My top ten list comes early

Also, here's an old top ten list I sent to the guys last December, but the forums weren't up then. Several of these ideas have already been discussed on previous 'sodes.

10) Dungeon map forms an image: Best example I can think of in recent memory is how there's a section of the caves in HotDQ Ep.3 that looks like a kobold head. I once made a Yuan-ti temple that looks like a coiled snake. The idea is that the overhead view of the dungeon creates an image related to the occupants, or some relevant theme.

9) Players are "cursed" to be invisible for a day: Or a week, or until they can have the effect removed, or whatever condition the DM feels like. Maybe they were involved in some kind of magical accident? Whatever the case, attacking and the like won't remove the invisibility as it would with the normal spell effect. While each character can see himself, he can't see his party members.

8) Little guys get a big weapon: I introduced gunpowder to my campaign recently. Its manufacture and distribution is highly regulated, but some goblins managed to steal several crates of grenades during a secret caravan raid. They're slightly more than a nuisance to the local authorities now! This idea can be generalized to any lowly monster suddenly acquiring powerful weapons, especially if the party thought their kobold-bashing days were long behind them and the DM wants to revisit!

7) Freaky Friday: Each player switches character sheets with another player at the table, but keeps his original character's personality. You have access to all their abilities and spells. Like the invisible party idea, this can last as long as the DM wants.

May require some creative explanation from the DM, like how the dumb barbarian got put into the brilliant wizard and can cast fireballs all of a sudden, or the conniving rogue casts divine magic while in the cleric's body. I never got to use this idea, so never had to explain it, but I thought it would be a great one-shot.

6) The Beast's Castle: A la Beauty and the Beast, the party enters a dungeon, fortress, castle, or even an entire city where almost everything is animated and intelligent.

5) Chest burster epidemic: Similar in premise and atmosphere to a zombie outbreak, except with aberrations or demonic creatures. In the original set up for this adventure, a xenomorph queen type creature infested the town's water supply with microscopic eggs. The party arrived only hours before the first aberrations started bursting from the locals' chests, but soon the town was overrun.

4) The lazy (or insidious) alchemist: The party stumbles upon a cache of potions. They are uniform in color, taste and viscosity, and are merely labeled 1-20 (or however many potions the DM wants to hand out). Each one has a different effect, predetermined by the DM based on the labeled number.

3) The Cursed Land: In a large area, whenever the party does X, then Y happens to their detriment. For example, whenever something is killed, it rises as a zombie in the next minute. A more specific and detailed 'cursed land' I used was a desert stripped of magic, that whenever the players cast a spell, they ran a risk of attracting sandlings, minor elementals who sought to consume all magic.

2) The Invention of X: Fantasy settings rely on magic to accomplish many modern marvels.. Fortunately, few people are capable of harnessing magic, but what happens when technology puts this power into the hands of the common man? Take any major invention from Earth's history and put it into your campaign, like gunpowder, the printing press, penicillin, etc. and see how the world develops in response.

1) The False Prophecy: A beggar gives the party a cryptic warning... Something vague enough to be open to interpretation, but specific enough that you can constantly bring in elements of the vision to spook the players. Perhaps he tells them of their deaths by flame, or of calamity in a hall of shadows. Yet none of it comes true, because the beggar was just a drunken madman.

I like #9 from the first list a lot. It would be difficult at first for the players, but with a good group it could be tons of fun. Watch them work out hand signals for things, and equating in the time they have (or haven't) spent fighting side by side. They could also become so proficient in communicating in that way that they turn it on their enemies by figuring out what causes it and using it to their advantage in battle. Echoing Almarianknight in both having way too many ideas at this point and those are some awesome lists to pull from.