D&D 5E The things you can have your players do around adventures

Major revision

I'm trying to compile stuff that my parties can do aside from full length adventures. That I'm aware of there are just smaller missions and quests and random encounters, and those can get a bit repetative if one isn't careful. You're attacked by wolves, you're attacked by goblins, you're attacked by an owlbear, you're attacked by more goblins.

Suggestions on how to mix things up a bit?


Mini quests that can be encountered anytime:

- A cyclops has lost control of his flock, a pesky halfling sliped a ring of the ram onto his ram, and now he has a broken fence, and a massive headach. He will be most apreciative if you help him with is headach, the fence, and/or getting that ring away from the ram.

- A mage took over his families beekeeping business but is now wondering if the smoke mephits are worth the headache to manage his giant bees.
"Oh look, some smoke mephits harassing giant bees!" says the fighter "shall we hack them to pieces?"

(Quickleaf comes up with amazing side quest ideas)



Easy intros to ongoing conflicts that can become adventures:

Either joining one side in combat, involved in intrigue between the two, or acting to end the conflict.
- Merfolk and/or aquatic elves vs sahuagin
- Underground races contention (mindflayers, duergar, etc)
- Rival families or thieves guilds
- Hobgoblins vs orcs
- Kabolds vs Gnolls
- Drow vs rakshasa
- Githyanki vs Githzerai vs Mind Flayers.


Something to do instead of a random encounter every so often

*one idea I had was encountering a set of monster which has a species had an ongoing feud (like the mongoose and snake). If they are massive monsters, it would not be the players watching, but rather either "the battle between giants" would not even be mentioned while the players fight a lesser foe, or else the big fight isnt so big the players can't jump in and help.

- Giant mongoose vs nagas and minions. The players encounter a mongoose on the prowl and follow it to a nagas with evil intent. If strong enough, the party fights with the mongose against the nagas. If not strong enough, forget about them while players fight a mess of charmed/raised/summoned minions (to keep them off the back of the mongoose). Once the minions are dispatched the mongoose is declared the victor over the nagas, and the players get experience for fighting the minions only.

- Angels vs fiends. The party happens upon one or more angels who decide to invite the party to help hunt a particular fiend or swarm of fiends. The angel(s) are really close and could likely handle it themselves without a problem, but a little extra muscle never hurts.

- Stumble accross an ongoing battle endangering something (a child, a friendly creature, holy site, etc). Help slay one or both sides while defending the
- - - Blink dogs vs displacer beast.
- - - Giants vs dragons
 
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As in .... Romeo and Juliet, but with Romeo being a fire giant and Juliet being a green dragon?

I think that romance has more going against it than the stars.

"It's not a phase mom! He's my soul mate!"

You could also go with Mindflayers and any race whose backstory includes being enslaved to mind flayers (duergar, gith).
 



I will second [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION].

You might try the Out of the Abyss route, and have each player play a monster that is allied with (or at least less hostile to) the party (if you are doing the "bunch of angels vs. bunch of fiends" gig). You might have to step in if the players decide the monsters they control are just meat shields for their PC's (talk to them ahead of time to avoid issues, [and there is nothing wrong with a monster with an ability/spell that could boost a PC choosing to use that ability on a PC instead of making an attack]).

Alternatively, if you are going to do one big monster vs. another big monster, I would do all the rolls ahead of time, and then just tell the story of the fight until (if) the PC's get involved. I find that works particularly well in cases where the PC's are just going to sneak by (and if the PC's are going to do their sneaking close to the monsters, just have a roll to avoid getting stepped on or opportunity attacked: the hyrda gets knocked down by fire giant, and one of its heads is near Bob the Dwarf and decides to get a quick bite....).

If the PC's enter the fight (unless it is something like the Tarrasque vs. a Kraken and a bunch of 3rd level PC's), they monster they attack's attention should focus on them. A cruel DM who thinks he knows his party pretty well should have the other monster have a AoE attack (half dragon template is nice for this) so when the monster who isn't fighting the PC's attacks the one who is, they risk damage (assuming that a) you don't have a party of murderhobos who will attack both, and b) the monster that isn't engaging the PC's isn't opposed to "friendly fire" [so a ky-rin would probably not make an attack that would catch the PC's, even if that meant making a weaker attack, but a blue dragon will be willing to accept some PC death to beat whatever it is fighting]).
 

Sure, how about the totally original idea of the PCs looking for their NPC wilderness guide Fey Ray when they stumble across a fight between a T-rex and a Giant Ape?

The trick with these sorts of situations is to avoid a lot of monsterbating (the DM rolling a lot of monster vs. monster attacks). That's a bit boring in my view.

Good point, I added a piece about how the players should be able to involve themselves somehow rather than just being spectators.

Lots of underground races work, struggling for control of an ancient dungeon.

Nice, but this seems difficult to stumble into by accident.
 


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