Looking for TONS of little quests / What was your favorite quest?

[Ken Murikumo]

My party currently has 3 DMs. One is on hiatus for a few months, one has run out of steam, and that leaves me. I started a simple no main quest campaign. The party is made up of semi-fresh adventurers looking to explore the world on their terms. I want to have buttloads of small, easily manageable quests to insert into the game when they talk to important NPCs.

So, i'm looking for ideas on quests, encounters, little missions, and things of the like. I want more than, "go here, kill him" type quests. Any constructive input is cool. It doesn't have to be a fully described module, just idea enough to use as a solid foundation. Even site links that have what i'm looking for would be appreciated (i did google "D&D sample adventures" and found a poorly kept wiki entry)

And for some more inspiration to file away for later, what were some of the quests you folks enjoyed throughout your table top careers?

[Craft (Cheese)]

My advice? Take a look at Dogs in the Vineyard. The system's mechanics aren't that great, but it has lengthy (and good) advice on how to build this type of campaign, which is the system's default assumption: The PCs are wandering problem-solvers who go around to individual setpiece towns to sort out the problems there.

[Curbstomp]

My suggestion is simple. Use Exemplars of Evil for a major campaign arc or two. They lead strait into Elder Evils if you want to go Epic or Exemplars of Evil stands alone. You can then use the encounters and mini-maps in Weapons of Legacy for encounters to tie in to your chosen Exemplars of Evil campaign arcs. For example if you use the Drow campaign arc in Exemplars of Evil you might tie in the Drow assassins and the Dwarf who hates Drow encounters in Weapons of Legacy. This approach will give you stat blocks, a story, and encounters. All you need to do is tie them together.

[AlanBruce]

I DMed a simple sidequest for two 8th level wizards when the campaign had just started.

The local mage in town runs a school for young wizards. Not a very big school- in fact, it's annexed to his shop, being a crafter himself.

The problem is the mage's familiar, called by accident during his training years- a steam mephit. The mephit has remained with the wizard and has taken the craft to build wands and other wondrous items… but not all of them work out the way they should.

The two mages bumped into a young apprentice, who asked them for help at the school and, sure enough, once they got inside, the school was a mess, with wild summons running rampant- celestial monkeys, fiendish wolves, small elementals, and the big bad- a fiendish deinonychus who had eaten some of the mokeys and made a nest in the mage's office upstairs.

The mage, in order to protect his students, had encased himself and the apprentice mages in a resilient sphere, instructing both PCs about what was prowling the building.

The wizards split, taking on different rooms, like the basement, shop, training room, classroom, and finally the main office.

Hilarity ensued when a batch of celestial mokeys began flinging alchemist fire at the wizards and they had to use tables for cover, while attempting to dispel them.

All in all, it was a fun little side quest that, even if it didn't give them that much XP for their level, introduced them to a very helpful npc ally, plus some major discounts at his shop.

[Spindrift]

My usual DM had an old man hire the party to collect a rare duck from monster island, cause his pet duck was lonely and needed a friend. That was an amusing setup.

[Scorponok]

I had one side quest where the PCs were asked by a "well respected" farmer of the town to help populate his farm with snails. He was going out of town that day and the snails needed to be released at night.

Plot twist was the snails were harmful and the farm he said was his was actually his rivals.


I had another one where the PCs wander into an argument amongst a group of travellers. The town bully was being accused of stealing an expensive pearl from the caravan and they wanted to check his pockets. He would not let them and said they were prejudice, because he was a half orc.

Plot twist: it wasn't him who stole the pearl, but another person in the group, who had it in their pocket.


Anything where the PCs have to protect a large group of commoners in a wilderness area where wild beasts would hunt the commoners always resulted in a fun night.

[Ken Murikumo]

these are some pretty good ideas, Ill have to jot them down.

The party is level two right now, so epic adventures are a bit off the table, for now.

Are there any good "world maps" i can use as a reference? More so unpopulated ones.

[Harlot]

As always, I have to recommend Roleplayingtips.com.
It has the 'City Encounter Generator' (http://www.roleplayingtips.com/city-encounter-generator/?utm_source=rpts&utm_medium=Banner&utm_campaign=City%20Generator) which is pretty much a side quest generator. Some of them are quite fun :-)

[Sir Garanok]

I really like the all time classic get in the dungeon and kill that guy/retrieve that item quest.

We had some great fun in small quests which did not involve much or not at all fighting,
like revealing the mastermind and plot behind some suspicious looking murders.

[Scorponok]

I had one I actually did not use yet and always wondered how it would turn out.

Woman is out looking for her husband who went out fishing with his co-fishermen. Their favorite spot was near an island. (The PCs have to be a low enough level that they can't just teleport everyone off the island.) They will have to rent a small canoe and row two hours to the spot. When they get to the island, there are several fisherman there, and their canoe sprung a leak. Worse news is the waters around the island is inhabited by a lot of angry nocturnal Sahuagin, who come on shore to feast on the giant snails at night. The boat has enough room for 4 people, and there are 8 fishermen, including the woman's husband.

[Ken Murikumo]

As always, I have to recommend Roleplayingtips.com.
It has the 'City Encounter Generator' (http://www.roleplayingtips.com/city-encounter-generator/?utm_source=rpts&utm_medium=Banner&utm_campaign=City%20Generator) which is pretty much a side quest generator. Some of them are quite fun :-)

My god, that site... It's beautiful!

[Harlot]

My god, that site... It's beautiful!

I KNOW. I recommend signing up for the newsletter - really helps a newbie DM out ;-)

[Kol Korran]

Some Ideas:
1) If you can, try to take at Shadowrun adventures, for various cool an interesting ideas. Unlike in D&D, where the adventure usually lays out the path to the solution (Which in most cases involves killing a lot of creatures to get it), the SR adventures set up a situation, and let the characters use their resources, wit and cunnign to perfomr things which may be quiet difficult. Most of these have a criminal theme to them, but I think they could easily be altered. I played in such a campaign, and here are some cool things:
- Retrieve the body of an important person from a highly secured medical installation (Could be changed to detective/ temple/ barracks or such), before crucial evidence is found on that body. The problem is that the party may rely on the medical organization, and would therefore be better off not pissing them off. (These could be allied guards/ military/ temple)

- Shame someone in public/ dishonor them. Someone quite powerful, again- not to be messed with easily. Requires quite a lot of ingenuity and research.

- Steal something and replace it with a fake from a moving platform (In the adventure it was a truck. but this can be a ship, a lightning rail in Eberron or more). Do NOT alert anyone that anything has been stolen!

- Kill certain people, at an exact time, exact place, and make it look like someone else did it. Very heavy security measures are supposed to be on site.

2) In pirate/ sea faring campaign I ran we had all kind of small/ medium quests. Such as:
- The Crab lady: Retrieve an item from reef near a storm. Approaching the reef is dangerous, but it's inhabitant may be more- an old lady that the locals of the islands refer to as "the crab lady", who is followed by small crabs, and apparently lives on small fishing, and scouring the flotsam and wreckage from ships. She hides what the party is looking for in one of the thousands of little crannies and holes of the reef. The party will most likely need to deal/ barter/ haggle with her. Only she has quite peculiar tastes and desires. And she is not just an old lady, she may be far more than she seems (In my game she was were-crab-swarm. The party ended up killing her, and were cursed by hordes of crabs following them everywhere, trying to destroy their ship, getting bigger, bigger, bigger).

- The gargoyle Spire: Again, retrieve something fro ma top of a high spire, in which gargoyles live. They don't just attack, they try to grab people and push them off the spire. The gargoyles speak in rythems, and would speak and answer to anyone who will speak in rythems in return. They will then let people up and help them. They hear just horrible screams and sounds when spoken to not in rythem form.

- Monkey island: (Yes, I used the soundtrack). An island where a huge group of partly evolved apes/ monkeys (your call. I used demonic baboons). Are living in the midst of some jungle ruins the party needs to get to for some reason. The "crazy monkeys!" (as the locals call them), use traps, cunning and more. (A bit like tucker kobolds, but more humerous, and less lethal). Killing them would be very slow, as there are hundreds of them. Some even can use magic... (Sorcerers). The party need to find a way to deal with a huge horde of monkeys, to get what they want.

- Amuse me: One of the guys who holds something the party wants, must not be killed. Either allied with an ally, have some sort of significance or the like. He isn't that fond of the characters however. He agrees to turn over whatever the party wants, if they amuse him, and his team. (In my campaign these were pirates). It's up to the party to come up with enough amusing stuff, nd carry them out successfully.

- The White King: Something a bit longer to describe, that can take a few sessions to run. The garden of the trickster Chi Ga Si (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?276177-Help-designing-the-deadly-mischevious-garden-of-the-trickster-Chi-ga-si!&p=14903485#post14903485) has the basic design concepts.

Other Ideas:
- Murder mystery: If you plan out a small, but well done murder mystery it could be fun. Our group was in a villag that had a few cases of a mysterious illness, that ended in death. The jist of it is that someone got a dreaming stone (Used by Night hags) from a nearby ruin, to impress his girlfriend. The night hag was summoned, and started killing people through their dreams. The different personalities, secrets and the slow revelation of clues made this quite fun investigation!

- Talk to the darkness: The party hears of some oracle/ force that can answer many questions (This assumes the party has some question that needs to be answered). The oracle resides in a cave. You can put whatever flavor you want to the entrance of the cave. (I had symbols of dark gods inscribed to it's walls, and a horse sized hound with three heads as a watcher. Plus, quite a few offerings. The place was sacred to wilderness tribes).

The cave however does not have a resident. It is dark, utterly dark- darkvision doesn't work, no light spell work, and nothing can be seen. (I gave the players blindfolds. We played the encounter without them being able to see. :smallamused: ) Then voices start to talk with them. (i used three voices, as I modeled it a bit like a hag coven, and it went well with the three headed hound outside). They talk with the party, and seem to know them well, perhaps too well- they may hint at their secrets, things they wish to keep hidden, perhaps things they don't admit to themselves. The Darkness (For it is THE darkness) will tell them their answers, truthful ones, but they require a price. You can barter and deal what this price might be- it might be some secret spoken, it may be a deed that needs be done (A sort of a quest, you decide how hard it is to resist it), or anything else you deem worthy.

You can play the darkness however it fits your campaign. It may be of many sources. I preferred to leave it as a mystery, something of ancient times, before gods, angels, devils. It doesn't have to be evil, but it can be brutal, cunning, and very, very sharp. The darkness might have affected other people in your campaign, such as other NPCs and so, and the PCs might be invested just because of that.

I may have other ideas later on, I have to run. I hope these help! :smallsmile:

[Ken Murikumo]

...

Those are some brilliant ideas. The darkness one sounds pretty cool for theatrics. One problem we're facing is lack of overall interest. I thing involving the players in things like blindfolding would get them away from the humdrum, "does a 25 hit?" "yup," "32 damage," "he's dead"

So with help from you folks, and a few websites discovered through roleplayingtips, i now have over 1000 quest hooks for multiple settings, and like 30 fleshed out dungeon scenarios.


My next big hurdle is maps.
Anyone know of some good map making programs? I need to fashion a continent map and eventually a world map. I'd even settle for a pre-generated/pre-made map if it looks like something i could use. I'd rather not use the faerun map because everyone of us but me has extensively read/played everything Drizzt related and wouldn't be able to separate what i say is there vs what they know should be there.

I found a few small room to room generaters like yeoldmapmaker and some really good pregenerated stuff on the cartographers guild, but the only global map gen programs i found cost money, have no demo, and are extremely vague.

[PraxisVetli]

RAMPANT DINOSAURS.
do with them what you will.

[Curbstomp]

Personally, I just hand draw mine. This last time I had a couple artists assist me with the drawing and shading. Done with time and care they can look pretty good. With a little effort it is not too hard to scan and convert to a pdf format if so desired.