Best Game Resources
Some games and books are ideally suited to providing inspiration and ideas for games, even if the game to be played is of an entirely different genre. Here are some of my favorites:
Dark Matter. The Dark Matter campaign is ideally suited towards conspiracy and paranormal games, and provides a lot of space geared towards describing organizations in enough detail to provide a slew of hooks and plot ideas. Each organization is fairly universal and may be exported or converted to other settings with little in the way of problems.
Complete Mafia for d20. The historical information available in this book provides a good history of how criminal organizations work in the real world, and the detailed descriptions of criminal organizations and roles of members will give you a great start on detailing the criminal aspect of any world or setting in your own game.
Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition. Theoretically, any edition of the game will work, but I have far more experience with this version. Anytime a truly “alien” entity or effect is needed, a flip through this book will provide either a great example or great inspiration. The d20 version may provide more direct compatibility with other d20 games.
Rifts, Heroes, GURPs, or any other “universal” point-buy system. While these games aren’t always as universal as we might like, there’s a lot of diversity in those systems, and the books are written to encourage the building of anything - both through mechanics and stirring up ideas.
Planescape. In my mind, Planescape is the most complete Dungeons and Dragons setting in existence. Anytime something in the game happens that involves any plane other than the Prime Material, I consult with Planescape for ideas, rules, and inspiration.
TSR Wizard’s/Priest’s Spell Compendium. Four volumes each, these compilations take spells and descriptions from almost every TSR game, setting, adventure and magazine release for several decades. The spells are updated for balance and use, and provide the widest variety of spells and abilities I’ve seen in any set of DnD products. Alternatively, you can get the wizard or priest spell cards, which contain identical information.
Darwin’s World. Darwin’s World combines elements from numerous genres, providing ample information and inspiration for post-apoc games, mutant games, or high tech games. The affiliates and organizations in the game also provide great templates and can easily be exported to other games or genres. (I still would love to play an X-Men game with Darwin’s organizations.)
What resources do you go to when you need some inspiration?
Changing the Game
I’ve recently begun working on a new campaign which will be starting this weekend, a d20 Modern game of Dark Matter, a game of paranormal investigation, with the Future, Future Tech, Cyberscape, and Modern Magic supplements.
Aside from the equipment in the various supplements, very little in this new game is new as far as mechanics are concerned. The new directions of the game, the subtleties that proper play demands, such as the low-key nature of magic, and the widespread disbelief of it, these things are more than sufficient to make the campaign, and the game itself, seem completely new.
I’m not the only one who feels this way, either. My players have proved to be just as excited as I am at the prospect of playing this new game, all because the theme of the game has been changed from “Supernatural” to “Paranormal.”
There are a number of other ways to take a setting or situation which is ordinarily normal and change it in minor ways so as to completely change the feel/course of the game. A high-tech or sci-fi game could be altered by a very primitive understanding of the technology used - it was found at some point in the past, and while the secrets of its use, and possibly maintainence, have been discovered, the secrets of is workings have not. This minor change opens up numerous new paths for the campaign, and changes the way players will look at things.
A Star Wars game could be changed by altering some mechanics of the Force such that drawing on its power drains life from other creatures - sort of a slower and more cosmic version of the Dark Sun Defiler. This would make little difference to many Dark Side users, especially Sith, but it would place a new level of moral questions for PCs to deal with.
Have you ever implemented any changes like this to change a game around?
Inspiration From Old Bad Ideas
Recently, I picked up a copy of Quantum Leap, Too Close For Comfort, which has turned out to be a marvelous read with some surprising gems inside.
Those of you familiar with Quantum Leap will remember the premise: Sam Beckett (not the writer) stepped into the Quantum Accelerator, hoping to travel through time to observe events which had occurred in the past. Instead, he was thrown back in time and possessed a stranger’s body. Sam finds out the only way for him to go home is fix something which went wrong in the past. Only when he does so, he doesn’t go home, but Leaps into a new body, with a new task.
In the show, they were unable to explain how this happened. WHY did Sam Leap right after making things right? Why not before? The show offered the only explanation they could: May-be God’s doing it. (They actually worked this into a number of good story-lines later, but it never made much sense.)
In the book, another theory is expressed: Sam’s leaping around in time has caused fractures in the time space continuum. He leaps around after fixing one crack, which often creates cracks elsewhere. If he ever fixes them all, he gets to Leap home. This theory provides some interesting concepts to use as story premises, and satisfies the logical part of my mind enough for me to suspend my disbelief and enjoy the story.
More things in the books were explained far better than in the show: The reason Sam is able to see the holographic Al, and the other way around, is because the computer which links their minds was built using nerve cells from each of their brains. In the show, the best explanation was that their brainwaves were “compatible.” But here, now, we know why!
After realizing this was the case with the Quantum Leap novel, I thought back and was surprised to realize that this was actually very often the case. Star Trek novels from the Original Series era often provided new insights and explanations for things which were glossed over or simply ignored in the show - and they all provided ideas and inspirations for stories.
There’s no scientific way to find these tidbits directly, but I would not be surprised if picking up some old science fiction or fantasy novel would yield a good number of ideas and concepts which not only provide peace of mind for the more retentive readers, but also plenty of ideas to apply in stories or games.
