Story Maps

A Story Map is a visual means of representing the Story Scenes within an adventure. This takes the form of a flow chart that shows the progression of a story from scene to scene. The Story Map can then branch to multiple scenes, to represent scenes that occur at the same time or in a non-specific order. You can also have Splits in the story, to represent different paths available, based on what decisions the Player Character's make.

Story Maps are a useful tool for organizing the scenes and visualizing the overall flow of your story. They can help a Gamemaster to discover missing scenes or holes in a plot, or just simply serve as a way for the GM to keep track of their progress through the story. By labeling the goal of each scene, the GM has an easy way to track when and if the goal of a scene has been met, and whether or not it needs to be continued. It also serves as a way to visualize the variety and balance of scene types, so players do not get burned out on too many Combat or Social scenes.

Story Maps are fluid structures, changing throughout the course of the story. Like the story itself, they need to be flexible and be able to adapt to PC's actions within the story. By keeping a story map, the GM can draw and redraw pathways between scenes, making adjustments to meet the needs of the story. If Player Characters choose a different route than expected, it may just mean creating a new pathway towards later scenes (instead of changing the plot entirely). Similarly, your Story Map won't necessarily be complete to start off, and should be considered a work-in-progress where you add in new scenes as part of planning for the next session as the game progresses.

Here is a simple example story map for the beginning of Jeremy's adventure plot (as described on the Creating an Adventure page). Here the rectangular boxes represent scenes, the oval represents the main goal of the first portion of the adventure, and the hexagon represents an optional scene (to be inserted if the PCs need more incentive and aren't just altruistic enough to help on their own). Note the split after the PCs find the box, they have three different scenes that could follow depending on what the PCs decide, but ultimately all achieve the same goal.