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Frameworks Fuel Creativity

by Mike on 20 October 2025

At first glance, quest and adventure frameworks can seem limiting. Frameworks set boundaries for boundless games. Our adventures can go anywhere so what happens when we bind them into a framework?

Frameworks don't bind creativity – they enhance it. Frameworks give us a structure to build the components for our stories to go anywhere.

In previous articles, I've described several frameworks for quest and adventure models. Here's a list of adventure models:

And here are some quest models:

and one of my favorites. The simplest quest model:

Someone asks you to accomplish something somewhere.

These models work. They've worked for fifty years and they work today. There are also a bunch of models that usually don't work): forced chases, quest NPC betrayal, forced captures, forced defeats, all-or-nothing collection quests. These brittle models often remove character agency to keep things bound to a narrow story chosen by the GM.

It's easy to think that pre-defined models and frameworks limit us, but they don't. Instead, like poetry, they give us structure and variables and it's the variables that make our adventures unique. These variables include:

NPCs
Locations
Goals
History
Backgrounds
Factions
Pantheons
Adversaries
Scale

You can take the simplest quest model and build something small like

The former adventure turned innkeeper, Eli Merrow asks the characters to go into his unexplored sub-cellars to find his son who went missing down there two days ago.

or something bigger in scope:

Garland Willowmane asks the characters to enter the Vault of the Key of Worlds to recover the Key of Worlds before it falls into the hands of either the marilith general Sylisa Sixblade or the erinyes commander Vether Voidwalker.

These quests follow the same model but have very different scope and scale.

There's no limit on the creativity of the adventures you can build for your group. You don't need to force your ideas into one of the above frameworks. But frameworks offer tried and true methods to run games with open-ended situations and lots of character agency that still guide your prep to have a fun game ready for your friends.

Embrace frameworks and embrace the creativity they bring to your games.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

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.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

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.

Talk Show Links

Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.

Last week I also posted a couple of YouTube videos on Track D&D Monster Damage with Xs and /s and The Void Portal – Dragon Empire Prep Session 41.

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:

Read and reference your RPG books.
Enjoy the duality of RPGs being incredible ways to build stories with your friends and also just a game with some books and dice.
Don’t get paralyzed by the vast openness of RPGs. Focus on structured prep for your next session.
Even in the deepest dungeons, include interesting NPCs to talk to.
Show the vast scale of megadungeons. Towering ziggurats that hold entire fallen cities in their depths.
Include three possible entrances into your dungeon.
Seek choices at the end of sessions so you know what to prep next.

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