Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Satori" data-source="post: 4218286" data-attributes="member: 37233">I find that many DMs (myself in particular) fall into a dangerously predictable series of hooks.  While these story paths may work and provide a lot of initial entertainment...after a while, the PCs get used to it.  In the end, we fall victim to our own creativity.Hence, this is where I think a "Random Adventure Calculator" would be incredible.In nearly all decent WotC books, there are plenty of "Plot Hooks" and "Potential Stories".What I would do is create a three part "Random Plot Generator" with as many options as I could manage to add.  You would then roll three dice and combine the results into a Beginning, Middle, and End plot.Then, you take five minutes to creatively intertwine the different sections together.i.e. I rolled: Beginning - Noble Child is Kidnapped, Middle - Seek Relic of Dead God in Buried Catacombes, End - Stop Dragon from Destroying VillageHoly Emordung!  How can I make that work together?!?Simple...DM creativity! (also known as Minotaur Pooping).End Result: While on a brief vacation, the local mayor's infant son is kidnapped by a minor thieves guild.  After further investigation (and some serious thief butt kicking), the PCs find out that the baby was sold to an underground cult intent on raising a dead god.  After some more investigating and crypt crawling, they save the baby and realize that it isn't a cult devoted to raising a dead god...but to waking a dangerous red dragon from sleep!  Now they must stop the dragon before it wreaks havoc on the countryside in an awesome display of Trogdor burnination.With three dice rolls of five minutes of DM fudging, you have a wonderfully random and unpredictable adventure to surprise your PCs with.Following this train of thought, I'd like to see something similar for NPC/Mook generation.i.e. A Mook Table, a Good Guy Table, and a BBEG TableLet's say I roll: Dire Insects for Mooks, a Lawful Good Monastic Order for Good Guys, and a Orc Warlord for BBEG.Now...with more DM fudging, I need to work this into the above plot to keep things interesting.-We already have a Thieves Guild, an Evil Cult, and an Evil Dragon...let's add the random rolls to this.1. Dire InsectsThe Evil Cult, upon further investigation, want to wake a Red Dragon of near godly power.  However, that particular dragon has been dead for centuries...but such was this dragon's size and power that an enormous hive of dire insects have spent decades incubating, feeding, and mutating within its body.  The Evil Cult controls these creatures through spells and uses them to terrorize the local villagers, and merely believes these insects are the minions of the dead dragon.2. The Godly Red Dragon was quite fecund in life, however, and was able to sire a number of children.  In response to the havoc wreaked by these offspring, a Lawful Good Monastic group attempts to contain and destroy the threat.  Inspired by visions granted by their deity (an Elder Gold Dragon responsible for killing the godly Red Dragon, in reality), this group travels long and far to destroy these younger dragons.  In the midst of finding another draconic threat, they stumble across the PCs and act as a support group for various needs.3. The Red Dragon, woken by the actions of the Evil Cultists, has begun to build an army of local Orcs in an attempt to ravage the nearby villages.  To control these tribes, the dragon has dominated an old, wise, and powerful Orcish warlord.  While this warlord is simply a puppet...it's a remarkably useful puppet which, combined with his new "Dragon Mount", inspires awe and fear among all the chaotic orcish tribes. ---Woah!  With six dice rolls, I have come up with a ridiculously unique, very unpredictable adventure.Combine this with 4th Editions "Easy NPC Creation" system, and you can have an overarching campaign ready in under 20 minutes!</blockquote>

Verification