This week I wanted to put into practice the five point approach to create a one shot in a short time frame. Despite the map everything was thought up on the Monday night and the short brainstorm produced a Palmful of luck. So instead of creating a full zine for this week I wanted to put down a few summarising points and tie it in with the process. However don’t worry as we will be back to the normal Zine format next week.
This adventure can be used system agnostic as we explore other RPGs out there other than D&D. So please adjust to what ever creatures you are using in your adventure! However as always Kobold fight club can be used to quickly balance an encounter for Dungeons and Dragons and Tetra-cube currently provides the stat-blocks for creatures in this adventure.
So I hope you enjoy this weeks quick-adventure, A Palmful of Luck.
A Palmful of Luck
314SuAPaOLu
To Roll with Fate
The concept of this week really was the question. What if the act of rolling dice is more than just how the players explore this game but also the centre point of the mission. The dice we use can be simply magic in our hands, but what if they were actually magic. The concept of a magical dice that randomly does this can’t be a new one. But I wanted to add a twist that its cursed to be skewed towards the opposite luck of what its bearer has. So the outcome of the dice roll is better if someone is Inheritantly unlucky.
However this can cause trouble for people who are trying to utilise the dice to better themselves and this is where the Who comes into it.
The Gullible and the Gambler
The NPCs that take the stage is someone who believes that they are being swindled by someone with a magical item, a gambler of their own fortune. The other protagonist is someone who believes that they are safe, gullible due to innocence. However, this does not last long and their one lucky break in a long line of misfortune starts to swing to unlucky.
Both Simon and Raff could easily be the ones who approach the party. Raff’s greed and belief that he was swindled due to a lucky, magical trinket could push him to do the unthinkable. However Simons need for acceptance and desire for, what we all want – safety, could push him to reach out to stranger to help. This week we went with Raff’s greed as it opens up more possibilities. This leads us to the Why.
A Business Proposal
Why is normally the key component of bringing the party into the problem of others is our gig as a DM. I believe that by having Raff being our proposer of employment it means that we can have the party understand something for themselves. That is to not believe or trust everyone they encounter.
I believe that all parties will need to learn this at one point. In fact by having the bad guys of the adventures convince the party to do the wrong-doing it should develop not only the characters but also the players. However, it could go wrong if they do bring Simon back to Raff at which point we have a very different adventure on our hands. But in order to come to that conclusion we need to go to Where it all happens.
Though the Streets and the planes
Where, this is what we encounter next.
Another street chase, or simply back-tracking to where Simon was last found. We have a few ways to get the party to the astral plane. Firstly if they find Simon, if we want them to, then they could chase after him and through an active roll of the dice it gets interesting. However, they could simply find the magic dice by the barrels, hidden somewhere (but not for them).
By finding the dice the inherent bad luck causes them to drop it and open a portal to the astral plane. Once there they wake up on a floating island and can explore from there. Finding Simon being chased by a Githyanki Stalker, or, being the next mean for the gibbering mouther. But that’s in our Why the party have to care.
Ambush in the Astral Plane
Why the Githyanki or the Gibbering mouther encounter Simon or the party is the next question to answer. We have a bit of fun with these two stat blocks as they aren’t anything special. In fact I just wanted to have the Githyanki make an appearance. In fact the idea of a gibbering mouther being thrown in there as a plausible cause to why the Githyanki are there.
Thoughts
I want to thank you all for showing up this week to explore the concept of quick adventures in your palm. In fact this isn’t too far from the format that makes me come up with new adventures weekly. I have been DMing for a while, on and off, and by looking and refining my own process I believe it makes me improve my skills. Short, sharp and sweet concepts without lengthy setups or adventure hooks. This is the concept I have every week and despite it taking me about twelve hours to produce the weekly Zines. They are worth it. I think.
If you like this format let me know! Short, sharp and to the point with some notes to understand the reason why is something a bit easier to turn out. However, I do prefer the tangible zine that I produce weekly. I believe that that format will be the constant that I return to but let me know if there is something else. In order for me to grow and produce higher quality work I will push and explore more.
Next week we kick off with something a bit more Grim. With Warhammer also kicking off for me I want an excuse to use some of the miniatures I have. But, painting these ones are keeping me in a world of pain as finding little things to motivate me to paint more is a constant battle. So keep an eye out for more painted miniatures on here. If you like what I produce let me know, feedback is appreciated as I mentioned above it helps me grow. Don’t forget to take some time for your tabletop and as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe
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