TEXT: W
  hat follows is a scrap of
  trivia . . . my collection of
  RPG plots, in abstract
  form. I built this by exam-
  ining the premises of hun-
  dreds of published adventures for all
  systems (including those systems
  dear and departed from print), trying
  to boil them down to common
  denominators. The results are pre-
  sented here: arbitrary, and sometimes
  redundant. Nevertheless, I turn to
  this list when I’m stuck for a fresh
  premise for next week’s session of my
  campaign, whatever that campaign
  might happen to be about at the
  time. It helps me keep from falling
  into thematic ruts (my least favorite
  kind). With any luck, it might serve
  a similar function for you.
  Note: The “plots” are arranged in
  alphabetical order by title. Since
  the titles are arbitrary, this serves
  no useful function at all. And if
  you want shakespearean five-act
  hoozits, plot trees, Man Versus
  Himself and other Serious Literary
  Bunkum, try Writer’s Digest. This
  ain’t Oxford, baby.
  Any Old Port 
  in a Storm
  The PCs are seeking shelter from the
  elements or some other threat, and
  come across a place to hole up. They
  find that they have stumbled across
  something dangerous, secret, or
  supernatural, and must then deal
  with it in order to enjoy a little rest. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The
  shelter contains the cause of the
  threat the PCs were trying to avoid.
  The shelter houses a Hidden Base
  (q.v.). The PCs must not only strug-
  gle for shelter, they must struggle to
  survive. The place is a legitimate
  shelter of some kind, but the PCs
  are not welcome, and must win
  hearts or minds to earn their bed for
  the night.
  Better Late 
  Than Never
  Some bad guys have arrived and done
  some bad guy things. The PCs were
  none the wiser. The bad guys have
  now made good their escape, and the
  PCs have caught wind of it in time to
  chase them down before they make it
  back to their lair, their home nation,
  behind enemy lines, etc.
  Common Twists & Themes: The bad
  guys escaped by stealing a con-
  veyance that the PCs know better
  than they do. The bad guys duck
  down a metaphorical (or literal) side-
  road, trying to hide or blend into an
  environment (often one hostile to
  the PCs). If the bad guys cross the
  adventure’s “finish line” (cross the
  county line, make the warp jump,
  etc.) there’s no way to pursue them
  beyond it.
  Blackmail 
  Usually through trickery (but some-
  times by digging into the PCs’ past),
  an antagonist has something to hold
  over the heads of the PCs and make
  them jump. This could be any kind of
  threat from physical to social, but it
  depends on the villain having some-
  thing - even if it’s information - that
  others don’t have. Now, he is pulling
  the strings of the PCs, telling them
  to do things they don’t want to. The
  PCs must end the cycle of blackmail,
  deprive the villain of his edge, and
  keep him temporarily satisfied while
  doing it. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The
  adventure hook involves the PCs
  doing the villain a good turn, which
  allows him to take advantage of them
  (very cynical!). To succeed, the PCs
  must contact other folks that are also
  being used. The PCs aren’t the vic-
  tims at all, but somebody they care
  about/are charged to protect, is.
  Breaking and
  Entering
  Mission objective: enter the danger-
  ous place, and retrieve the vital din-
  gus or valuable person. Overcome the
  area’s defenses to do so. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The goal
  is not to extract a thing, but to
  destroy a thing or interfere with a
  process (kill the force-screen genera-
  tor, assassinate the evil king, stop
  the spell from being cast, wreck the
  1
  BIGLIST
  of RPG Plots
  BIGLIST
  The
  A GM’s Aid by S. John Ross
  Version two
  Don’t Panic. A lot of GMs come to
  the Big List only once they’ve
  begun to panic. Don’t crucify
  yourself just yet! In particular,
  don’t fuss too much over plot, as
  many GMs do. All of the plots
  here can provide a tried-and-true,
  simple structure, and structure is
  all you need a plot for in a role-
  playing game. Remember to play
  to the strengths of the medium –
  most all of which are about char-
  acter, not plot. Only in an RPG can
  you experience a fictional charac-
  ter on a personal, first-hand level.
  Outline your adventures to make
  the most of that. Any plot that
  contains more than a basic struc-
  ture is more likely to pull attention
  away from character, and that’s
  burning the bridge for firewood.
  All you need to do is be ready to
  roll with the curves and have fun
  hamming it up. Relax. Game.
  Handy Tip!
  ❉
  ❉
  Copyright ©1999, 2002 by S. John Ross. The
  Handy Tip stopped already, and you’ve
  strayed into the Boring Legalese Zone! Aieee!
  
  invasion plans, close the portal). The
  goal has moved. The goal is informa-
  tion, which must be broadcast or
  otherwise released from the area as
  soon as it is found. The job must be
  done without alerting anyone. The
  PCs don’t know the place is danger-
  ous. The PCs must replace the thing
  with another thing.
  Capture the Flag
  The PCs must secure a military target
  for the good guys. There are bad guys
  there that prefer not to be secured.
  The fundamental tactical scenario. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The PCs
  must assemble and/or train a force to
  do the job with them. The PCs are
  working with flawed intelligence and
  the target zone isn’t as described.
  The PCs must coordinate their own
  efforts with an ally group (possibly
  putting aside rivalries to do so). The
  target zone includes a population of
  innocent people, fragile goods, or
  some other precious thing that must-
  n’t be harmed in the crossfire.
  Clearing The Hex
  There is a place where bad things
  live. The PCs must make it safe for
  nice people, systematically clearing it
  of danger. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The bad
  things can’t be beaten with direct
  conflict. The PCs must learn more
  about them to solve the problem. The
  Haunted House. The Alien
  Infestation. The Wild Forest. 
  Delver’s Delight
  The PCs are treasure-hunters, who
  have caught wind of a treasure-laden
  ruin. They go to explore it, and must
  deal with its supernatural denizens
  to win the treasure and get out alive. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The
  treasure itself is something danger-
  ous. The treasure isn’t in a ruin, but
  in a wilderness or even hidden some-
  where “civilized.” The treasure is
  someone else’s rightful property. The
  treasure turns out to have a will of
  its own.
  Don’t Eat The 
  Purple Ones
  The PCs are stranded in a strange
  place, and must survive by finding
  food and shelter, and then worry
  about getting back home. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The PCs
  must survive only for a short period
  of time, until help arrives, the ship
  and/or radio is repaired, or some
  such thing (in “repair” scenarios,
  sometimes the PCs must discover
  some fact about the local environ-
  ment that will make such repairs
  possible). 
  Elementary, My
  Dear Watson
  A crime or atrocity has been commit-
  ted; the PCs must solve it. They must
  interview witnesses (and prevent
  them from being killed), gather clues
  (and prevent them from being stolen
  or ruined). They must then assemble
  proof to deliver to the authorities, or
  serve as personal ministers of justice. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The PCs
  are working to clear an innocent
  already accused (possibly them-
  selves). The PCs must work alongside
  a special investigator or are other-
  wise saddled with an unwanted ally.
  Midway through the adventure, the
  PCs are “taken off the case” – their
  invitation/authority to pursue the
  matter is closed (often the result of
  political maneuvering by an antago-
  nist). The climax is a courtroom
  scene or other arena of judgment.
  The scale is highly variable for this
  type of adventure, from a small-
  town murder to a planetwide pollu-
  tion scandal.
  Escort Service
  The PCs have a valuable object or
  person, which needs to be taken to a
  safe place or to its rightful owner,
  etc. They must undertake a danger-
  ous journey in which one or more
  factions (and chance and misfortune)
  try to deprive them of the thing in
  their care. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The
  thing or person is troublesome, and
  tries to escape or sidetrack the PCs.
  The destination has been destroyed
  or suborned by the enemy, and the
  PCs must take upon themselves the
  job that either the destination or
  their charge was meant to do when it
  got there. The person is a person
  attempting a political defection. Safe
  arrival at the destination doesn’t end
  the story; the PCs must then bargain
  with their charge as their token
  (exchanging money for a hostage, for
  instance). The PCs must protect the
  target without the target knowing
  about it.
  Good Housekeeping
  The PCs are placed in charge of a
  large operation (a trading company, a
  feudal barony, the CIA) and must,
  despite lack of experience in such
  things, make it work and thrive. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The PCs
  are brought in because something big
  is about to happen, and the Old
  Guard wants a chance to escape. The
  peasants, neighbors, employees,
  2
  Double up. A nice basic method
  is the chameleon game, where
  an adventure presents itself as
  one type of story in the “hook
  layer” but reveals itself as some-
  thing else. Sometimes, the switch
  is innocent and natural – Don’t
  Eat the Purple Ones, for example,
  makes a good hook for Running
  the Gauntlet, and Most Peculiar,
  Momma is a logical lead for
  Pandora’s Box. Sometimes, the
  switch is something more sinister
  or deliberate, with NPCs selling
  the adventure as one thing when
  it’s really another. This can still be
  innocent, in its way, if the NPCs
  have been duped themselves, or
  if they’re just desperate for help
  and worried that nobody will be
  eager to tackle the real problem.
  Handy Tip!
  ❉
  ❉
  
  etcetera resent the PCs, because
  their method of inheritance looks
  outwardly bad and everybody loved
  the old boss. 
  Help is on the Way
  A person (church group, nation,
  galaxy) is in a hazardous situation
  they can’t survive without rescue.
  The PCs are on the job. In some sce-
  narios, the hook is as simple as a dis-
  tant yell or crackly distress signal.
  Common Twists & Themes: The vic-
  tim(s) is (are) a hostage, or under
  siege from enemy forces, and the PCs
  must deal with the captors or break
  the siege. There is a danger that any
  rescue attempts will strand the res-
  cuers in the same soup as the res-
  cuees, compounding the problem.
  The rescuees aren’t people, but ani-
  mals, robots, or something else. The
  “victim” doesn’t realize that he needs
  rescuing; he thinks he’s doing some-
  thing reasonable and/or safe. The
  threat isn’t villain-oriented at all; it’s
  a natural disaster, nuclear meltdown,
  or disease outbreak. The rescuees
  can’t leave; something immobile and
  vital must be tended to or dealt with
  at the adventure location. The PCs
  begin as part of the rescuees, and
  must escape and gather forces or
  resources to bring back and proceed
  as above. 
  Hidden Base
  The PCs, while traveling or exploring,
  come across a hornet’s nest of bad
  guys, preparing for Big Badness. They
  must either find some way to get
  word to the good guys, or sneak in
  and disable the place themselves, or
  a combination of both. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The PCs
  must figure out how to use local
  resources in order to defend them-
  selves or have a chance against 
  the inhabitants. 
  How Much For
  Just The Dingus?
  Within a defined area, something
  important and valuable exists. The
  PCs (or their employers) want it, but
  so do one or more other groups. The
  ones that get it will be the ones that
  can outthink and outrace the others,
  deal best with the natives of the
  area, and learn the most about their
  target. Each competing group has its
  own agenda and resources. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The
  natives require the competing fac-
  tions to gather before them as pals
  to state their cases. The valuable
  thing was en route somewhere
  when its conveyance or courier
  wrecked or vanished. 
  I Beg Your
  Pardon?
  The PCs are minding their own busi-
  ness when they are attacked or
  threatened. They don’t know why.
  They must solve the mystery of their
  attacker’s motives, and in the mean-
  time fend off more attacks. They
  must put two and two together to
  deal with the problem. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The PCs
  have something that the bad guys
  want - but they don’t necessarily
  realize it. The bad guys are out for
  revenge for a dead compatriot from
  a previous adventure. The bad guys
  have mistaken the PCs for some-
  body else.
  Long Or Short
  Fork When Dining
  On Elf?
  The PCs are a diplomatic vanguard,
  trying to open up (or shore up)
  either political or trade relations with
  a strange culture. All they have to do
  is manage for a day or so among the
  strange customs without offending
  anybody . . . and what information
  they have is both incomplete and
  dangerously misleading. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The PCs
  were chosen by somebody who knew
  they weren’t prepared for it - an NPC
  trying to sabotage the works (pin-
  ning this villain might be necessary
  to avert disaster). 
  Look, Don’t Touch
  The PCs are working surveillance –
  spying on a person, gathering infor-
  mation on a beast in the wild, scout-
  ing a new sector. Regardless of the
  scale, the primary conflict (at least
  at the start) is the rule that they are
  only to watch, listen and learn. They
  are not to make contact or let them-
  selves be known.
  Common Twists & Themes: The tar-
  get gets itself in trouble and the
  PCs must decide whether to break
  the no-contact rule in order to
  mount a rescue. 
  Manhunt
  Someone is gone: they’ve run away,
  gotten lost, or simply haven’t called
  home in a while. Somebody misses
  them or needs them returned. The
  PCs are called in to find them and
  bring them back.
  Common Twists & Themes: The tar-
  get has been kidnapped (possibly to
  specifically lure the PCs). The target
  is dangerous and escaped from a
  facility designed to protect the pub-
  lic. The target is valuable and
  escaped from a place designed to
  keep him safe, cozy, and convenient-
  ly handy. The target has a reason for
  leaving that the PCs will sympathize
  with. The target has stumbled across
  3
  Surrender yourself to metaphor.
  I’ve written the plots in the lan-
  guage of (typically very physical)
  action-adventure genres,
  because that’s the basic form of
  roleplaying adventure – but if
  you’re playing on more levels
  than that, the list can still punch
  its weight. Just remember that
  every thing, place, and foe can
  really be a piece of information,
  person, and unhealthy attitude,
  as surely as a space station can
  be a dungeon and a magical
  residue can be a fingerprint.
  Handy Tip!
  ❉
  ❉
  
  another adventure (either as protago-
  nist or victim), which the PCs must
  then undertake themselves. The miss-
  ing “person” is an entire expedition
  or pilgrimage of some kind. The tar-
  get isn’t a runaway or missing/lost –
  they’re just someone that the PCs
  have been hired to track down (pos-
  sibly under false pretenses).
  Missing Memories
  One or more of the PCs wakes up
  with no memory of the recent past,
  and now they find themselves in
  some kind of trouble they don’t
  understand. The PCs must find the
  reason for the memory lapse, and
  solve any problems they uncover in
  the meantime. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The for-
  getful PCs voluntarily suppressed or
  erased the memories, and they find
  themselves undoing their own work.  
  Most Peculiar,
  Momma
  Something both bad and inexplicable
  is happening (racial tension is being
  fired up in town, all the power is
  out, the beer supply is drained, it’s
  snowing in July, Voyager still has
  fans, hordes of aliens are eating all
  the cheese), and a lot of people are
  very troubled by it. The PCs must
  track the phenomenon to its source,
  and stop it. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The PCs
  are somehow unwittingly responsible
  for the whole thing. What seems to
  be a problem of one nature (techno-
  logical, personal, biological, chemi-
  cal, magical, political, etc) is actually
  a problem of an alternate one. 
  No One Has Soiled
  The Bridge
  The PCs are assigned to guard a sin-
  gle vital spot (anything from a
  mountain pass to a solar system)
  from impending or possible attack.
  They must plan their defensive strat-
  egy, set up watches, set traps, and so
  on, and then deal with the enemy
  when it arrives. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The
  intelligence the PCs was given turns
  out to be faulty, but acting on the
  new information could result in
  greater danger - but so could not act-
  ing on it, and the PCs must choose or
  create a compromise. The PCs learn
  that the enemy has good and sympa-
  thetic reason for wanting to destroy
  the protected spot.
  Not In Kansas
  The PCs are minding their own busi-
  ness and find themselves transported
  to a strange place. They must figure
  out where they are, why they are
  there and how to escape. 
  Common Twists & Themes: They
  were brought there specifically to
  help someone in trouble. They were
  brought there by accident, as a by-
  product of something strange and
  secret. Some of the PCs’ enemies were
  transported along with them (or sep-
  arately), and now they have a new
  battleground, and innocents to con-
  vince which guys are the good guys. 
  Ounces of
  Prevention
  A villain or organization is getting
  ready to do something bad, and the
  PCs have received a tip-off of some
  sort. They must investigate to find
  out more about the caper, and then
  act to prevent it. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The ini-
  tial tip-off was a red herring meant
  to distract the PCs from the actual
  caper. There are two simultaneous
  Bad Things on the way, and no
  apparent way to both of them – how
  to choose?
  Pandora’s Box
  Somebody has tinkered with Things
  Man Ought Not, or opened a portal to
  the Mean People Dimension, cracked
  a wall at the state prison, or sum-
  moned an ancient Babylonian god
  into a penthouse. Before the PCs can
  even think of confronting the source
  of the trouble, they must deal with
  the waves of trouble already released
  by it: monsters, old foes out for
  vengeance, curious aliens who think
  cars/citizens/McDonald’s hamburgers
  resemble food, and so forth.
  Common Twists & Themes: The PCs
  can’t simply take the released bad-
  ness to the mat; they have to collect
  it and shove it back into the source
  before it the adventure can really
  end. The PCs are drawn in to the
  source and must solve problems on
  the other side before returning to
  this one. A secret book, code, or
  other rare element is necessary to
  plug the breach (maybe just the fel-
  low who opened it). A close cousin to
  this plot is the basic “somebody has
  traveled into the past and messed
  with our reality” story.
  4
  Double up, part two: Some very
  satisfying adventures weave two
  separate (or thematically-relat-
  ed) plots together. An easy way
  to make this work is to make
  one plot physical and the other
  plot personal. That way just one
  of the plots puts demand on the
  PCs’ location, while the other
  one can tag along anywhere.
  For example: the PCs are hired
  to escort a prince to a summit so
  he can appear before the mass-
  es and end a war (a physical
  and simple example of Escort
  Service), but on the way, they
  realize that the poor guy is suici-
  dal because state obligations
  have ruined his love life, and
  must prevent his self-destruction
  by either fixing the problem or
  convincing him to shoulder the
  burden (a personal and
  metaphorical example of
  Ounces of Prevention).
  Handy Tip!
  ❉
  ❉
  
  Quest For the
  Sparkly Hoozits
  Somebody needs a dingus (to fulfill a
  prophecy, heal the monarch, prevent
  a war, cure a disease, or what have
  you). The PCs must find a dingus.
  Often an old dingus, a mysterious
  dingus, and a powerful dingus. The
  PCs must learn more about it to track
  it down, and then deal with taking it
  from wherever it is. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The din-
  gus is incomplete when found (one of
  the most irritating and un-fun plot
  twists in the universe). Somebody
  already owns it (or recently stole it,
  sometimes with legitimate claim or
  cause). The dingus is information, or
  an idea, or a substance, not a specific
  dingus. The PCs must “go undercover”
  or otherwise infiltrate a group or
  society, gaining the dingus by guile
  or stealth.
  Recent Ruins
  A town, castle, starship, outpost, or
  other civilized construct is lying in
  ruins. Very recently, it was just
  dandy. The PCs must enter the
  ruins, explore them, and find out
  what happened. 
  Common Twists & Themes: Whatever
  ruined the ruins (including mean
  people, weird radiation, monsters, a
  new race, ghosts) is still a threat; the
  PCs must save the day. The inhabi-
  tants destroyed themselves. The
  “ruins” are a derelict ship or space-
  ship, recently discovered. The “ruin”
  is a ghost town, stumbled across as
  the PCs travel - but the map says the
  town is alive and well.
  Running the
  Gauntlet
  The PCs must travel through a haz-
  ardous area, and get through without
  being killed, robbed, humiliated,
  debased, diseased, or educated by
  whatever is there. The troubles they
  encounter are rarely personal in
  nature - the place itself is the “vil-
  lain” of the adventure. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The place
  isn’t dangerous at all, and the vari-
  ous “dangers” are actually attempts
  to communicate with the party by
  some agent or another.
  Safari
  The PCs are on a hunting expedition, to
  capture or kill and elusive and prized
  creature. They must deal with its envi-
  ronment, its own ability to evade them,
  and possibly its ability to fight them. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The crea-
  ture is immune to their devices and
  weapons. There are other people active-
  ly protecting the creature. The crea-
  ture’s lair allows the PCs to stumble
  onto another adventure.
  Score One for the
  Home Team
  The PCs are participants in a race,
  contest, tournament, scavenger hunt
  or other voluntary bit of sport. They
  must win. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The
  other contestants are less honest,
  and the PCs must overcome their
  attempts to win dishonestly. The PCs
  are competing for a deeper purpose
  than victory, such as to keep another
  contestant safe, or spy on one, or
  just to get into the place where the
  event goes down. The PCs don’t wish
  to win; they just wish to prevent the
  villain from winning. The event is a
  deliberate test of the PCs abilities
  (for entry into an organization, for
  example). The event becomes more
  deadly than it’s supposed to.
  Stalag 23
  The PCs are imprisoned, and must
  engineer an escape, overcoming any
  guards, automatic measures, and geo-
  graphic isolation their prison imposes
  on them. 
  Common Twists & Themes:
  Something has happened in the out-
  side world and the prison security
  has fallen lax because of it. The PCs
  have been hired to “test” the prison
  - they aren’t normal inmates. Other
  prisoners decide to blow the whistle
  for spite or revenge. The PCs are
  undercover to spy on a prisoner, but
  are then mistaken for real inmates
  and kept incarcerated. The PCs must
  escape on a tight schedule to get to
  another adventure outside the walls.
  Take Us To 
  Memphis And Don’t
  Slow Down
  The PCs are on board a populated
  conveyance (East Indiaman, Cruise
  Ship, Ferry, Sleeper Starship), when it
  is hijacked. The PCs must take action
  while the normals sit and twiddle. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The
  “hijackers” are government agents
  pulling a complicated caper, forcing
  the PCs to choose sides. The hijackers
  don’t realize there is a secondary
  danger that must be dealt with, and
  any attempt to convince them is
  viewed as a trick. The normals are
  unhelpful or even hostile to the PCs
  because they think the PCs are just
  making matters worse.
  Troublemakers
  A bad guy (or a group of them, or
  multiple parties) is kicking up a
  ruckus, upsetting the neighbors, poi-
  soning the reservoirs, or otherwise
  causing trouble. The PCs have to go
  where the trouble is, locate the bad
  guys, and stop the party. 
  5
  Throw yourself a curve. Your play-
  ers will, anyway, so practice early.
  Pick two random entries from the
  Big List and make your adventure
  on those, no matter what comes
  up – the first one is the hook
  layer; the second is the meat of
  the adventure. If the same entry
  comes up both times, go with it!
  Two layers can have a similar
  structure but very different roots
  or details.
  Handy Tip!
  ❉
  ❉
  
  Common Twists & Themes: The PCs
  must not harm the perpetrator(s);
  they must be bagged alive and well.
  The bad guys have prepared some-
  thing dangerous and hidden as
  “insurance” if they are captured. The
  “bad guy” is a monster or dangerous
  animal (or an intelligent creature
  that everybody thinks is a monster
  or animal). The “bad guy” is a
  respected public figure, superior offi-
  cer, or someone else abusing their
  authority, and the PCs might meet
  hostility from normally-helpful quar-
  ters who don’t accept that the bad
  guy is bad. A balance of power per-
  petuates the trouble, and the PCs
  must choose sides to tip the balance
  and fix things. The “trouble” is diplo-
  matic or political, and the PCs must
  make peace, not war.
  Uncharted Waters
  The PCs are explorers, and their goal
  is to enter an unknown territory and
  scope it out. Naturally, the job isn’t
  just going to be surveying and draw-
  ing sketches of local fauna; some-
  thing is there, something fascinating
  and threatening. 
  Common Twists & Themes: Either
  the place itself is threatening (in
  which case the PCs must both play
  National Geographic and simultane-
  ously try to escape with their skin,
  sanity, and credit rating) or the place
  itself is very valuable and wonderful,
  and something else there is keen on
  making sure the PCs don’t let anyone
  else know. Other potential conflicts
  involve damage to the PCs’ con-
  veyance or communication equip-
  ment, in which case this becomes
  Don’t Eat the Purple Ones. 
  We’re On The
  Outside Looking In
  Any of the basic plots in this list can
  be reengineered with the PCs on the
  outside of it. Either the PCs are
  accompanying other characters in the
  midst of such a plot (often being
  called on to defend the plot from the
  outside, as it were), or they are
  minding their own business when the
  others involved in the plot show up,
  and must pick sides or simply resist.
  For instance, with Any Old Port In
  The Storm, the PCs could already be
  enjoying (or native to) the shelter
  when a strange group arrives. If the
  “the PCs are unwelcome” variant is
  employed, then perhaps the PCs will
  be the only voice of reason to still
  the religious fervor, racial prejudice,
  anti-monster sentiment, or whatever
  else is the source of conflict. 
  Common Twists & Themes: The PCs
  find themselves on the receiving end
  of the adventure. Take any of the
  plots here and reverse them, placing
  the PCs in the position where NPCs
  (often the villain, fugitive, etcetera)
  normally are. Instead of hunting,
  they must be hunted. Instead of fix-
  ing, they must avoid getting “fixed”
  themselves (ow). Alternately, leave a
  classic plot intact but turn the twists
  upside down, making them twistier
  (or refreshingly untwisty).
  6
  Handy Tip!
  ❉
  ❉
  And finally, here’s The Little List of
  Nearly-Universal Plot Twists That
  Work With Almost Any Plot Ever: The
  PCs must work alongside an NPC or
  organization they’d rather not pal
  around with (those who are normally
  rivals or villains, or just a snooty
  expert sent along to “help” them, etc).
  The victims are really villains and the
  villains are really victims. The PCs
  meet others who can help them, but
  won’t unless the PCs agree to help
  them with their own causes. The vil-
  lain is somebody the PCs know per-
  sonally, even respect or love (or
  someone they fall for, mid-story). The
  PCs must succeed without violence, or
  with special discretion. The PCs must
  succeed without access to powers,
  equipment, or other resources they’re
  used to having. The villain is a recur-
  ring foil. Another group comparable
  to the PCs has already failed to suc-
  ceed, and their bodies/equipment/etc
  provide clues to help the PCs do bet-
  ter. There are innocents nearby that
  the PCs must keep safe while dealing
  with the adventure. The adventure
  begins suddenly and without warning
  or buildup; the PCs are tossed into the
  fire of action in scene one. The PCs
  must pretend to be someone else, or
  pretend to be themselves but with
  very different allegiances, values or
  tastes. The PCs can’t do everything
  and must choose: which evil to
  thwart? Which innocents to rescue?
  Which value or ideal to uphold? The
  PCs must make a personal sacrifice
  or others will suffer. The PCs aren’t
  asked to solve the problem, just to
  render aid against a backdrop of
  larger trouble: get in a shipment of
  supplies, sneak out a patient that
  needs medical help, or so on. One of
  the PCs is (or is presumed to be) a lost
  heir, fulfillment of a prophecy, a vol-
  cano god, or some other savior
  and/or patsy, which is why the PCs
  must do whatever the adventure is
  about. There is another group of PC-
  like characters “competing” on the
  same adventure, possibly with very
  different goals for the outcome. 
  ❉
  ❉
  ❉
  ❉
  The Big List of RPG Plots is dedi-
  cated to the many, many fans
  who’ve let me know how helpful
  it’s been, and especially to those
  who’ve helped make it better:
  Peter Barnard, Glen Barnett, Colin
  Clark, David Lott, Jason Puckett,
  Marc Rees, Carrie Schutrick, and
  Jeff Yaus, plus a few mysterious
  heroes who never let me know
  their true identities. This is for all
  the GMs out there logging the
  hours to give their players an
  enjoyable game.
  Dedicated!
  ❉
  ❉
  a
  Creativity. Unbound.
  TM
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Risus/Risus The Big List of RPG Plots.pdf