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 | Protect Endangered NPC(s) |
| One or more NPCs are in danger, and the characters must protect them. They might be doing this for a reward, or because one or more of the NPCs is a friend or relative of the character. You need to decide what the characters are protecting the NPCs from. The NPC might be a wealthy or powerful person being sought by assassins or kidnappers. The NPC might be a whole village of peasants who are being terrorized by a bandit chieftan. | |
| 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 | Accumulation of Elements |
| In this sort of plot, the heroes have to go from place to place -- perhaps covering very little area like a city, perhaps roaming the known world -- and accumulate elements to be used against the Master Villain. These elements may be clues, pieces of an artifact, evidence, or allies. | |
| Climax | Bloody Battle |
| This is the best Climax for an adventure involving the clash of mighty armies -- or for any adventure where, toward the end, the Master Villain and a large body of minions confront the heroes and their own troops. This finale is characterized by a monstrous clash between the two forces, with the heroes chewing through the enemy ranks to get at the Master Villain and his elite guards. It's strenuous, exciting, and classically simple. | |
| 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 | Palace of the King |
| The heroes could be here for many, many different reasons: Trying to get a favor from the ruler, part of some nobleman's retinue, members of the palace guard, sneaking in to save the ruler from assassins, sneaking in to assassinate the ruler, thrown into the dungeon for crimes they did or didn't commit, etc. | |
| 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 | 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 | Avenger |
| This character is much like the Master Villain of the same name, but he's not in charge of all this villainy, and he's definitely an enemy of one of the player-characters. You'll have to decide who he is and why he hates one of the heroes; he could be anything from a recurring villain to someone who simply lost a fight to the hero once. | |
| Ally/Neutral | Merry Minstrel |
| This character follows the heroes in order that he might find inspiration for his song and storytelling. He can't be shut up; he sings all the day long and into the night, is a showoff before crowds, and is far too noisy for a party trying to remain unobserved. | |
| Monster Encounter | Assassin Monster |
| This mosnter, at some time in the adventure, is sent by the Master Villain to attack one or more heroes when they're at their most vulnerable -- asleep, enjoying themselves, etc. Usually, the Assassin Monster attacks, but the hero, though injured, is able to hold it off long enough for his friends to respond to his shouts. The Assassin Monster is usually killed by his friends, who can then speculate on who sent it and why. | |
| 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 | 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. | |
| 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 | 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 | 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 | 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.