| Theme | Espionage |
| Espionage adventures are active, grim scenarios involving spying
and perhaps other cloak-and-dagger deeds such as assassination or
rescue. |
| 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 | 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 | Scattered Duels |
| In this climax, the heroes have gotten to the end of their quest
-- they may have broken into, sneaked into, or escaped from
imprisonment within the villain's citadel, or have marched into
the little town where the villain is holed up -- and they become
separated. You can separate them by having traps and tricks break
the party apart, by having them see two or three things they must
resolve (such as danger to innocents or the appearance of minion
villains) pop up simultaneously; they'll have to run in all
directions at the same time or suffer failure. Once the party is
broken down into bite-sized chunks, you confront each individual
or small group with the enemy or enemies he most deserves to face
-- his personal enemy, the monster which defeated him before,
etc. -- for a grand series of climactic duels. |
| General Setting | On the Sea |
| Most of the action occurs on the sea -- the heroes are shipborne
for some reason, docking in lots of ports. Again, this is good
for adventures where the heroes are investigating clues left all
over the map, are part of some trading enterprise, or are being
pursued by villains. |
| 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 | 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. |
| Master Villain | Sufferer |
| This Master Villain disguises himself as some other sort of
villain. Long ago, he was given an ugly curse -- he longs for
death but can never die unless slain by heroes unaware of his
curse. (Naturally, the way the curse works, he has to defend
himself when attacked by the heroes.) So this villain works hard
to make sure the best heroes in the world have sufficient cause
to want to come and kill him. He'll insult them, ruin them,
kidnap or murder their loved ones, whatever it takes to bring
them against him. Often, he can only die -- his curse can only be
undone -- in one specific holy place, so he'll have to lure the
heroes to that place to face him. If the heroes are doing
research on the villain all this time, they may find out his
secret, leading to a sad and painful end to the episode as the
unkillable villain has to leave and find someone new to kill him. |
| Minor Villain I | Single-Minded Soldier |
| This most trustworthy of villain minions is the experienced,
competent, persistent soldier -- a field-trained officer who
serves the villain with military precision. He is usually
encountered in the field as leader of the villain's field
operations. He is not encountered directly until the middle of or
the latter part of the adventure; until then, the heroes
encounter only his subordinates. |
| 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 | Romantic Loony |
| Somewhere, the heroes bump into a lunatic who falls immediately
in love with a player-character and won't leave him or her alone.
This character may be a love-smitten village lass or nebbishy
adventurer. Whatever the origin, this character must be
hopelessly in love with the character but have some trait which
keeps the character from reciprocating; perhaps the loony is too
plain, too crazed, or too stupid. Whatever, he or she really is
sincere in his affection for the character. |
| 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 | Belligerent Soldier |
| The billigerent one has just had his ears pinned back by his
commanding officer and is anxious to take it out on some hapless
civilian. If this is a city gate, he claims that the hero's
papers are wrong or that he recognizes the hero from descriptions
of a wanted criminal; if this is the streets, he insults the
hero's lack of military bearing, pretty looks, clothes, smell,
companion, or whatever it takes to provoke a reaction. |
| 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 | Footrace |
| The chase involves the characters on foot, probably through such
terrain as city streets or the corridors of a palace. One hero
may realize that the's being pursued by a party of enemies and
choose to run for it; the heroes may have caught up to the Master
Villain, prompting him to run for his life. |
| 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 | 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 | Extraneous Details |
| When giving the heroes details on their enemy -- for instance,
details they are learning from investigations and readings -- you
can give them just a few details too many. This may prompt the
heroes to investigate the "extra" (i.e., irrelevant) details in
addition to the relevant onces, thus losing them valuable time. |
| 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.