Clam Quest
So a fun little thing with this is the fact that you can just...change the story if you want to to make the players happy.
"I cast detect clam!"
DM:"That's not-...you know what? No. Your spell fails."
"It fails?"
DM:"Your spell. It fails."
"But why...?"
DM:"I...Hmn." *rolls a few dice while they think to make the players think they're doing something when they're just thinking* "What's your Passive Perception?"
"15?"
DM:"Even though you're in your oceanside town, there's signs all over all the fishmonger's stalls, saying "NO FRESH CATCHES" while others say "CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE". You see a fellow otter even taking their clam rocks out of their folds and are about to throw them into the ocean."
"We...we go to see what's wrong! You can't just throw out those!"
And then it leads to an adventure of them diving deep underwater into some mystical cave of the Clam Queen who is tired of everyone overfishing in the ocean and had sent all the aquatic life to another plane, so the party fights her for the Pearl of Passing to let them go in and try to get the fish and such back, only to have to parlay with more giant sealife and more, all while using the Clam Rocks that they get enchanted later on to fight the Mussel Wizard, Bully Shark and King Crab and get to ride on seahorses all the while getting a satisfying ending of all the clams they can eat.
The party's happy, the DM's satisfied with preparing each week ahead of the stupid story they get to experience all because they made a decision on the fly. Sometimes you need to just let your players find a new goal. You can always pocket your previous story idea for a new party, and even use some new worldbuilding from the goofy Clam Quest to spice it up.
