Buy Me a CoffeeRandom Adventure Generator
| Theme | Action/Adventure |
| This is the most common and straightforward sort of adventure there is. In the Action/Adventure scenario, you present your characters with a task and then confront them with obstacles to overcome in order to accomplish the task successfully. | |
| Goal | Explore a New Area |
| The heroes are hired or convinced to enter an unmapped area and explore it. They may be making a map; they may be trying to find someone who disappeared into this area in the past; they may be following legends that tell of treasure in the unexplored interior. | |
| Story Hook | Grim Necessity |
| If the hero doesn't involve himself with this adventure, he's going to find himself suffering or dead -- period. That's the hook to bring him into the adventure... but you have to determine why he'll suffer or die if he doesn't become involved. | |
| Plot | Geographic Progression |
| This is the simplest sort of adventure plot. The heroes have an area to investigate or travel through; they have encounters based on where they are. For instance, the traditional dungeon, where monsters are tied to specific rooms or areas. Or, if the heroes are travelling along a narrow valley or through an enchanted forest, they might suffer ambushes and other encounters fixed to various points along their travel plan. The plot, then, is getting to the villain by surviving the intervening obstacle encounters. | |
| Climax | Chase to Ground |
| First, you have the Heroes Chasing the Villain. The villain, after a series of encounters with the heroes, is running to safety, to some place where he can acquire more power, or to somehwere he can accomplish some dread purpose such as assassination or mass murder. The heroes chase him, have to deal with the obstacles he leaves behind, and finally catch up to him before or just as he reaches his goal. Here, we have the final duel between the villains forces and the heroes. Second, you have the Villain Chasing the Heroes. Often, in a story like this, the heroes have found out how to defeat the villain -- such as getting to a particular temple and conducting a particular ritual. The villain chases them all through their quest, catching up to them just as they're commenciing their ritual; they must, with heroic effort, conclude the ritual while suffering his attacks. Third, you have the Master Villain's Sudden Escape Attempt. This takes place in adventures where the Master Villain's identity is unknown until the end. His identity is revealed and he makes a sudden bolt for freedom; the heroes give chase. This usually results in a dangerous foot-chase through nasty terrain -- such as across rooftops, through the dungeons, or across an active battlefield. | |
| General Setting | On the Sea |
| Most of the action occurs on the sea -- the heroes are shipborne for some reason, docking in lots of ports. Again, this is good for adventures where the heroes are investigating clues left all over the map, are part of some trading enterprise, or are being pursued by villains. | |
| Specific Setting I | Military Encampment |
| This is best used in an episode involving warfare; it could be the good-guy army's encampment, from which the heroes launch their adventures, or the villains' encampment, in which case the heroes might have to sneak in on a mission or escape from it if they're captured. | |
| Specific Setting II | Craftsman's Quarter |
| This can occur in either the shop of the master craftsman of a palace or manor, or the guild-area of a city. | |
| Master Villain | Conqueror |
| This character is moving his army in to take over; that's what he lives for. He's been the enemy of your characters' nation's ruler, and has launched a full-scale invasion of your characters' favorite nation. The heroes have to beat their way through or elude his hordes of soldiers in order to get at him; better yet, they might lead their own nation's troops against his and outthink him in military fashion. | |
| Minor Villain I | Inquisitor |
| This villain is the one who interrogates the heroes and NPCs captured by the villains. He accompanies the other Minor Villain out into the field and works on anyone captured; he enjoys inflicting pain and suffering. | |
| Minor Villain II | Single-Minded Soldier |
| This most trustworthy of villain minions is the experienced, competent, persistent soldier -- a field-trained officer who serves the villain with military precision. He is usually encountered in the field as leader of the villain's field operations. He is not encountered directly until the middle of or the latter part of the adventure; until then, the heroes encounter only his subordinates. | |
| Ally/Neutral | Romantic Loony |
| Somewhere, the heroes bump into a lunatic who falls immediately in love with a player-character and won't leave him or her alone. This character may be a love-smitten village lass or nebbishy adventurer. Whatever the origin, this character must be hopelessly in love with the character but have some trait which keeps the character from reciprocating; perhaps the loony is too plain, too crazed, or too stupid. Whatever, he or she really is sincere in his affection for the character. | |
| Monster Encounter | Nocturnal Predator |
| This is a classic monster encounter; the arrival of a hungry carnivore in the middle of the night. Usually, this attack happens to heroes camping between villages or out in the deep wilderness; a wild animal, attracted by food odors (from the heroes' campfire or from the heroes themselves) sneaks in for a bite. | |
| Character Encounter | Mean Drunk |
| The Mean Drunk works much like the Belligerent Soldier except that he's not as tough, is of course drunk, and is usually accompanied by other Mean Drunks. | |
| Deathtrap | Demolition Zone |
| In this classic deathtrap, the heroes are placed (usually bound and weaponless) in some building or area just as it's due to be destroyed. | |
| Chase | Horseback |
| This is a relatively short chase -- it only needs to go on for a mile or so before even the best horses are winded. If it goes on longer than that, the horses may collapse and perhaps die. | |
| Omen/Prophesy | Totem Animal |
| If a hero has an animal which is his totem, he may see the animal engaged in a fight to the death with another animal -- one which, coincidentally, is the totem of one of the villains. How his totem defeats the other -- or is defeated by it -- gives the hero some clues as how to fight his actual opponent when the time comes. | |
| Secret Weakness | Element |
| The Master Villain can be banished, dispelled, killed, or otherwise defeated by some of element or item. The Master Villain tries to get rid of all the examples of this element in his vicinity; he doesn't let his minions carry it or bring it into his presence. But he's not stupid; he doesn't announce to the world what his weakness is. He tries to hide his concern within another command. If he's allergic to red roses, for instance, he orders all "things of beauty" destroyed within miles of his abode. | |
| Special Condition | Time Limit |
| Finally, the most obvious condition to place on an adventure is to give it a time limit. If the Master Villain is going to conclude his evil spell in only three days, and his citadel is three hard days' riding away, then the heroes are going to be on the go all throughout the adventure -- with little time to rest, plan, gather allies, or anything except get to where they're going. | |
| Moral Quandry | Respect Quandry |
| This is much like the Ally Quandry, only at a greater distance. The heroes have been utilizing the aid of two (or more) powerful NPC allies. Now, in the course of the adventure, the heroes come across a task which can be accomplished in one of two ways -- say, through military intervention or by esoteric magic. The problem is, the NPC allies are arguing for different choices, and the one whom the heores choose against will no longer aid them. | |
| Red Herring | False Path to the Artifact |
| Once again, if the heroes have had too easy a time finding the artifact capable of destroying the villain, give them trouble this way: When they get to the place where the artifact is supposed to be contained, they find the coffer or chamber or whatever empty, obviously looted by robbers, who have scrawled such remarks as "Kelrog was here!" upon the walls. | |
| Cruel Trick | Mission is a Ruse |
| In the course of their adventuring, the heroes discover they have been tricked into performing a mission which helps the Master Villain. |
Based upon tables from the Dungeon Master's Design Kit by TSR, Inc.