The following is based on the soon-to-be released RPG called, "Heroic Conquest". The game was written by myself, with the editing and rewrites by myself, under the guide of Jay Wirth. But this article is not a plug, in fact, this article will help the players and Gamemasters to create their very own adventures using ideas that suits them! Whew!!

Let's start out with the basic idea for the adventure. Look around, ideas (Themes) are around you all day, even for the Medieval RPGs! You. Receive ideas from current events, TV Shows, movies, books, comics, short stories, other RPG campaigns & adventures, museums (imagine the story behind the life of a King, Viking, barbarian, etc.) History is a good place as well for ideas!

The adventures that I create are always, with a few minor exceptions, based on current time frame, but with a "Forever Knight" and "Kindred" feel. I also like to add a taste of sci-fi, usually futuristic hardware. So to summarize here, my idea is a vampire theme.

The next thing we want to determine is how difficult we want the adventure to be for the players? I like my games to be a bit of a challenge (to both the mind (of the players also & body of the characters) so I like to provide dues to make the players think. In HC the Combat Level would be 3, but for any other RPG the adventure would border-line between basic and advanced play options.

Well now, where would the adventure setting cover (we already know it's going to be in the present)? Do you want the obvious or do you want to blow your players' minds!! The players would expect a "vampire" adventure to take place in a creepy castle and in an European country.

They would NEVER expect a vampire adventure in an Old Folks Retirement Village, and in, of all places, sunny Florida!

What about the GM villains and any NPCs that the heroes may come across! Should we roll for the amount of villains (3d6) or shall we take logic in consideration and freely choose? We'll choose 5 villains, all vampires! 1 vamp is the leader or master of the others and will most likely be out of sight throughout the adventure, unless the heroes happen to stumble across him/her. 1 vamp is an actual resident of the village, an old looking vampire, and 3 vamps are actual employees of the retirement village: 1 Nurse 1 Medication Aide 1 Physical Therapist or Restorative Aide

The NPCs will consist of the following
(actually taking part in the, adventure).

1 is a doctor.
3 are CNA (Certified Nurses Aide) (I used to be one)
3 Kitchen staff
1 Minister of the village church.
2 House keeping staff (maids)
An uncounted number of family members (3 to 6)
8 Security guards, 4 placed at each gate.

In my adventure, most of the time, the NPCs are usually there to provide the heroes with information (some useful, some info trivial), but my players ALWAYS thinks that the NPCs knows more than they are telling. This is not the case. After running various traits, powers, and detectors across the NPCs and the story does not change, this should tell the heroes that there is "nothing up". I only told you that part because the players will hold up the flow of the game fixated that the NPC is withholding information.

Now, should the village and its buildings have traps? Usually I love to place traps, but if this was taking place in "reality", there wouldn't be any traps because the residents themselves or NPC or heck, the villains themselves may trip the traps. So no traps. Security devices, other hand is acceptable. Such as cameras, electrical gates, alarms, etc..

What type of powers, weapons and "creatures" that you WOULD NOT ALLOW IN THIS ADVENTURE-- regardless of how powerful? For this adventure, my personal choices would be:

BEINGS "Creatures": no Supernaturals (we all ready have that element) no Robots (robots can not be affected by vamps) --- Cyborgs & Bionics would be okay, no Special Designed Characters (that seemed God-like compared to the other characters) and no Aliens, even the ones that look human. As a matter of fact the ONLY CHARACTERS allowed are humans, mutants, superhumans, cyborgs, bionics and animals.

POWERS: no optic blasts, magic of any kind (heroes only), self-cloning, psionic blast, plasma blast, disintegration, summon a GM Special Creature or any weapons that duplicates any of these powers! These powers are what I called the Deadly-7.

Finally, as GM you will need to design 2 sets of maps: one has full details (GM Copy), which usually has the locations of goodies, villain placement, hostage placement, traps, NPC placement and so forth. The other copy contains only the "outlined" area and structures. This blue-print usually goes to the players so that actions, movements, etc. can be easily followed.

So keep in mind that:

1) The adventure takes place in the present.
2) The adventure itself revolves around vampires and a nursing home.
3) That there are actually 5 main villains, which are the vamps.
4) The NPCs will provide a MAIN part in the adventure.
5) The adventure will not be too hard, but it won't be too easy either.

NOTE 1: The adventure will be written with HC in mind, but I will give the trait name so that you, the Gamemaster, can convert it into the RPG of your choice.
NOTE 2: The adventure & characters (descriptions & figures) may need to be broke up over the next few issues.