| 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 | Escape |
| Early in the adventure, the heroes are captured. The remainder of
the adventure consists of them learning enough so that they can
escape. They have to get to know their fellow prisoners, learn
the prison's routine, inventory their possessions, acquire other
possessions they need, plan an escape, and execute it. |
| 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 | 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 | Cosmopolitan City |
| Most of the story takes place in a large, sophisticated city;
center the villain's plot and activities around that city. This
setting is best suited to adventures involving more people than
monsters; most of your villains should be human or demi-human. |
| Specific Setting I | Lost City |
| This is the remnant of some lost civilization or expedition,
still thriving in some forgotten corner of the world. Remnants of
lost civilizations can even inhabit cavern systems beneath
campaign cities, preying on the above-worlders for their goods,
slaves, and sacrifices. |
| Specific Setting II | Ruins |
| These can be the ruins of some ancient civilization, an
abandoned temple or castle, incomprehensible blocks of stone
arranged by ancient gods, etc. They can be magical or normal,
inhabited by normal animals or by monsters, centers of magic or
just tumbled-down buildings. |
| Master Villain | Ravager |
| This Master Villain is like the Destroyer, except that he
terrorizes a very limited area -- such as a village, island,
castle, or clan stronghold. (He may want to destroy the whole
world but be trapped where he is; perhaps his efforts to free
himself constitute the adventure's plot.) He stays in his area
and terrorizes whatever comes into it. |
| Minor Villain I | Coward |
| This character is an ordinary grunt minion of the Master Villain,
but he's a coward. He's deathly afraid of the Villain and the
heroes. He's best used when you plan to have the heroes captured;
by his mannerisms, you can make it clear to them that this fellow
is a coward and they will begin to work on him psychologically. |
| Minor Villain II | Misguided Moralist |
| This fellow has been convinced that only by helping the villain
achieve the Master Plan can he improve the world. He tends to be
encountered all through the adventure's plot, usually escaping
from the heroes and taunting them for their wrong thinking.
Fortunately, he's no more effective as a villain than he is as a
thinker. |
| Ally/Neutral | Congenial Madman |
| This fellow is a pleasant, happy lunatic whom the heroes
encounter; after the initial encounter, he follows them wherever
they go, commenting on their plans, behaving strangely, getting
underfoot, and -- very occassionally -- proving to be a real
help. |
| Monster Encounter | Foreshadowing Monster |
| With this monster encounter, combat may not be necessary. This
monster encounter exists to alert the characters to the fact that
something unusual is going on, a foreshadowing of their upcoming
conflicts with the Master Villain. |
| Character Encounter | Old Friend at the Wrong Time |
| When the heroes are trying to sneak through a guardpost, citadel,
or city where they can't afford to be recognized, one of the
characters' old friends recognizes him and loudly renews their
acquaintance in full view of the guards looking for the
characters. This usually leads to an exciting chase as the heroes
must escape. |
| Deathtrap | Animal Pit |
| This is a classic trap of the adventure genre: The heroes
(perhaps just one hero) are dropped into a pit filled with
dangerous animals -- snakes, lions, bears, whatever. They must
either fight the beasts or delay them until they can escape --
climb back out, open a secret door, break down a wall, have a
rope lowered by friends above, etc. |
| 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 | Birthmark |
| One of the heroes has a birthmark that pertains to the adventure
in some way. He may have a birthmark identical to some NPC -- for
instance, some person endangered by the Master Villain. This
mystery can give the hero his reason to become involved.
Alternatively, his birthmark may mark him as a hero fulfilling
some ancient prophecy. |
| Secret Weakness | Holy Symbol |
| The villain may have the traditional weakness to a specific holy
symbol -- but don't choose just an ordinary one. It may be a
holly symbol no longer used by the church, or may be some
forgotten variation of the current symbol. (For instance, the
cross may not work, but a variation -- such as the Roman cross --
might; alternatively, it might have to be a holy symbol which has
undergone some unfamiliar ritual.) |
| Special Condition | No Hurting the Villain |
| For some reason, the heroes cannot afford to fight the villain
directly. For instance, what if a demon possesses the body of the
child of one of the characters, or a very important child spoken
of in prophecy, one without whom the world will perish? |
| Moral Quandry | Honor Quandry |
| You want to use this on the character with the most strongly
developed sense of personal honor -- someone who has lived all
his life by a strict code. Toward the end of the adventure, this
character realizes that the best way to defeat the Master Villain
is a violation of that code. For instance, the character might be
a paladin, who discovers that the only possible way for the
heroes to defeat the Master Villain is to sneak up on him and
stab him in the back. |
| Red Herring | Lying Rumor |
| This is the worst and most useful type of red herring -- the
interesting rumor which just happens to be false. In adventures
of this sort, the best Lying Rumor concerns the Master Villain;
it gives the heroes some "important" information about him which
later turns out to be useless. |
| Cruel Trick | NPC Turns Traitor |
| He may alert the enemy when the heroes are planning a raid; he
may steal the artifact and take it to the villain; he may stab a
hero or important NPC in the back (literally) before departing. |
Based upon tables from the
Dungeon Master's Design Kit by TSR, Inc.