Category Archives: Musings

Setting an Example: Using Adventure Seeds/Hooks/Starts/Ideas, pt. 3

Posted on 20 November 2010 | Leave a comment

In the last couple of posts we’ve discussed what adventure seeds are and outlined the basic steps to fleshing them out into full-fledged adventures. Today, I’m taking an adventure seed I found on a gaming forum and fleshing it out into a rough adventure.

The Seed

Your group is tasked to infiltrate a high-security national leader’s compound by traveling with some entertainers he has hired for a private performance.

This comes from the RPG Life Member Forums.

Write Down Questions

Here’s where we really get into turning this short idea into an adventure. When reading over our adventure seed, what questions come to mind?

  • Which national leader?
  • What compound?
  • What nation?
  • Where is the compound?
  • Who are the entertainers?
  • What is the performance they’re going to do?
  • Why is the leader having the performance (what’s the occasion?)
  • Who hired the PCs?
  • Why does (s)he need the PCs? Why not hire someone else?
  • What security measures are in place?
  • Why these entertainers?
  • Why does the PCs employer want them to infiltrate?
  • Do the PCs know why?
  • Why should the PCs go?
  • What happens if they succeed?
  • What happens if they fail?

Back to the 6 W’s

We can group these questions into our 6 W’s of Adventure Creation and add in some more standard questions that should be asked about every adventure:

Who

  • Who hired the PCs?
  • Who is the national leader?
  • Who are the entertainers?
  • Who wants the mission to succeed?
  • Who wants it to fail?
  • Who leads the entertainers?
  • Do the entertainers know about the PCs mission?

What

  • What are the exact goals of the mission?
  • What is the performance the entertainers are going to do?
  • What kind of entertainers are they?
  • What security measures does the location have?
  • What maps do you need to create?
  • What special items might the PCs need to succeed?
  • What does the compound look like?
  • What group or faction does the national leader belong to, if any?
  • What group or faction does the PCs employer belong to, if any?
  • What obstacles might stand in the way of the PCs succeeding?
  • What will happen if the PCs succeed?
  • What will happen if they fail?

When

  • When is this performance to take place?
  • What is the current date?
  • How much time do the PCs have to prepare?
  • How much time do the PCs have to complete the mission?
  • How long is the performance supposed to last?

Where

  • What nation is national leader a leader of?
  • Are the PCs from the same nation or a different one?
  • Is the PCs employer from the same nation or a different one?
  • If different, what nation?
  • Is it the same nation as the PCs?
  • Where is the compound located?
  • Where is the performance supposed to take place?
  • What is the adventure’s starting location?
  • What is it’s ending location?
  • What other important locations might be important?
  • What are the languages, customs, and practices of the entertainers? Are they different from the PCs?

Why

  • Why do the PCs need to be the ones to go on this mission (there should be a reason beyond ‘they’re the PCs’)?
  • Why did the national leader hire these entertainers?
  • Why is (s)he holding this performance (what’s the occasion)?
  • Why is this mission taking place? (Why does the employer want the compound infiltrated?)
  • Do the PCs know why?
  • Why should the PCs go?
  • Why are the entertainers taking this job?

How

  • How are the PCs going to fit in with the entertainers?
  • How might they prepare for this mission?
  • How might they succeed?
  • How might they fail?
  • How are the entertainers going to perform?

Most of the time, you’ll be creating an adventure for an established campaign or you’ll at least have an idea of the kind of setting you’re going to use this in. Since we’re creating an adventure from scratch, we need to decide some additional details, such as what genre we’re going to create this adventure for. The seed itself seems imply a science fiction, superhero, modern day, or cyberpunk-style setting. Since I want to show you that you can adapt adventure seeds that may not seem to be a perfect fit at first, let’s not use any of those. I’m going to set this in a “standard” high-fantasy genre.

Next time we’ll begin answering the questions.

[Photo courtesy of Horia Varlan via Flickr Creative Commons 2.0].

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Step By Step: Using Adventure Seeds/Hooks/Starts/Ideas, part 2

Posted on 17 November 2010 | Leave a comment

There are basic steps to creating an adventure from the adventure seed:

  • Read the seed
  • Write down questions
  • Answer your questions
  • Pull out events from the questions
  • Put the events into a possible order
  • Determine the outcome of success or failure

We’ll go over these steps in detail in the next post(s), where I’ll provide some examples to make things much clearer.

One note here: The adventure seed is just a tool to jump start your creativity. If, in the course of developing your adventure, you find that your plot bears no resemblance whatsoever to the seed you started with, that’s okay. As long as you’re happy with what you’ve created and you think your players will be too, go with what you’ve written. There are no adventure police to keep you on the straight and narrow. (At least when you’re running for your own group, this is true. Published adventures can be another story).

[Photo courtesy of pj_vanf via Flickr Creative Commons 2.0]

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Barren Air: Preparing for Creative Downtimes

Posted on 4 November 2010 | 2 comments
Sample catalog card in the card catalog for Ra...
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One of the main questions I (and just about every other writer/artist/creative type) has been asked is “Where do you get your ideas?” I’ve always liked the answer given by Wendy and Richard Pini of Elfquest fame–that they had a six-pack delivered to their doorstep every morning from Ploughkeepsie.

Most of the advice you’ll hear tends to be along the lines of “Ideas are all around you; just keep your eyes open.” While this is true, it’s about as helpful as the advice that to be a success you need to “get more creative.” Get more creative. Great! Why didn’t I think of that?

If you’re like me, your creativity comes in waves. Some days, idea after idea just seems to tumble into my brain, so fast that I can barely keep up with the pace. Other times, I sit down to write or even plan my next game session and … pft. Nothing. Dry as a bone. At those times, I turn to a tool I’ve been using for almost 20 years now … my idea file.

For me, the idea file is an index card box with one idea per card. When an idea hits me, especially if I can’t act on it right now, I write it down on a card and stick it in the box. I usually carry a few cards with me to catch ideas when I’m away from my desk. At the very least, I keep small notebooks and a few pens with me (one set in my purse, one in my game bag–which also subs as a portable office–one in my car) so I can capture an idea before I lose it. Then, when I get home, I transfer those ideas to cards (one idea per card) and stick them in my box.

My box has no order. I’ll often label the idea card with a loose category, such as “adventure idea”, “magazine article”, “blog post”. Not too specific, since that can kill creativity, but enough so that when I look back on it later, can job my memory as what I thinking. I’ve also found it helpful to write a sentence or two about the idea, if that comes to me. The exact nature of the file really doesn’t matter. As long as it works for you and you can find your ideas, it could be anything from a notebook to a computer file. I use index cards because I’m a very tactile person and I like having something I can physically handle.

Then, when the inevitable creative dry spell comes, I can pull an idea out of the box. I like my box because I can pull an idea out at random, or I can look through the cards and find something that inspires me.

When the ideas just don’t come, it’s important to remember that creative dry spells are a part of the natural process. Just because you don’t have any ideas today, doesn’t mean you won’t tomorrow. But when deadlines are coming (whether that’s a article deadline or your next game session) and ideas aren’t, it helps to have something you can pull out of the box to get you along.

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Color My World: Painting Miniatures

Posted on 20 August 2010 | 1 comment

Just recently I’ve rediscovered the art of painting miniatures. I’d dabbled with it in high school and again in college, but I was never really happy with my results. At that time, before the Internet, it was difficult to find information on how to paint minis and I was reduced to trial and error, since no one else I knew did it.

Not so anymore. With the Internet, there’s a wealth of mini painting resources available. Here’s some the ones I really like:

  • Brushthralls.com. This is a blog devoted to miniature painting. While it hasn’t been updated since 2009, it’s still has a lot of great articles available.
  • Cool Mini or Not. This is a forum for miniature painters. They have a slew of articles on just about every aspect of painting you can think of.
  • Dr. Faust’s Painting Clinic. Offers a whole slew of painting tutorials from highlights and shading to creating believable flesh tones to basic sculpting.
  • How to Paint Miniatures.com. Just as the name says, this site will take you step-by-step through painting miniatures. Offers both beginning and advanced tutorials.
  • Jenova Project: Tips and Tutorials. Has a variety of painting tutorials, including recipes for creating various skintones.
  • Miniature Mentor. If you like video tutorials, this might be the site for you. They offer both beginning and advanced to tutorials for download and some on DVD for an extra charge. I haven’t tried any of them yet, so I can’t vouch for how good they are.
  • Necromancer Tales Miniatures: Tutorials, How-To, and Tips. Has a variety of tutorials, including several on building great bases for your minis to stand on.
  • Painting Miniatures Figures Made Quick and Easy. While aimed at the miniature wargamer, who wants to turn out whole regiments as quickly as possible, this site is still a great tutorial for the basics, even if your minis are one at a time labors of love.
  • Reaper Miniatures: The Craft. The granddaddy of miniature makers has a whole host of articles on their site. One of my favorites is on how to replace those gigantic swords.
  • The Ultimate Miniature Painting Guide. Offered by Cool Mini or Not, this is a PDF book of 400+ pages. While it could’ve desperately used some good copy editing (there are places I’ve had to guess the author’s meaning), it’s chock full of great mini painting advice, covering everything from preparing your miniature to painting to making bases to photographing your minis. At $10, it’s a book that’d be a steal at twice the price.

[Photo courtesy of dalangalma at Flikr Creative Commons]

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The Collected Beg, Borrow & Steal Now Available

Posted on 4 August 2010 | Leave a comment

The Collected Beg, Borrow & Steal is a PDF eBook containing the first ten issues of the Beg, Borrow & Steal newsletter. More than just a reprint of the newsletters under one cover, the information in this book has been edited and reformatted to make it easier to read and use. Also included is a new list: “20 Magical Curios” that is unavailable anywhere else. This book contains

  • Campaign Control Journal
  • 14 Last-Minute Tips to Customize a Published Adventure.
  • 20 Magical Curios for Fantasy Games
  • On-line GMing Resources
  • How to Age Paper
  • Game Money
  • 9 Ways to Use PC Dreams
  • Unstick the Stumped with Bibliomancy
  • Tips for Creating Memorable NPCs on the Fly
  • 20 Unusual City Encounters
  • 20 Unusual Wilderness Encounters

For an example, check out the 20 Unusual City Encounters post.  The cost for the eBook is only $7 (US dollars)

You can purchase it by clicking the button below:

[EJUNKIE_ADD2CART item=”784253″]

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Growing the Hobby

Posted on 15 July 2010 | 2 comments

For this month’s blog carnival Mad Brew Labs has posed the question “Challenge: Growing the Hobby”. Since I started playing in 1980, the hobby has grown exponentially and shows no sign of stopping. Sure, in the general population interest flares up, wanes, and fares again but the sheer number of people who play RPGs has grown considerably since its beginning. Do we really need it to grow more?

I think that before we can really answer the question of how to grow our hobby, we need to define exactly what hobby it is that we’re trying to grow. It’s RPGs, of course. But what, exactly, are RPGs? Tabletop games using traditional rules systems such as D&D, GURPS, Storyteller, Savage Worlds, etc. are obviously RPGs. But tabletop games have grown away from the table or were never there to start with. Are LARPs (live-action roleplaying games) RPGs? I think most of us would answer “yes”, simply because they’re usually based on a tabletop system.

But that being the case then, do the How to Host a Murder games that were popular in the late ’80’s also RPGs? I tend not classify them as RPGs for the simple matter that they involved reading lines from a set script. But what about the murder mystery trains and interactive theatres? How about re-enactment and re-creation such as the Society for Creative Anacronisms and black-powder rendezvous? What makes them different from LARPS?

Moving back to tabletop (in a way), we come to Play by Mail, Play by Email, and Play by Post games. Are they also RPGs? I think most of us would, again, say “yes” because they’re still playing something we recognize as an RPG. But that, then, leads us to open the big can of worms … MMOs. Are MMOs a type of RPG?

My point here isn’t to spark debate about what is or isn’t an RPG. My point is that the hobby may already be more mainstream and wide-spread than we frequently think.

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What Do You Need Help With?

Posted on 18 June 2010 | Leave a comment

In addition to the world setting I’m creating, I’m looking at producing a line of products to help GMs run better and more immersive games. To that end, I’ve created a short survey asking for your input. Please help me out by taking a moment to give me your ideas. I’ll post the results here next week.

Click here to take survey

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Notable Absence

Posted on 15 June 2010 | Leave a comment

As you’ve all noticed by now, my writing has been rather sporadic recently. It’s not because I’ve run out of ideas or developed a sudden allergy to blogging. No, the reason I’ve been rather absent is because my fiance Jay and I just bought a house and (being a foreclosure), it’s taking a lot of work to make it livable. Since I work from home, this will also be the new office of rpgGM.com.

We’re currently in the middle of ripping out all of the carpet and priming the entire house for repainting. Luckily, most of the work that needs to be done is cosmetic and we saved enough on the purchase price of the house itself that we’ll be able to hire someone to install the bamboo floors we’ve picked out. But meanwhile, there’s a lot of “sweat equity” to be put into it.

I’ve got a couple of “before” pictures — photos of the place before we began work. You can see one of them above; I’ll be posting more on my martial arts blog On My Own Two Feet.

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What’s My Motivation?

Posted on 14 May 2010 | Leave a comment

motivation-chartYour GM picked out the adventure, did all of the background work, fleshed out the NPCs, balanced treasure and other rewards. Now it’s finally time to run the adventure, it’s up to the GM to find a way to motivate your character. Right?

[Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/philippeboukobza/ / CC BY 2.0]

Wrong.

True, the GM will most likely provide you a motivation for going on the adventure, but you can help by providing your own motivation for your character.

While “My character wouldn’t do that” can be a legitimate concern (I’m a “method actor”-style player, myself), it’s not helpful. If you try hard enough, there’s usually some way you can provide your character with a motivation to undertake the adventure.

Character History

Even if you don’t have a detailed backstory for your character, you can find a way to work something about this adventure into your character’s history. In fact, it’s probably easier to do it without a detailed history. But even if you’ve written down information for every month of your character’s life, you can still usually find a way to work a motivation for the adventure in there.

Perhaps you stumbled across this dungeon when you were growing up and always wondered what was down there that was so dangerous your parents wouldn’t let you explore it. Or your now-deceased mother had been an adventurer but had fled from this dungeon before exploring it thoroughly and you want to find out what could make a generally fearless woman flee in terror.

These are simply suggestions; you’ll do much better to find some reason yourself. The point is, that it doesn’t have to be a driving passion to provide motivation. Simple curiosity can be enough. Maybe the owner owes you some money and if you can’t get the money, you’re going to take payment in goods of equal value. Or perhaps you want to prove yourself a better adventurer than your mother who’s shadow you’ve been in since you started your career.

Character Relationships

That brings us to our next type of motivation: other people and the relationships your character has with them. It could be your favorite uncle asked you to check out the city sewers to find proof of the giant cybernetic rats and cockroaches he’s always said live down there. Maybe your familiar or a favorite pet wandered into the Mayor’s Mansion and hasn’t been seen or heard from since. Or maybe, just maybe, your brother dared you to go into the spooky cave.

Again, the reasons don’t have to be deep of life-changing or part of The Big Picture. It can be petty concerns. The important thing is to have a reason that will motivate you to undertake the adventure. It could even be something simply as the party’s cleric said “Please” when he asked you to come along. Of course, if you want to have this adventure affect your character deeply, go for it.

Character Goals

This brings us to our last set of motivations: your character’s goals. Maybe you want to collect one of every type of potion in the world. Or maybe you need some  scrapings from the wall to to mix the exact shade of grey paint to finish your current project. See, even here you don’t need grandiose ideas — simple ones will do as long as it gets your character moving.

Of course,  you’ll want to clear your motivation with your GM. If he hears, for instance, that you think there may be potions for your collection, then he’ll most likely go out of his way to put one in there as a reward.  Maybe you just want to complete your rock collection and the last type of rock you need is said to exist in this lich-controlled forest. placed in there.

Brainstorming or “Mind-Mapping” can help you find a reason. You can get special software for that, but I find good ol’ pen and paper work great for the job. If you’re really stuck, you might try having the GM other person you trust over for a brainstorming party. If something doesn’t come to you immediately, keep trying until you come up with something you can play. You’ll find the game much more enjoyable.

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Upgrading Issues

Posted on 6 May 2010 | 1 comment

Please bear with me as I finish upgrading the theme for this site. I had technical difficulties installing the new theme and upgrading to the most recent version of WordPress (which for several reasons on my end, most of which come down to RTFM).

I’ll be finishing the set-up on the new theme over the course of the next few days. Everything’s there and you should be able to access it without difficulty. It just doesn’t look pretty yet.

Thanks for your patience.

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