101 one sentence adventure ideas

[NecroDancer]

1. A commoner with a bag of beans is wrecking havoc, can you stop him?

2. The dead are turning into zombies, but instead of attacking they just stare off into the sky waiting for something...

3. Portals to the elemental chaos are opening all over town, they range from wells, candles, dirt mounds, and even the sky itself!

4. An evil campaign based off the plot of Macbeth.

5. People have gone missing near an abandoned temple, will you be able to find them before the temple's unholy secret does first?

6. A powerful hobgoblin has launched a goblin crusade against your town.

[Azgeroth]

the mcguffin of power has been stolen!! can it be recovered in time?

children are being born undead, what horrid curse is this?

the beer festival is over, or is it??

the talking cat taunts you once more, will you silence the petulant pet??

gold is good, but diamonds are better, to the mines! but can you return?

[Biggstick]

12. The mark of the local Thieves Guild has appeared in the locations of a pair of major heists within the city.

13. The child of an important king (or queen, or just a person of importance) has been kidnapped and must be rescued.

14. In a creepy little town in which everyone seems cold and distant, they say a visit to the little old lady in the woods can solve all your problems. (It's a Hag)

15. The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed. (Straight stolen from Stephen King's Dark Tower series, but the sentence sets up for plenty of adventure opportunities if you substitute Gunslinger for any other title.)

[Fishybugs]

16. You broke your mother's heirloom piece and have to set out to repair or replace it.

17. A merchant-prince is tearing down part of the town, and you want to save your childhood home.

18. A deputy constable working undercover in the thieves' guild has gone missing.

19. Strange sounds are emanating from the local woods at night.

[Aett_Thorn]

20. All is quiet in the abandoned inn that you found on the side of the road...until you hear a knock on the door.

21. The ruined castle just outside the city has suddenly been restored to full glory...but how?

22. Little Sally swears she saw a werewolf eat her favorite cow, but she is a bit of a liar.

23. The local wizard has gone missing, and now the town is defenseless against ((insert neighboring town here))!

24. Courage, friends...just because the noise from this cave is ominous doesn't mean that we can't face it together.

25. A paladin has shown up at the city gates badly wounded, chattering nervously about "them".

[Laserlight]

20. Your nation overthrew the evil nation whose religion involved sacrificing countless victims to avoid some cosmic disaster; it turns out that religion was correct.

21. An evil princess has kidnapped the beautiful dragon, which you must rescue.

[LordFluffy]

28. All the horses and cattle in a town disappear overnight. A druid goes into a trance, warning of "the great stampede".

29. Orcs arrive under a white flag, asking for aid, though if it is a genuine chance for alliance or a vile deception remains to be seen.

30. A peddlar has been selling slaad tadpoles (or other infectious/will bending creature) as pets or lucky creatures and as town after town sees people becoming hosts, the PC's have to find him.

[Naanomi]

31: Magic has turned the princess into a terribly skilled pirate pirate captain; you are hired to rescue her alive and undo the curse

32: The lawful-good temple of the Sun God has proclaimed a miracle: night has died, and the sun hasn't set in a month

34: Where did all these Xvarts come from; they are in every home and wagon, everywhere!

35: Beggars across the globe are joining a cult, and the organization between them is starting to become alarming...

37: Two small towns separated by a valley, and all children born are now aasimar or tieflings, depending on the village they are born in.

38: A Druid circle has started peddling 'happy herbs', and now that everyone is 'happy' nothing is getting done... are those really Druids at all?

39: A foreign theives guild is muscling their way into town; will you support them, support the local guild (who has been nothing but trouble), or stand back while the warfare spills into the street?

[malachi]

the beer festival is over, or is it??

The bear festival is over, or is it?

[Roga]

40. The local miners have unearthed a strange portal and the Orcs in the connected caverns are displaying an otherworldly hivemind.

41. A squadron of Warrior-Chefs have been decimated in their latest culinary conquest and enlist the aid of the party in preparing for the grand feast.

42. An Inevitable Time Warden enlists the party in undoing the damage their future selves have been doing across the multiverse.

43. An auction is held to sell off the tower and belongings of a humble wizard in a tiny hamlet, attracting Demon princes, Aboleths, Kings, and many other mysterious figures to bid for its contents.

44. A child who has been missing for years has walked back into town with no memory and hasn’t aged a day, but this keeps happening day after day and now the town has several identical children and lots of questions.

45. Colossal stone obelisks are rising out of the ground and slowly continuing into the sky threatening to take entire towns with them.

46. Legions of angels displaying a powerful corruption begin razing villages in their search for “the source” and slaughter everyone they deem “tainted.”

[Kane0]

47. A wealthy noble has been reincarnated as an elf and the enhanced senses combined with lack of sleep is slowly driving him mad! You have been hired to cure his 'affliction'

48. A local hedge mage has started offering cures to injuries and illnesses at very affordable prices. The temple need you to sort him out!

49. A dangerous criminal has been bailed out of prison by an unknown benefactor. The authorities want you to find out what he's up to!

[RazDelacroix]

50. Heroes and villains of legend are arising from their mythic slumber, and your crew must deal with them to forestall or end the coming horrors.

51. Monstrous creatures are seemingly growing to massive size, what is behind this phenomena?

52. A temple's choir has gone missing, depriving the land of it's soundtrack enchantments.

[Naanomi]

53) A long war against the denizens of the undersark as they invade the surface is winding down, and the surface dwellers are beginning to realize maybe it wasn't an invasion... maybe they were fleeing something that continues to rise

[Aett_Thorn]

53) A long war against the denizens of the undersark as they invade the surface is winding down, and the surface dwellers are beginning to realize maybe it wasn't an invasion... maybe they were fleeing something that continues to rise

54) A long war against the denizens of the surface as they invade the underdark is winding down, and the deep dwellers are beginning to realize maybe it wasn't an invasion... maybe they were fleeing something that continues to flow down.

[Basement Cat]

55. A dying paladin bursts into the tavern, stumbles over to your table and gasps "Save her!" just before slapping a bloody scroll (map) onto the table and falling dead at your feet.

[KorvinStarmast]

(56) The beer has gone bad. The dwarves refuse to go back to work in the foundry until this gets solved.

(57) After the spring festival, people are still waking up at midnight and dancing until dawn. The Harvest is due, work is slow.

[Coffee_Dragon]

58. Trapped in a 10' pit... forever?

27. The plot numbering machine is broken.

60. The local bridge tournament is disrupted by a troll that was under it.

[sir_argo]

61. Save the cheerleader, save the world!

62. The ruling noble is possessed by a demon and it is up to the party to find a solution before the demon can frame and execute the characters.

63. The king asks the party to venture into a neighboring kingdom and negotiate an alliance, but when they get there, the other king requires a favor first--the party has to take his son adventuring to teach him courage and chivalry, but the young man is a narcissistic, cowardly jerk.

64. A child has gone missing, or has been kidnapped, and the only way to find the boy or girl is to follow the family pet that leads the characters down into a dark cave--do not fall behind!

65. The characters wake up one morning and find out that two days have passed, and none of them can remember what happened.

66. Four horsemen appear on a ridge overlooking the town, and bad things start to happen.

67. A witch curses the party--all of their die rolls are at disadvantage until they complete a low level quest to remove the curse (low level can be dangerous when all rolls are at disadvantage!)

68. The sun does not rise, and the party has to find out why.

69. An aged dryad tells the party she must have a child to take her place or the land will wither and become barren, destroying all crops in the area and making the nearby town unlivable.

[LaserFace]

70. A shady Gnome appears to be running a pyramid scheme.

71. A goblin wanders through town, claiming to actually be a halfling and certainly-not-a-goblin.

72. The party hears rumors of a magical Wishing-Frog hidden somewhere in a nearby forest.

73. The party finds an opportunity to join a tournament. First prize gets a priceless treasure.

74. Someone has stormed into the party's headquarters, stealing nothing, but instead has cast permanent Magic Mouths everywhere that just "Harumph!" at people when they walk nearby.

75. A powerful athlete and his friends challenges the party to a competition. There is nothing at stake, except the shame of defeat.

[Zejety]

Stole this one from Volo's:

76. Villains 1-up each other's evil acts as part of a casting to replace a hag coven's third member

[Spore]

77. A grumpy Fire Genasi was cold in the Winter so he set the town on fire.

[The Ship's dog]

78. From the darkness of the Far Realms, it comes...It comes

79. Large outbursts of Mimics are occurring all over the city, who are what is causing this?

80. You find out that the Tarrasque's belly opens into a Demi-plane that is home to a thriving civilisation that will perish upon the Tarrasque's demise, and someone is trying to hunt this beast down and kill it.

[smcmike]

81. The party must follow a golem through a portal to the past, and stop it from killing the king's mother before he exists. (Bonus experience for the one who gets to be the king's father).

82. The party is tasked with rescuing hostages from a remote encampment . . . but something in the jungle is hunting them.

83. The party is invited to a festival by a former lover, but a gang of bandits takes over the hall and holds everyone hostage - can the party coordinate with outside authorities to stop the bandits and win back the lover?

84. Same thing, but on an airship, and one of the party members is the king.

85. The party has been sentenced to death in the fighting pits for trying to expose the evil government - can they defeat a string of government-sponsored gladiators, win the crowd, and overthrow their oppressors?

[The Shadowdove]

86 Famous free festival at a perfect town that only occurs every 20 years actually is a ritual used to bodyswap the previous town head into the body of the newly elected town head, while simultaneously sacrificing festival participants for another 20 years of healthy crops.

[MrFahrenheit]

87. Tremors are felt on a near-weekly basis. They only occur at night, and seem to specifically target towns, which are being wiped out one by one.

[tieren]

88. No one ever goes into or out of the abandoned candy factory, but one day it starts to produce the most amazing candies again.

89. Your bard NEEDS to win the upcoming battle of the bands, but to do it you will need the sheet music of doom and the instrument of Mcguffin.

[RazDelacroix]

90. The Royal Court Mage needs your team of adventurers to help update his copy of the Monstrous Codex by encountering every entry missing from the current edition.

91. Humanoid shaped holes are being found all over the world, and they lure specific victims to an unknown fate within.

92. A Solar is on something akin to a vacation by divine order, and wants to 'slum it' with your crew.

93. The plans of the Kobold Illuminati are coming to fruition, unless you can stop it.

94. The plans of the Gnome Illuminati are coming to fruition, unless you help it.

95. Spellbooks all over the world start to fly and are gathering in great library flocks before the MANUSCRIPT MIGRATION!!!

[sir_argo]

96. The old lady that lives just outside of town has rats in her cellar.

97. The land is plagued by a new breed of Stirge that takes control of its victim's body while it feeds.

98. Children in town start behaving strangely, and their parents go missing.

99. News reaches town that a popular local adventurer died in a dungeon, and now the race is on among several adventuring groups to try and find his body and claim his magic items.

100. In the middle of a grove of trees, one oak has become sentient, magical, and evil, animating the other trees and plants and threatening the outlying farmland.

101. A large number of spotted puppies are kidnapped by an evil woman, who intends to make a coat out of their fur.

[Kane0]

102. A treant has appeared in town and insists on replacing the great oak that has been in the park for generations. He refuses to exaplain why.

103. Druids have been growing trees in strategic locations to enable more efficient tree striding. The mages running the local teleportation circles protest to this.

104. A fantastic new spell has been developed and is all the rage. Now the race is on to get a steady supply of its material component to sell: Bark of a Fire-Breathing Mahogany.

[Chugger]

105. A beautiful peasant girl is robbing merchants, killing people and being randomly chaotic - has she gone bad (and found some power source) or is she possessed?

106. A spectre that isn't evil and who occasionally craves company hangs out in the very back of a local tavern at times - and has an amazing and sad story to tell.

107. A local druid believes a green dragon wyrmling is about to "shed" and emerge very suddenly as a much larger and more powerful version of itself and really needs to be found and killed now.

108. Some powerful homebrew chaotic fairies as coming for you, and the only way to placate them is with amazing and delicious dessert treats - and the only local cook good enough has mysteriously vanished.

109. Boulders are being dropped mysteriously from the sky at night, crashing into the roofs of key city elders (one has even been killed) - is it a mysterious magic airship, a controllable cloud island, a vengeance bent rider on a big Roc ... or what?

110. Iron Chef - King must judge the yearly Iron Chef contest but one cook is an assassin sent to kill him - and party must save their king.

111. (Almost) Naked and Afraid - party wakes up in skivvies in a barred cell and must somehow escape, find their stuff, and find who did this to them.

112. Dwarf Dynasty - a clan of heavily bearded duck-hunting-obsessed Dwarves who live in a swamp (go figure, right?) need help with Giant Beavers who dam nearby streams hoping to flood them out (or perhaps a daughter has been kidnapped or some more mundane and doable plot line).

[Armored Walrus]

113 There's unrest in the forest - trouble with the trees - because the maples want more sunlight and the oaks ignore their pleas.

114 By-Tor and the Snow Dog square for battle, let the fray begin.

115 As grey traces of dawn tinge the eastern sky, the three travelers, men of Willowdale, emerge from the forest shadow.

116 The night is black - without a moon - the air thick and still, as the vigilantes gather on the lonely torch lit hill.


(Don't rush through these adventures)