Improve Your Game RPG ,

Game Icons

I am probably very late to the game but I just discovered Game Icons back in April. I was of course familiar with story cubes but had not really got on with them as a plotting device. Game Icons and I seem a much better fit.

I suspect the difference is that when I rolled story dice I rolled them all and then had too many pictures to try and string together into a coherent adventure.

Story Icons on the other hand are themed so I can limit the icons to the genre I am writing for and I can roll for the number if icons I want or need.

I have always been a fan of the Mutant Year:Zero mechanics and it turns out that the d666 is the perfect companion to game icons. I can drag and drop icons directly from game-icons.net into a table with the numbers alongside and create a custom set in a matter of minutes.

I have been using them not only for creating in adventures but also for the motivations and inner thoughts for NPCs in those adventures. As an example I have a lady in waiting NPC in an adventure I am writing. I rolled two icons and got a wheel and a shield. I took the shield to mean that she was protecting something and the wheel to mean change. Suddenly that lady in waiting is part of a plot to overthrow the royal family. It is entirely possible that that will never come up in the adventure but it is also sitting there and should a character suddenly decide to use telepathy to find out what she is thinking they are going to be in for a surprise.

For me the big advantage is that I don’t have to sit here and be constantly inspired. The game icons are the inspiration. As a side benefit the adventures I am now writing a greater richness and depth if the players choose to explore those depths.

If you haven’t tried using game icons there is a neat tool at Tangent Zero where you can randomly generate game icons and I have attached a spreadsheet with the d666 numbers in the first column and you can drag and drop icons directly from either Tangent Zero or from game icon.net.

game-icons-tempateDownload

I hope these give you as much enjoyment and inspiration as they do me.

Tag
Peter R.

I have been blogging about Rolemaster for the past few years. When I am not blogging I run the Rolemaster Fanzine and create adventure seeds and generic game supplements under the heading of PPM Games. You can check them out on RPGnow. My pet project is my d6 game 3Deep, now in its second edition.

view all posts

Related Posts

3 comments

comments user
Matthias Platzer

The Game-Icons page is one of the best internet resources for game maker I know. I love the icons and the ideas you can get. I used it for some RPG and Boardgame ideas and they worked very well.
Reply
    comments user
    Peter R.

    I think they are wonderful and combination of the game icons and Tangent Zero’s random icon script makes them very accessible. Without that webtool I don’t think I would have got into them as much as have.
    Reply
comments user
egdcltd

I stumbled across them through Hero Kids – I was looking for icons to use on my Hero Kids monster cards, and looked to see what other publishers were using. Adventures in Bayhaven credited the site, so I went there and picked some up to use.
Reply