Primary Antagonist:
1) Intelligent group
2) Intelligent individual
3) Intelligent master (roll again)
4) Unintelligent group
5) Unintelligent individual
6) Unmotivated/guardians
7) (Demi)human organization
8) (Demi)human individual
Venue:
1) Dungeon (traditional: ruin or cave)
2) Dungeon (nontraditional)
3) City/town
4) Wilderness
5) Hostile territory
6) Outpost
Challenge:
1) Investigation
2) Strategy
3) Rescue/get in and out
4) Puzzle(s) or other inanimate
5) Redemption/reclamation/healing
6-8) Hack 'n' slash
Goal:
1) Wipeout
2) Generic treasure
3) Specific treasure
4) Specific item, no value to party
5) Information
6) Rescue/protection
Complication (optional)
1) Ally- on par with party
2) Ally- to be protected
3) Unexpected mastermind/informant
4) Return of old enemy
5) Curse/limitation/ongoing effect
6) Environmental extreme
7) Mixed alignment NPC group
8) Rivalry toward same goal
Let me give an example. I roll 3, 2, 8, 6, 1 (using d6s and d8s as appropriate).
A 3 on the first chart gives me an "intelligent master" as the primary antagonist, with a "roll again" to determine exactly what it's a master of. I get an 8, for an unusual combination of an intelligent master of a human or demihuman individual. (I separate out "intelligent" from "(demi)human" because sometimes I forget about humans as "monsters," but there are other monsters [dragons, illithids, etc.] that also make good intelligent enemies.) This isn't much to go on, so let's move on.
A 2 on the second chart gives me a nontraditional dungeon as the venue--basically, any "dungeon" but a ruin or cave. That's pretty wide open as well, but it gives me a start: I'm looking for something with a lair or hideout.
An 8 in the third chart makes the primary challenge a hack-and-slash. As you can see from the fact that I put 6 through 8 as hack-and-slash, I feel that this represents the primary form of challenge in D&D and is overrepresented accordingly. Since a hack-and-slash game generally involves more than 2 fights, this means that my "intelligent (demi)human needs some minions of some sort. Thieves' guilds come immediately to mind. Religious organizations, such a cults, come a close second. Any other organization, such as wizards' cabals, mercenary camps, and so on will also work nicely. Moving on, to get even more focus:
My fourth roll, a 6, indicates that the party's objective is to rescue or protect someone. Given the dungeon venue and the humanoid opponents, rescue seems most likely. Guiding someone to a location in the ruin is also possible, but rescuing someone from a cult or thieves' guild works nicely.
The fifth roll is a 1, showing me that the party has an ally whose strength is on par with theirs. Suddenly a protection mission is looking a lot better--they can guide their new ally into the ruins for some reason.
So it looks like I'm going to be helping a powerful ally penetrate the lair of a thieves' guild or cult with a (demi)human leader but some sort of mastermind behind the scene. The cult is looking good for that; I can use an outsider easily enough, manipulating the high priest. That's a bit trite, though-I'll keep my options open. My one huge blank is the venue. It's easy enough to say "nontraditional dungeon" but it's quite another to do it. I could roll again if I'm really stumped, but then it comes to me: a giant tree.
Now, everything falls into place. The cult sub-leader is now a druid (blighter maybe), human for lack of a reason not to be. He has organized a cult around a fictitious god, using his druidic powers to pretend to be a cleric. He's been telling the cult to gather riches from the nearby town to sacrifice to his god, who will appear and reward them all. But he's really currying favor with his secret master and ally, a green dragon. The PCs' ally is a former friend of the druid (a scout, ranger, or another druid work well) who just learned of his evil ways (or, if the PCs use divinations, they could learn the cult leader's identity and tell the friend somehow). They need to escort the NPC to the druid, fighting their way through the cult up through the massive tree they've carved out for a lair, so they can find out what's really going on. Maybe the friend, with the PCs' help, can talk the druid out of his evil ways, but they'll still have the dragon to deal with!
Sounds good to me. Your mileage may vary, but I've found this tool to be immensely helpful, and I hope you do too. Let me know of any successes (or problems) you have with it.
For example (and because the d12 needs more love!):
Primary Antagonist:
9) Arcane antagonist
10) Divine antagonist
11) "Charismatic" antagonist (rogue or bard)
12) Martial antagonist
Primary Antagonist:
1) Intelligent group (non PC) (golems, elementals, undead, other)
2) Intelligent individual (non PC) (g,e,u,o)
3) Intelligent master (roll again)
4) Unintelligent group (animals, undead, elementals, golems, other)
5) Unintelligent individual
6) Unmotivated/guardians
7) PC class organization
8) PC class individual
Venue:
1) Dungeon (traditional: ruin or cave)
2) Dungeon (nontraditional)
3) In-town encounter
4) Wilderness
5) Extraplanar
6) Racial culture/village
Challenge:
1) Investigation
2) Strategy
3) Rescue/get in and out
4) Puzzle(s) or other inanimate
5) Redemption/reclamation/healing
6-8) Hack 'n' slash
Goal:
1) Wipeout
2) Generic treasure
3) Specific treasure
4) Specific item, no value to party
5) Information
6) Rescue/protection
Complication (optional)
1) Bad information/tricked
2) Ally- to be protected
3) Unexpected mastermind/informant
4) Return of old enemy
5) Curse/limitation/ongoing effect
6) Environmental phys-reping is extreme
7) Moral conflict??? (assuming the PCs have morals)
8) Rivalry toward same goal
Region
1) Palanthus
2) Silvenesti
3-12) etc.
1-Capture
2-Retrieve
3-Defeat
4-Discover
5-Destroy
6-Escape
7-Find
8-Negotiate
9-Obtain
10-Protect
11-Rescue
12-Survive
Would anybody be interested in a program which uses this system to give a core idea of an adventure? If there is interest, it's no problem for me to make such, but I don't want to work for nobody.
I would love it! Though don't make it for me alone
Would anybody be interested in a program which uses this system to give a core idea of an adventure? If there is interest, it's no problem for me to make such, but I don't want to work for nobody.
Oh gods yes!
Would anybody be interested in a program which uses this system to give a core idea of an adventure? If there is interest, it's no problem for me to make such, but I don't want to work for nobody.
It'd be great for me. Just getting back into RPing after years of only approximating it via playstation and Xbox and it'll be nice to have a convenient quest generator handy. When programming it, can you make it so that one could choose to use a larger dice and customize the additional results to add even more variation given each DM or group's personalities?
This adventure generator, ready to spew adventures as much as you want! Oh, and the numbers are wrong. If we count the possibility that not having a complication counts as an option (though not random), there are 15552 possibilities, not 13824.
I got a great adventure out of this involving thoqquas. I wouldn't have even thought about the things without it.
Let me know what you think.