ITT we post the most boring or just overused concepts and other anons try to make them interesting

ITT we post the most boring or just overused concepts and other anons try to make them interesting

I'll start with some classics

>"you meet up in a tavern"

>"you work for a mercenary guild"

>Lawful good dragonborn paladin of bahamut

>Barbarian dwarf hates elves despite having never met one

>"What walks with four legs in the morning, two at midday and three at dusk?"

>the riddle
the asker isn't testing the party, he actually doesnt know and is being tested himself by a scarier thing

>>Lawful good dragonborn paladin of bahamut
but is a chromatic dragonborn whose sole existence offends bahamut, comedic angst ensues when outside of important issues he acts socially retarded
("Should I add pepper to the sunny side up eggs? Shit man, the holy book of bahamut doesn't say anything, that's what TIAMAT would do!")

Lich BBEG is raising an army of undead to kill all living things and start his reign of terror

>"You wake up in a tavern..everyone is dead except for you."

I'm liking the idea of the asker just doesn't know.

Like she is legit "This has been bugging me, help me out and you can pass."

tavern in ruins?

>You work for a mercenary guild
Called The Band of The Hawk

Nope..pristine, and the tavern-goers have nary a mark on them.

>there is nothing outside the tavern
>"Like, a vast boring grass field with some trees?"
>No, literally nothingness as far as the eye can see. A white ground that extends to the eternity. There is a trapdoor that goes down into the earth

...

>>"you meet up in a tavern"
Which is currently on fire, as is most of the village.
>>"you work for a mercenary guild"
The guild does more than shoot people for money. Lots of it is based on building up infrastructure after big monster attacks.
>>Lawful good dragonborn paladin of bahamut
He's a Chromatic DB and struggles with his draconic nature. Literally cannot stop himself from going full Scrooge McDuck when it comes to big piles of treasure
>>Barbarian dwarf hates elves despite having never met one
Because HE IS AN ELF
>>"What walks with four legs in the morning, two at midday and three at dusk?"
Doppelganger.

>Lawful good dragonborn paladin of bahamut
The only time I have ever seen this was when I myself did it to prove to my DM that concepts are not the problem, players are.

Human bard thinks of nothing but seducing girls

At the bottom of this dungeon lies the sword of truth, but only someone of pure heart can take the weapon from the alter where its kept

Noble (lv1)adventurers, my farm is infested with rats

Noble adventurers, you have to rescue the princess that has been captured by an evil dragon and is being kept in a tower

really? I've seen it used a lot, it has also become my favorite stereotype

Outside of the bard one, people are so scared of being "derivative" they don't even use these.
Fuck, I've gamed for 20 years and never rescued a princess from a dragon, I'd love to.

>you meet up in a tavern
everyone has been independently contracted to do some type of job in the tavern, alongside several other groups, with mutually exclusive goals. all of the missions falling over each other results in chaos, which a 3rd party uses as cover to execute its own plot. people join together to try to figure out wtf just happened.

>work for a mercenary guild
someone is deliberately sending the party on trivial missions in an attempt to keep them out of trouble/safe/busy (e.g. rescue a kitten, kill some rats, babysit the noblewoman's daughter, hunt down a wild goose). this proceeds to get more ridiculous until the players decide to investigate.

>lawful good dragonborn paladin of bahamut
he's actually just a neutral good lizardfolk knight who's just trying to be the best person he can be. he's faking all of the paladin stuff because he knows it gives people hope.

>barbarian dwarf hates elves
he's never actually met one, but he's dealt with the fallout from their actions enough to know. wherever an elf passes through, only bad stuff comes of it, and he's heard enough horror stories from his family to know. but the whole thing is the result of false-flagging/lies/manipulation in order to keep dwarven culture insular and unite them in frustration and anger.

>that damn riddle
the sphinx is a teenager with a poor understanding of what a riddle actually is, and is just spewing out what they've heard before. no matter what answer the players give, the end result is an argument over what a riddle is, and WHY it's the correct answer, especially if they say 'it's man' because 'metaphorical answers are so fucking stupid'. any actual right or wrong answer doesn't matter so long as the players make a good show of it, since the players would know better than it would, right?

>Human bard thinks of nothing but seducing girls
Only does it to try and win the love of his father despite deep down both knowing he's so far into the closet that he missed the turn to Narnia.

Then, when you tell him the answer is 'a human,' he won't believe you because it sounds stupid.

done it
its actually more boring than you think
no, wrong, its not boring, but its just nothing amazing or interesting and just very predictable
unless it has an interesting twist

>"yeah, how would it be an human when the same applies to any other race too?"

>"you meet up in a tavern"
Because it's the building in town best suited to planning how to survive a siege of undead.
>"you work for a mercenary guild"
Most of the jobs center around regular grunt work and bolstering armies.
>Lawful good dragonborn paladin of bahamut
Is running from a terrible crime they committed and is hoping their new life of piety will eventually erase what they've done.
>Barbarian dwarf hates elves despite having never met one
Has been told since birth by his mother that an elf killed his father and raped her, turns out she killed his father to sleep with her elven lover who was the only reason the two survived after the scandal became public.
>"What walks with four legs in the morning, two at midday and three at dusk?"
Literally any two legged humanoid that ages

>"yeah, how would it be an human when the same applies to any other race too?"
Elves and dwarfs don't become invalids as they age.

>being a hero is boring
Maybe in your games, user.
I don't need epic tweests in order to enjoy a decent adventure.

"Bullshit!"
at this point its only matter of hours until the party realize that he is just arguing for the sake of arguing to get time

OH NOOOOOOOO

>Is running from a terrible crime they committed and is hoping their new life of piety will eventually erase what they've done.
I did exactly that, really.
He had run away from his obligations, then his obligations found him and kill his wife.
His shame at his cowardice and mourning drive him to fight for the sake of others.

>"I played that kind of campaign, it was just meh"
>"Nah, you are lying, it was a decent adventure"
okay fuck you

>Wise old king and his scheming, evil vizier
I'll consider "Vizier is not actually all that evil" answers cop-outs

You clearly don't enjoy the same kind of adventures I do.
I can sit at the table and play a good guy in classic style adventures and have fun.
You need something to make it different.

I rescued a princess from a dark lord once. We got so much gold to really set ourselves up for the rest of the campaign. Though I'm still salty the love potion I bought turned out to be a dud.

"elf slave"

>You need something to make it different.
>>I don't need epic tweests

why don't you eat a dick?

>the festival is going to get fucked up by some ancient evil
My group has even not had this happen, but it's so pervasive we couldn't actually enjoy ourselves due to our paranoia that something would go horribly wrong.

I think you need to stop being so mad and prep for your next game session, user, Veeky Forums clearly isn't helping you.

so you just now evaded the topic, good move, although it would have been best for you to stop posting

The Vizier is actually evil, a Cambion or some kind of higher Fiend, but the king swindled him into a contract where he can't turn any of his machinations against his kingdom. However he doesn't mind those being used against rival kingdoms so long as it can't come back to damage his own.

The king set the vizier up to keep him close. The king is so much better at scheming that the vizier can't cause any serious harm as long as they are close enough.

>evade the topic
>bitching about opinions
There is no topic, stop being a mad faggot.

They are actually just part of the BDSM scene and the "slave" is actually the one with all the power.

Its a demonic festival dedicated to another ancient evil in an evil campaign

they fuck up the ritual
two ancient evils are now awake, but the one on the side of the party is weakened

It is going to get fucked up by some ancient evil, but in a good way because the ancient evil just likes to party and is only seen as evil because of all the wild shit that happens.

Elfs willingly go into 'slavery' just to relieve their boredom of living forever. They don't take it seriously at all and could protect themselves from any harm with powerful magic or something.

the best excuse to introduce best NPC: your friend weeping orc!

>The king set the vizier up to keep him close
why put him in a position of power at all?

>chromatic dragonborn

keep your friends close and your enemies even closer

false sense of security

This is the fifth vizier. All the previous ones were killed by angry peasant mobs for "their" abuses of the good king's lands.

>all this time I've been thinking "chromatic" means that its not metallic
huh

An orc raid is coming to the village to pillage it!

My idea was that the vizier is still good enough at scheming to get power on his own, then cause harm. And for some reason, the king doesn't want to just kill him.

the vizier is actually his illegitimate son and only the king knows

>human bard thinks of nothing but seducing girls
he's a big follower of oral tradition, and feels compelled to help ensure that there's a next generation to pass things onto. would love to settle down with a family, but feels traveling to learn and preserve more lore is more important. always tries to ensure any children are cared for even if he's not there, and will collect trinkets/gifts to give them when he passes through.

>bottom of dungeon, truth sword, pure of heart
the whole thing is a sham. it was originally put together to let people slake their thirst for adventure relatively safely without getting themselves killed. has pretty much every cliche in the book, but everything feels just a bit too contrived and convenient (oh, a pit? good thing there's a bunch of rope and a hook in this barrel over here.) the sword itself is completely ordinary, but is subtly welded to the alter to make some kind of point. who knows what that point is.

>farm is infested with rats
there are no rats. there's some damage, some missing food, sure, but it's mostly just someone hearing scratches and assuming. maybe there's some root cause of it, maybe not, but solving it is more an issue of convincing the farmer that the problem has been solved.

>rescue the princess
the evil dragon is actually a lawful good dragonborn paladin of bahamut who is obliging the princess's request to rescue her from an abusive home.

Only because the village has been brutalizing the orc village for so long they finally got fed up, don't have enough food to make it through the winter because it was taken anyway and are coming to end the abuse one way or another.

I'm a ranger with [group] as favored enemy because [group] destroyed my hometown and killed my family, I'm the last survivor

They're a bunch of MMO players who desperately need supplies for their Raid. Fights break out over which snack place to go to, and villagers are desperately fighting to get them to come to their shops and restaurants. The party is hired to get them to come to a specific tavern, with other factions competing.

shit man, that's gold

>Human bard thinks of nothing but seducing girls
Grew up in a broken home and desperately wants to be a father but can never find the right woman, mainly someone who actually resists his charms and is a decent person.

>At the bottom of this dungeon lies the sword of truth, but only someone of pure heart can take the weapon from the alter where its kept
The entire thing was a lie designed by a mad doctor to capture more test subjects

>Noble (lv1)adventurers, my farm is infested with rats
There are no rats, the man has just come unhinged and has caused the damage himself but "always hears scratching in the walls"

>Noble adventurers, you have to rescue the princess that has been captured by an evil dragon and is being kept in a tower
The dragon actually isn't evil at all and the princess was married to him willingly to gain something for her kingdom. Her father has what he wants and now wants her back for a political marriage to another kingdom.

>Human bard thinks of nothing but seducing girls

Well of course she does. Yuri Bards are the best bards.

Turns out it was all a lie and he slaughtered his home town in a fit of homicidal rage and being a really good shot.

The vizier, while evil, is also terribly incompetent. The last plan that actually worked was the one where he gave the king the shits with too many dates, so now thats what all his plans revolve around.

Something more sci fi

>Party's spaceship crashes in an alien jungle planet, encounter primitive people who deem them as gods

>Oh no! when the party was about to go back to the ship it seems that the space-port has been seized by the soldiers of evil empire and are waiting for them

>Encounter with space pirates who wants to steal the ship's supplies

>Robot PC who knows nothing of feelings goes with the party when he starts to question his existence

>human bard thinks of nothing but seducing girls
Becauae he's actually one of the last Shapeshifters in this entire region and is in dire need of reproducing ASAP since he only has limited time left to live.

Turns out his wife slept with [group] and kicked him out of the house. He uses the "last survivor" so no one ever brings up the idea of returning to his cuck shame.

...

>>Party's spaceship crashes in an alien jungle planet, encounter primitive people who deem them as gods

The other tribes do not, however, causing the party to inadvertently start a holy war the likes of which haven't been seen outside of 40K.

>>Oh no! when the party was about to go back to the ship it seems that the space-port has been seized by the soldiers of evil empire and are waiting for them

...to offer them new jobs and swank uniforms.

>>Encounter with space pirates who wants to steal the ship's supplies

The supplies are needed medicine, which the pirate's homeworld can no longer afford after the mega-corp's CEO jacked up the price overnight.

>>Robot PC who knows nothing of feelings goes with the party when he starts to question his existence

By learning all of the possible feelings and emotions from all the species in the galaxy, the robot transcends mortality itself.

Something more sci fi

>Party's spaceship crashes in an alien jungle planet, encounter primitive people who deem them as gods
The same thing happened twenty years ago and now the indigenous people are having a holy war between the followers of the old gods and the new. The old gods just want to go home.

>Oh no! when the party was about to go back to the ship it seems that the space-port has been seized by the soldiers of evil empire and are waiting for them
To reward them

>Encounter with space pirates who wants to steal the ship's supplies
They only want the ship's supply of nudie holomagazines

>Robot PC who knows nothing of feelings goes with the party when he starts to question his existence
He soon grows to hate emotions and the rest of the party.

>Wise old king and his scheming, evil vizier
the vizier's evilness is tolerated because he's still super competent. he's mostly fine with staying where he is because it lets him fade into the background while the king acts as a public lightning rod. the king accepts this while mitigating the actual harm he causes. kind of a 'even the evil can be turned to good ends' deal. that he succeeds in doing so is one of the reasons why he is the 'wize old king' instead of the 'dead foolish king'.

>elf slave
the elf belongs to the court of the political enemies of the elven lands, and is humiliated, beaten, and abused in a kind of showcasing/posturing/grandstanding way. the elf went into it willingly she's surprisingly okay with her suffering because she believes that as ugly as it is, it helps reduce tensions between the two races, thus helping to avert an all out war.

the orcs aren't interested in goods, so much as how humans have the kind of infrastructure they do, and seek to gain in the long-term by copying it. the settlement is left largely intact, but they've made off with a house, a large number of crops/seeds, several sets of furniture, and the blacksmith's apprentice.

>ranger with favored enemy because
all lies. he's just a specieist fuck who likes killing other people. he got kicked out of his hometown because he wouldn't stop antagonizing the people over the border. refuses to go anywhere near his old home because it still hurts too much (read: they're all still alive and he doesn't want to be found out).

"I'm not Alpahrius"

...

>Party's spaceship crashes in an alien jungle planet, encounter primitive people who deem them as gods
To them gods are not some to fear or worship but something to be over come and conquered.

>Oh no! when the party was about to go back to the ship it seems that the space-port has been seized by the soldiers of evil empire and are waiting for them
They are there because they actually need the parties help with a matter that only they can solve. Are willing to pay and give them a head start after the job is done.

>Encounter with space pirates who wants to steal the ship's supplies
They're trying to steal the ship's supplies because they mistook this ship for one that had been part of a vicious attack that even other pirates are angry about and are out for blood over.

>Robot PC who knows nothing of feelings goes with the party when he starts to question his existence
Turns out he's actually a prototype that a scientist is testing, the questions were put there on purpose and he was let go to see if they could either replicate humanity or create a better way to upload people's minds into robots for immortality.

Turns out he actually isn't because both brothers died long ago. The new leaders simply assume the name to keep their legend going ala Dread Pirate Roberts.

Human Bard was raised as a woman, they're desperately trying to prove their masculinity with PUA level shit. Alternatively, Bard was raised by incubus/succubus, all their interpersonal relationships were built on flirting and sexual favors.

The sword of truth reveals the truths a wielder never wants to know; either in an ego death sense, a Lovecraftian sense, or both. The pure hearted person must be emotionally dead, a cipher, or a golem/undead to wield it.

Ten rat asses quest is the initiation to an adventurer's guild and basically hazing the newbies. It's meant to be a trivial chore because that's what dungeon delving is when done "correctly".

Princess is actually plotting with the dragon who waifued her to usurp the throne. You're bringing her back so she can be publicly shamed and executed.

>human king wants you to drive the rat people out of the capital city's sewers
>rat king wants you to find a way for his people to remain in the sewers

>Party's spaceship crashes in an alien jungle planet, encounter primitive people who deem them as gods
not the first time. it's all a ploy to get the party to lower their guard so that the natives can jack their stuff, maybe even figure out how to make more/get off the planet and take a spot as a spacefaring race.

>Oh no! when the party was about to go back to the ship it seems that the space-port has been seized by the soldiers of evil empire and are waiting for them
they're fed up with the empire and are willing to just let you go if you make it look realistic. at least one wants to desert and join up. is it all a trap? later, it turns up that extra supplies were placed on their ship while they were away.

>Encounter with space pirates who wants to steal the ship's supplies
for whatever reason, the pirates can't dock at a spaceport, and the piracy is a pretense to smuggle a stowaway onboard, who intends to sneak out once the players land.


>Robot PC who knows nothing of feelings goes with the party when he starts to question his existence
it doesn't learn a thing, things just get weird and creepy. tries to emulate human behavior, but it's more just copy/pasting reactions. it's odd enough to hear your own laugh coming out of an unmoving machine, but when you tell it it needs its own laugh, and it responds by overlaying 20 people laughing at once? unless you try to convince it it will never be anything approximating human, it will just get worse.

The human king came to power suddenly due to an illness that suddenly took his father. He doesn't know why the Rat people were tolerated and wants them gone out of ignorance. The Rat kings have always had a deal with the kings above because they help hold at bay a terrible being that will lay waste to the city should the rites not be performed or unknowing outsiders allowed to tamper with the seals.

I actually want to use the old sphinx with a riddle idea. The problem is, it isn't easy to find a riddle thats easy enough for one of my players to answer AND difficult enough to have kept other adventurers from getting past the sphinx for however long he's been talking riddles and guarding shit.
Tldr: help me think of good riddles please

>"A necromancer built his laboratory under a graveyard full of undead and he needs to be stopped!"

O_O'

>"you meet up in a tavern"
in the Underdark.
>"you work for a mercenary guild"
that's just been annihilated in a recent skirmish on a foreign land. You're the only survivors.
>Lawful good dragonborn paladin of bahamut
who curses a lot.
>Barbarian dwarf hates elves despite having never met one
and he's right. Elves are assholes.
>"What walks with four legs in the morning, two at midday and three at dusk?"
A shapeshifter.

The Necromancer is trying to find a way to destroy , control and turn undead without divine intervention. Local clergy hires adventurers to gather "evidence" of his wrongdoings so as to not become redundant.

>Lich BBEG is raising an army of undead to hug all living things and start his reign of love.

>"you meet up in a tavern"
>"you work for a mercenary guild"
Literally nothing wrong with either of these. They're not meant to be creative, they're meant to be mindless cliches that let you jump directly into the game without an hour or more of character wrangling.

After getting stuck in several introductory sessions by DMs determined not to introduce the party via cliche yet floundering to actually get everyone in one place, give me the tavern any day of the week.

Because he doesn't have proper zoning permits. The city allows necromancy but only in certain zones and city cemeteries aren't zoned for private undead use. Your job should you choose to accept it is to serve him with court papers without killing him, dying to his undead minions, or losing the proper paperwork. In triplicate. The job pays RIDICULOUSLY well. He uses a lot of fire based traps.

>you meet up in a tavern

Well, what would you expect? You fucking work there. Unless you fuck it up once again, I hope I don't have to remember that to you. Get this pigsty clean for me, will ya? Oh and you witch, yes, "sorceress", whatever, I expect you to be nice to the baron tonight. I mean, REAL nice. Understood?

>mercenary guild

They're actually akin to UN interventions: basically they're here to let truces go on a little longer. The funny thing is, generally kingdoms pay them for pre-arranged periods of time, so they have to manage border rednecks with lots of weapons and a bad temper, nobles with a mile-long list of grudges, clerics with a thing for purging "heretics"... and they still need to manage it professionaly, so that they get another contract.

>paladin of Bahamut

It's actually Favaro and Kaisar's Bahamut.

>dwarfy hate for knifear

You betcha. For dwarves "elfsexual" is not an insult, more a ticket to the gallows for sins against nature.
But he still likes them.
Roughly, probably. Very roughly.

>dat riddle

A dragon. Wait, son, you tought wyverns were the lesser race?
And you don't fucking know about the third one?! Adventureres these days...

>>"What walks with four legs in the morning, two at midday and three at dusk?"
Danobryn, ever since he got cursed.

Never cross a witch.

When they get down there they find a broken man desperately trying to crack the secrets to life and death to bring back his wife and kids who were violently murdered by a couple corrupt city guards that then framed him. He doesn't want to hurt innocent people because he knows how it feels to loose something so important but with his mind slipping his minions have started grabbing living subjects.

>"You meet up in a tavern."
You all own the joint. Except for the "sorceress" over there. The monk player is coming in and he's typically hot with news!

The lich is in fact raising an army of undead but is doing so for an entirely separate reason than conquest. A former warlock friend has warned him of an impending invasion from the far realm. The lich gave up on ideas of world dominion long ago and instead wishes to study and secretly funds orphanages to be better since he grew up in one.

The problem is that the laws of realm don't use the word "dead" or "deceased"
As in, they don't refered to "dead relatives" regarding hereditary laws but "relatives that can't exercise force of will in this realm of existence".
(it's a long story that I will not explain to you, but it was because of that fabled interplanar war of 500 years ago that you probably didn't listen to in school)

So, kid, as the best lawyer in this friggin' kingdom, tell me:
What exactly happens when your great-grandpa comes up as a skeleton and reclaims your farm?
What happens if the king's one do the same?

Go and do what you should. I knew your father, he told me his gramps was a pain in the ass anyway.

>jungle

The problem is that their gods work like Lake Nemi's Diana Nemorensis. After a month in bliss, sacrifice incoming.

>space-port

Evil for the rebels, maybe. But you aren't those fools that stirred the rebellion, right citizens? Oh, don't be shy, I know those fuckers are everywhere in the galaxy, but we'll escort you back to your ship if you stand proudly as law-abiding inviduals!

>muh space pirates

Jesus, they fucking should. I mean, wasn't that the plan, hotshot Han Solo wannabe? These "pirates" are gonna board us...
...next to the noble spaceship on the other side of gas giant, so that the royal kid can "save" us.
Then, the "princess" will make of good show of gratitude and stab him in his quarters...

>paranoid android

Unfortunately, his maker choose as its moral OS buddhism. He goes rapidly depressed and desperate for purification, and starts questioning his soul (sentience=soul right? It's on the program!) place in the universe, with a lot of instability in its normal functioning.

it's after the Resurrection. You're one of the underlings in the Neo band of the hawk, trying to prove yourself to the Messiah and his powerful warrior allies.
>At an arc-climax, you become an apostle matching your tactics and abilities, and ideally half-connected to your motivations and character flaws. Hope you have a good character

Don't you hijack what I said, no one gets out of this one

it's hijacked, and I'm gonna have antlers that arc lightning at people because I was a peasant huntsman who will do anything to prevent famine and starvation, even become a poacher and outlaw before joining the Neo Band.

They're the worse slaves. Feeble-minded, lots of magic, and no good workers.

Dwarves are where it's at. A dwarf does his job.

>le epic bard womanizer
The problem is that he like only monstergirls especially the least conventionally cute ones
(ok, this might not work so well considering the average Veeky Forums poster, I can concede)

>le sword of whatever bullshit
Well, that means a... interesting feat of surgery.

>le rats
Nobles other than the quest givers are were-rats. Pretty intelligent were-rats, actually, that don't want to be killed or discovered.

>le princesscon dragon
Dragon is actually her beloved, he seduced her in human form. Apparently, he treated her pretty flawlessly.
(do people actually use the princess-dragon thing even, nowdays?

[screaming intensifies]

A decent enough thread, enjoying it. Halloween is incoming: now, for or some horror...

Big government conspiracy without ethical commitee. Possibly with children involved.

The usual big slasher gorefest. Now with even more teenagers involved.

Lovecraftian creatures innawoods/underwater that are superior ton mankind as much as they're eldritich.

No, adventurers, not giant nor magical rats, just lots and lots of rats. It's a significant infestation threatening to spread to other farms and the village.

Being undead is actually a lot more comfortable than being alive, and he is doing it to raise the quality of life of the people

I actually would plan to let the players choose to stay with to the end, even knowing what it would mean becoming, or escaping and turning all their efforts against him.

How about 'The Brave Companions' instead? They sound like upstanding and heroic fellows. Plus, I hear their captain rides a zhorse. No one that fabulous can be ALL bad!