Zardnaar
Legend
Today I ran a game where I had about 30 minutes to design an adventure. I thought I would share my tricks here on ENworld. I was finishing up the adventure Tomb of Tiberish where the PCs would hit level 3.
How do you design an adventure in 30 minutes? Very very briefly.
How I did it.
Basicaly I wrote a very brief plot outline and dropped in some names of PCs and 3 factions typing it to the current adventure I was finishing up.
The factions.
Golden Falcon Antiquities. Secretly cultist of Tiberish an ancient Pharoah who tried to become a god and replace the pantheon. Branded a heretic and entombed.
The Guardians. They like hiding lost technology and artefacts from the ancient past. They also sell lost technology to dubious clients. If you need hard to aquire goods come see this group.
The Curators. Ideological rivals with the Guardians. They like preserving knowledge of the past and using it for altruistic purposes. If you need a friendly sage come see this group.
Now I needed 6-8 encounters being for a level 3 group I went with 6 being the smaller number. Skipping the encounter guidelines I more or less made a list of encounters I thought they could win easily. 8 bandits, 6 skeletons, 6 Gnolls, and an aquatic trip into the Nuria (think Nile) with a pair of crocs, an aquatic hippoman (refluffed Ogre),a Subek (CR 5 boss fight) and a small tomb with a Wight in it hiding behind a glyph of warding door (DC 15). THey talked their way past the bandits and avoided another optional encounter (a pair of animated armor suits refluffed as statues).
For treasure I just rolled 6 times on the DMG treasure tavbles and scattered it around 3 locations rolling 1d6 to see what was there rerolling if the PCs had already found it. For special treasure I included a suit of plate (unavailable for general purchase in my campaign), a +1 dagger and a +2 finesse spear that granted the user resistance to lightning. The spear was based off the prophets weapons in PotA.
The NPCs at the start provided the PCs with 4 potions of water breathing, and a scroll of the spell of the same name. The PCs had an hour to investigate a sunken barge. There was a time limit halfway through- no short rests due to the potions duration.
So I banged out a basic plotline, some easy encounters I did not have to think about or worry about and a potential PC death with the Subek (Tome of Beasts) which I tweaked a bit culturally (made it LE).
The rest of it I winged it making up the encounter locations and just generally trying to sex up my bare assed adventure. For a memorable location I used an aquatic setting at level 3 using the PHB underwater rules. The McGuffing the PCs were after was located, they got a few magic items, and passed a milestone to level up (I was rushing them to level 4). They met some allies, discovered some ancient writings and have a decent idea what type of spells to pick. Protection from Evil is really good in my campaign due to lots of undead (fantasy Egypt, skeletons, mummies, wights so far).
The glyoh of warding into the tomb of course was lightning based (I used this to tie it to the spear), the hexblade has taken a invocation that lets him read anything (lots of hieroglyphs for world building and exposition), a recurring big bad (Tiberish), a group of cultists trying to resurrect him, and a few factions to interact with. The adventure was mostly bullet points, ie 8 bandits, DC 15 trap, DC 15 investigate roll to find, DC 10 check and DC 10/15/20 knowledge checks with higher results revealing more information.
My players also joked about loading screens as I did briefly pause or get distracted thinking things through. One thing I did like I winged a description of an underwater pulley system linked to a giant harpoon designed to ram ships and sink them. One player was also puzzled at the under water hippo man as I had the MM open and he did not recognise the monster. Old AD&D Spelljammer trick- change the physical description although one player was wondering about an aquatic Giff (an Ogre with aquatic speed and a bit attack dealing the exact same damage as the MM Ogre). A bit of DM misdirection guilty as charged.
And a big shout out to Kobold Press both for the Tome of Beasts and Midland/Southland/Unusual Heroes along with the Tomb of Tiberish adventure I tweaked via world building (adding some exposition to the walls etc, added some factions and NPCs).
Next plan is a hex crawl down the Nile valley, and the Tyatian (Roman) Paladin now has designs on Nithia (in the name of Apollo). Overall win PCs had fun and the ol creative juices have been flowing in regards to the final big bads and where the campaign will go.
Primo Victoria.
How do you design an adventure in 30 minutes? Very very briefly.
How I did it.
Basicaly I wrote a very brief plot outline and dropped in some names of PCs and 3 factions typing it to the current adventure I was finishing up.
The factions.
Golden Falcon Antiquities. Secretly cultist of Tiberish an ancient Pharoah who tried to become a god and replace the pantheon. Branded a heretic and entombed.
The Guardians. They like hiding lost technology and artefacts from the ancient past. They also sell lost technology to dubious clients. If you need hard to aquire goods come see this group.
The Curators. Ideological rivals with the Guardians. They like preserving knowledge of the past and using it for altruistic purposes. If you need a friendly sage come see this group.
Now I needed 6-8 encounters being for a level 3 group I went with 6 being the smaller number. Skipping the encounter guidelines I more or less made a list of encounters I thought they could win easily. 8 bandits, 6 skeletons, 6 Gnolls, and an aquatic trip into the Nuria (think Nile) with a pair of crocs, an aquatic hippoman (refluffed Ogre),a Subek (CR 5 boss fight) and a small tomb with a Wight in it hiding behind a glyph of warding door (DC 15). THey talked their way past the bandits and avoided another optional encounter (a pair of animated armor suits refluffed as statues).
For treasure I just rolled 6 times on the DMG treasure tavbles and scattered it around 3 locations rolling 1d6 to see what was there rerolling if the PCs had already found it. For special treasure I included a suit of plate (unavailable for general purchase in my campaign), a +1 dagger and a +2 finesse spear that granted the user resistance to lightning. The spear was based off the prophets weapons in PotA.
The NPCs at the start provided the PCs with 4 potions of water breathing, and a scroll of the spell of the same name. The PCs had an hour to investigate a sunken barge. There was a time limit halfway through- no short rests due to the potions duration.
So I banged out a basic plotline, some easy encounters I did not have to think about or worry about and a potential PC death with the Subek (Tome of Beasts) which I tweaked a bit culturally (made it LE).
The rest of it I winged it making up the encounter locations and just generally trying to sex up my bare assed adventure. For a memorable location I used an aquatic setting at level 3 using the PHB underwater rules. The McGuffing the PCs were after was located, they got a few magic items, and passed a milestone to level up (I was rushing them to level 4). They met some allies, discovered some ancient writings and have a decent idea what type of spells to pick. Protection from Evil is really good in my campaign due to lots of undead (fantasy Egypt, skeletons, mummies, wights so far).
The glyoh of warding into the tomb of course was lightning based (I used this to tie it to the spear), the hexblade has taken a invocation that lets him read anything (lots of hieroglyphs for world building and exposition), a recurring big bad (Tiberish), a group of cultists trying to resurrect him, and a few factions to interact with. The adventure was mostly bullet points, ie 8 bandits, DC 15 trap, DC 15 investigate roll to find, DC 10 check and DC 10/15/20 knowledge checks with higher results revealing more information.
My players also joked about loading screens as I did briefly pause or get distracted thinking things through. One thing I did like I winged a description of an underwater pulley system linked to a giant harpoon designed to ram ships and sink them. One player was also puzzled at the under water hippo man as I had the MM open and he did not recognise the monster. Old AD&D Spelljammer trick- change the physical description although one player was wondering about an aquatic Giff (an Ogre with aquatic speed and a bit attack dealing the exact same damage as the MM Ogre). A bit of DM misdirection guilty as charged.
And a big shout out to Kobold Press both for the Tome of Beasts and Midland/Southland/Unusual Heroes along with the Tomb of Tiberish adventure I tweaked via world building (adding some exposition to the walls etc, added some factions and NPCs).
Next plan is a hex crawl down the Nile valley, and the Tyatian (Roman) Paladin now has designs on Nithia (in the name of Apollo). Overall win PCs had fun and the ol creative juices have been flowing in regards to the final big bads and where the campaign will go.
Primo Victoria.
Last edited:
