The 15 Minute Dungeon Master?

[Irda Ranger]

Not too much to add to these excellent suggestions, but another vote for "Random Generators: the More the Merrier". Most DM's can fudge up a stat block pretty quick, but coming up with original plots is hard, and not something that can even be done when put on the spot.

Some other Generators:
1. PoLs. Roll on a couple tables to whip up a village or Keep found in the next valley.
2. PoDs. What's in those caves?
3. Cults, Churches, etc.
4. NPCs. Race + Class + Quest + "Problems" = ??

 

[Goobermunch]

Here's something I think we could use:

Themed encounters. F'rex: I want a 3 page section of different types of kobold encounters, complete with an XP budget and a variety of kobolds from the MM. A reason for them being together in this particular configuration would also be nice.

--G

 

[Spinachcat]

If you expect the players to fight, and instead they rapidly assemble a cunning plan, you can be sunk pretty quickly. To that end - more things to throw at players who want to avoid combat is a really good resource to have. I see the skill challenge framework as being useful to this, but some sort of scene list or generator would work really well.

It's a tough situation because you want to reward their ingenuity, but it gets frustrating when they negate a chunk of your work and then look at you for what's next.

The skill challenge in 4e is going to open a whole new segment in the adventure generator that is just focused on creating cool challenges that can be dropped into adventures. I plan to spend significant time on this once we actually see who such challenges are actually built in the DMG.

One of the goals of the 15 Minute DM is to help the DM when the players go off track and decided to wander away from what you may have planned. Or when they get a hairbrained idea and want to follow a red herring.

Case in point: I was running a Diablo D&D campaign and the heroes were on their way from Point A to Point B and stopped at a small town. It turns out some crazy dungeon supposedly existed under that town in one of the Diablo novels so the players were SURE that was now the adventure. I told them this was all news to me and they looked bummed. So I sent them all to the Xbox for 30 minutes and whipped together a dungeon by the time they got back.

Now - guidelines for how to set up an encounter site are much more interesting. There's a big difference between a fight in a room and a fight in a fully-stocked torture chamber, but sadly a lot of current dungeons have no real fleshing out of the latter.

Absolutely! I am looking forward to seeing how the trap / obstacle rules work so I can make the odds and ends in each room part of the encounter. I most certainly will be giving lots of room flavor for each area. I fully agree that empty 40 x 40 rooms or "Guard Chamber" is not enough.

Some other Generators:
1. PoLs. Roll on a couple tables to whip up a village or Keep found in the next valley.
2. PoDs. What's in those caves?
3. Cults, Churches, etc.
4. NPCs. Race + Class + Quest + "Problems" = ??

I am a big fan of minor quests. I definitely will have NPCs will problems that heroes need to solve. I want them to meet the merchant who lost his favorite goblin and the scholar who needs help with a translation to the farmer who found a strange sinkhole in his garden. I think minor quests help make the world more real and that makes the world more worth saving.

Themed encounters. F'rex: I want a 3 page section of different types of kobold encounters, complete with an XP budget and a variety of kobolds from the MM. A reason for them being together in this particular configuration would also be nice.

Definitely! The theme of the dungeon will be very important to calm the crazy randomnness which is much harder to explain storywise. Also, I will want to focus on terrain themes, weather themes, urban vs. rural themes, and certain monsters, like the kobold who are lots of fun in 4e. I got to play against some "shifty" kobolds and their archers and they are now a foe to be reckoned with!

There was a suggestion on RPG.net for a dungeon with only whales and dinosaurs. Somehow, I have to make that work!

 

[That One Guy]

Random generation for stuff. I often forget the kind of random junk that would be sitting in a room. I try to think of a lot of my dungeons and keeps and such as places where things really live... so a random list of common Kobold crap or generic goblinoid ... stuff (couldn't think of a g word for stuff. Apologies).

But, my problem w/ running a one-shot is being able to help my players flesh out their PCs. Sometimes people just can't really create a character they find fun/interesting. W/ 4e, heroes are sort of... heroes at level 1, but not 'big damn heroes'. A list of random background events, experiences, etc. would be greatly appreciated - as well as how those events potentially affected the PC (in or out of game). Like Hackmaster on downers.

I like the idea that enemies who survive or escape PCs get tougher and become valuable NPCs. Maybe a chart for 'establishing' returned NPCs (enemies who weren't meant to be returning villains but are now).

Hm... a lot of my friends who want to try running a game ask me about making things up on the spot. I think a chart for small twists or random distraction fights/challenges (Send in the ninjas from the aforementioned link) would be beneficial for a lot of dms. The idea being that if the PCs solve something quickly or all roll high on an encounter and it feels like the game is not challenging enough then the dm has a bag of tricks prepared.

Random name charts are groovy. There are tons on the internet, but more are always fun.

Random magical item names and lore. My players always like it if they can figure out what a weapon is/does by how it appears and behaves so they figure out its story. I think I might be able to use such lore to help structure my world.
(I loved the tome of magic for its lore factor. Vestiges make me happy).

 

[Frostmarrow]

I've got a suggestion. Random Adventure Generator-results never stick in my brain. I don't know why but here is a tip to make the reults stickier:

First the book should interview the reader in order to establish a few clichées. The clichées created are the later used in the randomizing process.

1. What is you favorite predator?
2. What is your favorite flower?
3. What is your favorite structure?

Then the random tables take these choice in account. Like this:

1. Travellers on the King's Road fall victim to a wild beast (represented by your favorite predator)
2. A thief (with one feature inspired by your favorite predator) tries to pick the PC's pockets.
3. Knights of your favorite flower have fallen from grace and need to have their reputation restored.
4. A PC inherits your favorite structure, but it's cursed!

This way everything I create with the generator will look quite different from what you make of it. I can even pick the interview up at the start of every new campaign and quite likely get new results. Also, it makes what ever I create with the generator feel more like my own and that will make plots created stick better to my mind.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Example:

1. Tiger
2. Rose
3: Rope suspension bridge

1. Travellers on the King's Road fall victim to a tiger chimera.
2. A thief with tiger-stripes tatooed on his face tries to pick the PC's pockets.
3. Knights of the Rose have fallen from grace and need to have their reputation restored.
4. A PC inherits a rope suspension bridge, but it's cursed!

 

[Saeviomagy]

4. A PC inherits a rope suspension bridge, but it's cursed!

Whenever they have an opportunity to cross any kind of pit or chasm, the rope suspension bridge forces them to use it!

 

[Frostmarrow]

Whenever they have an opportunity to cross any kind of pit or chasm, the rope suspension bridge forces them to use it!

That's not a curse that's SOP.

 

[Chibbot]

Random generation for stuff. I often forget the kind of random junk that would be sitting in a room. I try to think of a lot of my dungeons and keeps and such as places where things really live... so a random list of common Kobold crap or generic goblinoid ... stuff (couldn't think of a g word for stuff. Apologies).

I think the word you were looking for is 'gear'...

Don't have much in terms of helpful input, but this sounds pretty neat. I would love to have something like this.

As far as interesting NPCs, I can't remember if the DMG does this (and don't know if the 4e DMG will), but one of my favorite (indie) games of all time is InSpectres, and they have a great random NPC/story creation chart.

Unfortunately I don't have the book with me, but I believe there were 3 or 4 tables, something along the lines of:

Table 1: NPC Job
1 - banker
2 - secretary
3 - mayor/politician
4 - police officer
5 - unemployed
etc

Table 2: NPC Emotional State
1 - nonchalant
2 - panicked
3 - confused
4 - angry
5 - embarrassed
etc

Table 3: NPC Distinguishing Quirks/Features
1 - lisp
2 - wounded
3 - scars/tattoos
4 - schizophrenic
5 - giant beard
etc

Table 4: Problem
1 - mysterious funny smell
2 - floating balls of light
3 - ectoplasmic goo everywhere
4 - interdimensional portal in basement
5 - demonic possession
etc.

 

[Harr]

What kind of tool would take you from "moderately successful" to "highly successful"? What has been missing when you run adventures with 15 prep.

More integration of player choice. Examples of situations that could fall several different ways with very varied results depending on what the party is actually interested in.

I've done the Mad-Libs adventure a lot and sometimes it goes really well, most of the time it's just around average. It's always asking for players to sabotage it and to try to jump from the rails. Do them enough and you'll start to see your players gradually realize they're going to be led around on another random sequence of stuff again.

Through the school of hard knocks (so to speak) I've discovered that the way to get these games to sizzle is to incorporate player choice into the mix. It's not 'You must find a baby' then later 'The baby was sold to a cult' then after that 'The cult is trying to resurrect a dragon' and then later on 'The dragon has an army!'

It's 'a baby has been kidnapped and sold to an evil cult who is trying to resurrect a dragon who leads an orc army prepared to raze the city..... what are you going to do about it?? Will you go save the baby for the reward? Will you ignore the baby and try to eliminate the orc army before they are prepared instead? Will you sneak into the temple and sabotage the cult's ritual?? Will you ignore all that and try to destroy the dragon's soul before it can be brought back at all?' that gets players invested and rearing to go.

So yeah, if you're going for the random generator thing I'd suggest that instead of a 'random sequence of events ro run through', you do something more like 'random factors that come together to form a very sticky starting situation, that the PCs are all aware of from the start, that can degrade or improve in a few different ways but that does not have any fixed path already established.'

This might sound like it amounts to the same thing either way, but trust me, it makes a big difference in actual play. If I had some sort of system of tables or cards I could run through in 15 mins and come out with a great 'what are you going to do about it??' situation, well, that would make me a happy-camper DM for sure.

Edit -> BTW, I noticed you made no response to my previous two suggestions for what to read, please trust me that if you skip over them you will be missing out big time. Here is the thread for the TRAP method. Also you should give the "In A Wicked Age" game a look, it has a cool random-story-generation system which is narrative, but which works fantastically well and can easily be twisted to a more D&D type of thing.

Hope some of this helps.