D&D Ideas For Later Exploration
Welcome, Co-conspirators, to The Stratagem’s Archives, open for perusing. Today, the archives will be exploring story ideas for D&D that I want to explore in the future, be it a one-shot or a full campaign, and articulate it here.
Author’s Note: I used ChatGPT to assist in this article and further expand my idea, not write the idea itself. ChatGPT has been a collaborative tool and soundboard, it’s not a ghost writer. The ideas in these posts are from my own imagination and stories I want to explore. Thank you.
Quarantine Life
I recently thought about took place during a world wide pandemic where people fled to quarantine zones that wizards control to keep the healthy people safe from infection. The facilities have Golems, known as R.O.A.M (Ready Optimal Articifical Mediator) take care of everything for the players and keep the facility on lockdown.
The players have been in the facility for so long they don’t remember what outside is like. R.O.A.M. Also makes the players take medication to keep them healthy that it is part of their routine and they don’t see the Golems as threats, but active caretakers.
The purpose is for the players to want to escape, to see if the pandemic is real or fake, and why there are less people in the facility than when they went in. This will also have the players figuring out what armor, weapon type, and skills they would choose for their character creations live and in the moment thnn pre-game. I want people to be engaged and invested than existing in the game.
How ChatGPT Made This Sound Epic
D&D Campaign Intro Prompt: “Quarantine Protocol”
You don’t remember the last time you saw the sky.
Not clearly. Not without a ceiling light buzzing above your head.
You’ve lived inside this quarantine facility for what feels like years—or maybe longer.
A global arcane contagion swept across the world, and the wizards promised protection.
Here, inside the walls, you’ve been safe. Monitored. Medicated. Kept alive.
The caretakers are artificial constructs called R.O.A.M.s—Ready Optimal Artificial Mediators.
They glide down corridors in absolute silence. They never sleep.
They know your routine.
They always know where you are.
You take your daily pills like everyone else. You eat the food that appears in the walls. You watch the faces of others, dwindling in number—
—and no one questions where the missing have gone.
Until now.
As the Game Begins
You don’t remember who you were before the facility. Not completely.
You don’t know what you can do. Not yet.
You’ll discover your abilities—your class, strengths, and skills—through play, based on how you react to the challenges ahead.
Are you strong? Clever? Dangerous?
You’ll find out soon enough.
For now:
The power flickers. The alarms stay silent. And the hallway is empty.
Something is different today.
It’s time to remember who you are.
It’s time to find out what’s outside.
From Concept to Campaign: A Taste of What’s to Come
This idea is just one piece of a larger concept I’ve been developing—a narrative that explores memory, obedience, curiosity, and the subtle horror of being too comfortable. It’s a story where players will discover who they are in real time, shaped by their choices, not their character sheets.
This blog post marks the beginning of what I hope becomes an evolving project—one I’ll be expanding on with additional encounters, player-facing materials, worldbuilding ideas, and campaign tools that encourage deeper roleplay and immersion.
If you’re interested in campaigns that challenge the mind more than just the dice, or stories where truth is a puzzle waiting to be unraveled, I invite you to follow along.
More will be shared in future posts—ideas around character creation as discovery, subtle dystopia in fantasy, and how you can make your players want to escape before they even know why.
Until next time, thanks for exploring the Archives.
