Need a hook for tomorrow's D&D game

[blalien]

I run a one-shot game every Saturday for the local gaming club. And, of course, I have the writer's block. Anybody got some awesome plot hooks? It's for a level 4 party, and I'm open to anything as long as it's something original that the players have never seen before.

[JoeNotCharles]

A meteor falls to earth near town.

The local Temple of Bane wants to haul it back to make weapons out of meteoric iron.
The local Wizard's Circle wants to haul it back to study it.
The local humanoid tribes think it's a sign from their gods, and want to haul it back to worship it.
Etc.

Several of them independently try to hire the players (if possible, they independently hire separate players!) to retrieve it for them, while others send their own agents.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Meteor!

[weem]

In my last campaign, the players were good and fighting various forces of varying degrees of evil. One day we were going to be short a player (I do not run if one of the players can't make it, but there are only 4 so its a small and very regular group).

So, what I did was made up 2 Half Orc (brothers) and a Duergar. This game would have them running a mission (quest) for the other side (their character's enemies) to take out a tower said to contain some magic that would help defend the realm from these forces. The players themselves knew this was a valley their characters were to defend. My players were mature enough that they put in 110% even though they understood it would make their regular characters job that much harder.

It was a great way to be involved in the campaign, despite missing a player, and to give them something different that they had not done before. The tower as it was, was under water (only the top was visible). They knew nothing of it other than it housed some kind of magical defense - but it was probably well guarded and so these three represented elite members of that side who were to infiltrate and destroy/capture the place.

Long story short, let them play some bad guys with a specific mission or quest against the 'good guys'

It's an idea, hehe.

[blalien]

JoeNotCharles: Brilliant. It's a good, bad, ugly scenario, with magic. I can piss off the players by having four times the regular amount of enemies, and then give them a sigh of relief when the enemies start wailing on each other.

weem: I like that idea, but what I'm doing isn't so much of a campaign than a series of adventures with a tenuous thread between them. This is literally me providing a service to whoever doesn't have better things to do on a Saturday night. (Don't look at me like that, I switch off weekends with another guy so I can still go out.) The next time I run a campaign, I'll give that a try and have the players play some NPCs when a couple players can't make it.

[weem]

Yea, when you have a campaign going and need to do a one-off for some reason, it can be nice to run a game from another angle on the same campaign - give some insight as to what else is going on at the same time and demonstrate that the world is moving and evolving even if they can't always see the outcome.

[chronoplasm]

The players must transport some sort of treasure (a fragment of meteor, or a container of yellow lotus, whatever).
They come to a bridge over a raging river. The bridge has been taken over by a band of deserters from a foreign army. The toll they demand for crossing the river is outrageous. The party can pay the toll or fight the soldiers.
Or...
They can try to cross the river without using the bridge. They could attempt to ford the river (quite hazardous) or they can try to create some sort of raft using an icy terrain spell (dangerous!) or they can cut down trees and use the lumber for a bridge. However, if the party cuts down trees, they will have to fight the Dryads that live in them... also, werewolves riding unicorns.

[blalien]

Well tonight's game was canceled because too many people were busy. But I have something awesome worked out. I don't want to talk about it here on the off chance that a player reads this forum, but I'll let you know how it goes.

[weem]

Bummer

Well, keep us posted if the game happens - interested to hear how it works out