Whether you’re mid-campaign or just starting out, consider giving this a shot: Ask each of your players to request a scenario idea built around three components of their choosing. Then follow up on their requests.

The components are: Want, what the party wants to get out of the adventure (a reward, accomplishing a story goal, etc.); Challenge, what stands in the party’s way; and Cool Factor, the elements that make the scenario unique and memorable.

Players could choose to come up with their ideas separately or as a group, although I can see major advantages to doing it collectively (just as there are with group character creation).

With those basics in hand, you flesh out the actual adventure — making sure to deliver on each of the requested elements. Let’s call this the Want, Challenge, Cool Factor method of scenario creation (or just WCCF).

As a player, when I think of something nifty that I’d like to do in a game, I can’t always find a way to work it into the adventures at hand. That’s the genesis of this method, and for me it usually starts with the cool factor.

If this option were available to me as a player, I’d jump on it in a heartbeat. And as a GM, it would provide me with some great fuel for scenarios, each of which had premade buy-in from at least one player — and buy-in is always invaluable.

I’ve never tried this, but it seems like a sound concept. There’s almost certainly room for improvement. What do you think of this idea?