Greetings /tg,
I was too tired to focus and too busy to draw at work last night.
So I played around with my new method of randomly generating scenarios.
The following scenario took me twenty minutes to come up with.
And a bit longer to type up.
Let me know what you think:
Six gods have long stood in an uneasy alliance, three against three.
The alliance is now threatened with the recent discovery of an ancient artifact long thought lost forever: The Solemn Crown.
If one of the gods were to seize the crown, their personal power would grow exponentially, that god’s three enemies would likely be destroyed, and even their allies would be fearful.
The crown itself is rumored to be the actual crown worn by the First God, Father of All.
Its power reshapes reality itself and it was last worn by the King of a land devastated by war.
The King wielded the power to kill his enemies, every last man, woman, and child.
Overcome with regret for his actions, the King used the crown to bring back all that had died in the war.
But twisted by pride and guilt, he brought them all back as undead monstrosities.
Filled with shame, he concealed the undead and the entire capital city deep beneath the earth forever.
Only now has the city has been discovered by a powerful mortal wizard.
And the gods have taken notice.
The crown is still generating a powerful field keeping the god themselves out of the city.
The gods can overpower it for short periods before being forced to leave, delaying their search of the city.
The powerful mortal wizard who found the city has sent a party of powerful, adventurous individuals into the city to find the crown using the only power able to come and go at ease: a young, hyperactive boy whose long multicolored hair enables him to teleport anyone anywhere.
The boy behaves entirely harmless and his most evil, violent act is kicking a shin when provoked.
The boy will teleport away at the earliest sign of danger, but will return to retrieve the party.
continued...
>>44017968
While in the city, the party will encounter all manner and strange forms of the undead.
The King himself has become a massive, hulking behemoth of an undead capable of summoning new undead each round as well as changing one element of his surrounding reality a turn.
He is very resistant to damage and the crown itself has embedded itself into his swollen skull.
As they party search the city for the crown, they have a chance to encounter one of the gods.
Each of whom might attempt to convert members of the party or attack them.
Although the gods cannot be destroyed without the power of the crown, if they take enough damage they will no longer be able to prevent themselves from being thrust out the field protecting the city.
Each god has their own unique traits:
Dark Alliance:
Soulfire:
Clad in flaming armor, this figure of terrifying light wields a powerful cosmic energy that he can harness to lash out in a soul-destroying beam or create orbs of temporal discordance that can incapacitate enemies.
Nepheline:
An eldritch being resembling a large, anthropomorphic cat with wings, she can infuse energy into objects to add melee damage or throw them for explosive damage. She also has complete power over the elements.
Ichor:
A dark entity of death that slides across surfaces and generate dark, caustic ooze that radiates a deathly aura as well as allow him to negate and mimic any powers used against him.
>>44018029
Light Alliance:
Icarus Strobe:
The fiery winged embodiment of anarchy, he can generate whipping tendrils of shadow and light energy attacks while also imbuing a mortal with their peak level of power.
Zealous Trunk:
A oddly shaped god that resembles a massive, bipedal walrus, he is the embodiment of strength and is a master of combat, able to focus on all aspects of a battle simultaneously, despite having flippers for hands projecting powerful balls of lightning on command.
Cecaelia, the Lady of Luck:
The focus of a major fate based religion, Lady Luck in fact brings equality to all matters of chance and by spilling drops of her blood, she can generate celestial winged serpents that fight in her stead, although she herself has the form of a beautiful woman with her lower form emerging into powerful tentacles.
>>44018097
That's as fleshed out as I got it.
Generating three characters on each faction, a mcguffin, and three plot tropes to tie them together worked nicely I think.
Continue...
>>44020083
Thank you for your interest.
The next step, I think, for the scenario would be mapping the city and coming up with various cool, twisted, and interesting undead to populate it.
I wasn't going to put that much elbow grease into it as I don't have a purpose for it.
It was just an exercise
The only plot idea I had and didn't share wasthat the hyperactive boy was, in fact, the sneaky mortal wizard who really is non-violent aside from occasionally stealing chunks of lifeforce from others to stay young.
>>44020083
>>44022397
Unless you meant continue with another random scenario?
So what's your method?
>>44022722
Yeah, I'd like to know this as well.
>>44022722
>>44022774
Sorry, had a computer issue.
My method is kinda stupid and requires some imagination, but I enjoy it.
First, inspired by a recent super power thread, I go to powerlisting.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Random
I use it to generate a powered character, modifying as I go to make it make sense.
I do that to create 3 characters on either side of a faction.
They could be allies or enemies of PCs, or PC themselves.
Then I do it once more to make a McGuffin, twisting the powers to make sense as an artifact.
Then, I go to three random tv tropes pages to get some connecting plot ideas to help flesh out the scenario.
The previous one worked out well:
>A small, cute, colorful, hyperactive and regularly loud boy.
>Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?
>Harmless Villain
Not every time is that synergistic:
>Where Da White Women At?
>Happy Fun Ball
>Squirrels in My Pants
>>44017968
Do you do any generation for smaller scale stuff like single encounters? I've personally been slowly building a library of single encounters that aren't tied to any larger scale story or plot that can be inserted into almost any campaign as filler, but I try to make them engaging and interesting [and unique], with varying degrees of combat and personal intrigue.
>>44026564
>Do you do any generation for smaller scale stuff like single encounters?
I could try.
I just ran another big one.
I'll try a quick shorty to see how it goes.
>>44024535
An ancient temple of miraculous construction has been discovered deep beneath the African desert.
Two teams of researchers are going to be present for the opening of the Lost Temple.
Each researcher is there for their own reasons.
Who will discover and harness the power inside?
>>44027457
The Local team of researchers:
Doctor Ebonstar, Professor of Ancient Religions:
Renowned African professor brought in by the local government for the landmark opening of the Lost Temple.
The doctor holds a dark secret, long ago on a dig, he found a cursed relic and was possessed by an evil, hungering entity. He now seeks new ancient sites to discover more about the ancient magics he now knows are real.
The entity remains mindless and the doctor mastered it. Through his mastery of it, he can transform into a being wrapped in dark shadow, unleashing stellar energy in combat and unleashing a spherical blast of air around him. His dark form also has the capacity to unhinge his ravenous, sharp toothed jaw to bite and consume his enemy.
His human side finds devouring living beings distasteful but his hunger grows...
>Dark Form
>Stellar Attacks
>Omnidirectional Air Waves
>Combat Merging
>Enhanced Bite
Drake Hart:
Dragonborn bodyguard for the elderly master, trained in both the advanced echelon of reiki, allowing him to cleanse the body and chi energy as well as devastating martial arts.
Combined with his enhanced draconic instincts, his advanced training allows him to stop a man's heart with the proper strike and harness his chi to bend the path of his bullets as they arc in the air.
A simple a pure soul, his goals are equally simple, his order has instructed him to protect the master and he will do so, although he is under no obligation to obey all commands.
>Heart stopping
>Internal Bodily Cleansing
>Enhanced Instincts
>Dragonborn Physiology
>Trajectory Curving
>>44027610
Master Lichtal:
An ancient and knowledgeable master of many, many martial arts including harnessing his substantial chi aura to wield seismic attacks, unleash a breath attack of fiery lightning, create sonic waves with his movements, and even detach and control parts of his anatomy such as his hands, arms, and legs.
Few know his true level of mastery, although he remains widely respected for his knowledge and remarkable ability to create music simply by singing his arms through the air.
He alone knows the secret treasure to be found at the bottom of the temple and knows that if he possesses it, with his unique talents he will become impossibly powerful.
>Chi Aura
>Seismokinetic Combat
>Fire-Lightning Breath
>Autotomy
>Musical Movement
The Foreign team of researchers:
Rachel Fielding:
A kind and empathetic student of archaeology, she was sent on this expedition to open the Lost Temple for her diplomatic skills as well as her knowledge.
As her mother died in child birth, she remains unaware of the traces of divinity in her bloodline.
Her heritage allows her to become temporarily invulnerable to harm in the brief moments after injury, to become stronger with people's belief in her strength, and always flow swiftly through physical challenges.
She remains ignorant of this and attributes these effects to luck, natural dexterity, and fairing better with the encouragement of others.
Having focused on her studies, she remains a virgin despite being a beautiful, ivory skinned blonde.
Should she ever lose her virginity, or be present during a power moment of physical fusion, her latent ability to fully absorb and remove the emotions of other will emerge.
>Fusion Empowerment
>Relative Strength Perception
>Temporary Invincibility
>Emotion Absorption
>Flowmotion
>>44027654
Professor Diana Mobison:
Trained in the dark arts, her order has sent him here posing as a professor of religion and archeology in order to assess the nature of the Lost Temple, consume any valuble energies within, and then destroy it to prevent other orders from gaining power.
Her ability is draining and consuming the divine powers of other entities and after having consumed an island volcano priest and one of the sacred sisters of fate, she weilds the powerful ability to create incredible desructive volcanic forces and permanently alter the fate of an individual, one small change at a time.
The fair skinned, raven haired professor she replaced was a disciple of the obfuscated glass, whose power to temporarily alter the visual clarity of objects she now controls.
>Volcanic Field Creation
>Divine Ingestion
>Path Killer
>Philosophy Materialization
>Clarity Manipulation
>>44027779
Mister Lance
An incredibly wealthy explorer who first discovered the Lost Temple, he has a reputation for mastering the most complex subjects in record time and always being in the right place at the right time.
Although he holds numerous doctorates, he remains humble and insists everyone call him by the simple title "Mr. Lance."
Obsessed with cleanliness, he rarely goes on excavations and is making a rare exception for the Lost Temple.
He is funding the entire excavation and chose all members of the team personally.
Mister Lance has one of the most powerful abilities and the truth of his origins may never be fully known.
Mister Lance is a master of time.
With a slash of dark energy, he can open portals through time.
When he moves through these portals he often creates two of himself in the same timeline and when he encounters himself in the past, rather than a paradox occurring, he absorbs his double, retaining all the knowledge of both.
Thus, he can spend several years learning a subject, go back in time, and absorb the information with out aging at all.
It is impossible to say how long he has been using these abilities for, but he seems to have a plan for the Lost Temple.
The only limitation he seems to have is that the dark slash of energy to open the portal can only occur in perfectly clean areas.
>Cleanliness Manipulation
>Eldritch Entity Creation
>Darkness Slash
>Time Portal Creation
>Duplication Absorption
>>44027913
Upon entering the temple, the researchers will be astonished to discover that the stone exterior hides an interior constructed entirely of wood.
Images of oak trees and squirrels adorn all the surfaces as they navigate the maze of traps towards the inner sanctum.
Within the inner sanctum,. they will find a pedestal with a jade figurine of a squirrel holding a small box.
As they approach, an army of spectral squirrels will emerge from the figurine, attacking them.
The squirrels primary mode of attack will include entering the researchers clothes and biting them for minimal damage.
The army will dissipate only if the researchers leave the temple or smash the figurine.
The small box contains a petrified acorn.
If the figurine is smashed, the guardian will awaken and smash through the wooden floor of the temple.
Once awoken, the guardian will not stop his rampage of destruction.
The Guardian:
The guardian is a stone golem in the form of a creature with the upper body of a man and the lower body of a giant centipede and the tail of a scorpion.
The guardian begins in a stone chamber under the temple, chained to iron rings in the ground with an ornate collar around his neck.
The iron rings will quickly break and the guardian will be free.
The chains and collar are indestructible and will whip around him as if alive, but chaotically.
The golem is very resistant to damage and will take a lot of punishment before being destroyed.
Removing the collar is the only way to stop him.
The collar has hole large enough for the acorn.
Once the collar is removed, the golem will crumble.
The collar will fit around a human neck and if worn, the wearer will transform into a creature shaped like the golem.
In addition to the powerful new form, the wearer can wield the chains like indestructible tendrils, see the thoughts of others, and absorb the air around them suffocating all those nearby.
>>44028038
Long ago, an anceint squirrel-based religion captured this powerful relic from a devilish cult and sealed it away from the world under on of their temples.
Only one of the chosen, squirrelly kind can take the key from the temple safely.
None of the researcher are squirrelly enough.
The Collar:
>Centipede Physiology
>Scorpion Physiology
>Chain Manipulation
>Mind Words
>Air Absorption
The plot:
>Where Da White Women At?
>Happy Fun Ball
>Squirrels in My Pants
>>44026564
>>44027457
>I'll try a quick shorty to see how it goes.
>Soul Healing
>Air Transmutation
>How many fingers am I holding up.
The players encounter one being attempting to heal and restore the damaged soul of a entity that can turn matter into air, perhaps dealing with trauma of killing sentient life in this way.
The air transmuter is disoriented and blurry from the ordeal.
Murderhobo PCs might get more than they bargain for if they are not careful.
Fun.
>Self Combustion
>Electricity Manipulation
>Axe before entering
Human torch has gone mad and is taking an axe, trying to axe his way into Electro's home.
Why?
What's made him go crazy?
PC's will have to intervene between two powered warrior to find out.
Perhaps at least evacuate innocent bystanders.
Seems to work nicely.
>>44028361
Not bad, though overall I don't like too much artistic license where 'making stuff up' is concerned, but it definitely seems like a workable process.
>>44028447
Thanks.
It really is more of a seed generation to grow random ideas than generating completed random scenarios.
I find the more wiggle room there is for artistic license, the more you are able to fit the scenario to your immediate need.
No wandering rust monsters in an urban marketplace or what have you.
>>44028641
To clarify, using existing rulesets and policies to create a story is excellent, but using artistic licensce to give everything arbitrary super powers a la Oprah's "you get powers, and YOU get powers. EVERYBODY gets powers!" is excessive and counter-productive in my eyes.
My approach is simply to create a scene with normal things, and generate some realistic conditions that change the dynamic, by combination of physical or mental traits (including motivations).
For example, way back when I started this creative process, my first serious attempt involved 'the party' discovering a clearing/meadow within a forest on their journey to the next objective. The clearing itself is surrounded by blackened and charred trees, within, skeletal remains of humanoids with littered scraps of steel and copper forged metal around the deceased. All of it surrounding an exquisite and alien sphere, about the size of a man's fist. When approached, the sphere immediately begins creating an incredibly high pitched sound and fires off a few beams of light into the sky. Soon after, the party within the clearing are beset by dire wolves running around the treeline, herding them to stay inside. Yet it's all just an illusion from an adult blue dragon who had a stunted upbringing and learned to survive by staying hidden and using clever traps to slowly gain food and treasures who arrives bearing a few debilitating scars and prefers to attack with breath attacks instead of closing distance. Clearly this entire setup is a trap and he slumbers very close nearby.
The perspective from the party doesn't do the premise justice in my opinion, but it's not something to put in a single post. Things like that, anyway.
>>44028950
>To clarify, using existing rulesets and policies to create a story is excellent, but using artistic licensce to give everything arbitrary super powers is excessive
Ah, I was never really clear on this point because I liked that the method could be used for anything.
Using the existing rules is, of course, the way to go.
Just plopping these scenarios down would be jarring, might not match the setting, and would be, for lack of a better term, unbalanced.
The idea is to start from a idealess vacuum, create the shape of an idea, then prune the idea into the shape of the hole in your game.
If there are no rules or mechanics for a ravenous, powerstealing monster, then I approximate and use the rulesets in place.
The powers do more to shape the idea of the characters than absolutely represent the characters themselves.
Take the human torch vs. electro.
Turn it into a young, brash, handsome fire mage axing into the home of a disgraced, former storm mage with a criminal past.
I like your tricksy dragon, btw.
>>44029408
>take the human torch
>turn it into fire mages
Yes, precisely, bingo, you got my heart in one. I start with an idea or inspiration, I don't start with ruleset and 'fill in the blanks'.
>Someone likes my tricksy dragon
Gosh, that's mighty nice of you to say. I have so much more setup in backstory for why the dragon is the way he is and whatnot, as is the case for most of my encounters, though I strictly keep it to practical backstory and I'm not sure if that's better or worse.
It's considerably difficult to keep my ego in check on /tg/, I just want to spill it all out and have someone to throw ideas at and basically just chat creativity all day.
Did I say that out loud? Never mind me. I will, of course, be stealing your method, or at least, adapt a method to my own liking. Cheers.
What is this?
