by John Grigsby, Staff Reviewer

Every GM worth the title has felt it at one time or another. This weekend is your turn to run and you just don’t have any ideas. You could throw together a quickie adventure using a map from an old adventure you have lying around, but that lacks any coherence and the atmosphere suffers. You want something with some meat in it. But your idea factory is dry. What’s a GM to do?

Hook Generators
You’ve seen these before, I’m sure; a table of ideas that you can roll on to help get the creative juices flowing. Such a table appears in nearly every Wizards of the Coast manual, and they’re scattered all over the Internet (usually in automated form). A single roll (or two, or three) is often enough to provide a glimmer of an idea for this week’s delve.

Some of these generators, such as the one found at Wizards of the Coast are pretty sophisticated and provide enough detail to give you a complete plot, but others are little more than one-sentence descriptions. Still, if you’re absolutely stuck, these generators often provide a jump-start for the creative juices. Even with those that generate only a simple one-sentence thought, two or three rolls may be sufficient to form a coherent plotline.

And don’t feel constrained to develop the adventure exactly as the generator suggests. Mix it up a bit! In this way, you can customize it to fit not only your campaign, but also the type of adventure you want to run.

For example, a roll on the aforementioned Wizards adventure hook generator results in the following plot:

As you wander through the streets of a large city, you soon meet a familiar face, who treats you to a meal in exchange for willing ears. A rich guildmaster waits until most of the crowds have drawn away from you before telling you any news beyond small talk. Finally, the tale begins.

Recently, there have been seemingly random wildfires claiming the local farms and forests. This obviously has many locals concerned. Rumors say it is the work of a powerful legendary wizard, but none know the truth. It's up to you to get to the bottom of the controversy and learn what it means for all the folk and lands around a small village. In exchange for your aid, you'll gain your armor improved or upgraded (non-magical) as well as additional accolades as heroes of the village.

Looking over this description, I can see two things that don’t mesh well with the current plotlines in my campaign. My group is currently in Stormreach, in the Eberron campaign setting. This is a good-sized city in a jungle region. Not only do wildfires not make much sense in a rain forest (not saying it isn’t possible, but this is the wet season), but there are no small farms and villages nearby (Stormreach is an outpost in the wilds of Xendrik).

After a few moments of thought, here’s what I come up with. Recently, the city leaders have received word that a local tribe of orcs (my characters are fairly low-level, so orcs present a good challenge) has wrested control of a nearby dam and is threatening to destroy it, flooding at least part of the city. As the heroes have done work for the Lords on other occasions, they are contracted to do so again. The Lords offer to supply them with whatever nonmagical gear they may need to outfit themselves, and they may keep whatever treasure they find among the orcs. What the characters do not know is that the orcs were hired by a city official (they’ll discover this when they defeat the orcs). Who was it, and why did they want to flood a part of the city? That’s a hook for later adventures, which gives me an idea for a future session.

If your group is too powerful for orcs, perhaps a band of trolls has been hired to do the dam busting, or a wizard on the payroll of the local official) has ensorcelled a hill giant or two. In the end, it’s easy enough to modify these details to fit your needs.

Ripped from the Headlines
Another great source of adventure fodder lies no further than your television set or daily newspaper. Nowadays, the headlines tend to be focused on politics (not very exciting as far as role-playing goes) or the war in the Middle East (limited source material), so you’ll need to dig a little deeper. Check out the other sections for ideas you can mine.

In my own daily news paper today, I scanned the following headlines that seemed interesting: Moss Point (a local city) has a New Weapon Against Fires, Catholic School Opens Gates to Hell Boy, Cat Survives 3 Weeks Crossing Ocean, and Polluted Lake Muck Causes Much Concern.

The Hell boy, while humorous, simply refers to a boy with the unfortunate last name of Hell, who has recently been admitted to a Catholic school. Not much to work with there. The cat ocean crossing is interesting, but I can’t think of an adventure from that right off the top of my head. But the lake muck… hmmm.

Reports of monsters have been surfacing (no pun intended) around a local lake, used for irrigation and milling. Eyewitnesses describe the creatures are being vaguely humanoid, but as though completely covered in mud. They are said to be able to throw balls of mud that harden quickly, making movement or even breathing difficult or impossible. The characters are asked to investigate.

Veteran D&Ders will probably note that this description fits the mud-men from 1st edition, but it works with the headline (if you twist things a bit). Okay, we still need a little thought to flesh it out, but there’s the basis for an adventure. With a little effort, I can probably even fit Moss Point’s new weapon against fires (a floating fire pump that draws water from lakes, ponds, or rivers) into this.

Fact?
A great source that often goes overlooked is history. History is full of strange tales and unsolved mysteries, and even if it’s a well-documented event that leaves nothing to the imagination, there’s plenty of adventure to be found there. Send your characters into the fantasy equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle, place them aboard a sea vessel doomed to be struck by an iceberg, involve them in a revolt against an oppressive government, or have them drafted into military service in a war between two powerful nations. Just Google “this day in history” and you’ll find more resources than you can handle!

Don’t be afraid to change things up a bit, either. If your campaign takes place in the future, a starship that is slammed by an asteroid works just as well as an iceberg, and there are regions of space where nothing exists. If you’re playing in Eberron, having a skyship slowly losing altitude and headed for a fiery crash landing can be just as effective. Caught between a revolt and the government, they must decide which side to join with, or whether to try to escape altogether. And involving the PCs in a war doesn’t necessarily entail mass combat, either. Have them participate as a small squad asked to infiltrate an enemy camp to gain intelligence.

Or Fiction?
Finally, movies, books, and television can be a great resource! For a while during the 90’s, I used Disney movies as a steady source of adventure fodder. For example, the Ocean King’s daughter has run away and he quests the adventurers with finding her and returning her to him. Unknown to anyone, she is in love with a surface dweller (horrors!) and doesn’t want to return home. To make matters worse, an evil hag has tricked her. If she cannot win the love of the prince within three days, her soul will be forfeit! But she is unable to tell anyone of the wager, or the truth of her origins. Sound familiar? It should, if you’ve seen Disney’s The Little Mermaid.

Or take a page from a different film. Maybe a young princess is kidnapped by an evil Empire and it is up to the PCs (a most motley band and unlikely assortment) to rescue her from a fate worse than death. Perhaps the PCs’ homeland is under threat from an invasion of fiends and our heroes must infiltrate their base and destroy a powerful artifact that controls the gateway through which they are coming. Or maybe the heroes are captured by an enemy or a corrupt government and placed into a gladiatorial arena where they must fight for their freedom.

Did you recognize Star Wars, Independence Day, and The Running Man in those descriptions? Probably; and chances are, your players will recognize them as well, but with a little window dressing and some effort, you’ve got all the ingredients for a grand adventure that will keep everyone entertained, even if they think they’ve seen it before. Remember, just because it went one way in the film, it doesn’t have to be that way in your version. Let the players take control and see where it takes you