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One of the ways I've taken to spicing up my games is to work in randomized elements. I'm working on making a proper list of some of these themes, ideas and elements and was running into some writers blocks. These can be places, types of NPCs they will deal with, or tonal elements. With monster manual entries, it is assumed those are non-combat encounters.
In my current game the players are in a position where they have to discredit a prominent bishop, the random element for this quest is Circus." So somehow I have to work in the circus. Perhaps the Bishop used to be a carnie and his skeletons are hidden in the closet of the big tent so to speak. Maybe every year there is a carnival in the city and he makes an appearance, a perfect time to plant something on him. I'm not sure yet, but these random elements have really spiced up games.
Going to start
1) Circus
2) Princess
3) Bandits
4) Abandoned Manor
5) Guard Tower
6) Slavery
7) Secret Basement
8) Revolutionaries
9) Bardic College
10) Mercenary Camp
11) Docks
12) Slumbs
13) High Treason
14) Shape Changers
15) Foreign Diplomat
18) An election
19) A rigged election
20) Major Holiday
21) Secret door discovered in a major (and old) stone bridge.
27) The old lighthouse
28) The imprisoned psychopath
29) A celebrity's funeral
30) Opening night at the opera
31) Main road cave-in/blocked
32) The insistent, adventure-hungry, inexperienced prince.
Love some of these!
33) Consecrated graveyard
34) Tax Collector
35) Riot
36) Labor Guild
37) Sewers or undercity
38) Wizards Vacation Home
39) An Eclipse
40) a meteor crash
41) a recently discovered prophecy
54.) Ruins are rebuilt overnight and are like new.
55.) Accidentally triggered artifact the brings change to the environment.
56.) An unusual piece of furniture. (e.g. giant's footstool or trapped throne)
57.) A debt of honor (e.g. I MUST help because she sang at my wedding).
58.) A public wager (e.g. around the world in 80 days).
59) two identical kings (doppleganger?)
60) A plague of rats
61) A secret passage in seemingly mundane house
62) a midnight bizarre
63) strangely intelligent forest creatures
64) The town storyteller
65) A gallows being erected
66) flocks of dead birds
67) a faerie circle (weird ring of mushrooms, or other in the forest)
68) an ancient sword discovered inside a fallen tree
69) An illicit affair
70) An execution
71) Races (as in horse races)
72) Gang war
91) a children's rhyme
92) an abattoir
93) sour drinks at the bar
94) an explosion
95) overzealous merchant
96) doomsayer priest
97) pickpocketing
98) a fallen angel
99) a failed religious festival
100) chains
101 A volcanic eruption
102 Druidic circle
103 A mad hermit
104 Lunar eclipse
105 An unmarked grave
106 A meat pie vendor
107 A crop circle
108 A travelling barber
109 A blood trail
110 A strange stone marker
111) runic script
112) a pirate bar
113) vines
114) a collapsing floor
115) a hunchback
121) During a completely unrelated magical or natural catastrophe.
122) On the edge of a cliff.
123) During a completely unrelated major event.
124) In a sinkhole.
125) Behind a public bathhouse.
126) In the shade.
127) A random (rampaging) monster wanders into the scene.
128) A random (curious) monster wanders into the scene.
129) _________ suddenly dies of natural causes.
130) An unrelated adventure is happening right around the corner/next door/in the background.
131) The person that you know only by name and are looking for is actually an awakened animal.
132) Rocks fall, important allied NPC dies.
133) In the middle of a robbery.
134) On the roof.
135) In another dimension.
136) Completely naked.
137) With dragons.
138) Hidden in an unmarked grave.
139) It came from the water/Sky.
140) "What just happened!? Because I have no idea!!"
141) Using alter self to pose as another race.
142) Four NPC´s walk into the room (Total APL+2), they have SWAG, roll initiative.
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143) Drunken dragon.
144) Friendly dragon.
145) Dead dragon.
Nobody else gonna add?
Well ill hold the boat afloat then :)
Also i just noticed someone ninjad my hidden grave :þ
146) Portal opens, hell breaks loose.
147) Portal opens, heaven breaks loose.
148) Portal opens, material plane freezes over.
149) A Child is born.
150) NPC gives players credit for something they did´nt do.
151) NPC reveals something bad the players did (Truthfully, perhaps the players didnt notice what they did)
152) NPC reveals something bad the players did (A big fat lie and the players know it)
153) The bad guy is revealed to be dead already.
154) Someone bad is revived.
155) Someone good is revived and immediately assassinated.
156) A new beverage is invented, recipe is then stolen.
157) The sun is actually a Solar dragon.
158) The moon is actually a Lunar dragon.
159) The ground you stand on is actually a dragon.
160) Your favorite item is actually a dragon.
161) To hell with it, everything is dragons.
162) Sneak attack!
163) Power attack!
164) Fireball!
166. A business seizure by local tax officials - the business owner is resisting with force
167. A mime proposing marriage to a barbarian via a beautiful serenade.
168. The sudden appearance of an aurora borealis
169. A lover’s quarrel – demeaning details / speculation optional
170. Several bodies falling to the earth as if from a great height covered in wounds as if from a great battle
171. A construct is unearthed and begins to patrol the walls of the town (not even the oldest resident knows where it comes from or what its purpose is)
172. A raucous canard is activated by masked men in several cities simultaneously, each with the same mysterious message (ex “the Time of the Rising Gloaming is nigh, Duskcaller wakes!”)
173. A character standing in the wrong place at the right time receives a whispering wind message intended for someone else (a romantic proposition or a threat of violence).
174. Two griffins in a mating flight overhead.
175. Mistaken identity (honest) – “Cousin! When did they let you out of the asylum?! Are you even supposed to be around people?”
176. Mistaken identity (feigned) – “Cousin! I’ve been looking everywhere for you and your friends, Aunt Ironoak is looking everywhere for us JUST OUTSIDE THE CITY WALLS. Oh no, the guard captain saw us, run!”.
177. Witness an abduction or rescue
178. A group of masked horsemen all on phantom steeds stop and politely ask for directions to a city in the opposite direction which they were travelling from
179. Several couples practicing their dancing for an upcoming festival / holiday / marriage.
180. Lightning from a clear sky strikes nearby.
181. A famous bard begins to perform alongside a street performer who is playing / singing a song the bard wrote / made famous.
-TimD
182) Earthquake
183) Tsunami
184) Angels falling from the sky, bursting into flame as they plummet to the earth below
190) A shinigami descend from the sky, looking for a PC, however he doesn't know his name and his story. The first person the shinigami meets is, of course, that player.
191) In front of a Solar Angel and a Pit Fiend that are gently talking about the soul of a recently repented evil dude.
192) A reversed gravity waterfall.
193) In a city where animals are more civilized than humans (and the like).
194) The village where the group has started the adventure has all its weapons, equipments and armors stolen, together with every settlement near to it.
195) The king send a dominated person to the PCs, and that person ask for something that is impossible ("Return to yesterday and kill me before we start this conversation! Then look for the king and say him what happened next.") The king could be anyone else instead.
196) A notice over the entrance of a kingdom: "On Sale. Negotiations are OK."
197) An intelligent zombie who asks the players to kill him, resulting in the zombie raised again (by itself but unwilling) in an half hour.
198) People disappear from countries, when they return they are more good than before.
199) An NPC believes he's all the gods together and has to fight with itself because, for example, Irori doesn't likes Cayden Caylen, Rovagug hates Sarenrae and viceversa.
200) Every night gold pieces falls, destroying whatever there's below. That gold transmute into lead at the sunrise.
201) A strange fog forms, which quickly become pure darkness. Everybody feels like the sensation of pain in their heads. Voices start to speaks. Some of them are madly laughing, others are screaming and crying, while the others are just laments. There's a taste of cold blood in everybody's mouth, but there's nothing inside. A lich stunningly appears at the players via a plane shifting spell inside a cloud of insects. After a few seconds of chaos, the insects assembles themselves in a armor for the lich, who's is looking at the scared PCs. With a towering voice, the lich speaks: "Oh crap. Another failure. I think I should train more on this." Then he vanish in a sonic thrust, leaving the player with a quite heavy book, containing many hundreds of year of studies about undeath and phylacterys.