Here they are, right up front: Either the PCs acquire/rescue/deliver the macguffin (it might not be an object) or stop the bad thing from happening (STBTH).
The objective can be/use just one, the other…or both (doing one makes the other happen)! For example, on the macro scale, a campaign usually ends with the PCs stopping a super majorly huge bad thing from happening…often with a macguffin. Or vice versa, receiving a reward (macguffin) for STBTH. In Star Wars, to STBTH, the destruction of the rebel base on Yavin and the Empire winning, the macguffin, R2-D2 and the Death Star plans he’s carrying, needs to be delivered to the rebels.
When you’ve accepted these two universal ways of fulfilling a story arc, planning gets easier. These objectives can end individual sessions, one-shots, multi-session arcs, complete tier mini-campaigns, and even giant, sprawling campaigns that go from levels 1 to 20.
It ultimately comes down to: What are the PCs supposed to be working towards? (For a narrative campaign, I’m assuming the players are onboard with the end goal in mind.) Do they need to find a thing, stop a thing, or do a combination of both?
I want to start with defining a macguffin. I was in a discussion with someone on discord recently, a completely new DM, and suggesting they make it easy on themselves by having the PCs go off to acquire a macguffin. They resisted this but then told me that they’d have the PCs go find someone who had some info. THAT’S A MACGUFFIN! Yes, the macguffin can be vast amounts of treasure or the Ark of the Covenant or the Declaration of Independance. But it can also be a map to Atlas’s trident. It can really be anything, such as a person and the information they have. The guy with the keys in the Matrix movies is as much a macguffin as the Ark of the Covenant. Or it can be a clue to the next macguffin. The large “X” in the library in The Last Crusade is a great example. There can be a string of macguffins, each one being a map or clue or tool needed to acquire the next macguffin. (Repeat until finding the main macguffin, such as the Holy Grail. Movies love doing this.)
Now let’s look at Stopping The Bad Thing Happening.
How many adventures have started off with PCs being asked to stop the orc raiders from torching the village or goblin bandits from waylaying merchants and travelers along the road? In those cases, the PCs aren’t brought in to find something but to STOP something. While James Bond does sometimes need to acquire things, more often he’s trying to stop bad things from happening. The Lord of the Rings is mostly trying to stop a bad thing from happening: Sauron taking over the world! (By delivering a macguffin, the One Ring, to the Cracks of Doom.)
Stopping the bad thing happening (STBTH) can also be as simple as stopping the orc raids or stopping an execution.
Now, often in fantasy and myth, the two universal quest things often both have to happen. For example, in Dragonlance, the characters needed to find the legendary dragonlances (macguffins) before they could stop Takhisis from taking over the world (STBTH). The Knights of the Round Table–well, Gawain anyway (or Perceval, depending on the source)–needed to find the Holy Grail (macguffin) to stop the blight upon the land of Britain (STBTH). And there was the example from Star Wars at the beginning of this post.
How do you utilize this to make planning easier? Simply decide at first what the purpose of the quest/adventure/campaign is: macguffin-related or STBTH or both. You’ll probably know exactly what that thing is right then and there and what obstacles/bad guys are in the way, at least at the end. But if you don’t, now’s a good time to figure that out. Then work backwards just a little bit, figuring out how to get the macguffin or how to STBTH. (Usually, a boss fight is involved… 😉 ) At that point you work from the beginning onward for the rest of your prep: Where the PCs at the start of the adventure, what adventure hooks are set in place, important NPCs likely to be encountered that session, etc.
Thoughts on the two universal objectives? Leave them in the comments below!