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| Theme | Action/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. | |
| Goal | Gain Power |
| The heroes are on this adventure to gain personal or political power for themselves. They may be looking for an artifact or weapon, or are performing a mission for someone who will reward them with political power (a higher social rank or lands, for instance). If the characters are doing someone else's bidding, you might want to roll again on this section to see what goal the patron will have assigned to the characters. | |
| Story Hook | Not in Kansas |
| The PCs are minding their own business and find themselves transported to a strange place. They must figure out where they are, why they are there, and how to escape. | |
| Plot | Geographic Progression |
| This is the simplest sort of adventure plot. The heroes have an area to investigate or travel through; they have encounters based on where they are. For instance, the traditional dungeon, where monsters are tied to specific rooms or areas. Or, if the heroes are travelling along a narrow valley or through an enchanted forest, they might suffer ambushes and other encounters fixed to various points along their travel plan. The plot, then, is getting to the villain by surviving the intervening obstacle encounters. | |
| 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 | Exotic Distant Land |
| The adventure will take the heroes to some fascinating and exotic distant country, where they'll have to cope with new customs, monsters unfamiliar to them, and very colorful NPC encounters; choose one of the more fascinating foreign lands from your campaign world. | |
| Specific Setting I | Temple/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 II | Catacombs |
| These can be catacombs beneath a living city or a ruined one; they can be long-forgotten or still in use. | |
| Master Villain | Conqueror |
| This character is moving his army in to take over; that's what he lives for. He's been the enemy of your characters' nation's ruler, and has launched a full-scale invasion of your characters' favorite nation. The heroes have to beat their way through or elude his hordes of soldiers in order to get at him; better yet, they might lead their own nation's troops against his and outthink him in military fashion. | |
| Minor Villain I | 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. | |
| Minor Villain II | Moronic Muscleman |
| This fellow is a huge, powerful monster of a fighter. His job is to smash anything the villain tells him to smash. He does that very well, but don't ask him to do any thinking; he has no time for such brainy stuff. | |
| Ally/Neutral | Obsequious Merchant |
| This fellow is the owner of the caravan the heroes are protecting, or the merchant the heroes encounter when they desperately need to buy something. He is oily, ever-flattering, overly agreeable, and is a sharp bargainer; the heroes will not find him willing to give them a sale price. | |
| Monster Encounter | Ravager |
| This is another classic monster encounter; the monster which is bedeviling a community or local area and will continue to do so unless the heroes destroy or defeat it. Yes, this is similar to the Master Villain of the same name, but the Ravager usually has no master plan -- it just wants to kill, destroy, or eat. | |
| 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 | Avalanche |
| This is an outdoors trap. Some time when the heroes are in a narrow canyon or gorge, or are on a snow-covered mountain, their enemies can arrange to dump an avalanche upon them (rocks and boulders in the first instance, snow in the second). | |
| 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 | Holy Symbol |
| The villain may have the traditional weakness to a specific holy symbol -- but don't choose just an ordinary one. It may be a holly symbol no longer used by the church, or may be some forgotten variation of the current symbol. (For instance, the cross may not work, but a variation -- such as the Roman cross -- might; alternatively, it might have to be a holy symbol which has undergone some unfamiliar ritual.) | |
| Special Condition | Omnipresent Observer |
| If a wizard, demigod or god has forced the heroes to undertake this quest, he may be with them continually -- in spirit. He can't help them, but does magically watch everything they do. And when they do something he doesn't like, he tells them about it -- loudly and nastily. (This is distressing when they're trying to break into a fortress or sneak through enemy lines.) | |
| 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 | 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.