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 | Retrieve Item |
| This goal is like the Rescue, except the victim is an inanimate object. This item may be an artifact, a paper containing evidence against a character or patron, an antidote needed to save another NPC or palyer character, or just some item of sentimental value -- an item which one NPC hires the characters to steal from another NPC. | |
| Story Hook | Old Enemy |
| This is a straightforward story hook; the hero learns that his oldest enemy is back and is very active in the campaign, up to something. The hero will naturally want to investigate and will walk right into the story. | |
| Plot | Event |
| For this plot, choose some sort of event -- a tournament, a holiday, a celebration called by the king, a masked ball, or whatever -- and set the commencement of the Master Villain's plan against that backdrop. | |
| Climax | Prevented Deed |
| Here, the heroes have been defeated -- captured by the Master Villain, or so thoroughly cut up by his minions that all believe them to be dead. And the heroes have learned, from the bragging of the villain, loose talk of his minions, or examination of clues, what is the crucial event of his master plan. In any case, the battered and bruised heroes must race to this site and have their final confrontation with the villain, bursting in on him and his minions just as the knife or final word or key is poised, and prevent the awful deed from taking place -- and, incidentally, defeat the master villain and minions who beat them previously. | |
| 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 | Legendary Forest |
| This classic adventure site is the sometimes dark and fearsom, sometimes light and cheerful, always magical and incomprehensible forest inhabited by the oldest elven trives and most terrifying monsters. | |
| Specific Setting II | Tavern/Inn |
| This is a classic fantasy setting, the residence of travelling heroes and the home of the tavern brawl. | |
| Master Villain | Corruptor |
| The Corruptor is the villain who wants to make something nasty out of something that is currently nice. He may be working on a small scale -- i.e., wish to corrupt one character or a few characters, particularly PCs and their favorite NPCs. Alternatively, he may be a big-scale villain trying to change an entire city or nation into a jaded, debased pit of sin, hatred and death. | |
| Minor Villain I | 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. | |
| Minor Villain II | 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. | |
| Ally/Neutral | Childhood Friend with a Dark Secret |
| One of the heroes is accompanied by one of his childhood friends... but said friend now has a Dark Secret. He does strange and mysterious things (sneaks off to send messages, or behaves strangely around certain NPCs, or is scared to death of certain harmless animals or situations) and will not explain why to his PC friend until late in the story. | |
| Monster Encounter | Terrain Monster |
| Don't forget the simple run-in with the animal belonging to the terrain where the heroes are: Every type of wilderness has its predators and big, nasty herbivores. | |
| Character Encounter | Truthful Accuser |
| This encounter is like the Lying Accuser except that the accuser is telling the truth. Dig through your characters' pasts, uncover a misdeed or two, and, when the heroes are at a critical point in their adventure, confront them with someone they actually have wronged. This person has found them and appealed to sympathetic local authorities. The heroes will have to make good or have the authorities on their backs for some time to come. | |
| Deathtrap | Rock and a Hard Place |
| This trap starts out as an Animal Pit, Pit and the Pendulum, or Tomb Deathtrap, but an obvious escape suggests itself very early on. Trouble is, it leads into even worse danger. The hole out of the animal pit may lead to the lair of an even worse animal; it may lead through a succession of dangers (collapsing old catacombs, into an underground river, into a den of zombies) before the heroes reach the light. | |
| Chase | Special Terrain |
| You can make any chase more memorable by having it take place in a setting to which it is utterly unsuited. For instance, horse chases are fine and dramatic when they take place through the forest, out in the open plains, or along a road -- but they become diabolical when they take place inside the Royal Palace or in dangerous, labrynthine, treacherous catacombs. | |
| Omen/Prophesy | Hero Fulfills Prophecy |
| This is the most useful sort of prophecy. In the early part of the adventure, one of the heroes discovers that he fulfills some ancient prophecy. | |
| Secret Weakness | Love |
| The Master Villain possesses the "weakness" of genuine affection or love -- probably for some NPC, though it could be very intriguing if the object of his affections is a player-character. The heroes can then defeat the villain by holding his loved one hostage, or proving that his loved one will be seriously harmed, betrayed, or killed if the villain keeps up with his activity. | |
| 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 | Artifact that Doesn't Work |
| Often, epic quests against powerful Master Villains require that the heroes find some legendary artifact, the only object which can defeat the villain. If your heroes have had no trouble getting to the artifact -- they've effortlessly sliced through every obstacle you've put in their path and are confidently advancing on the resting place of the magical item -- you can have it not work. | |
| Cruel Trick | Villain is Related to Hero |
| In this very irritating complication, one of the heroes discovers that the Master Villain is related to him. The villain might be his long-lost father or twin; perhaps this relative is not long-lost after all, but has secretly been a Master Villain for years, and only now has the hero discovered it. |
Based upon tables from the Dungeon Master's Design Kit by TSR, Inc.