# One-Shot Adventure Ideas?



## Privateer (Apr 8, 2004)

ENWorldians, I beseech thee aid me in my plight.  Or somesuch.

I'll be DMing a session soon and, because of an unusual player turnout, I'm in need of a one-shot adventure to play.  Are there any ideas you loyal forum-goers would be able to provide?  Both a few ideas or something already laid out would be great.


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## Telperion (Apr 8, 2004)

An independent city state run by heroic paladins faces a dire future, as it has recently been hit by an enemy that nearly destoyed it. A small group of paladins (and other classes too, but there should be at least 2 paladins in the group) sets out for help. They must brave the wilds and seek out their "long lost brothers", which they scorned a century (or so) ago because their ideals were "pure" enough for the paladins. Now the paladins are in dire need of help and must come begging for it. 

Its not the most portable idea, but maybe you can change into something that you can use in your own setting?


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## Privateer (Apr 8, 2004)

Telperion said:
			
		

> Its not the most portable idea, but maybe you can change into something that you can use in your own setting?




Thankfully, setting is not an issue -- the one shot ideas I'm looking for could take place in any world, as far as I'm concerned.  Great idea, by the way.

Any others?


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## shilsen (Apr 8, 2004)

How about going the reverse dungeon route? Have a bunch of prepared monster characters and hand them out to the players. Give them a rough map of their lair and time to work out defenses. And then have them fight off the horrible adventurers who come to invade their dungeon.


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## tzor (Apr 8, 2004)

Well one option for a quick campaign is to take somthing that sounds corney and then make it sound reasonable.  (The corney part is just to allow you to come up with something on the drop of a hat.)

A King has made an alliance with a beholder.  _(The King & Eye?)_

The beholder is located in a keep and uses wererats as assistants. _(Beholder the power of cheese?)_

The wererats have been assigned the task of kidnapping a rival Prince, so that negotiations with the rival King can go in favor of the King allied with the Beholder.  (Actually I can't think of anything corny about this at the moment.)

So now you basically have a pretty good plot that you can scale to any level of adventure.  At the lower levels there could be the initial attempts to kidnap the prince.  At the upper levels there could be the assault on the Beholder's keep.


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## ErichDragon (Apr 8, 2004)

An idea I stole from these boards about six months ago (can't remember whose it was or I'd give credit).

The PCs are a party of Drow elves.  They are sent to destroy an Illithid Inquisition that is performing a ritual that will do something really horrible to the Drow city.  All of the PCs are from a noble house and the city is pining all of their hopes on them (you can fill in whatever plot devices work to make this so).  

Anyway, each pre-gen drow character also has a personal agenda that you communicate to them one-on-one.  Some ideas I used:  The Priestess of Lloth character was tasked by her Matron to make sure the Male Fighter character did not return.  He had insulted a Female of the Priestess' family and went unpunished because his Mother has Lloth's high favor.  Oh, and it had to look like an accident so none of the others could bear witness.  The Male/Rogue was to steal a particularly powerful Rod of Tentacles from the Priestess as a gift for his younger Sister.  Anyway, stuff like that.

I also ran a 'Reverse Dungeon' as a one-shot on two seperate occassions and got a good response from both groups.


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## kitoy (Apr 9, 2004)

I did a cool one shot adventure once, but there was a lot of prep time for it. I generated d20 modern level 1 versions of all my players using the 15,13,12,11,10,8 set of scores.  Then I made a map of my house and hid weapons from my weapons collection around my actual house, (swords, kali sticks, daggers, a compound bow, a whip, etc.)

When the players got there I told them that the house had been transported to another dimension and was surrounded by zombies and ghouls, there are weapons hidden around the house, go find them and lets start playing.  I then proceeded to do my best to kill them.

It was one of the most fun gaming experiences I ever had.


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## MarauderX (Apr 9, 2004)

Something simple... give them a town to defend against baddies (orcs, ogres, trolls, whatever suits the level) and a RL time limit to come up with and implement ideas.  At the time limit throw everything at them - from the inside out.  They probably forgot to check the cellars, wells, and/or basements, etc. to blockade - have them make the best of it.  Give them plenty of ways to close of the underground access (well has a cover, collapse a house, whatever) or to escape.


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## mac1504 (Apr 9, 2004)

I always liked the idea of a reverse dungeon with a twist: allow the player's to roll up moster PC's, but then when they show up to play, hand them your pregenerated bad guys and you get to use their Min/Maxed monsters!


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## Storminator (Apr 9, 2004)

I'm putting together a single session adventure, and it's pretty easy: pirates! 


Boarding party, treasure map, follow the map, find the treasure. Sweet and simple, no silly deciding what to do to break up the action, and everyone loves pirates. Excuse me, everyone loves independent naval officers. 

PS


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## Stormrunner (Apr 9, 2004)

Something I've always wanted to try but never had the time, is some variant of the "Another Fine Mess" adventure (from the BESM system).
The PCs are the mounts/familiars/animal companions of a group of adventurers.  The BBEG has sneakily surprised and captured the humans, but his dumb minions failed to nab the animals.  Now the furry crew have to figure out how to rescue their masters - with no hands, heavy armor, or magic items.
The original adventure had a raccoon and a ferret (rogues), a heavy warhorse (fighter), two dogs (rangers), an owl familiar (wizard), a falcon (ranger/bard) and a cat familiar (rogue/wizard).


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## diaglo (Apr 9, 2004)

break out your Zocchi d100 and roll on the 100 adventure ideas table.


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## Arthur Tealeaf (Apr 9, 2004)

A detective story... With a fatal ending!


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## Garrett Thorngage (Apr 9, 2004)

I'm not sure if I should be promoting websites here or not, but I must say that there is a vast library of short and long adventures that you can get for a small price that can be converted to fit exactly how many party members and their levels and a number of other aspects at www.direkobold.com .  You may want to just take a look at it as the site has so many options to aid you in adjusting the adventure to fit your specific needs and it has so many different adventures to choose from.


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## Privateer (Apr 10, 2004)

Storminator said:
			
		

> Excuse me, everyone loves independent naval officers.




Aaaahhhh, vindication at last.


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