Remember how I came up with a basic list of plot points you can use in your game – in the proper order – to pull off a basic narrative structure? I did that in part two of this little three-part series on narrative structure. The idea was simple: first, distill the most important aspects of the three-act structure down to two scenes to shove into your game to anchor your narrative structure. Then, sift the most important turning points out of the structure of modern screenplays as optional, additional scenes to insert around the major plot points. Is this ringing a bell? If not, you need to go back to Narrative Structure for Morons and read it again. Or read it for the first time, if you’re a little behind. And then, read Narrative Structure for Real Morons. And then you’ll be caught up.

Because I don’t feel like recapping this s$&% again.

All right, fine, I’ll at least recap the final list:

(Optional) A New Life: The heroes’ lives start a new course, one that will bring them into contact with adventure.
The Call to Adventure: Something happens to make the heroes aware of a major conflict that they have to resolve and a good reason to want to resolve it.
(Optional) It’s Personal: An event occurs to make the upcoming conflict personal and to make it impossible for the heroes to accept failure. Whether they succeed or fail against this challenge, they can’t go back. They have to go forward.
(Optional) The Big Screw/The Final Test: Something major – really, the story itself – turns against the heroes and they have to deal with it. They either get through the test and move on to face the final conflict or else they end up at their lowest point and resolve to end the conflict once and for all.
The Climax: The heroes face whatever conflict has been building from the beginning, or face something that will allow them to resolve that conflict once or fail. If they succeed, they’ve won and the adventure is over. If they fail, they’ve lost and the adventure is still over. And maybe they are dead. Sometimes, that’s how it goes.

Now, if you make sure every adventure has scenes based on the two required turning points – The Call to Adventure and The Climax – you’ve got enough of a narrative structure to satisfy most players. And if you want to up the level of your narrative, you can sprinkle in scenes based around the optional turning points. That will impress the more discerning story gamers in your party. Because those optional turning points make every story better. They are like gravy poured over the meat and potatoes.

But there’s a whole other set of turning points that are sort-of unique to adventure stories. These are the turning points that Joseph Campbell – and others since then – have identified, defined, and refined to build a model of something called the Monomyth. The Monomyth is the Everystory. The One Story to Rule them All. It’s sort of a template that most adventure stories mostly adhere to. And that’s because it’s a story that has basically evolved as our brains have evolved so that, ultimately, stories that follow the Monomyth structure to some degree just resonate with us.

The thing is, though, that it’s possible to overdo the Monomyth thing. It’s one of those descriptive, not prescriptive things. If you look at all the really good, enduring stories that people really love and remember forever, they tend to follow the basic patterns to some degree. But they aren’t perfect. Meanwhile, if you look at a story that tries to adhere almost exactly to the Monomyth as if it’s some architectural blueprint, you get Pacific Rim. Yes, people enjoyed the spectacle at the time. But is anyone still talking about that one today? Does anyone have a favorite scene from that movie that isn’t “remember when that one robot punched that one monster with that train?” That movie fell out of your memory like nectar through a siev because it faked it. It hit the monomyth almost exactly and, consequently, it had no heart or soul. It was as substantial as a fart in the wind.

Now, that might sound like I’m arguing against using the Monomyth as a framework. I’m not. The whole point of all of this is to come up with a nice, solid list of scenes that represent the key turning points in a story so that you, as a GM, can plop them into your game as you need them. And if you get in trouble because your story is flagging, you can look at the list and say “okay, the heroes have been called to adventure and they are across the threshold… we just had a big fight… and the heroes need a break because they took a big hit. I was going to rush ahead to a dragon battle, but I need something to slow it down and give them a chance to rest and recover. How about a meeting with the goddess?”

Alternatively, when you’re planning the adventure and thinking about how it ends and what to do with the return to town, you can say “I’d like to do something more interesting than just the journey home… what if the heroes are tempted NOT to return? Can I tempt them to basically corrupt what they just did? That’d be neat considering this adventure is all about devils anyway.”

The point is, these turning points from the Monomyth aren’t like the first two. They aren’t meat and potatoes. And they aren’t gravy. They are like spices. You don’t use them all, you don’t use the same ones every time, and you use them sparingly. You can use them to flavor the meat and veggies before you start cooking, or you can add them while you’re cooking because the gravy tastes like it needs something. But you can’t just start pulling things off the spice rack, flinging them into the pot, and assume that everything will just taste lovely. And no cheating with f$&%ing allspice or Mrs. Dash.

A World of Disparity: Heat and Cold, Life and Death, Light and Dark, Cats and Dogs, Paper and Plastic…

Because you’ve got to use these spicy extra plot points with care, you have to understand a few things about the Monomyth. It’s like, you can’t use the spice rack properly if you don’t understand the basic rules of flavor. And there are two key aspects to the Monomyth that you really have to GET. Otherwise, you’re going to overspice your meal. Or underspice it. Or just use the wrong spice. Whatever. You’ll end up with inedible crap.

The first thing to understand is that Campbell’s Monomyth divides the cosmos into two worlds. This is not a setting thing. They aren’t literal worlds. They aren’t dimensions. They aren’t planes. They are thematic worlds. But they are important nonetheless. And, honestly, they have a long and storied history in D&D and other role-playing games. In fact, the first alignment system was basically a codification of the two worlds of the Monomyth. Probably not on purpose. It just worked out that way. And that’s why people really need to look at alignment more carefully before they wreck it, f$&% with it, or dismiss it as useless. Done right – and the creators of D&D haven’t done it right in f$&%ing years – it provides a very strong, thematic grounding for a good story game.

Here’s the deal: the Monomyth divides the cosmos into two worlds. There’s the familiar, every day, normal world that normal people live in. It’s home and hearth. It’s kith and kin. It’s civilization. It’s order. It’s light. It’s understood. It’s familiar. And that’s the important part. The important part is that it’s the world that normal people understand. They feel safe there. They feel in control. They understand the rules of that world. They have their routines. They have their lives.

Now, the familiar world – the Overworld – it can vary a little bit. Because everyone’s normal varies a little bit. A peasant farmer’s Overworld is the pastoral village he lives in and the Lord’s estate and the familiar hills and forests in his homeland. That’s where he feels safe and in control. That world is not devoid of danger, mind you, but it’s normal danger. The stuff people can deal with. Foxes coming after the hens, wolves coming after the sheep, harsh winter storms and dry summers, that sort of normal crap. A city guard’s Overworld is the city. A ranger’s Overworld is the forest they have lived in all their life, where they know all the paths and all the hazards and never get lost.

Roughly speaking, the Overworld is order. It’s law. It’s a place where the people know all the rules. And even when the unexpected happens, it’s a manageable sort of unexpected. Because, again, they know how to cope with things.

The other world is the Underworld. That’s not literally an underground place, but it can be. In Greek mythology, it sure as Hades was. The Underworld is chaos. It is the unknown. It is darkness. It is frightening. It is mysterious. It is full of wonderful and terrible and awe-inspiring things. It is fantastic. It’s “here there be dragons.” It’s “abandon hope ye who enter here.” It doesn’t have to be lawless, it doesn’t have to be devoid of rules, but it will seem that way because the rules aren’t known or understood. It is a world that defies easy mastery.

Roughly speaking, the Underworld is chaos. It’s the world of the unknown, the unexpected, the mysterious, and the barely understood. It’s also the world of adventure.

Now, like I said, these are thematic things. And D&D has represented those themes in a number of ways. First, there’s the Law-vs-Chaos dichotomy that used to simply represent the ongoing battle between the order of civilization and the chaos of the unknown wilderness. That’s certainly how Poul Anderson and others used it in the fantasy books Gygax stole the dichotomy from. It has also been represented in the age-old adventure structure of “leaving town to seek adventure in the wilderness or dungeon, and then coming home.”

I mean, f$&%, why do you think the game started with heroes descending into mysterious dungeons and then coming home with the loot?

Like so many things, D&D remembered the basic structure because that structure speaks so strongly to the human mind and soul, but it has forgotten the thematic whys and wherefores. I recently wrote about the growing frustration among a number of players with the lack of low magic options in D&D play and concluded that it was the loss of the fantastic that was to blame for that brand of growing ennui. Well, what it’s REALLY about is this: D&D eroded the difference between the Overworld and the Underworld and the thematic elements that have DEFINED enduring fantasy adventure since ANCIENT F$&%ING EGYPT took the hit. And people are starting to feel it.

See, one of the important aspects of the Monomyth is that the heroes gradually conquer the Underworld. Not in the sense that they, like, kill everything in it. Sometimes they do. But really, they eventually master it. They come to understand how it works. And they begin to use its particular rules and structures to their advantage. Luke Skywalker eventually masters the Force. Harry Potter eventually masters magic. And D&D wizards – and other characters – start as weak apprentices and eventually become powerful.

Heroes these days – if I can shake my walker at you kids these days – have too many trappings of the Underworld already built into them. So, it never feels like they are mastering another world. Which means they are never growing beyond what they started as. All they are doing is getting more powerful.

Sorry.

The point is, this whole Overworld/Underworld thing is actually super important in stories. It’s actually part of the human psyche. All of our best imagery is about the dichotomy between what we know and control and what we are ignorant of and can’t control. It’s Yin and Yang. It’s Order and Chaos. And that dichotomy, by the way, is far more interesting than the one about good and evil. And it’s also more interesting than what D&D turned Law and Chaos into. “Are you okay following rules or do you prefer to do your own thing?” F$&% that garbage.

The reason you have to understand the Overworld/Underworld thing to use the spice rack that is the Monomyth to spice up your games is that certain things have to happen in certain worlds. Moreover, everything is part of either one world or the other. And that brings us to the other facet of the Monomyth that you have to understand to use these spices well.

One other thing to note is that most D&D campaigns deal with this Overworld/Underworld thing in one of two ways. The first way is to have an ongoing cycle of descents into the Underworld and returns to the Overworld. The heroes traipse into the Underworld to have adventures and then return to the Overworld on completion of their adventure. That – by the way – DOESN’T mean that, every time the heroes need to go to sleep for the night, they are returning from the Underworld. The Return from the Underworld is something that happens after the climax of the story. With each adventure, the heroes conquer another part of the Underworld and gradually, they come to master the Underworld. And each new journey into the Underworld takes them farther afield into more fantastic and more distant territory and provides new and different challenges.

The second way is to have the heroes spend most of their time in the Underworld. The campaign starts with a call to adventure and the heroes eventually leave the Overworld and travel into the Underworld. They spend all of their time in the Underworld until pretty much the end of the campaign. Gradually, of course, they are coming to be more at home in the Underworld. That’s the sort of structure that sends the heroes from their pastoral village into a world of fantasy adventure across mysterious foreign kingdoms and lost continents. You know: explore the world. The mistake most GMs make in those campaigns is that they forget that even the civilized parts of those worlds should still FEEL like the Underworld. That is, the characters should never feel like completely a part of the world beyond their village. Something should always come up to keep them from becoming totally comfortable and complacent.

And please please please DO NOT ask me about running a game in which the characters are just part of the Underworld. If you ask that question, you have missed the ENTIRE F$&%ING POINT and you will make me sad.

… And That’s Where Classes Come From

The Monomyth isn’t just a plot structure, despite what other amateurish GMs who have read Campbell will tell you. I mean, I already showed you how it relies on a core theme that represents the principle conflict between humanity and the universe, the need for understanding and control vs. the mysterious and every changing chaos of reality. And also – though I don’t want to go too deep – how a complete person – AKA a hero – is someone who can walk the line between the two worlds, because we need both order and chaos to live a complete existence.

The other thing that is central to understanding this whole Monomyth thing is the concept of an archetype. Campbell – like Karl Jung – he LOVED his f$&%ing archetypes. But that’s okay because, again, they are a concept that just fits nicely into the 50,000-year-old lump of goo that is the modern human brain. Now, there are lots of ways to define archetypes. And in different contexts, the word means different things, but in the context of stories and games, archetypes are basically just roles in the story. I mean, you can think of them like characters in a story. But they aren’t specific characters. They are more like character templates.

Now, D&D is full of archetypes. It just calls them classes. Classes basically started as broad character templates stolen from other stories that had become familiar. The devout knight in shining armor? That’s the paladin. The wise magician? Well, that’s the wizard. The pious holy advisor and leader? That’s your cleric. The savage warrior from a primitive land? Barbarian. The ambitious doctor who made a deal with darkness in return for power? That’s the warlock. It’s all there. And, although I could complain that, once again, D&D – and ESPECIALLY Pathfinder – remembered the actual structures but forgot the themes behind them and why they worked in the first place, I won’t bother. I’m done shaking my cane and yelling at you kids.

For now.

Anyway, Campbell’s Monomyth is full of archetypes. They are characters that fill specific roles in the story. And he gave them evocative names drawn from the basic way they kept cropping up in literature and mythology. But archetypes aren’t a matter of function; they are a matter of form. So, when Campbell talks about, say, the Goddess or the Dragon, he doesn’t mean that the character must take form of a female deity or a firebreathing lizard. That’s just a label that describes the most common form the archetype tends to take and also one that identifies some of the specific traits of the archetype.

Now, I’m not going to be discussing these archetypes in too much detail. But I feel like I could definitely write a whole article on inserting plot-relevant NPCs based on mythological archetypes. If there’s any interest in that kind of crap. But I’m sure as f$&% going to have to do at least two more articles on the mathematical crunch of the game before I can stomach any more of this narrative structure bulls$&%.

But these archetypes are going to come up. Often, inserting a spicy Monomyth turning point will involve an encounter with a specific NPC archetype. And I’ll explain the archetypes that do come up then and there. I just want you to understand that the archetypes represent roles in the story, not specific forms that the NPCs have to take. A “damsel in distress” has to be a visibly vulnerable, sympathetic character in need of rescue. That’s why we use the word “damsel” and not “woman.” The actual damsel in distress doesn’t have to be a young, single woman. She can be a young, single man. Or an old woman. Or an old man. Or even a dog. Or a cat. Or a magical, talking artichoke. Or a tortle who was born without a shell. It doesn’t f$&%ing matter the form the archetype takes as long as the role is fulfilled.

It’s also important to note that many of the archetypes can be classified as either “belonging to the Overworld” or “belonging to the Underworld.” The Goddess is a being of the Underworld. She is a part of the chaotic, mysterious, fantastic world of adventure. She understands that world and can act freely in it. And she belongs in it. Generally speaking, the Goddess should not be encountered in the Overworld. The Supernatural Helper is generally encountered in the Overworld, but is someone who has traveled in or is part of the Underworld. That’s what makes them supernatural.

Anyway, all of this is just to establish the ground rules for using these spicy turning points in your adventure meals. Those rules are: separate the cosmos into the Overworld and the Underworld thematically AND you can freely change the form of any archetype as long as whatever character you invent fills the proper story role.

Are we good? Great. Let’s get spicy!

Life in the Overworld

Now, obviously, the heroes begin their stories in the Overworld. I hope I don’t have to explain that. But what’s less obvious is that the heroes don’t have to move IMMEDIATELY into the Underworld. Stuff can – and does – happen in the Overworld. And there are at least a few turning points that can occur – optionally – in the Overworld. Now, these things must happen AFTER the Call to Adventure, which may or may not occur after A New Life has started for the heroes. In general, by the way, A New Life is a great way to start continuing adventures in an ongoing campaign. Especially after the close of a plot arc. I don’t know if I mentioned that before.

The first spicy optional turning point scene that you might want to include is a sort of failsafe on the Call to Adventure. And it can generally take one of three different forms. Campbell identified it as Refusing the Call. Basically, it refers to the fact that a true hero usually has to overcome some initial fear, hesitation, or objection that makes them refuse the Call to Adventure. It shows that the hero is afraid or humble or is steeped in the Overworld and not ready to leave it. He called it Refusing the Call. And, holy s$&%, do new-to-Campbell GMs make a lot out of how important it is.

Well, look, it isn’t. Refusing the Call is an important part of the development of the story because it requires the hero to overcome something just to get out the door. You can’t just go along with the adventure because you’ve got nothing better to do. Bilbo had to say no before he said yes or else his choice to go on the adventure doesn’t mean anything. If he’s willing to go into the Underworld, he’s not really overcoming anything, so he’s not really going to transform.

But, here’s the thing: the players in an RPG rarely Refuse the Call. Because they created their characters specifically to go on an adventure. They’ve already overcome their objections. They are adventurers for f$&%’s sake. And Refusing the Call, for them, isn’t as important as the fact that they are accepting the risk that the character they created might die and they will have to start over. And yes, the PLAYER is accepting the risk.

That said, sometimes the players WILL Refuse the Call. Either they will fail to bite on a subtle Call to Adventure or they won’t be motivated properly by whatever you put in front of them. They might decide to just d$&% around town, doing their own thing, or go off in pursuit of some random objective or just f$&% with the world. Usually, it’s due to a miscalculation on your part about their motivations. But, you can also TRY to engineer a refusal – and sometimes that’s fun – by offering a motivation you KNOW won’t work. One that’s too weak or goes against their nature.

If, for whatever reason, the heroes refuse the call, you’re going to need a scene that offers them some incentive to accept the call. You know, you have to kill Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. Or send Nala into the wasteland to go get dumba%$ Simba back from Nathan Lane and Pigma. And there’s three possible scenes that will do that. So, I offer these three scenes.

Sweetening the Deal OR But Thou Must… OR A Shove Out the Door

Basically, these three Turning Point scenes are all designed to make the heroes reconsider their refusal of the call to adventure. And there’s three basic strategies you can use. Just remember, you can’t use the same strategy twice. And, honestly, if you try to use more than one, you’re going to be accused of stifling the idiot players’ freedom to not have fun by ignoring the game. Whichever strategy you use though, it’s important to allow some time to pass between the refusal and the next scene. Go along with the players for a little while and then plop one of these Turning Point scenes down.

Sweetening the Deal involves a scene that shows there’s another, additional, previously unknown benefit of taking on the adventure. If the heroes refused to recover a treasure from the Cave of Wonders for the obviously-not-at-all-evil advisor to the king, they might later hear another legend about a different treasure in the same cave. Or they might have someone offer them that airship they wanted for a very steep price. One that can be paid for with the proceeds from the Cave of Wonders expedition. Whatever. The point is just to dangle an additional, better prize in front of them.

But Thou Must… occurs when a scene demonstrates that the heroes don’t have a choice. Or else the choice is so bad that they’d be stupid not to accept the call. For example, the not-at-all-evil advisor might show up at one of the heroes’ mothers’ house when the hero goes for a visit and reveal that they are romantically involved and imply that terrible – but not evil – things might happen in the relationship if the advisor doesn’t end up with the treasure he wants. Or an assassin totally unrelated to the advisor might poison the heroes with a slow-acting poison whose only antidote just happens to be in the advisor’s possession. That kind of thing.

A Shove Out the Door occurs when a sympathetic character – a friend or advisor – shows up and talks the heroes into accepting the call to adventure. The friend might appeal to the character’s basic nature, point out something the hero is overlooking in refusing the call, or simply disapprove of the choice in a way that makes the heroes feel guilty.

It’s Dangerous to Go Alone, Take This. Or Take Me.

Once the heroes have accepted the call to adventure, but before they have left the Overworld, they usually equip themselves for the adventure. Now, that crap is just a shopping trip and there’s no use wasting table time on the trip to the grocery store. But sometimes, the heroes seek out some additional help. They might need a very special something for their trip. Or they might need information. Or they might want to bring some allies. And even when the heroes don’t seek that crap out, sometimes, those things end up getting offered anyway.

Generally speaking, there’s a few different types of aid the heroes might seek or might be offered. They might end up with some useful information – like a map or a riddle that reveals a secret entrance. They might end up with some companions to help them on their way, like Sam and Merry and Pippin. Or they might end up with a useful trinket or object. The key thing to remember is that all of these things should be of the Overworld. Their companions should be people like them. The information should be pretty iffy, like legends or myths, or incomplete, like a half-drawn map, or indecipherable without some help, like magical runes on the map no-one can read. If there is anything that doesn’t belong in the Overworld on offer, it should require something extra before it can be used or understood. If you ever wondered why magic item shops were a bad idea, thematically? This is part of it.

When You Are Ready to Learn, the Teacher Appears

The last thing that might happen in the Overworld – and this should be the VERY last thing that happens before the heroes leave for the Underworld – is that the heroes might encounter the Supernatural Advisor. The Supernatural Advisor is a very special character. They don’t have to be magical. That’s just the name of an archetype. But they do have to know more about the Underworld than anyone else. They have to be wise and world-weary. They have to have spent time in the Underworld. Maybe they live there now. They usually aren’t OF the Underworld though. It’s strongly implied that, once upon a time, a long time ago, they set out for the Underworld answering a Call to Adventure of their own. And now they are here to help. Yeah, this is your Gandalf. This is your Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Now, in RPGs, power level is important. The Supernatural Advisor is generally more powerful than the heroes. And that can create all sorts of complications. So, the Supernatural Advisor has to have some reason not to simply do the adventure for the heroes. And some reason not to just accompany them and protect them. He’s there to give them some sort of help or advice or information or artifact that will help them. And his help IS of the Underworld.

The Supernatural Advisor might travel with the party for a short time, or he might come and go a few times during the adventure. His role is to act as a teacher, advisor, and guide. These characters can be tricky to pull off right. But they can be very effective. And, the best part is, you can kill them later to prove that It’s Personal.

Adventures in the Underworld

Once the heroes have accepted the Call to Adventure and have secured any help that might be on offer and they’ve met with the Supernatural Teacher, if there is one, they are ready to begin the adventure proper.

And one of the spiciest of scenes – one of the best – is the very first scene that happens when the heroes actually set out on the adventure.

Into the Underworld OR The Guardian at the Gate

After the heroes leave the Overworld, it is very useful to have a scene that signifies the point at which the heroes have entered the Underworld. That is, the point where the real Dark Souls begins. This is usually called “crossing the threshold.” Now, this can be a simple narrative scene. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. But it does have to say, thematically, “okay, this is it, you’re on your own now, in a world you don’t understand that wants to probably kill you.”

Remember when Samwise suddenly stopped Frodo and said “this is it? If I take this step, it’ll be the farthest I’ve ever been from home?” That was it. That was when Frodo and Sam entered the Underworld. From there on out, it was all Terra Incognita.

The threshold can be as simple as the heroes turning off the known road and heading down an old path into the hills. It can be the gateway to the dungeon itself, of course. It can even be the gates of the city-state if the frontier is particularly wild and untamed. The turning point can be pretty subtle, but if you’ve done everything right up to that point, it will also be just a little chilling.

It is not always easy to cross the threshold, though. Sometimes, entering the Underworld requires resolve, risk, or sacrifice. Thus, sometimes, there’s a Guardian at the Gate. The Guardian doesn’t have to be a literal monster, but it can be. The point is that it tests the heroes resolve. It can be nothing more than a warning from the guard at the city gate that the lands are untamed and dangerous and they likely won’t come back alive. For added effect, the guard might not want to be bothered opening the gate. He might put up a fight. A physical obstacle helps a lot.

The point is to put something in the way of the heroes that makes them prove they really want to go on this adventure. Make them earn it, at least a little. It’s kind of like saying, “from here on out, there’s a lot of conflict. If you think you can handle it, you’ve got to handle this little obstacle first.”

Trials and Tribulations

From this point on, the heroes are in the Underworld. This is where the adventure takes place. And all of the plot points should be defined by, well, whatever the hell you designed for the adventure. Campbell discusses a lot of things here. And they mostly come down to different types of challenges the heroes face on the Road of Trials. Eventually, they reach the deepest, darkest part of the story and confront the major conflict, the Supreme Trial, after they enter the Belly of the Beast. Along the way, the hero might face Temptation, they might Meet the Goddess, they might Battle their Brother, they might Journey through the Night, they might undergo a Ritual Death or a Sacred Marriage, they might have to deal with the Devil or the Trickster or the Shapechange, and I could go on and on and on. There’s probably a whole other article on building specific adventure scenes out of this sort of crap. But, to be honest, it all comes down to “fill your adventure with a wide variety of encounters.”

So, this is Campbell’s Road of Trials. And basically, it’s the adventure part of the adventure. It ends with the Climax – the Supreme Trial – after the heroes have entered the Belly of the Beast. And then, the story heads home. Maybe.

Out Through the In Door

Now, generally, you don’t want to spend too much time playing out the ending after the climax, but you also don’t want to ignore it. And one nice, narrative scene to include after the adventure is over is the bookend to Entering the Underworld. If you had an Entering the Underworld scene, you want to have a similar scene wherein the heroes are most definitely crossing the threshold back into the Overworld. Just as with the first scene, this scene can be subtle. It just marks the transition between the chaos of the world of adventure and the familiar world of home. Nothing more. And it’s a great way to move from adventure into the resolution.

Of course, sometimes, it’s not that easy getting out…

You’ll Never Escape

Sometimes, the heroes might face one more obstacle before they leave the Underworld. This is similar to a Guardian at the Gate, but in reverse. They have to fight their way OUT of the Underworld. As with the Guardian at the Gate, this can be a literal fight, but it can also be any other sort of obstacle. And it’s usually a very useful way to resolve an earlier, unresolved plot arc. Like a rivalry with a minor NPC. Or the consequences of a decision catching up with the PCs. It might be a pursuit by the forces of the Underworld trying to pull the heroes back. It can even be a temptation to stay in the Underworld and not return to the Overworld. Of course, pulling that off depends heavily on where the barrier between the Underworld and the Overworld lies and what you can offer to tempt the PCs.

The thing about this scene, though, is that it has to be significant enough to represent a serious threat. Given that the heroes are generally in a weakened, exhausted state by the end of their adventures, that might not be too hard. But this scene CAN’T overshadow the Climax or else it will become the Climax and the story will feel like it’s one of those movies that doesn’t know when to end. You know, like Return of the F$&%ing King?

For that reason, I prefer to make my You’ll Never Escape scenes involve a substantially different obstacle than whatever the climax entailed. If the Climax was a battle, the You’ll Never Escape scene needs to be an obstacle, a chase, a trap, temptation, or some other interaction. For maximum effect, it’s nice if the You’ll Never Escape scene involves something the heroes couldn’t have done before the start of the adventure. Or resolving an emotional conflict that connects to the themes of the adventure. If the heroes refused the call at the beginning out of greed, for example, they might be tempted to stay with the promise of wealth or power. That’s what those of us who remember what good movies are like call “a character arc.” Well, a simple one anyway.

And Many More

Here’s the thing: Campbell’s basic Monomyth includes 17 different major stages. Some of them overlap with the other plot points. Some, I’ve combined. And some I’ve skipped or glossed over to fit the structure of RPGs. But other authors have expanded on the Monomyth, adding other great turning points and archetypes to the whole mix. So, even though I feel like I have a really nice mix of major turning points to build a good story around, I also feel like there’s so much more I could do.

The thing is, though, without the thematic foundation – the Overworld and the Underworld – none of it is really useful. And, honestly, there’s a lot of raw, elemental, primal D&D wrapped up in those concepts that good GMs really have a firm grasp on. And, to be honest, I hadn’t thought about all that crap until I drafted this article as just a list of plot points and discovered it was crap. So, I’m sorry if this isn’t quite what I promised. But, I’m not sorry. Because the theming IS more important.

I’d like to revisit this crap eventually, though. Especially the NPC archetype thing. If you’d be down for a further examination of story turning points and NPC archetypes inspired by Monomyth theory, let me know in the comments. If you’ve had enough of this s$&%, well, fair enough. Because it is just fluffy, story bulls$&%. Meanwhile, here’s the complete turning point list.

In the Overworld
(Optional) A New Life: The heroes’ lives start a new course, one that will bring them into contact with adventure.
The Call to Adventure: Something happens to make the heroes aware of a major conflict that they have to resolve and a good reason to want to resolve it.
(Optional) Sweetening the Deal/But Thou Must…/A Shove Out the Door: If the heroes have refused the call to adventure, something happens to offer the heroes an additional incentive, make it impossible to refuse, or convince them to change their mind.
(Optional) It’s Dangerous to Go Alone, Take This. Or Take Me: The heroes are offered mundane assistance in the Overworld. It might take the form of information, allies, or tools. If they are of a supernatural nature, something is required before they can be used (in the Underworld).
(Optional) The Teacher Appears: A Supernatural Teacher offers the party aid, advice, and guidance. Though of the Overworld, the Teacher is wise in the ways of the Underworld.
In the Underworld
(Optional) Entering the Underworld/The Guardian at the Gate: The party must cross the threshold and enter the Underworld. The party might have to prove their resolve by overcoming a minor obstacle, resistance, or even defeating a foe.
The Road of Trials: The heroes encounter all sorts of exciting adventure stuff. They face obstacles, foes, and temptations. They gain allies and boons to help them. They face hard choices. This is basically the adventure itself.
(Optional) It’s Personal: An event occurs to make the upcoming conflict personal and to make it impossible for the heroes to accept failure. Whether they succeed or fail against this challenge, they can’t go back. They have to go forward.
(Optional) The Big Screw/The Final Test: Something major – really, the story itself – turns against the heroes and they have to deal with it. They either get through the test and move on to face the final conflict or else they end up at their lowest point and resolve to end the conflict once and for all.
The Climax: The heroes face whatever conflict has been building from the beginning, or face something that will allow them to resolve that conflict once or fail. If they succeed, they’ve won and the adventure is over. If they fail, they’ve lost and the adventure is still over. And maybe they are dead. Sometimes, that’s how it goes.
(Optional) Out Through the In Door/You’ll Never Escape: Having resolved the major conflict of the adventure – for better or for worse – the party leaves the Underworld. However, they might encounter a minor – but significant – obstacle barring their path. One that doesn’t overshadow the climax.