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 | Legend and Rumor |
| In this classic story hook, the hero stumbles across some new or long-forgotten knowledge that promises great treasure or gain. | |
| Plot | Series of Villains |
| This is a very dramatic plot, and very well-suited to oriental campaigns. In it, the heroes have undertaken a quest, usually the finding and defeat of the Master Villain. They may have to travel to his citadel, or head off in another direction to find some artifact capable of defeating him, or run away from pursuing villains until they can figure out what's going on. All along their route, they are set upon by villains -- each villain has a name and distinct personality, and each encounter is life-or-death for the heroes and villains; the villain never escapes to safety if the tide turns against him, he fights unto death. | |
| Climax | Divine Retribution |
| Here, the heroes' goal has been to alert the gods that the Master Villain threatens them or their plans; in the last scenes of the adventure, as our heroes face an overwhelming enemy force, the gods bring down their divine retribution on the villain, causing a massive earthquake, tidal wave, lightning storm, or flood of monsters. This is all well and good, but the heroes are too close and must escape the fringe effects of this awesome disaster. A variant on this is the Natural Disaster. No gods are actually involved, but the Master Villain has been tampering with the delicate forces of nature. He may, for instance, have been powering his master spell with the energies of a volcano. When the heroes attack the scene of his spellcasting, the spell goes out of control and so does the volcano. The villain is consumed in the eruption and the heroes must escape or be consumed themselves. | |
| General Setting | On the Road |
| Most of the adventure takes place on the road, as the heroes are travelling from place to place. This is especially good for adventures where heroes are investigating a wide-ranging mystery, are part of a caravan, or are being pursued by loathesome villains. | |
| Specific Setting I | 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. | |
| 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 | God of Chance |
| Here you have two options. This Master Villain could be a real entity -- an actual god of mischief or silliness, who has intruded in the heroes' lives to cause chaos and have fun. Alternatively, this "villain" could actually be pure chance: The heroes are having a series of unrelated, accidental encounters which cause them fits. No real single villain is involved, although initially it looks as though there is. | |
| Minor Villain I | Hard-Eyed Advisor |
| This is the sort of villain whom the heroes see in the Master Villain's throne room. He's hard-eyed and scary; life means nothing to him and he enjoys killing. He's also a good advisor to his master. | |
| Minor Villain II | Lovable Rogue |
| This character is like the Master Villain of the same name, except that he has no minions of his own and serves at someone else's bidding. However, he's very independent, not always working in his employer's best interests; he often makes fun of the Master Villain's pretensions and may suffer that villain's retaliation because of it. | |
| Ally/Neutral | Talkative Barkeep |
| This classic encounter is the garrulous innkeeper who has information the characters want; trouble is, they'll have to bribe him to get it, or agree to stay at his inn, or buy a lavish meal, or listen to his incessant stories about his career in the army, or whatever. | |
| Monster Encounter | Stampede |
| Should the heroes ever cross plains or prairies, their villainous enemies may wish to stampede a herd of large animals at them. Alternatively, beasts in the forest may be stampeded by fires set by the villains; in this case, it will not be one sort of animal charging through, but a mixture of terrified forest animals, from the smallest fox-cub to the largest bear. | |
| Character Encounter | Inquisitive Official |
| Some local authority has noticed the characters' presence and it makes her curious. She snoops around asking questions all the time. She may be a city guardsman or special agent of the ruler, but (functionally) she's a police lieutenant, asking the rong questions at the wrong time; the heroes have to work around her, sneaking where normally they'd be able to work in the open. | |
| Deathtrap | Tomb Deathtraps |
| Another classic type of trap is the sort of triggered trap left behind in abandoned tombs, ruins, and catacombs. Here, a hero who touches the wrong step, floor tile, wall brick, torch bracket, mounted gemstone, or other device will trigger some sort of ancient trap designed to kill tomb-robbers and intruders. | |
| Chase | Endurance |
| The Endurance Chase is not some sort of climactic chase -- it's a rugged, tiring, persistent pursuit that tests the characters to their limits. In this chase, the heroes and villains are pursuing one another across a lot of territory and they're not catching up with one another very fast. This may be a horseback pursuit across a hundred miles of savannah, a camel chase across several days' worth of desert, or a chase across arctic tundra. | |
| Omen/Prophesy | Innocent Fulfills Prophecy |
| An innocent could fulfill a prophecy -- one which endangers his/her life. This innocent might, for instance, be the one who is supposed to slay the king, but is not a mighty adventurer able to protect himself from the king; the heroes may find themselves sheltering and helping this poor dupe. | |
| Secret Weakness | Secret Embarrassment |
| Finally, the villain may have some aberration or secret shame that will force him to flee when he is confronted with it. It could be something as simple as the fact that his nose is too big, or that he is a small and nebbishly wizard pretending to be some vast, powerful demonic power. When his shame is revealed, he is too humiliated to continue; this is a good option for comedy adventures. | |
| Special Condition | Magic Doesn't Work Right |
| If the adventure is taking place on an alternate plane, then that plane's magic works oddly or not at all. (A spellcaster will find that just making himself useful is a challenge when none of his spells works.) | |
| Moral Quandry | Friend Quandry |
| At a critical point in the story, one of the campaign's NPCs makes an impossible demand of one of the heroes. | |
| Red Herring | Extraneous Details |
| When giving the heroes details on their enemy -- for instance, details they are learning from investigations and readings -- you can give them just a few details too many. This may prompt the heroes to investigate the "extra" (i.e., irrelevant) details in addition to the relevant onces, thus losing them valuable time. | |
| 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.