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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | Exotic Distant Land |
| The adventure will take the heroes to some fascinating and exotic distant country, where they'll have to cope with new customs, monsters unfamiliar to them, and very colorful NPC encounters; choose one of the more fascinating foreign lands from your campaign world. | |
| Specific Setting I | Demi-human Community |
| In wilderness areas, this will be a large community of demi-humans -- elves, dwarves, halflings, whatever -- or intelligent nonhumans such as orcs. If your action is taking place in a city, this could be a hidden community (such as a secret underground dwarf community) or a section of the city inhabited mostly by demi-humans. | |
| Specific Setting II | Caves of Magical Folk |
| These can be either beautiful, glittering homes of gorgeous magical peoples, or the dank and terrifying lairs of horrible monsters. | |
| 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 | Moronic Muscleman |
| This fellow is a huge, powerful monster of a fighter. His job is to smash anything the villain tells him to smash. He does that very well, but don't ask him to do any thinking; he has no time for such brainy stuff. | |
| Minor Villain II | Chief Assassin |
| The Chief Assassin is the favorite killer of the Master Villain. The Assassin works mostly in the field, first killing witnesses who might prove harmful to his master, then zeroing in on the player-characters. He usually meets his end before the adventure's climax, but he may take one of the heroes down with him. | |
| Ally/Neutral | Villain Ally |
| For some reason, the heroes find themselves in the company of a villain. Perhaps he's a minion of this adventure's master villain; he may be guiding the heroes to wherever they must leave a ransom, or, if the master villain is forcing the heroes to perform some mission, this villain ally is along to make sure they do it right. Whatever the reason, he's competent, unpredictable, and out for himself. | |
| Monster Encounter | Powerful Tester |
| Here, some powerful, intelligent monster with shapechanging ability turns into a human form. When the heroes encounter him, he is in need of help or having trouble. He also obviously can't reward the heroes for their help, and will only serve to slow the heroes down from their quest. If the heroes help him anyway, the Powerful Tester reveals himself in his true form and offers to aid the heroes in their quest. | |
| Character Encounter | Bandit Gang |
| When the heroes are en route from one place to another, have them run across one of the local bandit gangs. The bandits are faster and far more numerous than the heroes. But the bandits stay back. Basically, they're bandits who admire courage and prowess, and the bandit leader will challenge one or all of the heroes to a test of bravery or ability -- such as a horserace, a duel, a wrestling match, a joust, an arm-wrestling match where scorpions sting the loser, etc. | |
| 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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.