Buy Me a CoffeeRandom Adventure Generator
| Theme | Horror |
| This type of adventure is designed to scare both the characters and the players. Just having a monster attack is not enough for a horror theme; the monster must first frighten the characters. | |
| Goal | Thwart Monstrous Plan |
| This is a classic fantasy-adventure plot: The characters learn of some horrible plan made by a monstrous enemy, and must thwart it before the kingdom is lost or the world is destroyed. This is an epic goal, and usually requires that the characters go to all sorts of places, rounding up allies and artifacts, before being strong enough to face their enemy. | |
| 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 | A-B-C Quest |
| This is an epic sort of plot. In it, the heros are given (or undertake) a task to perform: The taking of a city, the rescue of an innocent, the destruction of a monster, the creation of a magical item, the defeat of a Master Villain, etc. But the path to victory is not a simple one. To get to their goal, Event A, they find that they must first accomplish some other task -- Event B. But when they undertake the task of accomplishing Event B, they find that they must first accomplish Event C. This goes on for several encounters, until the heroes accomplish all the obstacle events which prevent them from returning to Event A, their original goal. | |
| 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 | Hero's Home Town |
| The action takes the heroes back to the home territory of one of them. Note that this usually means that this hero's family or old friends are deeply involved in the adventure. | |
| Specific Setting I | Madman's Fortress |
| This is the citadel of a major enemy: Strong, unassailable, filled with soldiers and monsters, lined with secret passages and deathtraps; not a wholesome place for adventurers to spend their time. | |
| 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 | Agent Provocateur |
| This Master Villain is a clever spy who inflitrates an organization, order, or army, and tries to effect its destruction by getting it to perform actions which will cause others to oppose it directly. The identity of this Master Villain is usually a closely-guarded secret; the heroes will encounter his cover identity, but will not suspect that he's responsible for all this chaos until they start adding up clues. Females in this role can be very, very effective. | |
| Minor Villain I | Corrupted Hero |
| This villain was once a hero, possibly one known to the players. He was seduced by the dark side of the dungeon master. Because of his own weakness, or of a curse, he has become a villain, a pawn of the Master Villain. | |
| Minor Villain II | 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. | |
| 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 | 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 | 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 | Mutually Assured Destruction |
| In this very nasty deathtrap, the heroes are bound up in such a manner that any one of them may get free of his bonds -- but when he does, all his friends perish. Obviously, the heroes' task is to find some way for everyone to get out alive. Perhaps an intricate series of cooperative rope-cutting will defuse the trap; perhaps a coordinated maneuver will get everyone free as the trap is being sprung. | |
| 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 | 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 | Lack of Familiarity |
| The Master Villain, if he comes from the past or another dimension, or belongs to an alien race, might be sufficiently unfamiliar with this world that he essentially defeats himself. How? By making incorrect guesses about human behaviour. One classic error involves underestimating the human capacity for self-sacrifice. | |
| 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 | Loony who Has It Wrong |
| You can have the heroes "aided" by a so-called expert who is actually a lunatic who doesn't know anything about what he's talking about. Once he's led the heroes off to some remote part of the continent, his evasive answers and bizarre behaviour will alert them that he really doesn't know anything about what he's pretended to be an expert on. | |
| 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.