Buy Me a CoffeeRandom Adventure Generator
| Theme | Revenge |
| In this adventure, some villain has so offended one or more of the characters that he cannot be suffered to live. (Alternatively, the injured party could hire the characters to avenge his honor.) The villain must be found or otherwise gotten at, setting up the final duel or showdown between villain and characters. | |
| Goal | Survive 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 Hook | Better Late than Never |
| Some bad guys have arrived and done some bad guy things. The PCs were none the wiser. The bad guys have now made good their escape, and the PCs have caught wind of it in time to chase them down before they make it back to their lair, their home nation, behind enemy lines, etc. | |
| 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 | 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 | Cosmopolitan City |
| Most of the story takes place in a large, sophisticated city; center the villain's plot and activities around that city. This setting is best suited to adventures involving more people than monsters; most of your villains should be human or demi-human. | |
| Specific Setting I | Caves of Magical Folk |
| These can be either beautiful, glittering homes of gorgeous magical peoples, or the dank and terrifying lairs of horrible monsters. | |
| Specific Setting II | Magical Lake |
| This is the acquatic equivalent of the Legendary Forest, here beautiful and glistening, there treacherous and dangerous, filled with water-breathing magical folk. | |
| Master Villain | Zealot |
| This villain is like the Conqueror, but he's not trying to conquer to own; he's trying to purge the world of something he feels is pure evil (another religion, a human, demi-human, or nonhuman race of sentient beings, a custom). He operates just like the Conqueror, enslaving or killing all those who belong to the "wrong" race or philosophy. | |
| Minor Villain I | 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. | |
| Minor Villain II | 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. | |
| Ally/Neutral | Grumpy Old Professional |
| Again, the heroes need an expert in a certain field -- this time a craft or art, such as blacksmithing, engineering, horse-training, or whatever. The only or best professional they can find is an aged expert. He's grumpy, cranky, and sharp-tongued; he constantly complains about the food, the weather, his companions, the decline in skill of his co-workers since he was a young man, the road conditions, the rotten pay he's receiving, and so on. | |
| 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 | Old Friend at the Wrong Time |
| When the heroes are trying to sneak through a guardpost, citadel, or city where they can't afford to be recognized, one of the characters' old friends recognizes him and loudly renews their acquaintance in full view of the guards looking for the characters. This usually leads to an exciting chase as the heroes must escape. | |
| 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 | Comet's Progress |
| Events during the adventure may be enlivened by a large and menacing comet which appears in the night sky for several days during the scenario; the locals take it for an omen of doom. The comet may be the result of magic being used by the Master Villain, or the comet's appearance can pertain to an old legend involving the Master Villain. | |
| Secret Weakness | Secret Embarrassment |
| Finally, the villain may have some aberration or secret shame that will force him to flee when he is confronted with it. It could be something as simple as the fact that his nose is too big, or that he is a small and nebbishly wizard pretending to be some vast, powerful demonic power. When his shame is revealed, he is too humiliated to continue; this is a good option for comedy adventures. | |
| 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.