An Unusual Source for RPGs and Game Design

Here’s an idea I’ve been thinking about for a while, and is worth revisiting as you plan your next campaign or sit down to design the next great game.

Our biggest source of traffic is, of course, Google. Thanks to all the tracking software whojidgts, we have a comprehensive log of the search terms used to get here (as do most people who run blogs and other websites.)

Occasionally, I look in these search terms and see things that are perfect to steal as game design ideas or to incorporate into RPGs. The concept is similar to using random generators for idea seeds and brainstorming. The difference, however, is that somewhere a human brain is searching for this thing, so there’s at least an audience of one (and the idea is more likely to be coherent, as opposed to a random mismatch.)

Here’s some examples that I like from our logs:

• 300 spartans really giant elephants? (Surprise, Xerxes!)
• “points of light” indie campaign -india rpg (Indian flavored D&D?)
• “open source” dungeon tiles (Yes, more of those would be great)
• “chrono trigger” tabletop (I think I’m already stealing this idea)
• critical hits & piratz (What could possibly go better together?)
• cloverfield dnd monster stats (You probably can use the Cthulhu stats, right?)
• best build for a d&d gnome pvp character (To make the opponent die laughing?)
• gelatinous cube comic (Or, Cube 3: Cube in the City)
• geek-girl rpg (About time they had their own rpg, right?)
• jurassic park d20 (Plenty of dinosaur stats in 3.5)
• post unclear multiplayer game (They probably misspelled “nuclear” but post-unclear sounds more interesting!)
• play a survival games based on movies (I’m sure the sci-fi channel has plenty of untapped licenses)

That’s just a quick survey from the past week. Delving back into the past few years since we started the site would yield more results but take more time. I also find that the best ones to look through for random ideas are the ones with only one search hit. The ones with more hits are likely to be things that already exist that you wrote about. The one hits are people searching in every possible spot for something that may not exist… but that you could create.