I am designing my first adventure as a first run sort of thing. That being said... the initial startup adventure in the box, while good, uses Chapters. I understand the flow, but the question I wrestle with is:

Are the chapters "Acts"? It would seem that the game in the box is a single episode consisting of three acts (chapters).

In my head that works fine, whereas one episode equals three acts (or around that number) and that would be a single session's worth of gaming for the most part.

If that is indeed the case, my first adventure is structured like this.

Can someone clarify my thought process?

Nevermind. I answered my own question by going over the adventure in the book once more.

Episode doesn't seem to equate to a single session. An episode can just be a fight, with two breathers in the middle.

I would say an Episode equates to a single "challenge." Maybe it's a fight, and is over relatively quickly. Maybe it's a heavy RP episode and runs the whole session (or longer).

They define an episode as having acts under it.

How they did it was split things into "Chapters". Chapters are, to me... theatrical "Acts". They are the building block.

So Module is made up of many chapters.
Chapters will be made up of many Encounters.
Encounters will be made up of many acts.
Acts will be broken up with rest actions in between them.

The way I handle it: I ignore it. I introduce rally steps in those brief moments when the action dies down, and in specific points in the adventures I write. I chunk my scenes together in ways that make sense to me, and don't worry much about adhering to a suggested format.

That being said, the suggestions on composing your encounters, acts, scenes, etc. is very good, but ultimately what it is highlighting is a build up of tension, the climax and the release. So overarching all of my campaign's chapter you have

1. Intro to the village. Ominous thing occurs
2. PCs become involved in the events of the village
3. Massive fight and resolution of events from 1.

In each of those, you have their own arch. For instance:

1. The PCs are made aware of a greenskin raid and travel out to the farmstead.
2. Fight ensues, only to discover two young boys were taken
3. Tracking the boys > encounter with the Orc boss.

You can narrow it down further, for example step 2:

1. PCs engage the greenskins outside the palisade walls
   Rally Step
2. PCs engage the greenskins inside the walls (bigger fight)
   Rally Step
3. PCs send the greenskins packing and rescue the remaining family members only to find the boys missing.

You can contrive any sort of 3-act sequence among all of those various levels. For instance, on the tracking the boys step, the format might suggest treating that as its own 3-acts with appropriate rally steps.

But I don't focus on that per se, rather I just right a series of interconnected scenes the PCs may follow.

The 3 Act structure to encounters is a change of mindset for most of us that are used to an encounter being the smallest chunk of an adventure. The key thing to keep in mind as I have written in other threads is that the PCs are very vulnerable to Fatigue and Stress. Without Rally Steps to recover some, they are quickly in a position where they cannot afford to take extra maneuvers and are at risk of passing out. To maximize their fun, the players need to be free to spend Fatigue on extra maneuvers and Stress on cranking their stance. If you fall back into conventional thinking and run all combat encounters as a single "scene", they will quickly learn that they must conserve Fatigue/Stress and will never do those two things. If you are comfortable monitoring a combat and keeping an eye on the PCs' stress/fatigue levels and if necessary, just figuring out a way to work in a Rally Step on the fly to give them a break, then you may not have to worry about that level of detail in your session prep. If not, it's a good idea to think about where it makes sense within your encounters to work the Rally Steps in.

mac40k said:

I agree with the concern over Stress & Fatigue. But instead of building them directly into every scene I write (from a narrative perspective) I trust myself as a GM (and thus when I publish my adventures the GMs using my material) to insert Rally steps into appropriate moments when they aren't specified. In the current adventure I am writing for release, I often mention to insert them, but I don't always specify where. I leave that to the GM to determine the tempo.