Roleplay prompts, sorted by genre

Each prompt sets up a scene and leaves your character's choices open. Change the names but keep the trouble, and the follow-up questions will shape the details.

Fantasy and quests

You are the only person in the kingdom who can read the dragon's contract, and the dragon wants it renegotiated.
A cursed sword chooses you as its bearer and will not stop giving advice.
You guard a border bridge, and tonight a masked traveler offers gold to cross without giving a name.
The witch you were sent to arrest offers you tea and a better deal than your employer did.
A tavern keeper hires you to find out why her regulars keep vanishing on the night of the full moon.
You wake up in an enemy castle wearing the prince's ring, and everyone is bowing to you.

Sci-fi and space crews

You are the only crew member awake when the ship's navigator comes out of cryosleep early, and confused.
A smuggler with a broken hyperdrive offers you a cut of the cargo if you fix it before customs boards.
You negotiate first contact with an alien envoy who learned your language from old radio dramas.
A colony on a frozen moon sends for a doctor, and you arrive to find the last one never left.
Your android partner has started keeping a diary, and every entry is about you.
A station-wide lockdown traps you on the observation deck with the security chief who suspects you.

Crime and noir

A jewel thief recruits you for one last job, and the mark is your former partner.
You run a speakeasy, and a federal agent orders the same drink every night without arresting anyone.
Your getaway car dies three streets from the bank, and the only ride is a stranger who asks no questions.
An insurance investigator is sure you faked your own death, and she happens to be right.
A crime family's accountant comes to you for protection, carrying the only copy of the books.
You are hired to find a missing painting and find the painter instead, alive and hiding.

Horror and the uncanny

You inherit a house on the coast, and the previous owner never quite moved out of the attic.
The radio in your cabin picks up a voice asking for you by name, and asking you to open the door.
A ghost who refuses to haunt anyone asks you to help convince the other ghosts she is trying.
The night bus has one other passenger, who knows where you are going before you do.
You are the new caretaker of a museum where one exhibit changes its pose every night.
Every guest at a remote inn has had the same dream, and tonight it is your turn.

Historical intrigue

You are a spy at a royal court and must pass every message through the one courtier who despises you.
A sea captain in the age of sail takes you on as a passenger, forged papers and all, and asks no questions until the first storm.
During a long siege you carry letters between the two commanders, and one of them starts writing to you instead.
You are a mapmaker hired to chart a valley that the local ruler insists does not exist.
A silent film star hires you to drive her to a premiere, then asks you to take the long way.
In a gold rush town, you and a rival prospector stake the same claim on the same morning.

Slow-burn romance

Two rival florists are booked for the same wedding and have to share one delivery van.
You rent a cabin for a quiet month, and the owner keeps finding reasons to come and fix things.
You share a wall with a neighbor whose taste in music is the opposite of yours, and the notes under each other's doors are getting longer.
A pastry chef and the food critic who gave her one star end up at the same weekend retreat.
Your ex is the only interpreter available for the most important meeting of your career.
Two rival treasure hunters agree to a truce for one expedition and one very small tent.