Maps… One of the problems I have is the mediocrity of my first thoughts. I assume I’m not alone in this. Sitting down and writing down an idea or two is just not how my creativity works. As an example, let me take Scott’s Gnomes of Spuzm. I might have remembered to have a fungus forest underground. It’s a very common idea. I would have thought of some symbiosis with another animal or monster. Maybe some fungus-themed monster. But Scott manages to add a potential player race (gnomes), the reproductive system of ants and termites, add in some worms, turning the dead into compost, some cannibalism (if I understand it correctly), and weave it together into a disgusting and inspiring whole.
I would love to be a gnome in this system trying to become king as I approach name level. I’d love to be an adventurer stumbling into this society as I try to call in a favor.
In addition to that, I find that I can quickly doodle some interesting scenery or map, but I find it hard to fill it with life. The right half of the image shows one such palace on a plane ruled by Pazuzu, run over with Vrocks and other flying monsters. But there was very little culture, practically no names, no adventures to be had. There was just a fight to get to a portal…
One thing that works quite well, is *integrating existing material*. As you can see on the left half of the image I had some sort of hall complete with riddle, secret passages and all. I lifted that from a *Dungeon* magazine somewhere. Possibly something from the *Savage Tide Adventure Path*. I find that this is particularly easy if the material to be integrated is small in volume and therefore easy to skim, easy to find, easy to evaluate. The entries to the One Page Dungeon Contest are also very accommodating to this approach.
This can also work for *more abstract ideas* such as the Gnomes of Spuzm. I might lift them and add them to my existing campaign, but I’d still need a cool adventure to go along with them. What generally happens is that I try and remember cool ideas such that if a player comes along, I have some options for them. My next campaign is going to be in the *Sea of Five Winds* region in the *Wilderlands of High Fantasy*. There’s a gnomish village called *Oglepuss* near the starting village. If one of the players wants to play a gnome, they’re welcome to play a gnome from Oglepuss. Or, now that I’ve read Scott’s blog post, I might also offer an alternative. “Some underground gnomes in a termite-like society, a little disgusting but interesting if we want to do some more underground adventures… What do you think?” If the player wants to hear more, we’ll talk about it. If they pick Oglepuss, I’ve already helped spread a rumor before finishing character generation.
In the old school of gaming, *random tables* are often used to trigger creativity. I find that these work quite well. For the tables to work for me, there should be some plausible and standard entries on these tables such as monsters from the surrounding area, plus some near-impossible result that will require some on-the-spot improvising on my part. A lot of non-local creatures... Uh... They are on a quest to retrieve the Sword of Swampfire from the blue dragon! A super-special unnamed undead creature... Uh... You see a big jingle-bells bone chariot riding down the street. There is some sort of bone man driver in front and the back is a huge organ made of elephant bones played by a crazy mummy...
The *balance between the ordinary and the special* is what I need to watch out for when it comes to random tables. I don’t want too many mundane encounters because this doesn’t work for me as a game. The chances for extraordinary encounters in my games is therefore usually around 1 in 6. For a typical wilderness travel base campaign that often works out to special encounters every two or three sessions.
Perhaps I should use random tables for other things as well? I’m not so sure.
Unfortunately something that does not work for me when it comes to role-playing games is mutual inspiration. People talking, getting inspired, blabbing something, inspiring the next person, who in turn blabs something, inspiring the next person, and so on. This works well for other areas, but not for referees, in my experience.
The reason is that most referees I know run a very tight ship. They are in control. They keep secrets from their players. They can’t share ideas on stuff the players haven’t seen yet. Their referee friends run their own games, in their own settings, so there is very little to share. Very unfortunate, that.
Somehow forums and blogs don’t quite work as a substitute for this sort of rapid-fire verbal back-and-forth. I’m not quite sure why this is so. Too much lag? Not enough trust? People only publishing “finished” thoughts?
What I would love to do is doodle something, have a friend look at it, get excited and think of some adventure, or cultural background, requiring more doodling, inspiring me, going back and forth…
#RPG #1PDC
