos including a Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands Deep Dive and 5e Travel Systems.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs. Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video:

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers:

RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:

Give players the option to avoid monsters if desired.
Test future boss fights with similar but reskinned interim battles.
Think about the hooks between each character and elements from the next session.
Give big monsters a way to threaten back-line characters.
Give characters a painful option to break out of effects that take away their actions.
Mix and match 5e elements from several published sourcebooks.
Bathe your dungeon crawl in interesting lore.