Players are the monsters. A kobold, a goblin, a skeleton, and a bugbear work the night shift in a dungeon when corporate sends an inspection team and a party of adventurers shows up at the worst possible time. Workplace comedy meets D&D combat.
Story Arcs
Just Another Night at the Dungeon
The players are monster employees of Dreadmaw Dungeon, a mid-tier operation under the Dark Lord Consortium. Tonight was supposed to be easy: restock traps, polish the treasure pile, and clock out. Instead, they're dealing with a surprise health-and-safety inspection AND a party of adventurers who just kicked down the front door. Survive both to keep your jobs — and your lives.
Session Outlines
These outlines are for planning reference only. Actual sessions are not created by the template.
Monsters' Night Off
PRE-GAME: Each player picks a monster stat block (Kobold, Goblin, Skeleton, Bugbear, or Hobgoblin) and creates a personality. Give them employee badges and job titles (Trap Maintenance, Treasure Display Coordinator, Hallway Lurker, etc.). ACT 1 (30 min): Night shift begins. Players handle mundane dungeon tasks — restocking poison darts, re-chaining the decorative skeleton (who keeps wandering off), arguing about whose turn it is to feed the gelatinous cube. Establish comedy and workplace dynamics. Then two things happen simultaneously: Inspector Vex from the Dark Lord Consortium arrives for a surprise audit, AND the front door alarm triggers — adventurers. ACT 2 (60 min): Chaos. Players must split their attention between impressing the inspector (she's checking trap functionality, treasure presentation, and "menacing ambiance scores") and slowing down the adventurers. Creative solutions encouraged: redirect adventurers into the wrong rooms, activate traps they just fixed, convince the gelatinous cube to block a hallway. The adventurers are hilariously overconfident Level 10 heroes treating this like a warmup dungeon. ACT 3 (45 min): Everything goes wrong. The adventurers reach the boss room (empty — the boss called in sick). The inspector demands someone "perform the boss encounter." Players must improvise a boss fight against the adventurers while the inspector scores their performance on a clipboard. Final twist: if the players are creative enough, the inspector is so impressed she promotes them and the adventurers get bored and leave.
NPCs
Inspector Vex
Hobgoblin · Dark Lord Consortium Auditor
Ruthlessly efficient bureaucrat with a clipboard, spectacles on a chain, and zero sense of humor. She has a 47-point inspection checklist and will dock points for cobwebs in the wrong places, insufficiently menacing lighting, and any treasure pile that hasn't been rotated in the last quarter. She is terrifying not because she's powerful but because she can file a report that gets the dungeon shut down.
Gary
Gelatinous Cube · Hallway Sanitation
The dungeon's gelatinous cube, affectionately named Gary by the staff. Gary is slow, mostly harmless to employees (they know the safe paths), and surprisingly good at his job — the hallways are spotless. He can be redirected to block corridors but takes about ten minutes to get anywhere. Contains a half-dissolved broom and one rubber duck of unknown origin.
Skitters
Giant Spider · Break Room Resident
A giant spider who has claimed the break room as her lair. The employees have given up trying to reclaim it and just eat lunch in the trap workshop. Skitters is not hostile but is extremely territorial about her space. She can be bribed with snacks to help deal with the adventurers.
The Adventurers
Various · Dungeon Delvers
A party of four obnoxiously overleveled adventurers (Level 10 Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Rogue) who are here on a dare. They're treating this dungeon like a joke, posing for sketches, monologuing, and not taking anything seriously. They're nearly impossible to defeat in straight combat but are susceptible to creative traps, misdirection, and bureaucratic confusion. If the inspector yells at them for "not following dungeon protocols," they get genuinely flustered.
Boss Grimjaw
Ogre · Dungeon Boss (Absent)
The dungeon's boss monster who called in sick tonight with "dragon pox." He's actually at a spa retreat in the next kingdom. His absence creates the central crisis — someone has to play the boss when the adventurers reach the boss room. Left a note on the door: "Gone sick. Don't touch my stuff. —G"
Locations
Dreadmaw Dungeon
A mid-tier dungeon operation: three floors of hallways, trap rooms, and one boss chamber. The architecture is standard Evil Lair — stone walls, flickering torches, ominous carvings. But behind the scenes it's a workplace: there's a break room (occupied by Skitters), a trap maintenance workshop, a supply closet with a motivational poster ("You don't have to be EVIL to work here... but it helps!"), and a time clock by the entrance.
The Trap Workshop
Where the employees maintain and reload the dungeon's traps. Shelves of poison darts, pressure plates, and a whiteboard with a trap maintenance schedule. Half the traps are currently disassembled for cleaning, which is very bad timing. A "Days Since Last Accident" sign reads "2" (crossed out from "3").
The Boss Chamber
A cavernous room with a throne made of bones (plastic — the real ones were a budget item that got cut), dramatic lighting (two of the four spotlights are burned out), and Grimjaw's personal hoard (mostly copper pieces arranged to look impressive). His sick note is taped to the throne. There's a fog machine behind the curtain that still works.
The Treasure Display Room
A room designed to lure adventurers with a carefully curated treasure pile. Most of it is real but low-value, arranged on a rotating display platform (manual crank). The really good stuff is in a locked safe behind a false wall. The display hasn't been rotated in weeks and Inspector Vex will absolutely notice.
Quests
Pass the Inspection
Inspector Vex's 47-point checklist covers trap functionality, treasure presentation, menacing ambiance, monster readiness, and overall dungeon hygiene. Score above 70% or the dungeon gets shut down and everyone is out of a job. Key areas: re-arm the traps, rotate the treasure display, fix the boss chamber lighting, and for the love of Tiamat clean the cobwebs in Sector 7.
Deal with the Adventurers
A party of Level 10 adventurers is tearing through the dungeon for fun. Direct combat against employees who are levels 1-3 is certain death. Slow them down, redirect them, trick them, bore them, or somehow get them to leave. Every room they destroy is points off the inspection.
Cover for Boss Grimjaw
The boss called in sick. Someone has to pretend to be the boss when the adventurers reach the boss chamber, or the dungeon fails its "Climactic Encounter" requirement. Bonus points from Inspector Vex for dramatic monologuing.
Encounters
Adventurers in the Entry Hall
Four overleveled adventurers kick down the front door, striking heroic poses. They're powerful but arrogant and easily distracted. Direct combat is suicide — creative solutions like activating traps, redirecting them into wrong rooms, or bureaucratic stalling are the way to survive.
The Improvised Boss Fight
With no boss available, the players must cobble together a "boss encounter" that satisfies both the adventurers' expectations and the inspector's quality standards. Standing on each other's shoulders in a robe, using the fog machine, or riding Gary into battle are all valid strategies.
Factions
Dreadmaw Dungeon Employees
Lawful Evil
The beleaguered night shift crew of a mid-tier dungeon. Overworked, underpaid, and held together by break room camaraderie and a shared fear of unemployment. Their union rep is a lich who hasn't returned anyone's messages in three centuries.
The Dark Lord Consortium
Lawful Evil
A sprawling bureaucratic organization that manages dungeons across the realm. Think evil corporate headquarters. They set quotas, send inspectors, and threaten to "restructure" underperforming locations. Their motto: "Darkness Delivers Results."
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