The adventures included in the D&D 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide have you facing an entire red dragon at level 3

Five short and (very) simple adventures are at the end of Chapter 4: Creating Adventures in the Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide. The front of the chapter teaches how to, yes, create adventures. The back of the chapter puts adventure writing into practice. 

They want to debunk the idea that you, sitting at home, cooking up your own content, somehow have to come up with a 200-page monstrosity of an adventure like publisher Wizards of the Coast does. No. You don't have to do all that. At all.

"Don't write Curse of Strahd," interviewer Todd Kenreck says.

"No," designer James Wyatt says. "Even Curse of Strahd started out as a 48-page adventure."

These half-page to one-page adventures are all you need to plan out a "full session." A session could last anywhere from an hour to a day. That varies from table to table. But these are indeed boiled down to what is hopefully a "one shot," as far as length is concerned.

These single-session adventures combine with (some of) the 15 maps in Appendix B, and monsters in the Monster Manual. Presumably the 5e Monster Manual is suitable, since the new 2024 Monster Manual doesn't launch until February 2025.

The adventures are for levels 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7. The first three happen in and around the City of Greyhawk, the campaign  setting packed into the 2024 DM's Guide. The level 3 adventure features an entire dragon. Which is crazy. For comparison, my players are level 7 in the Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen adventure. They haven't even seen a true dragon yet.

They don't spoil every situation and hook for these adventures, but here's the list:

• Level 1: The Fouled Stream
• Level 2: Miner Difficulties. James Wyatt's daughter ran this adventure at home.
• Level 3: The Winged God. There's an entire red dragon in here.
• Level 5: Horns of the Beast. It's a quest looking for an ancient temple in the jungle. Focuses on a long journey that uses the pullout poster map of Greyhawk. Brings in travel stuff from Chapter 2: Running the Game. 
• Level 7: Boreal Ball

Kenreck and Wyatt also laugh over how some days as a Dungeon Master are easy, lazy, and fun days. And they're not going to correct any of their players if they think their DM is brilliant. 

The D&D 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide launches November 12. But hardcopies are on dedicated hobby store shelves right now. And if you've preordered the DM's Guide on D&D Beyond, you already have access to it there as well. We reviewed the D&D 2024 Player's Handbook here.