donjon; Random Adventure Generator

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Random Adventure Generator

ThemeAction/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.
GoalSurvive Environment
The characters could end up in a hostile environment which they must cross -- a desert, a jungle, or other hostile setting. In the course of the adventure they'll need to find food and water, resist the elements, and perhaps fight off attacks of the natives.
Story HookOld 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.
PlotA-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.
ClimaxScattered 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 SettingTorturous Terrain
The adventure takes place in some sort of unsettled, uncivilized, dangerous terrain; in action stories, the desert and jungle work best; choose one of those two or decide on a setting that is similarly dangerous and exotic.
Specific Setting ITemple/Church
This can be either the church of some lofty and good diety, or the dark and grisly temple of some horrid deity (doubtless filled with evil soldiers and monsters), or even the temple that the madman villain has dedicated to himself for when he becomes a god.
Specific Setting IIRuins
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 VillainCorruptor
The Corruptor is the villain who wants to make something nasty out of something that is currently nice. He may be working on a small scale -- i.e., wish to corrupt one character or a few characters, particularly PCs and their favorite NPCs. Alternatively, he may be a big-scale villain trying to change an entire city or nation into a jaded, debased pit of sin, hatred and death.
Minor Villain ISnivelling Vizier
The Vizier is a throne-room villain. Functionally, he's rather like the Hard-Eyed Advisor, offering tactics and advice to his master; but he's an ooily, sleazy, cowardly sycophant. He's usually brilliant in his field of advice but has no combat abilities.
Minor Villain IIInquisitor
This villain is the one who interrogates the heroes and NPCs captured by the villains. He accompanies the other Minor Villain out into the field and works on anyone captured; he enjoys inflicting pain and suffering.
Ally/NeutralGibbering Madman
Some poor wretch blundered into part of the master villain's plan and saw too much. What he saw drove him crazy. He gibber and jabbers, occassionally uttering clues about what he's seen, but just isn't coherent. He knows enough that the heroes will need to take him along to comment on what they're encountering, though, so he can't just be met and forgotten.
Monster EncounterLoving Deceiver
One of the player-characters, specifically one of the better-looking ones, attracts the attentions of a very attractive local of the opposite sex. This local person, encountered in unthreatening surroundings, invites the hero off to a liason away from his friends and other people. Of course, this person is a human-appearing monster of some sort; once alone with the character, he/she will attack the character with monstrous intent.
Character EncounterThief
At some point in their adventure, the heroes have a run-in with thieves.
DeathtrapAnimal 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.
ChaseWater
Don't forget the water chase: Whether it's a battle of seamanship between naval vessels, a chase of rafts toward the inevitable waterfall ahead, a contest of canoeing ability, or a chase between the villain and his giant shark vs. the heroes and their dolphin friends, the water chase can be a distinctive and dramatic one.
Omen/ProphesyTotem Animal
If a hero has an animal which is his totem, he may see the animal engaged in a fight to the death with another animal -- one which, coincidentally, is the totem of one of the villains. How his totem defeats the other -- or is defeated by it -- gives the hero some clues as how to fight his actual opponent when the time comes.
Secret WeaknessLack 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 ConditionTime 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 QuandryHonor 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 HerringLoony 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 TrickWanted by the Law
One final complication, one which occurs pretty frequently, is when the heroes are wanted by the law. When they're wanted by the law, they have to travel in secret and very limited in the resources they can acquire.

Based upon tables from the Dungeon Master's Design Kit by TSR, Inc.