1001 Bad Plot Hooks

[Mercenary Pen]

545. In the local playground is an intimidating giant who spends his time creating comic art on enormous spider-webs, your mission is to read every single one.

[Sir Dar]

546:Riders of the cookiemark!Oaths you have taken fulfill them all! To lord and land!What does this mean?You're a random group of people,who are most likely going to die to a random no name cookie great orc.You must now join the army, for you have given a oath.Hey at least you have horses!

547:The king does not see the true evil behind it all.The great wizard of the white hat,has turn on us and now marches against us!He has outlaw you and your men.Now travel around the kingdom,rise a army and keep your lands safe from the evil great cookieorcs!

548:A necromancer lich, needs help to drive the kids off his graveyard!

549:You must learn the name the drow use for internet.

550:Giant spider aliens are attacking the world!Help the drow keep them as pets!

[Archpaladin Zousha]

544. Epic Bard wants to write legendary sorrowful poem about a great tragedy. Finds existing historical tragedies uninspiring decides to cause one that better suits his tastes himself.

That one actually sounds pretty cool.

551: An insane lich is capturing adventurers and putting them in a labyrinth full of challenges designed to test how well they function in normal society. File your taxes with money that wasn't looted from an old temple, deal with rambunctious kids without resorting to enchantment spells, take a rant from your boss without threatening him with your big sword!

552: Someone left their decanter of endless water running, and now the city is flooding!

553: Some merchants have hired you to deal with a do-gooder solving the local hunger and sanitation issues by using a magic spoon and a magic bottle to provide the poor nourishing food and clean water free of charge.

[Spamotron]

554. Respected Wizard protector of a kingdom unveils an artifact that "Will unfailing choose the individual best suited to rule. Bringing peace and stability to the chaos of succession." The wizard has become cynical and bitter and the artifact actually chooses the person least suited for rule. He wants to watch the kingdom disintegrate while he points and laughs.

[nedz]

555. King of distant city has eloped with local Queen. Join the local King and his fleet of 1000 ships to bring her back.

556. Young Prince has asked for the hand of a Princess. Join him in his quest to fetch some yellow wool.

557. Strong chap has a few odd jobs to perform; help him.

[BayardSPSR]

555. King of distant city has eloped with local Queen. Join the local King and his fleet of 1000 ships to bring her back.

556. Young Prince has asked for the hand of a Princess. Join him in his quest to fetch some yellow wool.

557. Strong chap has a few odd jobs to perform; help him.

Of these I approve.

558. The best warrior in the coalition has gotten miffed at the king in charge and has pulled out from the fight - with all his soldiers. You are either said warrior's cousin, best friend, lover, or some combination of the three (it's slightly ambiguous; alternately, these three could make up the party). Convince him to rejoin the fight.

[Randel]

559. You are a group of Gelatinous Cubes living in the Monsteropolis Sewer System, your job is to keep the tunnels free of garbage. However a zombie apocalypse has broken out and both zombies and innocent citizens have entered the sewer system as well. Even worse, certain undead are toxic to you and might damage or kill you upon contact... not to mention the adventurers who might attack you in panic or just run into you by accident.

If you let the garbage pile up too long then the tunnels will start to flood and cause massive damage to the city's infrastructure... and drown all the citizens inside as well! Try to keep the citizens safe, eat the zombies, dispose of the diseased zombie corpses, avoid the toxic undead, stay out of the adventurers ways, don't let the tunnels flood... and do it all while being semi-transparent and unable to talk!

Fortunately your 'employer' has dropped several jugs of a positive energy potion around the tunnel which should give you an edge... letting you destroy any undead with a touch while healing people instead of dissolving them. He might even give you some cherries and pinapples if you do a good enough job!


560. Monster Claus usually gives weapons, traps, and booze to bad little monsters on MonsterMash day, but someone captured him and replaced him with a fat jolly bearded guy who gives toys! Confused adventurers everywhere are facing sobbing kobolds armed only with candy canes and rocking horses and can only trap their lairs with bits of mistletoe.

Awkwardness aside, the loot stinks and the CR has dropped so low that none of the adventurers can level up anymore. You are a band of adventurers and monsters seeking to track down this bearded fat guy and get the real Monster Claus back so that monsters everywhere can have dangerous weaponry and illicit substances to take their minds off their wretched and ultimately self-destructive existence! All this "peace on Earth" stuff is even starting to unnerve the peasantry who are starting to question why they need wandering hobos to save the world/village/kingdom from total destruction on a regular basis!

If you don't get Monster Claus back by the tenth day of MonsterMash then the current economic system will collapse like the horribly designed house of cards that it is and everything will... I dunno... get worse somehow possibly.


561. You are simulacrums of a team of adventurers. They recently got captured or killed and you are programmed to rescue them or raise them from the dead as needed. Its possible that someone trapped their souls or raised them as zombies so you've got your work cut out for you.


562. You live in a society where wizards are in charge! They get paid twice as much for jobs, they get health benefits, and they tend to get paid in advance for tough jobs. You however aren't wizards.

Your team of non-wizards have to disguise yourselves as wizards if you want to truly get as much as you deserve for carrying out dangerous tasks. If you can convince your employer that you're a weak bookworm who's can only alter the world by casting magic (as opposed to just hitting stuff with a club or stabbing it) and you need an eight-hour break after ten minutes of casting spells then you should be able to make enough cash to retire and never crawl through another stinking dungeon again!

[BayardSPSR]

559.

This is so much more brilliant than just saying 'gelatinous clerics'. Which is pretty fun to say.

[The Glyphstone]

Does the follow-up adventure to 559 involve the Gelatinous Cubes consuming Belts of Gender Changing and somehow being affected by them?

[profitofrage]

I just had some VERY disturbing thoughts....

[Cartigan]

I just had some VERY disturbing thoughts....

4chan already had them.


563. Some Wizard has developed a time travel device and has sent an adventurer back in time to thwart your Warforged utopia. Your wizards have figured out a way to send a single Warforged back in time - you! - to stop him before he ruins everything

[nedz]

Does the follow-up adventure to 559 involve the Gelatinous Cubes consuming Belts of Gender Changing and somehow being affected by them?

Perhaps they might absorb the item's ability.
Could make for ...

561: The Sewers have been taken over by some Gender Changing Gelatinous Cubes, clean them out.

[flabort]

562. Wands of Pony-morph any Object are cropping up in all the major cities and firing off at random! And the more things they hit, the more of them crop up! Can you stop the a-pony-lypse?

[davidpetersjk]

563. Ten years ago, a you were sent to prison by the court of an evil overlord for a crime you didn't commit. You promptly escaped from the dark fortress and fled to the Waterdeep underground. Today, still wanted by the forces of darkness, you survive as soldiers of fortune. If someone has a problem, if no one else can help, and if they can find you, they can hire... your adventuring team.

[Mutazoia]

564. "Pardon me Mr. Tarasque, how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie-pop?" Find the answer and report back.

[Mercenary Pen]

565. In a town on the coast, there is someone who has been afflicted by the curse of the were-lemming. On the night of the full moon, prevent this person from throwing themselves off a cliff to their deaths.

[Notreallyhere77]

566. Somebody set you up the bomb. You are immediately contacted by your nemesis, a half human, half iron golem, who informs you in no uncertain terms that all of your military installations are now belong to his people. As it seems you have no chance to survive now, you must try to make your time. Make it!

[Draconi Redfir]

567: Terrible wizards have released cursed magical items disguised as an entertaining game. This game really turns players into mindless zombies bent on purchasing other items produced by these wizards and converting even more people into zombies. Stop the wizards! i hear they live on the coast somewhere!

[Randel]

568: The magitech military has created a History Eraser Button. Nobody knows what will happen if it's pushed... maybe something good, maybe something bad. We'll never know because you've been chosen to guard it!

[BayardSPSR]

566. Somebody set you up the bomb. You are immediately contacted by your nemesis, a half human, half iron golem, who informs you in no uncertain terms that all of your military installations are now belong to his people. As it seems you have no chance to survive now, you must try to make your time. Make it!

Don't forget!

569. Take off every Zig (For great justice)!

[Andre]

570. Local druid seeks to hire your party to defeat an high-level granny who hunts'n eat wolves out of revenge and is quickly decimating them.

571. Any source of water nearby a small rural village has been contaminated and poisoned. As such, the only beverages available to adults are wine and ale; milk is reserved to children. Hilarity ensues.

572. The Man is once again oppressing the world. Embark on a glorious quest to retrieve a fabled and long-lost artifact capable of defeating the enemy - Jimmy Page's Sacred and Lethal Weapon


Actually, scratch the last one, it's an awesome plot hook.

[Lord Raziere]

571. Any source of water nearby a small rural village has been contaminated and poisoned. As such, the only beverages available to adults are wine and ale; milk is reserved to children. Hilarity ensues.
[/I]

actually, people in the medieval ages DID mostly drink wine and ale, even the children. water in its natural state is home to a lot bacteria and diseases and is hardly drinkable and was safer to drink the wine cause it had alcohol which killed all or most of said bacteria. that and water was socially the lowest form of drink in the medieval ages, to drink wine was actually to show you had class.

this plot hook? probably truer than you think.

[Andre]

actually, people in the medieval ages DID mostly drink wine and ale, even the children. water in its natural state is home to a lot bacteria and diseases and is hardly drinkable and was safer to drink the wine cause it had alcohol which killed all or most of said bacteria. that and water was socially the lowest form of drink in the medieval ages, to drink wine was actually to show you had class.

this plot hook? probably truer than you think.

I'm pretty sure this is NOT the best place to discuss about it, but wine in the medieval age was far less common than you would believe. About ale, it was certainly more widespread, but you are probably using Scandinavian or Saxon "countries" as a rule of the thumb. Real men don't drink water, eh?
Anyway, back to wine - it is true that it was normal for children to consume it at young age, albeit diluted, in greek/roman culture; through this was chiefly for areas around the Mediterranean who could count on a steady supply; in northern areas it was expensive and deemed precious as it had to be imported, which ruled lower classes out of the equation. Things of course didn't improve throughout the dark ages - wineries were probably mostly tended in the patches of land the convents acquired and then the product was exported, I highly doubt a peasant had wine to drink anyday.
About bacteria... well, right. We aren't really talking about people who were advanced enough to believe madness and demon possession to be contagious diseases, are we?

[nedz]

573. Slay a ledgendary Lion.
574. Slay a nine-headed Hydra.
575. Capture a ledgendary Golden Deer
576. Capture ledgendary Boar.
577. Clean out some stables.
578. Slay some Birds.
579. Capture a ledgendary Bull.
580. Steal some ledgendary horses.
581. Obtain a queens girdle.
582. Obtain a demon's cattle.
583. Steal some apples.
584. Capture a ledgendary dog.

[nedz]

585: Become famous by burning down famous Temple

[Andre]

573. Slay a ledgendary Lion.
574. Slay a nine-headed Hydra.
575. Capture a ledgendary Golden Deer
576. Capture ledgendary Boar.
577. Clean out some stables.
578. Slay some Birds.
579. Capture a ledgendary Bull.
580. Steal some ledgendary horses.
581. Obtain a queens girdle.
582. Obtain a demon's cattle.
583. Steal some apples.
584. Capture a ledgendary dog.

Just to remain on the theme...
586. An epic level, good aligned adventuring party receives a ransom request from a likely evil aligned NPC. The message contains a bloody ear, a locket of golden hair and a message "I have kidnapped your deity. Surrender your wealth by level or Pelor dies".
Dramatic tensions increase as the heroes have to decide wheter to pay up or attempt to rescue it by other means.

[The Glyphstone]

Just to remain on the theme...
586. An epic level, good aligned adventuring party receives a ransom request from a likely evil aligned NPC. The message contains a bloody ear, a locket of golden hair and a message "I have kidnapped your deity. Surrender your wealth by level or Pelor dies".
Dramatic tensions increase as the heroes have to decide wheter to pay up or attempt to rescue it by other means.

586a. After realizing that the BBEG has sent them the material components for a Simulacrum spell, they ponder the implications of having multiple Pelors existing in the world.

[Marillion]

587: Don't push the button.

[flabort]

586a. After realizing that the BBEG has sent them the material components for a Simulacrum spell, they ponder the implications of having multiple Pelors existing in the world.

586b. After realizing that the BBEG has sent them the material components for a True Resurrection spell, they ponder the implications of letting the BBEG kill Pelor anyways.

[JysusCryst]

588: You spent your entire life in an underground cave. You're best friends with the Ruler's daughter. She wakes you up one day saying that your father has left the cave (which no one ever does...EVER). The ruler is now after you, and probably plans on killing you. Escape and find your father.

589: The gods made an artifact that will grant anyone who touches it a single wish. The king had seven Sages seal the artifact to protect it from falling into evil hands. An evil wizard has already kidnapped and broken the seal of six of the sages. The only way to kill the wizard is to find an enchanted sword. The only problem the sword is also sealed away and you need to find 3 gems - a sapphire, a ruby, and an emerald - to claim the sword for yourself. Go find those gems and kill the wizard!

589-b: You got the sword and fought the wizard, but it was already to late. He teleported away and made his wish to rule the world. The world is now an evil, twisted version of its former self. Go rescue the Sages so they can bind his power again and save the world!

590: The village patron summons you to see him. He tells you that he is cursed and that you are prophesied to be a hero. You enter a dungeon to remove the curse from him and get a magical gem from the dungeon. It's to late for the patron though, and he dies. Right before he croaks he tells you to go see the princes. You leave, sneak into the castle and find the princes. After seeing the gem you carry the princes tells you that an evil man is trying to collect three magical gems to unlock a secret door that holds great power. Get those gems yourself so he can't have them!

590-b: Turns out the BBEG was just waiting for you to collect the gems and open the door yourself, just so he can waltz in and take the power. You awaken seven years later to find the world ruled by said evil man and everything in ruins. Now, go use your magical sword to travel back and forth in time to awaken the seven Sages to seal his power and save the world!

(589 and 590 are different, even though they sound exactly the same.)

591: Your village is running out of clean water! Go out into the world and find a new way to purify your villages water source, but hurry! You only have 150 days!

592: You are members of a (not so) secret organization who kills important leaders on both sides of a holy war to try to promote peace. Go get killing!

592: You are a descendant of a ancient hero. An evil paladin has captured you and is using a magical device to read ancestor's life in search of an all powerful artifact. Once the paladin has the information he needs, there's no more need for you. Relive the life of your ancestor and try to escape!

Have fun with these! Any video gamers should get them pretty easily.