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    Tips, strategies, and hard-won wisdom for DMs and players who want to run better games and have more fun doing it.

    Stop Lore Dumping in D&D: Let Players Discover Your World

    You’ve probably created more lore for your D&D campaign than your players will ever see. Maybe it’s a binder full of notes, a dozen maps, or a timeline you’re secretly a little proud of. And even with all that work, most of it never hits the table. It feels like wasted effort.

    So how do you reveal the world you’ve built without overwhelming your players or dropping a giant lore-dump on them?

    By the end of this article, you’ll have four simple techniques for helping your players discover your lore naturally, without forcing it and without slowing down the game.

    Let Lore Emerge From Player Actions

    Lore hits harder when your players uncover it themselves, not when you deliver a history monologue.

    Here’s an example of what I mean.

    Your party is exploring an old watchtower near the border. Everything’s dusty and silent. But in the rubble they find a half-burned journal page that mentions a name — Commander Halvek — and one cryptic line about “the night the sky turned red.”

    That’s it. No explanation. Just a stray clue.

    Later, when they’re in a nearby city, a tavern keeper casually mentions Halvek again. Suddenly, the players are connecting dots, leaning in, and asking questions. They feel like they’re uncovering a mystery, and that sense of discovery is what makes the lore memorable.

    When the players’ own actions reveal information, it doesn’t feel like homework. It feels earned.

    If you want to go deeper into this style of running a game, read my article “Preparing vs Planning Your D&D Campaign.” It pairs really well with this topic and can save you a lot of time at the table and behind the screen.

    Preparing vs Planning your D&D Campaign

    Make Lore Matter Right Now

      It’s easy to get attached to your world’s history, like old wars, ancient rebellions, or long dead kings. But lore becomes more powerful when it influences what’s happening directly in front of the players.

      A rebellion from two hundred years ago is just trivia. But a rebellion from two hundred years ago that still shapes political tension inside the city they’re currently walking through makes it matter.

      When your lore impacts the present, players pay more attention. They don’t feel like they’re being taught something, they feel like they’re navigating a living world.

      Think Like a Mystery Writer

        When it comes to revealing your world’s secrets, pace yourself. Think like a mystery writer and reveal clues a little bit at a time.

        It could be a damaged book that’s missing half its pages, or a rumor they hear that validates something they heard earlier. Maybe it’s a symbol carved into a medallion found on a slain monster, or a map where some of the locations are labeled and some aren’t.

        Don’t just reveal clues about your lore in small chunks. Unusual things are easier to remember, so make them memorable by revealing them in unexpected ways or in unusual places.

        Make Things Interesting

        When information is incomplete or unreliable, it becomes interesting. Players naturally want to fill in the gaps. They start investigating. They lean forward. They start talking to each other. It makes them feel like they’re solving a mystery, not just receiving information.

        And once they start investigating, your lore sticks in their memory without you ever having to dump it on them, or worse, feeling like you have to keep reminding them of it.

        Lab vs Lecture

          Sometimes the best way to share lore is to let players physically interact with it. Include bits about the underlying story that shapes your world through items they pick up or conversations they have with NPCs or even intelligent monsters.

          Find ways to make your mini revelations be interactive instead of static information. Look at it like a lab instead of a lecture.

          Only 30% of Lore is Discovered

          I’ve estimated that only about 30% of the locations I create in my campaigns gets explored by the players, and even less of the lore tying it together ever gets revealed. With this in mind, let me ask you this:

          How do you like to give, or receive, lore in a campaign? Do you prefer discovering environmental clues, stories from NPCs, or slow-burn reveals?

          Summary

          Lore is one of the most satisfying parts of world-building, especially for DMs who love the prep side of the game. However, the way your lore is delivered really matters. Players don’t need to receive it all at once, and in fact that’s a counter-productive way to do it.

          Let them discover your world the same way people uncover real history, through clues, patterns, stories, and consequences. Give it to them in small chunks, just enough to make them curious, and they’ll do the rest.

          Fix These 3 Things in 5e D&D!

          After playing 5e D&D rules since 2016, I have identified three key areas where 5e lags behind old-school rules. Controversial? Maybe. Accurate? You decide. Plus, I list a bonus topic that you definitely want to hear about how 5e compares to 3rd party rules.

          D&D Ideas: 3 Campaigns. 3 Adventures. 3 Encounters.

          If you’re a Dungeon Master who has ever stared at a blank page wondering where to start your next D&D campaign, this article is for you. I’m going to share three campaign ideas, three adventure ideas, and three encounter ideas that you can use right out of the box or adapt to fit your own world.

          But before I get into all that, let me take a quick second to explain the difference between all three, because some newer DMs may not know how they concentrically relate to each other.

          A campaign is the big picture, the overall story that ties everything together. It’s made up of one or more adventures. Each adventure is a somewhat self-contained story that fits within the campaign’s broader theme, kind of like an individual movie within a franchise. Finally, adventures are made up of one or more encounters. These are the specific scenes where combat and social interaction and other events occur within that adventure.

          Campaign Ideas

          Here are three campaign ideas to get your creative wheels turning.

          Campaign Idea 1: Werewolf Vendetta

          The first one is a werewolf vendetta. A cabal of werewolves is conspiring to destroy the duchy. This sounds straightforward, right? Well, here’s the twist: the head werewolf has a deeply personal reason for wanting this because the Duke is his brother and they’ve never gotten along.

          This is the kind of campaign hook that gives you so much to work with. You’ve got political intrigue, family betrayal, a monstrous threat with a very human motivation, and a built-in ticking clock as the lycanthropes work toward their destructive goal. The players don’t have to know right away that the werewolves and the Duke are connected. In fact, it’s better if they don’t. Let them think it’s a standard “monster problem” at first, and then watch their jaws drop when the truth comes out.

          Campaign Idea 2: Grave Robbers

          The second campaign idea deals with something even darker: someone is robbing graves, and a powerful necromancer is behind it. On the surface, that might sound familiar, but here’s where you as the DM get to put your stamp on it. Why is the necromancer doing this? What do they want with the bodies? Are they building an army, or perhaps trying to resurrect someone they loved? Maybe they’re conducting some kind of terrible experiment? The grave robbing is just the symptom, whereas the campaign is about uncovering the reason. That journey can take your players through catacombs, rival factions, ancient lore, and some unsettling moral territory.

          Campaign Idea 3: Encroaching Desert

          The third campaign idea is more epic in scope: a large desert is getting larger and it is swallowing the surrounding land at a rapid pace. Farmland is turning to dust and ancient forests are dying at a rate that has people genuinely frightened. This kind of environmental catastrophe is a great campaign backbone because it affects everyone, not just a specific town or faction, and it creates a sense of urgency and desperation that keeps players invested. It also points toward something ancient and powerful as the root cause, perhaps an evil and ancient blue dragon, which means by the time your players find the answer, they’re going to feel like they’ve really earned it.

          Adventure Ideas

          Now let’s zoom in and look at three adventures within each of those campaigns.

          Adventure Idea 1: Duke’s Assassination

          For the werewolf campaign, here’s an adventure that kicks things off nicely. The Duke hires the party to investigate a rumor that someone is planning his assassination at an upcoming royal ball. The players go undercover, posing as servants and guests, trying to suss out the threat before it happens. As they dig into the clues, suspicion falls on the Duchess herself. Is she behind the plot? Or is she just a pawn being maneuvered by someone else? I’ll give you a hint: it’s the Duke’s own brother, who is the head of a group of werewolves. This adventure has everything you want: social intrigue, disguises, moral ambiguity, and a reveal that changes the direction of the entire situation.

          Adventure Idea 2: Disappearing Villagers

          For the necromancer campaign, here’s your opening adventure. The residents of a small village have been dying at an alarming rate, and as if that weren’t troubling enough, the day after each burial the grave turns up empty. The party investigates the disappearances and eventually follows clues that lead them into a nearby forest. There, they discover a conclave of zombies quietly gathering in the dark. This adventure works on multiple levels, opening as a mystery, shifting into something that feels like a horror story, and eventually becomes a likely combat situation against a bunch of undead. It also immediately tells the players that whatever or whomever is doing this has a plan, and that’s scarier than any single monster.

          Adventure Idea 3: Traveling Druid

          For the desert campaign, here’s an early adventure that sets the tone. A traveling druid meets the party at a tavern and asks for their help. A sacred forest near the desert’s edge is being destroyed at a rate of one hundred yards a day. Something is causing this, it’s not natural, and signs point to a set of ruins deep in the desert as the source, so the party sets out to find learn why. This is a great adventure because it establishes the scale of the problem without overwhelming the players too soon, since at this point they’re not saving the world yet, just trying to figure out what’s wrong with one desert. The world-saving part comes later.

          Encounter Ideas

          Let’s get granular and talk about specific encounters within those adventures.

          Encounter Idea 1: Ballroom Blitz!

          For the royal ball adventure, here’s a great opening encounter. The party members playing the role of guards are stationed at the entrance when a group of guests who are not on the list show up. One of the player characters working the door notices something off about them, starting with the fact that their arms are unusually hairy and one of them has a unibrow that would impress even the most dedicated facial hair enthusiast. When the player challenges the group, one of them transforms and attacks right there in the doorway. Suddenly there’s a brawl at the entrance, and the party has to contain the situation before the violence ruins everything. It’s chaotic, it’s fun, and it puts the players immediately on the back foot in a social environment where subtlety was supposed to be the order of the day. It can also expand by being a ruse while the real attack comes from the kitchen — because one or two of the cooks were werewolves in disguise.

          Encounter Idea 2: Zombie Conclave

          For the zombie village adventure, here’s an encounter that has a good chance of unsettling your players. The party pulls a night watch near the village cemetery, everything is quiet, and then the dead come out of the ground. That’s unsettling on its own, but what makes it worse is that several of the zombies are people the party may have met earlier in the adventure. These are villagers who died just in the past week, people the players spoke with, ate with, maybe even shared a drink with. There’s something far more disturbing about recognizing a zombie as someone you were talking to just a few days ago, compared to fighting a nameless monster you’ve never seen before, and that’s the kind of encounter that makes an adventure personal.

          Encounter Idea 2: Death Above, Death Below

          And finally, for the encroaching desert adventure, here’s an encounter for day one of the journey that establishes right away that this desert is not an ordinary place. The party is trekking across the sand when they spot a dragon flying high overhead, and they’re either admiring it or nervously watching it when all of a sudden a cluster of small sandworms burst up from the ground and attack, giving them two threats at the same moment, one in the sky and one under their feet. Do they run? Do they fight the worms and hope the dragon doesn’t notice them? Do they try to use the dragon’s presence to their advantage somehow? This encounter doesn’t have an obvious solution, and those are often the most memorable ones.

          Summary

          There you have it: three campaigns, three adventures, and three encounters, all designed to work together. You can use any of them exactly as I’ve described, mix and match, or just take inspiration from the core idea and build your own world around it. The beauty of D&D is that none of this is carved in stone (maybe it is?) and all of it is just raw material waiting for you to shape it into something your players will remember.

          Yak Shaving in D&D: Stop Endless Side-quests

          Have you ever sat down to run a D&D session, planning for your party to finally confront the big bad, only to watch them spend three sessions chasing after a missing chicken, investigating a side alley, and negotiating with the town cobbler about shoe prices? Suddenly you’re left wondering what happened to the main story.

          Or maybe you’re a player and you can barely remember what the campaign objective was because your party keeps going after side-quest after side-quest in some sort of recursive nightmare where you’re going after side-quest after side-quest in some sort of recursive nightmare where you’re going after side-quest after side-quest in some sort of recursive nightmare.

          STOP ENDLESS SIDE-QUESTING!

          That situation of seemingly endless side-quests has a name: yak shaving. I’m going to explain what yak shaving means, how it shows up in D&D, and why you, as a Dungeon Master or even as a player, should be careful not to let endless side quests take over your game.

          What Is Yak Shaving?

          Yak shaving is a term borrowed from the programming world. It describes a situation where you’re trying to do one simple thing, shave your pet yak, but you keep getting pulled into other prerequisite tasks.

          So let’s say you want to shave your yak. You need clippers to do that, so you go to the drawer where the clippers are stored. The drawer squeeks when you open it, so you go looking for some WD-40. As you’re rummaging around in the garage for that, you realize that one of the two lightbulbs in the ceiling is burned out, so you reach for the ladder only to discover that you forgot the lower rung is broken and the ladder needs to be replaced. You get in your truck to drive to the hardware store to buy a new one and notice that you’re low on gas, so you head over to the gas station to fill up.

          By dinner time, you’ve spent all day busy as hell but your yak remains as hairy as ever.

          I think you get the point.

          The same thing happens in D&D all the time. Let’s say the party is trying to recover a powerful artifact but they keep following detours. They help villagers, solve unrelated mysteries, or run errands for NPCs. Each step feels important at the time, but together it can stall the campaign’s momentum.

          Why Endless Side Quests Hurt the Game

          Side quests are not inherently bad. In fact, they can be wonderful when they add flavor, spotlight a character, or give the party a change of pace. The problem arises when they pile on endlessly. Instead of deepening the campaign, they bury it.

          Momentum stalls when the main quest gets pushed so far to the back burner that the party starts to forget what it is. The tone drifts when constant tangents dilute the urgency of the main quest. Players who prefer story progress may get impatient, while others wander in circles. And for the DM, improvising endless side content can feel like they’re building a whole new campaign they never planned to run.

          How to Nip Endless Side-quests in the Bud

          The good news is that yak shaving can be managed at the table. If you’re a DM, clarify the party’s goal at the beginning of each session. If you don’t want to be that overt about it, drop reminders through NPC dialogue or world events that keep the central story visible.

          Another method is to limit the number of hooks that show up in the game. Not every locked door or mysterious villager needs to generate a new quest. Introduce time pressure by the villains advancing their plans if the party delays – just make sure the players are aware that particular clock is ticking. And when you do add side quests, make sure they tie back into the main plot or the characters’ personal arcs, so even detours feel like forward progress.

          Sandbox Play Without the Chaos

          Now, some of you might be thinking:

          “I run a sandbox campaign. Aren’t side quests the point?”

          And you’re right—open-world games thrive on freedom and player agency to go where they will. Players want to explore, poke at the edges, and see how the world responds. The danger is when that freedom becomes a spiral of distractions that never reconnects to anything meaningful.

          The key is to offer freedom with structure. Instead of scattering a hundred unrelated hooks, seed your sandbox with choices that all eventually feed into your main themes or conflicts. Let players wander, but let their wandering reveal consequences, villains advancing, or threads that circle back into the bigger picture. That way you keep the open feel of a sandbox without losing the story’s momentum, or by railroading your players.

          If the players choose to pursue in-game events and clues that have a consistent theme, let them. If they ignore those tie-ins, let them do that as well.

          Go Forth And Shave Your Yak!

          The next time your game starts veering into an endless chain of distractions, remember this: side quests should enrich the story, not replace it. If the players begin rummaging around in the garage for ladders instead of shaving their yaks, it’s your role as the Dungeon Master to step in and guide them back to the core of the adventure. Or at least remind them that it’s there.

          If you’re a player and the other players are ignoring the main quest or seem to have forgotten about it, bring it up. If the group consensus is to drop it and go on to something else, be up front with the DM about it so they don’t waste prep time preparing a Thanksgiving dinner when all the guests would rather eat frozen pizza.

          Three Quick Ways to Impress Your Players

          This short article is part of my series, ‘3 Tips in Under 3 Minutes’, where I provide quick, actionable tips you can use in your D&D game that take three minutes or less to read.

          The topic for this article is for DMs, and it’s three quick ways to impress your players.

          #1: Bring handouts. One is to bring a drawing of a monster they’ve never seen before. The age-old advice is to describe a monster to players rather than just say, “You see a carrion crawler.” This works best when they’ve never encountered that monster before. If you go with theater-of-the mind, just use a verbal description. But, if you can swing it, hand them a cool drawing and say, “You see one of THESE step around the corner and it looks really hungry…”

          Another hand-out I have used in several of my campaigns are menus for the inn where the party is staying. I list foods and their prices. You can download the breakfast menu and the lunch/dinner menu as free PDFs here:

          #2: Give your NPCs odd and hopefully memorable quirks. One I like to use is an irrational yet harmless fear, such as a shopkeeper who is afraid of feathers, thinking the bird they came from will seek revenge, hunt him down, and attack him in his sleep.

          #3: Tap into real locations or people the players know. I’ve used town designs that are based on the same layout of a real town the players are from, then as the town gets explored and they see the map take shape, there’s a moment where they start to think, “This seems familiar.” It takes more than that, though. You can imply that the town they’re in is a parallel universe from the one they’re used to in real life. They’ll start making choices about where to go next based on that assumption.

          How to Blend Fantasy and Reality in Your D&D Adventures

          Every once in a while, you play or run a Dungeons & Dragons adventure that blurs the line between fantasy and reality, and something magical happens.

          I’m not talking about fireballs or wish spells. I’m talking about those stories where the real world and the fantasy world overlap in strange, unexpected ways.

          Maybe a group of modern teenagers finds a set of dice that somehow pulls them into a D&D world. Or maybe the characters from that fantasy world discover a portal that leads to our own, and they have to navigate cars, smartphones, and skeptical baristas.

          That kind of crossover, when fantasy and reality collide, scratches a very particular itch for both players and Dungeon Masters.

          Why We Love The Blend

          There is a reason stories like Jumanji, The Chronicles of Narnia, or even Stranger Things feel so compelling. They take something familiar from our world and mix it with something impossible yet alluring.

          As players, that is a powerful hook. It gives us a bridge between our own experiences and the adventure itself. We can connect to it because it taps into both our experienced reality and our imagination.

          As Dungeon Masters, that setup gives us endless opportunities to surprise players. Imagine describing a castle lit by glowing neon runes, or a dragon that knows about modern weaponry because it has been watching us through a rift between worlds. You can bend tone and theme in ways that pure fantasy doesn’t always allow.

          Two Directions, Two Flavors

          There are two directions you can go with crossover adventures.

          The first is going from the real world into the fantasy realm. This is where characters from our world get pulled into a D&D setting. Maybe it’s a group of friends who are playing a campaign when something goes sideways. They wake up inside the game as their characters.

          The classic way this happens is the real-world players are exploring some place, perhaps a lava tube up in the national forest or the steam tunnels under a college campus, when all their flashlights go out. They bump around in the dark until one of them says the elven word for “light” and they discover they’re now dressed as fighters, clerics, rogues and wizards.

          This setup is classic because it’s relatable. Every D&D player has wondered, “What if I became my character?” It’s wish fulfillment with a dangerous edge. Suddenly the hit points and saving throws matter for real.

          The second direction is transporting from the fantasy realm into our present reality. What would happen if your D&D characters appeared in our world? This one can be a bit trickier but it can also be hilarious. Imagine a party of adventurers appearing in a shopping mall.

          You can play it for comedy or for existential dread, depending on your tone. Maybe the cleric starts questioning their gods when they realize there is a world without magic. Or the rogue immediately joins a biker gang.

          What would happen if your campaign spilled into the real world?

          What Makes It Work

          The trick to running these kinds of adventures, or writing them, is to use the crossover as contrast, not just novelty. It’s also about connecting the two sides to something familiar.

          If you bring modern characters into a fantasy world, let them struggle. Their phones don’t work. Their pop culture knowledge is useless. They might understand teamwork, but not swordsmanship or spellcasting.

          If you bring fantasy characters into the real world, flip the problem around. They have magic, but no understanding of technology or social rules. They might think a police officer is a rival knight, or believe an EV is powered by demons — one of them actually is. And why is it so hard to buy a horse in downtown Seattle?

          The joy comes from watching them adapt, and just as often, watching them fail.

          Also, make sure there is a clear reason for the crossover. Maybe a magical artifact has gone wrong, a god’s experiment reveals their divine sense of humor, the party finds a dimensional rift and so forth. That way, players have a goal to pursue. It is not just weirdness for weirdness’ sake; it’s a problem they can actually solve.

          A Few Fun Examples Of Crossover Adventures

          Here are a few ideas you can drop into your own campaign:

          1. A player rolls a cursed set of dice that traps them and their comrades inside the world of their characters.

          2. Someone visits a modern museum exhibit of ancient magical artifacts that turn out to be real relics, and those relics want to get back to their home universe.

          3. On the flip side, you can have a wizard experimenting with planar travel and accidentally opens a portal to downtown Seattle, and your party is sent to seal the breach.

          4. Or maybe your group of fantasy heroes follows a quest that takes them to our world, and everyone assumes they are a LARP group that takes itself way too seriously.

          Each of these setups lets you explore the same question from different angles: What happens when the imaginary becomes real?

          Recommendations From Books And Movies

          There are lots of examples of fiction, both books and movies, where crossovers occur between the real world and the fantasy world. One of the best books I can recommend is “The Sleeping Dragon” by Joel Rosenberg. It’s about a group of college students that get transported by their college professor slash game master into the D&D-like fantasy world they play within. It’s their quest to get back home.

          “The Sleeping Dragon” is book one of “The Guardians of the Flame” series, which first came out in 1983.

          It’s no longer in print as far as I know, but if you can get your hands on a copy, it’s a great read.

          Recommended Videos

          If you want other ideas for your campaign, be sure to check out my YouTube channel. I’ve got a whole playlist of videos with tons of adventure ideas.

          Dungeon Master Creativity: Adventure Ideas & Tips

          Why It Sticks With Us

          I think crossover stories resonate so readily because they are metaphors for what we’re already doing when we play D&D. We can relate to them because they metaphorically connect what we’re actually doing with what we are doing in our imaginations. Everything’s already there; we’re just putting them together.

          Every time we sit down at the table, we cross over a little bit. We step out of our regular lives and into a world of our own making. We become someone else, somewhere else.

          And when the game itself acknowledges that, when the wall between fantasy and reality cracks just a little, it gives us a reminder of why we fell in love with the game in the first place.

          It’s not just about rolling dice or fighting monsters. It’s about exploring what happens when imagination and reality meet halfway.

          Be Brave

          Whether you’re a player dreaming of waking up in the Forgotten Realms, or a Dungeon Master wondering what would happen if a half-orc barbarian met a police officer, don’t be afraid to mix your worlds.

          That line between fantasy and reality is thinner than you think, and the concept is ripe with possibilities.

          How to Quickly Add New Characters & Players to an Existing D&D Group

          This article is part of a series where I give you three tips for your D&D game that you can read in three minutes or less. In this piece, I’ll give you three ideas for how to integrate a new player into your existing D&D group.

          #1: The first method is a classic, and it works no matter where the current party is exploring, whether it’s in the wilderness or nine levels deep inside a mega-dungeon. You have the party come upon the new character who is held captive. The premise is they were out exploring solo and got captured by the monsters and the party finds them and hopefully releases them.

          They might be tied to a tree out in the wilderness, or held in a cell or cage inside a dungeon. The party rescues them, and bob’s your uncle.

          #2: The second idea takes place during combat. The party begins a fight against some monsters, then they notice an arrow fly into the beasts from the opposite side of the combat area, or maybe it’s a spell. This goes on for a round or two before they discover another adventurer happens to be there too. Perhaps they got cornered, or were fighting the monsters when the party arrived, effectively saving them from perishing against really bad odds.

          The premise for why the lone adventurer was there is typically they set out on their own looking for something in the dungeon or wilderness area, or they were part of another group that got wiped out, leaving them as the sole survivor.

          #3: This third idea is all about looking at the new character’s backstory and mining it for inspiration. Actually discuss your ideas with the player off-line and figure out your introduction before their first session with the established group. This takes a bit more thought, but it works really well because it makes the player feel even more invested in their character, and makes the other players more invested and interested as well. If the newbie’s character was formerly a soldier, you can say they were a deserter. Maybe they grew up as a spoiled child of rich merchants or royalty and wanted to rebel, so they sought out the local adventuring group with a growing reputation.

          30 Adventure Ideas for Dungeon Masters

          Most dungeon masters can use a little help from time to time coming up with adventure ideas. Here are thirty ideas to boost your creative juices, grouped into 10 categories.

          Explore the unknown

          1. A strange temple has appeared in a forest outside of town and the local lord wants the adventurers to check it out and report back what they find.
          2. The adventurers are in a small outpost village on the edge of the wilderness. They decide to explore what’s beyond the boundary of civilization to discover what’s there. Keep on the Borderlands, the best selling D&D module ever published, is an example of this kind of adventure.
          3. Within a dungeon, the party discovers a stairway leading to a lower level.

          Get the treasure

          1. A rumor tells of a treasure hoard within a nearby dungeon or crypt.
          2. Lore reveals the existence of a powerful magic item or gem. Clues indicate it is hidden in the cellar of a prominent political leader or within a monster’s lair.
          3. The party gets word of a group of evil bandits nearby that recently stole a chest of coins and valuable family heirlooms from a traveling merchant. The party seeks to infiltrate the bandits’ camp and steal it back.

          Destroy an evil

          1. A temple dedicated to an evil god has been discovered nearby. The party must enter the temple and destroy its altar.
          2. Farmers report a marauding dragon or other monster killing livestock nearby. The party is hired by the local lord to find and neutralize it.
          3. A band of werewolves has been attacking outlying farms. The lair of the werewolves needs to be located, and they must be killed.

          Obtain or transport something of value

          1. A lord has hired the party to escort a VIP from one place to another. The journey will pass through dangerous territory.
          2. A wealthy merchant wants the party to retrieve a valuable item and bring it to them. The only problem is the item must be stolen from the person who currently possesses it.
          3. A mage has hired the party to acquire a special component used in a powerful spell or potion. It is rare and difficult to find or access.

          Captive

          1. The party has been captured by foul monsters and are currently held in a dungeon cell. They must find a way to escape their bonds, find their gear, and find their freedom.
          2. One or more of the members of an adventuring troop were captured and are being transported to be sold as slaves. The rest of the group must rescue them. (This is a great adventure when one or more players can’t attend the session – their characters are the ones needing to be rescued.)
          3. Someone dear to a powerful VIPs heart has been taken by an evil mastermind or monster. They are being carried to a remote location for sacrifice to an evil god. The party must rescue the person before they are slain.

          Pieces of a Whole

          1. To complete a master quest, the party must locate individual items that, when assembled or gathered in one place, will be used to achieve their goal.
          2. Four members of an evil group must each be located and killed before the group assembles and unleashes an evil plan.
          3. A god or other powerful benefactor has promised a boon to the party but each character must complete an individual quest — with the help of the other adventurers — before it is granted.

          Solve a Mystery

          (This is perhaps the most common and versatile adventure type.)

          1. Something or someone is killing or abducting livestock or people in a particular area. The party must find the source of these killings and stop it.
          2. A mysterious disease has infected a small group with an unusual condition that eventually leads to death or madness. The party must uncover the source of the disease and complete a quest to make the antidote.
          3. Unexpected clues reveal a plot to kill the king. The party must go under cover to find the individual behind the assassination attempt before it’s too late.

          Betrayal

          1. The party learns someone in their group is on a secret mission to do something very bad. None of them know who it is but they must find clues to figure it out.
          2. A member of the party has betrayed the others. The remaining members of the group pursues them to exact revenge. This is a great adventure to run when a player has left the group.
          3. A single individual from a group of evil monsters has “turned” and revealed to the party the location and plans of their former comrades. The party cooperates with that individual to foil the monsters’ evil plan.

          Portal to Adventure

          1. The party discovers a magical portal that transports them to another plane or place. They must survive while they locate another portal to return.
          2. A strange portal has opened up in a wilderness near the party’s hometown. Evil and strange monsters have been seen in the area and it is suspected they are coming through the portal. The party must find the portal and find a way to destroy it.
          3. A powerful evil has been wreaking havoc in the area. It is too strong to face directly, but a sage has revealed a way to banish the creature back to its home plane through the use of a powerful artifact. The party must find and retrieve the artifact.

          Visiting a Sacred Site

          1. The party must travel to a hard-to-reach location and visit the shaman or priest of a strange of god to get something blessed in order to fight some great evil.
          2. Deep within a long lost library is a tome that contains the incantation required to accomplish a valuable feat.
          3. One of the party members has died and only by visiting a holy site dedicated to that individual’s god can they be resurrected.

          30 More D&D Adventure Ideas

          In the Advanced Fantasy Referee’s Tome by Old-School Essentials, it lists 10 adventure categories. These are meant to inspire the dungeon master as they come up with adventure ideas.

          In this article, I go through those 10 categories and present three adventure ideas for each that you can use as inspiration for your D&D table. That’s 30 adventure ideas for the price of a few minutes of your time.

          Feel free to use these adventure ideas as inspiration in your campaign.

          1: Banshing an Ancient Evil

          The first category is banishing an ancient evil. This can take many forms and is very versatile. Here are three adventure ideas that use this category as inspiration.

          The first is simple: kill a lich or vampire or some other powerful being that sows death and destruction. The common thread is it’s ancient. Just being a dragon isn’t enough. The story needs to tie into the ancient past in some way.

          Second, prevent the cult of a banished god from completing their efforts to summon that god back into the realm of the living.

          Third, and this one’s tied somewhat to the second idea, is the party seeks to destroy an altar to an ancient god. This could be a subset of the second idea.

          2: Clearing Ruins

          The second category is clearing ruins.

          This category doesn’t necessarily have to be about ruins, but it can be about getting rid of unwanted guests in a building or even from a geographical region.

          To start, there is a long-abandoned keep, castle, town or temple that must have its current yet uninvited inhabitants evicted. Easy.

          Next, we have a haunted mansion. The haunting may be recent or long-established, but either way, the mansion must have its ghosts exorcised.

          When I wrote that, the image of a half-orc barbarian in leg-warmers popped into my head. That’s not an image that’s easy to get rid of. My apologies.

          The third idea is an abandoned keep has been reclaimed but the surrounding area must be cleared of monsters out to a particular radius before settlers can move back in.

          3: Contacting a Lost Civilization

          Our third category is contacting a lost civilization.

          This category can imply that something lost or ancient is well known, but it’s location wasn’t found until recently. A variation is the party can happen upon the location by accident.

          The first adventure idea involves the party finding a cult-like group that got sealed inside a dungeon generations ago. There is likely some change to that group due to their isolation, or the reason for them being locked away in the first place is revealed — likely a dangerous or perhaps even contagious curse.

          Second, we are above-ground. A village isolated from society has been discovered in a remote wilderness. This wilderness can be a dense and vast forest, the open steppes, the barren tundra of the far north, or may be in the middle of the desert. The twist is that everyone in the village has become a lycanthrope of an unusual type. Think dangerous rabbits (werehares).

          Finally, we go waterborne. A ship long thought sunk has drifted into shallow water just off shore, but the crew has somehow changed. Beware the albatross!

          4: Escaping from Captivity

          We’re moving onto the fourth category, escaping from captivity.

          This can be one of the more intense categories, and is often best reserved for players who are a bit more experienced with the game, but their characters can be practically any level since these adventures rely more on player skill than stats or gear.

          The first idea is obvious but harder than it sounds. The entire party has been captured by monsters or an evil NPC and must escape. This often entails getting out of their initial predicament, then finding their gear, then effecting their final escape.

          Escaping from captivity can be used quite effectively for a spur-of-the-moment one-shot adventure.

          Second, one or more members of the party, but not all, are held captive. The others must infiltrate the prison, either as guards or as other prisoners or through some other means, and then effect the rescue of their comrades.

          I used this adventure idea in a campaign a while back and made a video about how it was received. Suffice to say, it was an intense experience.

          Video: “It was awesome! Don’t ever do it again.”

          [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H9RwP3xChI]

          Finally, the party are captured but the twist is they must cooperate with an unlikely ally in order to escape, then deal with that ally turning into an enemy at the worst possible moment.

          5: Exploring Unknown Territory

          Our fifth category, exploring unknown territory, is a classic adventure trope for a reason. It taps directly into one of the three pillars of role-playing games, exploration. But, you can add some twists to it to make it exciting instead of boring.

          The first idea is the entrance to a previously unknown dungeon has been found, either by the party, through rumors traded at the tavern, or even by officials in court and the party is hired to explore it.

          Next, a castle or temple or some other structure appears overnight where previously none existed. You can tie this into category 3, contacting a lost civilization, or category 1, banishing an ancient evil.

          Finally, a portal opens up and what’s on the other side must be explored.

          6: Performing a Quest

          For the sixth category, we’re talking about what is undoubtedly the most classic adventure type of them all, performing a quest. It arguably can provide the motivation behind every other adventure idea in this video.

          We start with the party getting hired to find a valuable item, material, artifact, what have you. It’s easy to create an adventure of this type, and it’s always fun to play.

          Next, a lost item must be located and retrieved. This is much the same as the first idea I just described, but it carries with it the added detail that the item was once in possession but is now gone. The reason for that transition is up to you and gives you the option to add variety and context within your existing campaign.

          Finally, the party must safely transport a person or object of value.

          7: Rescuing Captives

          Harking back to category four, escaping from captivity, a variation is rescuing captives. This differs in that the party is intact and attempting to effect the rescue of others.

          To start, we have a powerful NPC who hires the party to rescue someone from another powerful NPC or monster.

          Next, putting a 180-degree spin on the rescue concept, the party must kidnap someone important.

          Finally, the party are hired as bodyguards during a hostage negotiation between two much more powerful NPCs. Things go sour. You know the drill.

          8: Scouting an Enemy Outpost

          The premise behind the 8th category, scouting an enemy outpost, is that it’s the party against a much larger and more dangerous force. Direct conflict would undoubtely result in a swift TPK (total party kill). The player characters must do something that either gathers information, or provide guerilla-like disruption without being discovered, captured, or killed in the process. Stealth and reconnasaince are the name of the game in this category.

          The first adventure idea involves the party sneaking around to infiltrate an enemy force and learning their plans. This can involve retrieving a battle plan or map, or maybe even capturing someone in the know, secreting them away, and then interrogating them.

          Next, the party runs across an enemy force that is on the move, and the party must discover their plans and report back to authorities. Maybe they sabotage the enemy before the horde reaches their destination or begins their attack.

          Finally, an enemy force is believed to be encamped or marching through some broad area. The party must scout around and locate the enemy, and, if possible, learn their numbers and intent before reporting back.

          9: Seeking a Magical Doorway

          This category of seeking a magical doorway is a good trope when the campaign needs more mystery and problem-solving than outright combat.

          To start, the party must find the location of a rumored portal based on clues they’ve discovered on their own, or by a quest given by a powerful NPC. This adventure can include lots of clue-finding, perhaps contacting powers that have rare information, and so forth.

          Next, your adventure might include a portal that has already been found, but the party must figure out how to operate it. (Think about Frodo’s question to Gandalf, “What’s the elvish word for ‘friend’?”) Two more variations include the party figuring out how to disable or destroy it, or simply entering the portal and figuring out where it goes.

          Finally, the third adventure idea begins with a one-way portal being found that leads to a distant world, but the return portal must be located.

          10: Visiting a Sacred Site

          In our final category, visiting a sacred site, the party must travel somewhere exotic and locate some place or person of high value, usually to acquire information or a valuable object.

          The classic variation of this is the party must locate and visit a strange or troublesome oracle to obtain valuable information. Hags are great for this because they are very long-lived and know a ton of information, but they always have a price and that price is never pretty or easy (or obvious).

          Second, a party member has been cursed and only a particular shrine or holy person can lift it.

          Curses make great motivators.

          And our thirtieth adventure idea is … a sacred site must be found and some action completed before a deadline expires. The deadline is the key, and you can use real time for this purpose to add tension. The consequence of failing to meet the deadline can mean a party member dies, something valuable self-destructs, or even an entire region suffers something really, really bad. We’re talking plague of frogs kind of $h!t.

          Deadlines can also be great motivators.

          Mix-and-Match Your Adventure Designs

          One of my mantras is that it’s easier to edit than to create, so start with the seed of an idea like the ten adventure categories in Old-School Essentials or several other dungeon master guides through the years, and use that as the foundation of your idea.

          Tweak as you go, refine to suit your players and your campaign, and mix it up. When one adventure type is getting stale, switch to something different.

          You can also use one category to be the motivation behind another. Going on a quest or a rescue operation is fertile ground for practically every other adventure idea in this video.

          Going Old School

          I recently started a D&D group at my local library. I am the Dungeon Master for a collection of individuals who have either never played D&D before or were only briefly exposed to it. One played “back in the day” (early 1980s) and has just a smattering of recent experience. Only two of these players know each other, otherwise they are all strangers.

          Many of these players responded to printed flyers I posted around town on corkboard bulletin boards in local coffee shops and grocery stores. One responded to a free ad I posted on craigslist.

          What’s really cool about this group, however, is that we’re going old school. We’ll be playing Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy, published by Necrotic Gnome. This is essentially a mashup of the late 1970s 1st edition AD&D and early 1980s Basic/Expert rules published by TSR.

          We’ve held our first Session 0. The format of the evening was in three parts.

          First, we discussed how D&D works and how it’s played. We covered some broad level rules and debated between following the Basic rules, which are based on the early 1980s Basic boxed set (“Moldvay Basic” as it’s commonly called), or the Advanced rules. The group voted to go with the Advanced rules, primarily so they had access to a broader range of classes and races.

          We did decide, however, not to follow “race as class” — you’re a dwarven fighter or elven magic-user, rather than just a “dwarf” or just an “elf.”

          Furthermore, the group decided to follow the rules as written (RAW) as much as possible, with only a few minor exceptions.

          Here are the table rules we’ve decided on so far:

          • Natural 20’s cause double damage; natural 1’s cause a deleterious effect. This applies to monsters as well as characters.
          • No race-as-class (mentioned above).
          • No drow player-characters.
          • No multi-class characters.

          Second, we spent some time rolling up characters. This took the bulk of the evening because the process was brand new to the players and we had only one copy of the Old-School Essentials Player’s Tome (Advanced).

          Stats were generated by each player rolling 3d6 six times, then arranging those numbers in the desired order based on the class they preferred. (I ruled that if the average of their six stats was less than 12, they could re-roll all six stats again.) Point buys were then implemented to raise prime requisites. Finally, we went around the table setting secondary stats like bonuses and then bought some basic equipment, etc.

          Last, we spent a half hour going through a mini-combat where the party encountered three hobgoblins in a room. Only one character took damage before all three monsters were dispatched.

          The players quickly picked up on the need to balance risk and reward and even started to think about combat tactics, playing to their characters’ strengths and weaknesses.

          Session 1, the first day of actual game play, will take place a week later, with the ongoing play schedule set to every-other week.

          So far the group has been enthused and excited about the process and prospects of some great old-school roll-playing action. I am, too.

          I began playing D&D back in 1980 with the purchase of the Moldvay “purple box” Basic Set, and subsequent purchases of the original three 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons core rule books (Dungeon Masters Guide, Players Handbook, and Monster Manual). I’ve been a Dungeon Master 95% of the time since then.

          It is great to not only get back to playing AD&D-slash-Basic/Expert rules, but to have the opportunity to teach a group of people the joys of Dungeons & Dragons essentially from scratch.

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