If you wish to dip your toes into DM-ing but need help figuring out where to start or don’t have too much time to prep before your next session, why don’t you check out an adventure module? These stories can be a great introduction to leading a session for rookie DMs because they have detailed descriptions of NPCs, creatures your characters will encounter, and locations they’ll visit on their way. Wizards of the Coast published a bunch of them in separate books, or even compiled into anthologies but you could also find a lot of homebrewed ones on the internet. There’s something for everyone – they range in difficulties and themes, some are heart-wrenching and others don’t take themselves too seriously. Today we’re looking at the latter – the lighthearted and silly adventures that will elicit a ton of jokes and chuckles around the table and can be a great intro to the wonderful world of tabletop RPGs for both new players and inexperienced DMs, so let’s get started.
Are you a huge fan of food festivals or pies? Well, I’ve got just the right adventure for you – Pie Fight, a 3-hour story set during a small-town Pie festival hosted by a retired adventurer. Your players will get the chance to mingle with the town folk, play games, participate in some challenges, enter a pie-eating contest, and for the piece de resistance, they will be able to fight a pie that comes to life. This is a very whimsical and light-hearted story that your players will surely love.
After the famous “We are Groot” came the equally significant and iconic We are Grung, a one-shot adventure that features little froglike humanoids (grungs) trying to defend their village and their magical pool of green slime from Yuan-Ti Purebloods aka Snake people. The instructions for this story encourage wacky roleplay from players and give you tons of options for funny complications that can occur. You’ll encounter many delusional grungs who believe that a 6ft wall presents a formidable obstacle for Yuan-Tis, a school teacher taking a group of younglings on a field trip in the middle of the siege, babbling dumb-dumb NPCs who are doing more harm than helping, and tons and tons of chaos. This adventure is giving a fun, lighthearted David vs Goliath story, but if David was extremely incompetent and accidentally hit himself with the slingshot instead.
I don’t know whether it was watching Hitchcock’s “Birds” as a young kid, or the fact that my grandpa’s rooster liked to chase me around the garden every time I came over (probably both), but I really don’t like birds. I feel like they have a mean look in their beady little eyes and are way too eager to flap their wings at you if you only look their way. If you or your players are a part of the Bird Hater Society (trademark pending) like me, then I’ve got the perfect story for you – Poop Bird, Poop Fight. It all started when a scavenger bird got a hold of a headband of intellect and started learning spells in order to conquer everything around her. Now she’s created a whole bird army that includes emus, chickens, ibises, and magpies, and they have completely obliterated the nearby village. The party of adventurers has been invited to stop Belladonna the Bin Chicken’s tyranny and her control over the local birds.
If you and your friends are fans of the murder mystery genre, then you might like to try out How Not to Host a Murder, a 2-hour adventure in which you could live out your Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot dreams. In this Glass Onion or Among Us-inspired (whichever you prefer) story, players are invited to a murder mystery party hosted by a very powerful, charming wizard, but then – a real murder occurs and chaos ensues. Now, the guests have to figure out who is the killer before they get the chance to strike again.
My next pick is Rise of the Redscales, a one-shot module that features two rival kobold tribes, Redscales and Bluescales, who are caretakers of their Dragon Queen’s lair and spend their days guarding vaults, feeding monsters, and resetting traps. Have you heard of that saying “when the cat’s away the mice will play”? Well, that’s exactly what happens here – at one point, the queen departs and the kobolds are left unsupervised for ten full days so shenanigans ensue. The cavern is filled with magical artifacts and other loot and if the queen is really gone forever, why not steal all the valuables and run before the other tribe does? This story has a bunch of roleplaying opportunities for your players, puzzles, combat encounters, and tons and tons of wacky magical items.
We Be Goblins! is another great adventure that was originally created for Pathfinder but can be adapted for DnD too. In this story, players choose one of the preexisting goblin characters (or even create their own) and embark on a quest to retrieve some dangerous fireworks. A tribe member who was banished for meddling in the forbidden arts aka writing, cannibals, a mysterious map that leads to a shipwreck full of loot – what more do you need for a very goofy adventure?
I don’t think this list would be complete without the famous one-shot adventure The Wild Sheep Chase. I don’t know about you, but I was sold on this immediately after hearing the name, but if you need more convincing – there’s a talking sheep who claims he’s actually a wizard, a protege who turned on his teacher, people turned into animals, a humongous treehouse and a heist element to the story, need I say more? The pros for DMs are that this story doesn’t require much prep and can be done in 3-6 hours, depending on your party. This is one module I had the pleasure of playing, and I can tell you that I still think about it very fondly, even years later.
The Rat Queens, aka, a party of four female adventurers walk into a tavern planning to have a few drinks and enjoy a nice, pleasant evening with or without a fistfight. Now it’s the next morning, and they don’t remember anything from yesterday, but a whole armed guard is on their tail. What the hell happened? This is The Hangover, a hilarious and crude adventure that has some of the high fantasy elements we know and love – ogres, bandits, a crew of charlatans, an annoying bard, and a snide nobleman.
Have you ever heard the (Actual Cannibal) Shia LaBeouf song by Rob Cantor, or seen the corresponding Youtube music video? If not, search for it right now, you don’t know what kind of masterpiece you’re missing out on. I had the pleasure of hearing this song a few years ago and, to this day, I still mutter the lyrics under my breath multiple times a week. If this song has you in a chokehold as it has me, then try out the Shilo the Buff adventure inspired by it. This story will have your party stumbling into an inn in a secluded village, with little to no equipment, penniless and hungry. While there, they will learn that multiple men, women, and children have gone missing recently and were presumably eaten by a cannibal who lives in the woods. This is a funny, dark, and pretty absurd story that doesn’t take itself too seriously and can be a welcome break for your players if you’re in the middle of a very long campaign.
Last, but definitely not least is in my opinion, the silliest DnD story I’ve ever read and my pick for first place on this list. In the community of Boda, two halfling families on neighboring estates, the Huddles of Huddle Hill and the Suttons of Sandy Burrows are feuding and they’ve recently reached their boiling point. Why – you ask? Well, Tom Huddle was willing to overlook the fact that the Suttons are blocking the path to his cherished blackberries, that they ruined his crops, broke into his house, and burned down his barn. But the thing he will not stand for is his cows being painted green. Now he hired the players to catch Suttons red- or rather green-handed so they can finally get consequences for their actions. This is Huddle Farm, a story published in an issue of Dungeon magazine back in 1988. Don’t let this scare you away though, this is a silly, lighthearted adventure that truly stood the test of time.
