This book is written for the Dungeon Master. It contains a complete Dungeons & Dragons adventure, as well as descriptions for every creature and magic item in the adventure. In the course of reading this overview and playing this adventure, you’ll learn the basics of how to run a D&D game.
This is not a typical D&D adventure, though. As it’s set in the world of Rick and Morty, much of the adventure beyond this introduction and the book’s appendices are written by Rick Sanchez. While Rick’s encounters are wildly unpredictable (and sometimes include his outlandish viewpoints), this adventure generally works as any other D&D adventure world. There’s just more in-character narration from the author and a lot more butt jokes. The experience here is meant to feel slapstick and wild, so try not to take things too seriously. Additionally, if you feel the need to paraphrase any of Rick’s descriptions (or cut back on his personal editorializing) feel free—you have a better sense of what your players will enjoy than Rick does!
The rulebook in this boxed set contains everything you need to adjudicate the situations that arise during play. As this adventure is more frantic than most, don’t worry about messing up. This adventure is all about seat-of-your-pants action, so if there’s a rules slip-up, just roll with it. And, if at any point you’re uncertain of how to proceed, refer to the “Dungeon Master Tips” section.
Running the Adventure
The Lost Dungeon of Rickedness: Big Rick Energy is an adventure for four to five characters of 1st level. During the course of the adventure, the characters will advance to 3rd level. See “area Leveling Up” for details on when it’s best for the characters to advance.
While the rulebook provides you with everything you need to create your own characters, this adventure assumes players are using the Rick and Morty pregenerated characters provided in this boxed set. If they’re not, that’s fine, but players might want to consider why their characters find themselves on an adventure in the unpredictable world of Rick and Morty—or not, and just be prepared for whatever weirdness comes their way!
If this is your first time running a D&D adventure, read the “Role of the Dungeon Master” section; it will help you better understand your role and responsibilities.
Role of the Dungeon Master
The Dungeon Master (DM) has a special role in the Dungeons & Dragons game.
The DM is a referee. When it’s not clear what ought to happen next, the DM decides how to apply the rules and keep the story going.
The DM is a narrator. The DM sets the pace of the story and presents the various challenges and encounters the players must overcome. The DM is the players' interface to the D&D world, as well as the one who reads (and sometimes also writes) the adventure and describes what happens in response to the characters' actions.
The DM plays monsters. The DM plays the monsters and villains the adventurers battle against, choosing their actions and rolling dice for their attacks. The DM also plays the part of all the other characters the players meet in the course of their adventures, like the prisoner in the goblin lair or the innkeeper in town.
Although the DM controls the monsters and villains in the adventure, the relationship between the players and the DM isn’t adversarial. The DM’s job is to challenge the characters with interesting encounters and tests, keep the game moving, and apply the rules fairly.
The most important thing to remember about being a good DM is that the rules are a tool to help you have a good time. The rules aren’t in charge. You’re the DM—you’re in charge of the game. Guide the play experience and the use of the rules so that everybody has fun.
Many players of Dungeons & Dragons find that being the DM is the best part of the game. With the information in this adventure, you’ll be prepared to take on that role for your group.
Choosing a Dungeon Master
Who should be the Dungeon Master for your group? Whoever wants to be! The person with the most drive to pull a group together and start a game often ends up being the DM, but that doesn’t have to be the case.
Dungeon Master Tips
As the Dungeon Master, you are the final authority when it comes to rules questions or disputes during the game. Here are some guidelines to help you arbitrate issues as they come up.
When in doubt, make it up! It’s better to keep the game moving than to get bogged down in the rules.
It’s not a competition. The DM isn’t competing against the player characters. You’re there to run the monsters, referee the rules, and keep the story moving.
It’s a shared story. It’s the group’s story, so let the players contribute to the outcome through the actions of their characters. Dungeons & Dragons is about imagination and coming together to tell a story as a group. Let the players participate in the storytelling.
Be consistent. If you decide that a rule works a certain way in one session, make sure it works that way the next time it comes into play.
Make sure everyone is involved. Ensure every character has a chance to shine. If some players are reluctant to speak up, remember to ask them what their characters are doing.
Be fair. Use your powers as Dungeon Master only for good. Treat the rules and the players in a fair and impartial manner.
Pay attention. Make sure you look around the table occasionally to see if the game is going well. If everyone seems to be having fun, relax and keep going. If the fun is waning, it might be time for a break, or you can try to liven things up.
Improvising Ability Checks
The adventure often tells you what ability checks characters might try in a certain situation and the Difficulty Class (DC) of those checks. Sometimes adventurers try things that the adventure can’t possibly anticipate. It’s up to you to decide whether their attempts are successful. If it seems like anyone should have an easy time doing it, don’t ask for an ability check; just tell the player what happens. Likewise, if there’s no way anyone could accomplish the task, just tell the player it doesn’t work.
Otherwise, answer these three simple questions:
- What kind of ability check?
- How hard is it?
- What’s the result?
Use the descriptions of the ability scores and their associated skills in the rulebook to help you decide what kind of ability check to use. Then determine how hard the task is so that you can set the DC for the check. The higher the DC, the more difficult the task. The easiest way to set a DC is to decide whether the task’s difficulty is easy, moderate, or hard, and use these three DCs:
Easy (DC 10). An easy task requires a minimal level of competence or a modicum of luck to accomplish.
Moderate (DC 15). A moderate task requires a slightly higher level of competence to accomplish. A character with a combination of natural aptitude and specialized training can accomplish a moderate task more often than not.
Hard (DC 20). Hard tasks include any effort that is beyond the capabilities of most people without aid or exceptional ability. Even with aptitude and training, a character needs some amount of luck—or a lot of specialized training—to pull off a hard task.
The outcome of a successful check is usually easy to determine: the character succeeds at the attempted task. It’s usually equally easy to figure out what happens when a character fails a check: the character simply doesn’t succeed.
DM Screen
The inside of the folding screen included in this set has information that can help you while running the adventure. You can also use the screen to hide your notes and die rolls, thus keeping the players in suspense. Even though this DM screen has a Rick and Morty spin to the art, it is 100 percent serious DM business—no jokes there, just loads of valuable DM reference material.
Adventure Map
Map 1.1 shows the entire dungeon. This map is for your eyes only, providing insight into the dungeon’s secrets and how encounters fit together. You probably don’t want to share this map with the players, as it can spoil upcoming encounters. When characters arrive at a location marked on the map, you can either rely on a verbal description to give them a clear mental picture of the location, or you can draw what they see on a piece of graph paper, copying what’s on your map while omitting details as appropriate. It’s not important that your hand-drawn map perfectly match whats in the printed adventure. Focus on getting the shape and dimensions correct, and leave the rest to the players' imaginations.
Glossary
The adventure uses terms that might be unfamiliar to you. Many of those are Rick’s words, and you’re on your own to figure them out. The most important D&D related ones, though, are described here. For descriptions of other rules-specific terms, see the rulebook.
Characters
This term refers to the adventurers run by the players. They are the protagonists in any D&D adventure. A group of characters or adventurers is called a party.
Boxed Text
At various places, the adventure presents descriptive text that’s meant to be read or paraphrased aloud to players. This read-aloud text is offset in boxes. Boxed text is most commonly used to describe rooms or present bits of scripted dialogue.
Nonplayer Characters (NPCs)
This term refers to characters run by the DM. How an NPC behaves is dictated by the adventure and by the DM.
Stat Block
Any monster or NPC that is likely to be involved in combat requires game statistics so the DM can run it effectively. These statistics are presented in a format called a statistics block, or stat block. You’ll find the stat blocks needed for this adventure in appendix D.
Magic Items and Monsters
Whenever the text refers to a magic item, its name is presented in italic type. For a description of the item and its magical properties, see appendix C.
Similarly, whenever the adventure text presents a creature’s name in bold type, that’s a visual cue directing you to the creature’s stat block in appendix D.
Abbreviations
The following abbreviations are used in this adventure.
AC = Armor Class
DC = Difficulty Class
DM = Dungeon Master
NPC = Nonplayer character
gp = gold piece(s)
pp = platinum piece(s)
sp = silver piece(s)
ep = electrum piece(s)
cp = copper piece(s)
Pregenerated Characters
There are five pre-generated characters available for this adventure. Click on the name of the character to download the character sheet as a PDF.
