I am starting to DM a new D&D of mostly new players, most not having much experience of the game. I volunteered to be the DM as I have the most years with the game under my belt. I gave them a few pitches for the intro, and the players, of course, showed interest in the most absurd.

The premise was "The players sleep at a tavern, and the tavern disappears into the night." How would you approach this premise as a table top RPG DM? I'd have an idea to use either a hag or a mage as the antagonist, who took the tavern... for some bizarre reason, which eludes me.

I'd have an idea to use either a mage or a mage as the antagonist,

Excellent choices.

Well, if we're going for absurd, maybe the tavern is a living being and travels around just because it can. Maybe the barkeep and patrons know this, and they use it to go exploring. Maybe the barkeep uses as a test for local adventurers, and those who survive get hired to do adventurer things for him.

Or, depending on how much magic you like, maybe there's some weird planar influence and the tavern just so happened to get sucked into a different plane, and now you have to find your way back?

There's the old fashioned "barkeep was an evil wizard who works for a demon" approach and you guys were meant to be sacrifices, but the spell sent the whole ass tavern and now you're in hell, and you have to survive there.

There's endless possibilities. Maybe don't have a plan and fly by the seat of your pants. Your players can't know what you're planning If you don't have a plan.

Or, depending on how much magic you like, maybe there's some weird planar influence and the tavern just so happened to get sucked into a different plane, and now you have to find your way back?

There's the old fashioned "barkeep was an evil wizard who works for a demon" approach and you guys were meant to be sacrifices, but the spell sent the whole ass tavern and now you're in hell, and you have to survive there.

There's endless possibilities. Maybe don't have a plan and fly by the seat of your pants. Your players can't know what you're planning If you don't have a plan.

The barkeep is Vecna. Nobody can see it. And I typo'd by writing a mage twice! I was thinking using a hag!

I could use my current PC from other campaign as an NPC here as an agent sent here to investigate. Perhaps the tavern has already vanished, and the players arrive after the incident.

Well Vecna doesn't exactly need a reason to do some interplanar bullshit. He's the God of secrets, just say he's testing something, and the PC's were specifically chosen by Vecna to be test subjects because they all possess some sort of "potential" or "gift" that the secret needs. Like they're immune to the effects of the spell that causes the traveling, and Vecna keeps casting the spell on the party to test his hypothesis. Feel free to go completely crazy. You can do just about anything with magic and a god of secrets.

@Lord Orgasmo Afgter pondering the premise, I might use a wizard to kidnap the whole tavern - there will be some locals, and my character from another campaign that the wizard has a beef with. The players are stuck in the tavern with the NPCs, while the wizard plane shifts the tavern to a pocket dimension.

I'm kind of reminded of the wizard of oz, where Dorothy's house is picked up and dropped near the yellow brick road by a tornado. On top of a witch no less, so maybe the hag can make her way into the story that way. Then one of the locals could ask if someone in the adventuring party "was a good hag or a bad hag."

It would be pretty easy to just copy the wizard of oz wholesale and just edit parts to make them feel more like a D&D campaign. Though there are a few stories that feature people getting spirited away for one reason or another.

@BrokenPromise Right. I've talked to a few co-workers. One of them suggested that I'd ste... borrow plots from movies, and see if the players start to notice the pattern.