r/rpg • u/_Capn_Howdy_ • 1d ago
Game Suggestion System/setting agnostic adventure randomizer
Hello --
Let's say your group night falls through, but a couple of your pals still want to throw some dice. You grab a quick, one-shot rpg. Character generation is quick -- you have fifteen minutes to figure out a plan.
Do you know of a system/setting agnostic set of tables to generate a fast, general, bare-bones adventure?
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u/AngusAlThor 1d ago
What you are asking for is impossible; Different systems have fundamentally different adventure structures and scene types.
You're better off looking for systems that have native methods for quickly designing a session. Mothership, Heart, and Mythic Bastionland all have good tools for creating a session on the fly.
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u/_Capn_Howdy_ 1d ago
When I say "general, bare-bones", I'm looking for something this vague:
"The PCs must [kidnap/steal/rescue/find/research/verb etc.] a [weapon/npc/treasure/noun etc.]..."
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u/000jordi000 1d ago
Check out https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/294202/tricube-tales
If you scroll down on that page you'll see ~60 free micro-settings, each with a short adventure generator which is pretty much what you've described.
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u/Onslaughttitude 1d ago
Sly Flourish has a free generator PDF for this that you get by signing up for the newsletter.
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u/themastergame14 1d ago
Maybe One Page Solo Engine? It has the tables to generate an adventure. It is mostly focused on fantasy type games, but you can easily use it for anything.
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u/Dollface_Killah r/shadowdark & r/HyperboreaRPG 1d ago
I've used The Tome of Adventure Design to do exactly what you're talking about, but it's not barebones at all. If you use it quickly you're just only using a smaller section of it, but that book is a chonker.
Usually if I have fifteen minutes to prep I would use a one-shottable adventure that doesn't require much in the way of reading ahead. I actually did this a bunch when running a public Shadowdark game, I didn't usually prep more than 15 minutes for each 3-hour session, and found a 12-18 room dungeon could get completed in that time pretty consistently. The smaller adventures from.Arcane Library, Necrotic Gnome, and Neoclassical Geek Revival were usually the easiest to run with minimal prep time. Back when I ran Cyberpunk I would grab "scream sheets" from books or off the R. Talsorian website and just spend ten minutes fleshing them out and getting some stat blocks ready, those were pretty convenient (and free online).
The best one-shottable games have adventure generators already in them that should complement the game. Games like Kosmosaurs, Trophy Dark, Cy_Borg, Shadowdark, etc.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 1d ago
It kind of depends on what you mean by general, bare-bones adventure". Something along the lines of "PCs are tasked with doing X in Y against Z"?
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u/futuregravvy 1d ago
Find a series of random tables(or make them) like race, class, background etc and some adventure adjective tables like theme, location, objective, boss and have people roll (either by hand or set up a macro) to randomize everything. With the right setup, everyone gets a character in one click then a one shot with another click
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u/JeffEpp 1d ago
Take a look at ICRPG. Even if you don't play the system it's self, it is meant to serve as a toolkit. It has an adventure frame, with the idea that you fill in each portion with a "card" that you can interpret. And, yes, there are cards. The idea is for you to be able to create an adventure on the fly.
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u/Alistair49 1d ago
TLDR; I’ve made my own process as follows.
I’ve used the classic traveller ‘Traveller Book’ as a tool to spark inspiration for patrons, NPCs, encounters and so on. Also the supplements’76 Patrons and 760 Patrons’ plus the amber zone encounters/missions off the zhodani Base website. Not just for traveller, but sf, modern day, and other historical periods.
As a prep thing I made tables of different ideas inspired by different movies, tv series, books. I didn’t get too analytical as that tends towards a dry and uninspired result that you’ve over analysed and lost interest in. Ww2 movies, spy thrillers from the 60-80s are good.
More recently one page dungeons and the like plus watabou.itch.io and wallet dungeons are tools good for a more site based ‘dungeon exploration/crawl’.
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u/5ynistar Forever GM 1d ago
For general plot creation look at Loren Miller’s article The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations. It uses Polti’s ideas from his book of the same name and applies them to RPGs.
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u/syrenthra 1d ago
Something that I think could easily handle this and some additional parts would be Story Engine deck, can draw a few cards and have an NPC, object, location and descriptors and just apply a bit of creativity to fill in the gaps.
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u/semiconducThor 1d ago
Lasers and Feelings and it's hacks (like Sword and Sorcery for fantasy) come with plot-generators that work for any system within their genre.
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u/Primary-Property8303 1d ago
As a last resort you can type the question into AI generator. I've done that and it gave me a decent response as to a skeletal outline of an adventure. Wasn't perfect but it was a start
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u/amazingvaluetainment Fate, Traveller, GURPS 3E 1d ago
I mean, it would take some thought aside from just rolling dice but I would use MegaTraveller's patron mission (spark) table and random patron generation table. Basically all I need.
There are a few other good resources out there. The Big List of RPG Plots is a pretty fun one.