How do you create your adventures?

[Urban Spaceman]

I've found this a hard question to answer.
I suppose that the level of detail I write depends on the type of adventure I'm planning.

For example, the two I'm working on at the moment are (hopefully) very different.
One is a story of revenge, where the characters are after someone who they think can lead them to find someone else. In actual fact, the person they have asked to help, is the person they are after, and so they will be heading in to a trap. Not much of a story if they can't escape it (and they guy only planned for their being 2 of them, not 6). So they'll be sluething and chasing, following leads and getting information out of people, until eventually they'll find his base of operations.

So, I work out where his base is. What he did after setting the trap. Who may have seen him. I just need to decide what trail he left that could be found by the characters.
The rest of it is up to the players to come up with. They will, of course, come up with a line of thinking I haven't considered, but that's fine. I'll put the same information out there, but in the place they are looking (so long as their idea is resonable).
For example, I thought they would bribe the local star port official to tell them where a certain ship was heading. But they decide to slice in to the star port records instead. Same information. Different place.

Now, that's quite a loose adventure, as it will eventually funnel to one place.
The second one I'm working has only one main location, which is a science research station which is no-where near as empty as it first appears.
My idea here is that they get caught there by some Imperials, but all become trapped when they are attacked by some deadly creatures (who were actually the result of the scientists experiments).
As this is effectively a "monster house", I will be coming up with a detailed map of the base, deciding on some of the resources available, and coming up with the Imperial NPC's personality (someone has to get a little stir crazy!).

For both adventures I will have some important stats available (vehicles, featured NPC's etc.). Anything I feel I might have to look up in the books, I'll either write down a page number, or copy out and keep to hand.

That's just me though. I think the more experienced you get, the less you need to write down. Some people here could probably throw together a Hoth-style battle on the fly, but that takes a lot of time and experience.

You'll develop your own style, and recognise what you need for your games soon enough, and they'll be different to everyone else's.
Look forward to hearing about them.
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"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."