Chatty’s Guest: We fight the blues

It’s that time of year, and I’m not talking about Christmas, but that 3 months time-span during which the winter blues hits some of us (probably more then we all think) and kills our well-earned creativity. So, my friends, readers, minions of The Great Chatty DM, I come bearing gifts! Weapons to fight the blues (at least +1, guaranteed).

The problem

When under the blues, most GMs try to open their minds as much as possible with hopes of grabbing a stray idea. They would use anything that they could get their kobold-like little claws on, but end up laying around in creative catatonia (stray ideas, ridiculous grapple bonus, don’t even bother). While searching for a general idea, looking aimlessly for awesome, one grows weary and bored, loses interest and further kills his or her own creativity. It’s the classic “Kill, revive and kill some more” torture, but self-inflicted. Needless to say, it’s not good for your brain.

The solution

Do the opposite, aim for small, focused, concentrate your brains to a bunch of tiny creative lasers, brave adventurers! Having a plethora (don’t you love that word?) of restrictions will help you focus you mind on the task at hand (spawning the next NPC, for example) and just make the work more bearable.

I’ll even be sharing a few of my own tricks, I’m just delightfully generous like that.

Using an iPod to get +2 in npc crafting

Necessary gear: Music (the more the better), a mp3 player of some kind, anything with a random function, really

Ideal use : Character creation, adventure hooks

Better if : You have crazy-ass eclectic tastes in music.

Note : Also awesome if your stuck in a bus

Here’s the idea, shuffle your iPod’s library and let her rip. Whatever song the machine chooses must become your character, or even your adventure hook. No, you can’t skip it if it’s not giving you anything good, just roll with it.

It’s similar in concept to the “3d6, in order” character creation technique, or the old-school Marvel RPG you might have read about on “Greywulf’s Lair”, 2 weeks-ish back. You look at what you get, and you forge something decent out of it.

Over the years, I’ve had plot hooks, wacky characters, and even an entire campaign based on a random song (or a music video, for the campaign)

Another similar trick is to open a dictionary at a random page, point a word, and make that word a pivotal point of your character’s life. You could technically do the same with any randomly-generated, non-numbered element (writing this makes me want to try it with tarot cards).

Using keywords to spawn new shiny settings

Necessary gear : Paper, a pencil, a d6

Ideal for : Setting creation

Better if : You have a friend yelling at you to keep you from thinking.

Note : If you don’t like rerolling 6s, find more words!
Choose 5 nouns. Any nouns. NO! DON’T THINK! WRITE, NOW! I DON’T CARE IF CARIBOU DOESN’T MAKE A LICK OF SENSE! WRITE. IT. DOWN! (I’ve done this to a few friends, interesting settings, I promise).

Now do the same thing with adjectives. Number each nouns to from 1 to 5, and roll the dice for each adjectives. Reroll on 6s and reroll if a number as already been rolled for another noun. Each adjective should now be held in a tender embrace by the chosen noun.

Each groupings must be a major part of your campaign, either a major NPC, an important historical event, the sky’s the limit. But everything must be used.

Here’s good example of a silly grouping giving great result. A year or so back, I forced my roommate to experiment with this technique (read the Better if section, I had to discover that somehow) and he got something along the lines of “powerful cat”. Turns out that cat was a lich’s consciousness trying to get out of a kitten’s body and destroy the world.

The moral of this story : torture gives great ideas. Oh, and you can potentially find something interested for very random pairings.

The ending theme

Thus ends my first experiment in blogging, folks. Leave me a comment or seven hundred, tell me what you think, try that character creation thing yourself and post your ideas, gimme some love! And if you do, I might grant you a few articles in the future.

Lemme hear them dice clank!

Hail Chatty! And thanks for lending me a spot, buddy.