Brainstorm pot-luck

[RangerWickett]

I want to run a game Wednesday night for some friends who are in town, requiring the most minimal prep possible. I'm looking for help coming up with crazy, ludicrous, fun stuff.

So far my plan is to have the party be members of the Goblin Evil Empire Battle Alliance (GEEBA), on some mission of rampage. Rather than making characters, each player gets an XP budget, and can choose a selection of monsters. This saves tons of time since there's no character building, and all your powers fit into a little tiny box. Plus I figure the players will get a kick out of being monsters. There's no need for things to be balanced, because it's a one shot.

But what should the adventure be? I've done this set-up twice before with a different group of friends. The first time was storming a castle that would be GEEBA's headquarters (which involved sneaking in with a disgruntled ex-vizier and killing the king). The second time I stole an idea from Piratecat and had the party try to find out what happened to a goblin war party that was attacking some fey woods (it turned out the nymph mage lured the goblins into a shack, where she shrank them be one inch tall; her pet cat terrorized them and kept them from escaping).

I could reuse either of those ideas, since this group doesn't know them, but I thought the fine folks at EN World could inspire a brand new tale of ridiculousness. Bear in mind, I have no idea what monsters my players will pick, though if they don't choose any goblins, I'll have to give them some as cannon fodder.

So, ideas? Kidnapping a princess? Sneaking into a wizard's tower? Rampaging on 'Halloween'? Maybe there's an election for the new GEEBA general, and whoever can get the most candy in an evening wins. Maybe baby kidnapping; I've never played Kobols Ate My Baby!, sadly.

 

[Coldwyn]

Stop the slandering: A theater troupe is playing in a nearby elven town. The play: the epic defeat of GEEBA in the battle of boring pass. This must stop! Glorious GEEBA forces must infiltrate the theater troupe and show the world what really happened back then by reenactment ....

 

[Rechan]

So, ideas? Kidnapping a princess? Sneaking into a wizard's tower? Rampaging on 'Halloween'? Maybe there's an election for the new GEEBA general, and whoever can get the most candy in an evening wins. Maybe baby kidnapping; I've never played Kobols Ate My Baby!, sadly.

There's the most obvious standbuy: defend a dungeon from some pesky humans and dwarves and elves trying to get into it. Let the PCs set up their own defenses, and such to the dungeon, and then run it like a reverse 'crawl.

The other alternative is that they need to get to an important spot, and complete a ritual. For instance, maybe raise the last, great leader of the GEEBA from the dead. Of course, some pesky heroes want to prevent them from completing the ritual...

 

[Aeolius]

A party comprised of kobolds, goblins, orcs, and the like must raid the local human settlement, to liberate their infant kinfolk from a local temple/orphanage. It seems that local adventurers killed the young monsters' parents but couldn't stomach killing the children, so they brought them back to town. Now the monsters want their babies back.

When they arrive at the orphanage, they find that many of the infants have been placed in foster homes with a wizard, druid, and similarly retired former adventurers.

One infant, a female goblin, was taken in by a local healer who lives on the outskirts of town. The healer is actually a witch (possibly a hag) who saw a nevus, a birthmark shaped like a crescent moon, on the girl's face.

 

[Woas]

How about the tried and true Mario Bros., intro: kidnap the princess during her birthday party.

Plenty of pink ribbon and cute decorations to rip through an a huge cake to hide in and explode.

 

[Mark Chance]

Every silly adventure needs a villain. I recommend Ched Dar, the cheese wizard. He's often up to no gouda, assisted by dangerous muensters. At some point, he can trap the PCs in a room that slowly fills with milk while he taunts them, "There's no way you'll escape before it's passed your eyes! Muahaha!"

Just think about it is enough to curdle even a brave adventurer's spirit with its churning drama.

* buh-dum-ching! *

 

[RangerWickett]

A cheese themed villain is just the sort of crazy I'd like. Mostly because I love antagonist gnomes, and somehow cheese seems like a natural fit for them.

Maybe there's a big banquet planned for the princess's birthday party, and the strike force needs to sneak in and hide themselves in her birthday cake, or find some other way to sneak in past her bodyguards. Disguise themselves as clowns or something. And perhaps the head cook - a gnomish quesomancer styled after a waiter in the group's favorite Mexican restaurant - sniffs them out.

Hm, I need more bones for this story.

 

[Mark Chance]

Maybe there's a big banquet planned for the princess's birthday party, and the strike force needs to sneak in and hide themselves in her birthday cheesecake....

The quesomancer angle could prove useful. X-mancers in lore dealt with divining information. For example, a necromancer communed with the dead. The quesomancer, therefore, can speak with cheese. Other possible spells: stinking limburger, summon muenster, burning queso, gust of weisslacker, fromage-ic missile, and Evard's black tarentais.

 

[Ruined]

I like the rampage the village idea on Halloween or some other festival day. If you have the first Pathfinder module for Rise of the Runelords, the goblins seem to have a lot of fun during that first set of encounters. You could start with sneaking in, planned objectives, then have the chaos begin and throw new targets in their path (the stinky humes have holed up inside the stone church!).

 

[Woas]

Cheese elemental?

Maybe the players are given one to plant in the kitchen to come alive during the ceremony?