I have hobby a.d.d. Over the past 15 years (since my MS diagnosis) I have noted the decline in my ability to generate fresh ideas. Either for games or just art projects, incidences of writers block, drawing a complete blank and a general lack of direction are all things every Game Master has had to or will face one day.
During the course of my latest research project (cartography) I started looking for examples and tutorials. While surfing I came across a review for a world building book, "Talks
a lot more about drawing styles and techniques than anything about
creating ideas or understanding the mechanics of building a fictional
world." OK folks, you are not alone. Other people a looking for ways to generate their own ideas instead of having to resort to someone else's idea. It is true, there is nothing stopping you from buying a pre-written adventure campaign, and changing names and the order of the encounters. But that doesn't quite scratch the itch for actually coming up with an original idea.
So what I am going to do is describe what I do to get things moving in my head and create new ideas. It might work for you, it might not. This is what works for me.
1) Write EVERYTHING down. If your on the bus or in your car and you have an idea, WRITE IT DOWN, record it as a voice message on your phone. If you've been reading my other entries I have referred to the piles of scrap paper and reams of hand written notes and ideas. If I have and idea for a monster, a tactic, or even just a cool sounding name I'll write it down and set it with the other piles of random thoughts. All these piles of notes are not always about games. Some times It's a book title, or a quote or even just a sketch of an interesting object. Maybe a picture on my phone I saw something that made me pause, so I take a picture of it. You may not have a use for it right then, but hold on to it. It could be useful someday. A perfect example of this is this post , I wrote that prophecy when I was still a teenager. I am over 50 now. That prophecy helped me to develop a different idea. The Bloodrose campaign. That campaign grew out of several other ideas. I started with a desire to makes sense out of an old adventure module.
2) Read - Watch movies - Look around. Read everything you can get you hands on. Comic books, books on history, books on fictional history, books on science. How to do home repair. Seriously just read everything. Watch movies, watch parts of movies while surfing, watch old bad movies. Other than being a huge fan of a certain Titanosaurus whose name begins with "G", I own several and am always looking for old monster movies. Forbidden Planet - The Thing from another world (1956) - The Land that Time Forgot - The People that Time Forgot - Warlords of Alantis - War of the Gargantuas. Those are movies I watch and rewatch and rewatch and steal from repeatedly. Ever wanted to know what an Invisible Stalker looks like? Watch Forbidden Planet. I just recently acquired Warlords of Atlantis. It's an old Doug McClure movie. Other than seeing a vibrant example of a Murderhobo (Doug McClure's character) it gave me an idea for a campaign. Mash the 3 McClure movies together The Land, The People, and the Warlords... I got a Mysterious island with dinosaurs that has a portal leading to the 7 Cities of Atlantis. When I'm done renaming everything, you won't be able to recognize that I started with B movie plots.
3) Day Dream - Doodle - Chase Chickens. Most people have some down time during the course of a normal day. Yes I realize recent days have been anything but normal, however observing real world events can be useful. Watch people's reaction to the pandemic. Now go back to the big green G movies. Replace the big G with an invasion of something else and throw in a dash of Forbidden Planet (the invisible stalker) Huge events of death and destruction, and people don't believe that it's caused by a monster.... Not all your ideas will work out. Sometimes you'll hit a wall or come up with a objective so narrow it can't be accomplished. Put it in a drawer and come back to it later. You might end up tearing it apart and using parts in other things. As for chasing chickens.... The Angry GM has a podcast GM Word of the Week. Somewhere during one of those, he described his process for researching the chosen subject. He follows the subject down the Wikipedia rabbit hole. Put the subject into the search bar, read the article, then click the recommended links, outside links, get more information. You don't have to study, just browse or scan the articles. I chase chickens. It's kinda like shopping on Amazon, "People who looked at this item looked at..."
I was trying out my new Micron Pigmas when I doodled this...
I didn't use that particular face on my map, but I used a version of it. Work in progress show below.
4) Don't get tunnel vision. Don't tell yourself that you HAVE to finish the thing you're working on before you move to the next thing. If you do that, you run the risk of not liking it because it feels forced.
5) Keep your ideas modular. Got plot? Does it dead end? Go back to the start and start replacing events or encounters. Plug in different options. Do not get discouraged if it doesn't work, keep trying. "PUT IN THAT WORK DEVIN!" "TINY CIRCLES!"
6) Don't be afraid if it looks dumb. If you don't use it, it can serve as a lesson of what not to do. Ever had campaign die off because you and/or players couldn't get into it? Find out if it was too mundane or too icky and don't do that again.
7) Play or at least read the rules for empire building games or try the random dice map or play How to Host a Dungeon. I was playing HtHaD and then the cartography chicken ran in front of me.
During my discovery of cartography I ran across a YouTube video where the woman presenting makes a random map by dumping a bunch of dice on a blank sheet of paper. So I went back to cartoonish looking map I drew a few years ago and I am now in the process of inking. When I'm done writing this, I'll be retooling some things from this post on random terrain generation to use for creating random dice maps by the dice on paper method. I also ran across a fair number of excellent map makers. Check out WASD20 on his YouTube channel. Questing Beast has some good stuff as well.
8) Lastly... Be Patient. Don't try and force it by setting deadlines. Deadlines are for professionals. If you enjoy the subject you're dealing with, the time will fly by.
I certainly hope something in this post helps you guys.
Your brain and your creativity are muscles. Exercise them regularly.
Think before you speak. Read before you think.
