The death of an ancient dragon can shake the foundations of the world.An adventure shares many of the features of a novel, a movie, an issue of a comic, or an episode of a TV show. Comic series and serialized TV dramas are particularly good comparisons because of the way individual adventures are limited in scope but blend together (to some degree) to create a larger narrative. If an adventure is a single episode or season of a series, a campaign is the series as a whole.
But while it’s worthwhile to compare an adventure to these other forms of storytelling, remember that an adventure isn’t a complete story until you play it. Your players are coauthors of the story with you, and the events of the story shouldn’t be predetermined; the actions of the players’ characters have to matter. For example, if a major villain shows up before the end of the adventure, the adventure should allow for the possibility that the heroes defeat that villain. Otherwise, players can feel as if they’ve been railroaded—set onto a course that has only one destination or outcome, no matter how hard they try to change it.
You might find it helpful to think about an adventure not as a narrative that arcs from beginning to end with little chance for deviation, but more in terms of situations that you are presenting to the characters. The adventure unfolds organically from the players’ responses to the situations you present.
One way to start brainstorming an adventure is to imagine a situation that might pique the characters’ interest. For some D&D players, a rumor of a dungeon filled with treasure is enough of a premise to launch an adventure. A brewing war between two small nations, the death of a leader and the accession of a new one, a migration of dangerous monsters, the appearance of a comet, and the opening of a portal to another plane of existence are other situations that could lead to adventure.
A simple premise might also boil down to “a magic item that the characters want is hidden away in a dungeon.” Browsing the magic items in chapter 7 can inspire you to create a simple adventure seed.
Using Published Adventures
A published adventure includes a pregenerated scenario with the maps, NPCs, monsters, and treasures you need to run it. This allows you to focus your preparation time on plot developments that arise from the characters’ actions.
You can adjust a published adventure so it better suits your campaign and appeals to your players. For example, you can replace the villain of an adventure with one the players have already encountered in your campaign, or add details from your campaign setting so the adventure involves your players’ characters in ways that the adventure’s designer never could have imagined.
Published adventures also provide inspiration for your own adventures. You can even take a part of an adventure and incorporate it into a different one. For example, you might use a map of a temple but repopulate it with monsters of your choice, or you might use a chase sequence as a model for a pursuit scene in your campaign.
Guide Rails and Railroads
Players need to feel like they’re in control of their characters, the choices they make matter, and what they do has some effect on the outcome of the adventure and on the game world. Keep that in mind as you’re planning adventures. If your adventure relies on certain events, plan for multiple ways they might come about, or be prepared for clever players to prevent those events from happening as you expect. Otherwise, your players might end up feeling railroaded.
On the flip side, players sometimes willfully disregard the adventure hooks you put in front of them and go entirely off the rails. See “Respect for the DM” in chapter 1 and “Draw In the Players” later in this chapter for advice about dealing with this situation.
One way to give players impactful choices is to keep multiple adventure possibilities available to them at the same time. If the characters have two or three things they can investigate or pursue, they have a meaningful choice. And if whatever threads they don’t investigate turn into bigger problems, you’ve clearly demonstrated that their decisions matter.
A premise can be a good starting point, but before you can turn it into an adventure, it needs a conflict worthy of the heroes’ attention. The conflict might be driven by a single villain or monster, a villain with lackeys, an assortment of monsters, or an evil organization. But it need not involve the forces of evil; it could be a rivalry or disagreement between two families, organizations, or nations; a looming natural (or magical) disaster; or even conflict within the adventuring party about how to pursue the characters’ goals.
Given a premise of a dungeon filled with treasure, what conflict awaits the characters when they enter the dungeon? That might be as simple as “hostile monsters want to eat the characters” or “two rival factions of monsters inhabit the dungeon.” It might also involve a rival or a villain hoping to plunder the dungeon first, a rumbling volcano threatening to erupt and bury the dungeon, or two rival families claiming ownership of the treasure left behind in the dungeon by their ancestors.
If you’re stuck, browse through the Monster Manual until you find a monster that inspires you.
Use the tables in this section to inspire adventure ideas for characters of different levels, with the range of possible levels grouped into four tiers. You can roll on the tables and see if the result sparks your imagination or read the entries on the tables until you find something that grabs you.
The fate of a village might depend on the abilities of fledgling adventurers. These characters navigate dangerous terrain and explore haunted crypts, where they might fight ferocious wolves, giant spiders, evil cultists, flesh-eating ghouls, and ruthless brigands.
| 1d20 | Situation |
|---|---|
| 1 | A dragon wyrmling has gathered a band of kobolds to help it amass a hoard. |
| 2 | Wererats living in a city’s sewers plot to take control of the governing council. |
| 3 | Bandit activity signals efforts to revive an evil cult long ago driven from the region. |
| 4 | A pack of gnolls is rampaging dangerously close to local farmlands. |
| 5 | A rivalry between two merchant families escalates from mischief to mayhem. |
| 6 | A new sinkhole has revealed a long-buried dungeon thought to hold treasure. |
| 7 | Miners discovered an underground ruin and were captured by monsters living there. |
| 8 | An innocent person is being framed for the crimes of a shape-shifting monster. |
| 9 | Ghouls are venturing out of the catacombs at night. |
| 10 | A notorious criminal hides from the law in an old ruin or abandoned mine. |
| 11 | A contagion in a forest is causing spiders to grow massive and become aggressive. |
| 12 | To take revenge against a village for an imagined slight, a necromancer has been animating the corpses in the village cemetery. |
| 13 | An evil cult is spreading in a village. Those who oppose the cult are marked for sacrifice. |
| 14 | An abandoned house on the edge of town is haunted by Undead because of a cursed item in the house. |
| 15 | Creatures from the Feywild enter the world and cause mischief and misfortune among villagers and their livestock. |
| 16 | A hag’s curse is making animals unusually aggressive. |
| 17 | Bullies have appointed themselves the village militia and are extorting money and food from villagers. |
| 18 | After a local fisher pulls a grotesque statue from the sea, aquatic monsters start attacking the waterfront at night. |
| 19 | The ruins on the hill near the village lie under a curse, so people don’t go there—except a scholar who wants to study the ruins. |
| 20 | A new captain has taken charge of a band of pirates or bandits and started raiding more frequently. |
At this tier, characters undertake adventures that might determine the fate of a region. These adventurers venture into fearsome wilds and ancient ruins, where they confront giants, hydras, golems, devils, demons, and mind flayers. They might also face a young dragon that has just established a lair.
| 1d20 | Situation |
|---|---|
| 1 | A group of cultists has summoned a demon to wreak havoc in the city. |
| 2 | A rebel lures monsters to the cause with the promise of looting the king’s treasury. |
| 3 | An evil Artifact has transformed a forest into a dismal swamp full of horrific monsters. |
| 4 | An Aberration living in the Underdark sends minions to capture people from the surface to turn those people into new minions. |
| 5 | A monster (perhaps a devil, slaad, or hag) is impersonating a prominent noble to throw the realm into civil war. |
| 6 | A master thief plans to steal royal regalia. |
| 7 | A golem intended to serve as a protector has gone berserk and captured its creator. |
| 8 | A conspiracy of spies, assassins, and necromancers schemes to overthrow a ruler. |
| 9 | After establishing a lair, a young dragon is trying to earn the fear and respect of other creatures living nearby. |
| 10 | The approach of a lone giant alarms the people of a town, but the giant is simply looking for a place to live in peace. |
| 11 | An enormous monster on display in a menagerie breaks free and goes on a rampage. |
| 12 | A coven of hags steals cherished memories from travelers. |
| 13 | A villain seeks powerful magic in an ancient ruin, hoping to use it to conquer the region. |
| 14 | A scheming aristocrat hosts a masquerade ball, which many guests see as an opportunity to advance their own agendas. At least one shape-shifting monster also attends. |
| 15 | A ship carrying a valuable treasure or an evil Artifact sinks in a storm or monster attack. |
| 16 | A natural disaster was actually caused by magic gone awry or a cult’s villainous plans. |
| 17 | A secretive cult uses spies to heighten tensions between two rival nations, hoping to provoke a war that will weaken both. |
| 18 | Rebels or forces of an enemy nation have kidnapped an important noble. |
| 19 | The descendants of a displaced people want to reclaim their ancestral city, which is now inhabited by monsters. |
| 20 | A renowned group of adventurers never returned from an expedition to a famous ruin. |
The fate of a nation or even the world depends on the characters at this tier. These adventurers explore uncharted regions and delve into forgotten dungeons, where the characters confront terrible schemers of the Lower Planes, cunning rakshasas and beholders, and hungry purple worms. They might encounter and even defeat a powerful adult dragon. At this tier, they broker peace between nations or lead them into war, and their formidable reputations attract the attention of powerful foes.
| 1d12 | Situation |
|---|---|
| 1 | A portal to the Abyss opens in a cursed location and spews demons into the world. |
| 2 | A band of hunting giants has driven its prey—enormous beasts—into pastureland. |
| 3 | An adult dragon’s lair is transforming an expanse into an environment inhospitable to the other creatures living there. |
| 4 | A long-lost journal describes an incredible journey to a hidden subterranean realm full of magical wonders. |
| 5 | Cultists hope to persuade a dragon to undergo the rite that will transform it into a dracolich. |
| 6 | The ruler of the realm is sending an emissary to a hostile neighbor to negotiate a truce, and the emissary needs protection. |
| 7 | A castle or city has been drawn into another plane of existence. |
| 8 | A storm tears across the land, with a mysterious flying citadel in the eye of the storm. |
| 9 | Two parts of a magic item are in the hands of bitter enemies; the third piece is lost. |
| 10 | Evil cultists gather from around the world to summon a monstrous god or alien entity. |
| 11 | A tyrannical ruler outlaws the use of magic without official sanction. A secret society of spellcasters seeks to oust the tyrant. |
| 12 | During a drought, low water levels in a lake reveal previously unknown ancient ruins that contain a powerful evil. |
At this tier, adventures have far-reaching consequences, possibly determining the fate of millions on the Material Plane and even places beyond. Characters traverse otherworldly realms and explore demiplanes and other extraplanar locales, where they fight terrible balor demons, titans, archdevils, liches, ancient dragons, and even manifestations of the gods.
| 1d10 | Situation |
|---|---|
| 1 | An ancient dragon is scheming to destroy a god and take the god’s place in the pantheon. The dragon’s minions are searching for Artifacts that can summon and weaken this god. |
| 2 | A band of giants drove away a metallic dragon and took over the dragon’s lair, and the dragon wants to reclaim the lair. |
| 3 | An ancient hero returns from the dead to prepare the world for the return of an equally ancient monster. |
| 4 | An ancient Artifact has the power to defeat or imprison a rampaging titan. |
| 5 | A god of agriculture is angry, causing rivers to dry up and crops to wither. |
| 6 | An Artifact belonging to a god falls into mortal hands. |
| 7 | A titan imprisoned in the Underdark begins to break free, causing terrible earthquakes that are only a hint of the destruction that the titan will cause if it is released. |
| 8 | A lich tries to exterminate any spellcasters that approach the lich’s level of power. |
| 9 | A holy temple was built around a portal leading to one of the Lower Planes to prevent any evil from passing through in either direction. Now the temple has come under siege from both directions. |
| 10 | Five ancient metallic dragons lair in the Pillars of Creation. If all these dragons are killed, the world will collapse into chaos. One has just been slain. |
Writing for Yourself
When you’re preparing an adventure to run for your friends, you don’t need to write hundreds of pages describing each location in exhaustive detail. You can run a game with no more written notes than you’ll find in one of the short adventures at the end of this chapter.
Many D&D adventures revolve dungeons—interior spaces such as great halls and tombs, subterranean monster lairs, mazes riddled with traps, natural caverns extending for miles beneath the surface, and ruined castles. The “Dungeons” section in chapter 3 can help you craft a dungeon environment for an adventure.
Of course, not every adventure takes place in a dungeon. A wilderness trek across the desert or a harrowing journey into the jungle can be an exciting adventure in its own right. Outdoors, dragons wheel across the sky in search of prey, fierce warriors pour forth from grim fortresses to wage war against their neighbors, ogres and trolls plunder farmsteads for food, and monstrous spiders drop from web-shrouded trees.
Adventures can also take place in cities, towns, and villages, which are often no less dangerous than dungeons or the wilds. The “Settlements” section in chapter 3 can help you create a settlement where an adventure can take place.
An adventure location almost always benefits from a map, and the more thoughtfully constructed the map is, the more fun players are likely to have as their characters explore the location.
Maps and Adventure Structure. An adventure map can take many forms—from a detailed dungeon map that shows the dimensions and contents of every room to a rough outline of how one encounter might lead to another, depending on the route the characters choose. Whatever form your map takes, it functions as a flowchart since each decision point (a branch in a corridor, a room with multiple exits) leads to new decision points. If the characters leave a room by the north door, you check your map and determine it leads them into the great hall, lined with pillars, where the fire giant king holds court. If they leave by the secret door to the southeast, you check the map and follow the secret tunnel as it winds to the hidden vaults below the great hall.
Sample Maps. Appendix B contains maps you can use for your adventures or as inspiration for your own maps. You can also modify those maps to fit the details of the location you have in mind.
Map Inspiration. The internet is a great place to find adventure maps that have been made available, as well as real-world building floor plans and city maps and other images that can inspire your mapmaking.
An inhabited adventure location has its own ecosystem. The creatures that live there need to eat, drink, breathe, and sleep. Predators need prey, and intelligent creatures search for lairs offering the best combination of air, food, water, and security. Keep these factors in mind when designing an adventure location. If the site has an internal logic, adventurers can use their understanding of that logic to make informed decisions.
For example, characters who find a pool of fresh water in a dungeon might infer that many of the creatures inhabiting the dungeon come to that spot to drink. The adventurers might set an ambush at the pool. Likewise, closed or locked doors can restrict the movement of some creatures. A dungeon infested with carrion crawlers or stirges would need open passages so that these creatures can move about to find food.
The monsters in any adventure location are more than a collection of random creatures that happen to live near one another. Fungi, natural animals, scavengers, and predators can coexist in a complex ecology, alongside sapient creatures who share living space through some combination of negotiation and domination.
Each creature’s entry in the Monster Manual indicates the terrain types where that creature is most often found, and that book also includes tables listing the creatures commonly found within each type of terrain. Using that information, you can decide which creatures inhabit an adventure location within a particular environment. You can choose a range of creatures, from common vermin to sapient inhabitants and terrifying predators, and decide how they live together.
Factions. Particularly in larger areas, groups of creatures might compete for resources. When these groups consist of sapient creatures, opportunities abound for the adventurers who enter those areas. Characters might ally with one group or play groups against each other to reduce the threat of the more powerful monsters. For example, in a dungeon inhabited by mind flayers and the grimlocks they rule, the adventurers might try to incite the grimlocks to revolt against the mind flayers.
Bring the NPC leaders of groups to life as described in the “Nonplayer Characters” section in chapter 3, fleshing out their personalities and goals. Then use those elements to decide how those leaders respond to adventurers.