Day 26 – Favorite inspiration for your game

I ran a game in the early 2000’s, that was heavily inspired/influenced by Babylon 5, and Zecharia Sitchen. Who is Sitchen? One of those “alternate history” and “aliens created us” types. He claimed to have used his knowledge of Sumerian and Semitic Languages to have deciphered how the Sumerian gods were actually aliens, and that they were also the basis of all of the major pagan mythologies (that the Egyptian Pantheon, for example, was just a translation of the Sumerian Pantheon; and the same with Greek and even Norse).

So. The Gods were actually advanced aliens. And the PCs are in a giant space station. Translated into early 3rd Edition D&D, the PCs were on the inside of a Dyson Sphere (and didn’t know it, initially), and the builders of the sphere were quasi-gods (was that the 3rd edition term? the step below DemiGods, where they have a value of 0 or something), that used both magic and technology (or rather, technological constructs created via magical methods) to build the sphere.

I used all kinds of Sitchen-isms in creating the pantheon of “Builders”, and various things learned from B5 (the slow reveal of the real plot of the series, etc.). That the REAL enemy was 3 layers deep in subplot, and were somewhat pulling the strings of the 2nd layer enemies… the 1st layer enemies weren’t really evil. Well, they WERE evil, but they were a benign evil that would have stayed out on the frontier if they weren’t being pushed by the 2nd tier enemies.

In fact, before the game broke up (2 players of major sub-plot characters moved away due to job changes), they had only vaguely had a hint of the 3rd tier enemies.

One of my favorite settings to have ever run. And I still get comments every so often from one of the players that moved away, about how he missed being able to see that campaign through to its conclusion.

Hi,

I will not be terribly original by naming literature as probably the main inspiration – after all I mentioned elsewhere on this fine blog that Call of Cthulhu is my fav game and horror short stories remain the key source of ideas there, interestingly though this doesn’t have to be broadly understood SF, horror or fantasy or even crime thrillers not even fiction at all. I often find myself drawing inspiration from the literature of the fact – current affairs or history (which I grant you is not that original either as quite a lot of literature indirectly do – Game of Thrones anyone? 😉 )

I suppose the more unusual is the source which I distinctly recall Sunglar wrote a whole (and I might add excellent) post few years ago – poetry. I find verse inspirational in many ways; it can be a mood setter, provide emotional tone, paint an imaginary vista or a scene. In my comment to that post I used Shelley’s Ozymandias as an example of a poem that conjures up an atmospheric scene of foreboding desolation, decay and mystery – not unlike something I like to impart on my CoC or Numenera players when they encounter ancient ruins – this could be the key scene in an adventure – one that you can start building the whole scenario from. Furthermore, poetry often uses language in unusual ways – drawing from it is a great way to improve ones’ rpg lexicon and eloquence – describing scenes, characters and using dialog in more elaborate and stylized ways could be a great asset to the game.

I agree that comics are superb source, evocative and easy to adapt – the storyboard format and just the sheer amount of material out there not to mention the artwork. This leads me nicely to art itself. Graphical art has been the key inspiration for me from the very beginning of my hobby and still is – many an adventure has started with an image I found in an album or online – and I’m constantly collecting art pieces that I find evocative with intention of using them in my games. One of the things I pay attention the most in rpg books is art and how it depicts the game and the setting. I’m not alone in this of course and all of us would agree that art plays a key part in how the game mood is being created – this is evident in oft celebrated contributions of D&D artist for example how Elmore’s style “created” Dragonlance, what Brom and Baxa did with Darksun, DiTerilzzi with Planescape etc. etc. In my games I use visual aids A LOT – sometimes they are results of my limited artistic ability or stuff I found online. I find making and preparing them to be a great deal of fun and satisfaction – as a GM I get a huge kick out of this.

And speaking (wirting) of kicks one mustn’t ignore another source – music! This has been covered in volumes (see what I did there 😉 ) so I try to be brief but you have got to admit that music can literally make or break an adventure! Soundtrack can inspire to crate scenes of epic proportions, or conversely, melancholic tranquillity, mystery and dread – whichever is required – there is no better way to enhance immersion during gameplay. Suffice it to say – I always create adventure with some form of soundtrack on – that’s both writing it and running it 😉

Last but not least – reading all rpg materials that one can find – there are whole runs of magazines chock full of ready adventures, countless rpg books and modules for games known and those that time forgot. I often go back to those and borrow, recycle and adapt – on one hand it gives me nicely packaged ideas and on the other, well I’m a sentimental kindda dude and using those ideas of yesteryear gives them kind of a new life, perpetuating this great hobby of ours.

This of course is not limited to old publications – the hobby blogsphere is an excellent forum of ideas and inspiration – talking of which – @Johnkzin – synopsis of your old setting just gave me an idea for a Numenera adventure which I may develop as an origin story for one of my players – I hope you don’t mind – I’d like to give you some credit though and use the same name you used for the sphere to call the main location of the adventure – what was it ??? – Thank you in advance.

Another huge comment but hey inspiration is a HUGE thing 😉

All the best

Voidman

Really enjoy your long replies Voidman, thanks! I am glad you remember my post on poetry. To this day I constantly jot down lines when I read poetry to use in my games, as introduction to handouts, as oaths for religious and knightly orders. Agreed on the music, and I find a lot of good musicals also cross over into the poetry field. Take care!