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View Full Version : Help Me Brainstorm a Goofy One-Shot [4e]



Tequila Sunrise
2009-12-29, 06:53 PM
My regular campaign is on holiday hold, and I want to run a one-shot for some friends. Goofy, well er, goofier than D&D is to begin with. 20th level, evil [and hair-brained] PCs highly likely.

Any ideas?

The Glyphstone
2009-12-29, 10:48 PM
They are walking through the forest, when a giant green hollow stump appears in front of them. Investigating it sucks the party into a bizzare world where all Jump checks are at x5 strength and strange creatures abound - triangular demons who take large amounts of damage when opponents make a successful Jump check as a standard action, monstrous turtles whose shells can be used as weapons after death...

Sir_Elderberry
2009-12-29, 11:09 PM
I had an idea for one where they'd get sucked into the Elemental Chaos and they'd get a bunch of random effects applied to them...let me see if I can find my list...

-Instead of shift, you teleport, but you must teleport in Knight-moves. (I had several other ideas along this line...you can teleport you speed, but you must teleport your full speed in a straight line and otherwise have no movement, etc)
-You roll for your defenses every time you are attacked. (Your bonus is Defense - 10, of course)
-You cannot speak. (Does this apply in character, or out of character? Yes.)
-You are under the effect of the Wizard spell "Levitate"
-At the beginning of every turn, roll a d20. On a roll of 11 or higher, you become invisible until the start of your next turn. On a roll of 10 or lower, you grant combat advantage.

You'd have to balance them to make sure nothing breaks the game, but I think it'd be a blast. My idea for the third encounter in this mod was going to have space all twisted so that squares would be "adjacent" that didn't look like they should be.

Decoy Lockbox
2009-12-30, 03:25 AM
How bout this: the characters wake up in an alchoholics anonymous meeting, all of them with amnesia. Suddenly, a group of anthropomorphic blue jackals wearing varsity letterman jackets and carrying revolvers attack the meeting. The rest of the people in attendance are killed during the fight, but the PCs manage to drive the attackers off. Going outside, they notice that they cannot see anyone or anything other than the highschool which had been hosting the alc-anon meeting. They also notice that the ground is now covered in blue grass, and feels strangely warm...

Adventurers ensue involving walking beakers of sulphuric acid wearing mickey-mouse style white gloves, malevolent sentient carnivorous houses which attempt to attract the party via comfortable beds, pajamas, milk and cookies and tasty cake, sentient paper shredders, more blue jackals, etc. The adventure eventually culminates when the party learns that the entire planet has become a giant blue jackal head, which then eats itself.

I should add that I've actually ran this session. My friends told me "run something", I had about 30 minutes to prepare, and this was what I came up with. We had a blast.

Tawmis
2009-12-30, 03:35 AM
With a little effort you could turn "Huddle Farm" from DUNGEON MAGAZINE #12 into a 4th Edition adventure...

Optimystik
2009-12-30, 03:55 AM
They are walking through the forest, when a giant green hollow stump appears in front of them. Investigating it sucks the party into a bizzare world where all Jump checks are at x5 strength and strange creatures abound - triangular demons who take large amounts of damage when opponents make a successful Jump check as a standard action, monstrous turtles whose shells can be used as weapons after death...

What you did there; I see it :smallamused:

Reluctance
2009-12-30, 05:14 AM
If they're evil, you can never go wrong putting them against the Keystone Kops of the universe. They want the MacGuffin. They have to go through hordes of bumbling, comically rigid law and order types.

Make up interesting area powers for the first few encounters. Let a couple of the kops make trip attempts against the party by yanking out a big rug. Let them cut supports to drop tapestries or even chandeliers on the PCs. After you set the mood, be willing to allow just about any improvised action the PCs want, so long as it's goofy. Make the players work to surprise and amuse you here.

rayne_dragon
2009-12-30, 05:53 AM
You could run a 4e game like a game of Paranoia. Have the PCs all working for some very powerful (but insane) entity who revives them a set number of times while having the perform arbitrary tasks that force them into situations which will resort in contradictory orders. Something like Tiamat has asked them to recover some macguffin while trying to figure out who in the group is actually a spy for bahamut. Give a prize to the first person who realizes it's actually paranoia.

You'd probably want to cut the HP of everyone to make combat faster for something like this, though.

Zeta Kai
2009-12-30, 06:13 AM
Well, any goofy 4E campaign pretty much HAS to use the Witchalok class (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/preview_witchalok.pdf). You owe it to yourself to at least try. Just sayin'.

DabblerWizard
2009-12-30, 12:18 PM
While chasing after a BBEG that is trying to escape through a teleportation ritual, the magic goes terribly wrong and the players end up trapped inside the BBEG's mind.

Using Carl Jung as a guide, you fashion the internal psyche of the BBEG, including having the players contend with an underdeveloped (i.e. child-aged) masculine side, an over developed feminine side, an infantile friendly side, and an elderly but super smart evil side.

Tequila Sunrise
2009-12-30, 03:53 PM
Great ideas!

CarpeGuitarrem
2009-12-30, 04:01 PM
The one-shot ends with four words.

Rocks fall. Everyone dies.

And there must be a gazebo (http://www.brunchma.com/archives/Forum13/HTML/000133.html).

The Glyphstone
2009-12-30, 04:49 PM
What you did there; I see it :smallamused:

I actually did this for my group. One of them figured it out about 20min in and blurted it out.

On the other hand, that session spawned the group's best-remembered quote - "The Pirahna Plant scores a critical hit."

9mm
2009-12-30, 05:37 PM
(insert authority figure here) has been kidnapped by ninjas; are you bad enough dudes to rescue (insert authority figure here)?


works every time