What's your "go-to" source for new ideas?

[Cookiemobsta]

When I'm DMing, I find that my "go-to" place for ideas for dungeons, plot hooks, puzzles, etc, tends to be the
Avernum (http://avernum.com/) series of shareware games. This is particularly useful for dungeons and puzzles--I can't count how many times I've pulled from my memory of Avernum when I have no clue what's supposed to be behind that next dungeon door. Plus, since most people have not played Avernum, it's unlikely that I'll get called on it when I borrow an idea to adapt.

Do you guys have any go-to sources for ideas, whether it's for characters, world building, or plot hooks? Of course, simply ripping off other people's ideas doesn't lead to the most fulfilling role-play experience. But often someone else's idea can be a good starting point to inspire your own ideas and creativity. So if we share our favorite sources of ideas, maybe we will all be inspired :)

[GenericGuy]

History mostly, most of the wars in my setting mirror actual historical events in some way, but not WWII that one has been done to death:smallsigh:.

Tv tropes also:smallredface:, though only to delibertly subvert, invert or avert any trope I read.

[Wyntonian]

Books. Good Books, Bad Books. British books, 'Merican books, all sorts of books. Sometimes the worst ones give me the most inspiration. Sometimes one make my head asplode with applicability.

[DigoDragon]

Most of my players have very little experience with old text adventure games so I often borrow elements from that genre. For example, I created a dungeon adventure largely borrowed from "Shadowgate" and no one was the wiser.

[Kol Korran]

hhhmmmm... an interesting question. i have lots of ideas slowly taking shape in my head that come from various other sources such as books, music and the like. (i iece themtogether, give them a twist and present them well enough. i never claimed to be original)

but since about mid last campaign i try to get more random seeds for my inspiration. i try random links on you tube (mostly of music) and try to see what comes from that. (For example Florence and the machine sprouted a few characters and an adventure idea for my next campaign.Bjork can produce some awesome seeds and some westerns' music done spledidly for me as well). or i try to see a web comic, or a book or even something i study about at Uni and try and use it as "the essential ingredient" and create something from it.

not everything succeeds, and at times i'm quite stumped. but some other things? oh, they're juicy...

oh, campaign and adventure logs can produce real gems at times, like SCS' campaign which formed the base for my previous campaign (though again- piece it together differently, give it a twist and...)

i hope that answers you're questions.
kol.

[Ashjustash]

Side Note: I've dm'ed with my currant group, and their currant characters, for about 10 years now, so I know their characters intimately outside of just whats on the paper.


The characters.

I'm the DM who takes a lot of joy out of screwing with the characters, not by giving them god-like enemies to get squished by, but by building the stories and plots, hooks, around what their characters specific flaws are.

I also don't create the story and then tell my group what type it is they're going to be facing. I tell them the basic facts; place, time, theme, create your characters. Once their characters are created I use those as a inspiration for the story, the events, and I am infamous for on the fly changes as they go along. Where they're convinced its going to be big battle, but they've made choices, events, which ruin that option as I may have planned and I go with it and get evil with them. :smallbiggrin: In other words, you one shotting the bigbad is not ending the game for that night, and it doesn't send me scrambling, since I planned the story and events around your character being able to one-shot things if they choose...

But, is there a specific source/s I turn to for inspiration for the over all story, events, or plot? Do I pick things from books, movies, music, previous events? No, not specifically, a lot of it just imagination on the fly muse-gasms as the players are going. Not for that night, but typically for the next night, and I'm lucky in that my group are very engaged active players in the rp side of their characters so watching them gives me a lot of food for me "How can I torment this character properly". So I rarely need to go looking for inspiration.

[SamBurke]

History mostly, most of the wars in my setting mirror actual historical events in some way, but not WWII that one has been done to death:smallsigh:.

Tv tropes also:smallredface:, though only to delibertly subvert, invert or avert any trope I read.

You do realize that most tropes have a subverted or inverted version? Also, it's literally impossible to write an entire story without using even one trope. Every single character has already been made, as a joining of various elemental tropes.

For me, it depends. Stuff hits me in the face when I do anything. I steal stuff from obscure sources. History helps a lot, too.

[valadil]

Usually my own notes. I'm not someone who GMs all the time but I have ideas for games constantly. I keep a google document where I dump my ideas. When I finally get around to running the game, I harvest my own plots and NPCs.



The characters.


Correct response. Specifically I'm all about re-reading their backstories and poaching ideas. Some players will spoon feed you plot hooks. Even if they don't, the backstory should give you a good idea of what makes the character tick. Then you just need to invent a scenario that exploits that.

[STsinderman]

I tend to just get ideas from what im watching/reading and adapt it into exactly what i am looking for.

[Serpentine]

When I'm DMing, I find that my "go-to" place for ideas for dungeons, plot hooks, puzzles, etc, tends to be the
Avernum (http://avernum.com/) series of shareware games. This is particularly useful for dungeons and puzzles--I can't count how many times I've pulled from my memory of Avernum when I have no clue what's supposed to be behind that next dungeon door. Plus, since most people have not played Avernum, it's unlikely that I'll get called on it when I borrow an idea to adapt.Oh man, I totally forgot to finish buying that game. If only I could afford it right now!

Side Note: I've dm'ed with my currant group, and their currant characters, for about 10 years now, so I know their characters intimately outside of just whats on the paper.So you'd say you're berry familiar with them?

Hmmm... Books, films, myths and legends, other people, these forums, just reading through D&D materials for something that inspires me...

[Ashjustash]

So you'd say you're berry familiar with them?


lol You could say that, but I more of meant it along the lines of I know how the players think, how they tend to form their characters, and how they tend to manifest their characters in game. After so long you tend to notice the themes of a player's character's, even if the characters are on paper wildly different, and this allows me to anticipate whats going to immerse them in their character better.

[Necroticplague]

I'm a big fan of TVTropes and older RPGs (nethack, linley's dungeon crawl and it's spawn, stone soup dungeon crawl) and indie games (trine, SMB,Braid, World of Goo, Gish, Trider), so I usually just entertain myself on the internet for an hour or 4 ( or six, depending on size of tabsploison). When I re-emerge from my seat, and stand up with sudden ideas. I have odd tastes in media very different from my peers, so I can rip a lot of good stuff out of things I like and have nobody be any the wiser (they somehow missed that an entire campaign arc was smashing the plot of Stranger's Wrath and Dr. Muto together).

[Grim_Wicked]

So you'd say you're berry familiar with them?


I actually had to laugh out loud at this one (and that doesn't happen often). xD
Chapeau.

As for my inspiration: usually my fantasy, I guess, but sometimes I need to refresh my fantasy by playing some RPG's.
Also, reading this forum gives me a lot of ideas, often.

[dsmiles]

Play Dirty by John Wick. Amazing source of info, it never ceases to inspire me.

[Anxe]

Star Wars. It's super good. Players aren't as good at noticing where ideas come from as you might think. They've never called me on a Star Wars plot gimmick.

[Seharvepernfan]

I don't have a particular source, but I do have a word document specifically listing all my ideas (that I remember to write down). I go back to it whenever I need one. You'd be surprised how much you forget your own ideas.

[Gahrer]

Fantasy. I have read a lot more than my players. In one campaign I the players encountered a pair of traveling merchants - two brothers - callled Fadan and Lain. They were secretly agents for the BBEG. Fadan carried a cursed dagger that eventually turned him into a second BBEG. :smalltongue:

Biotechnology. I study biotechnology at the university and have taken stuff from there at times, such as using mangled protein names for things that are sort of related to what that protein does. (Once I named a troop-transport galley after an iron-carrying protein.) I have also stolen names of bacterial species and used as names for NPCs. (I named a barkeeper after a bacteria that causes a stomach disease, for example.)

[Serpentine]

My ex and former sorta co-DM once used the yabbie for the name of a BBEG (Chyrax destructor -> Tyrax Destructor!), and my party once went delving through an underwater cave curiously reminiscent of certain South American sink-hole systems, complete with the acidic bacteria named after snot (forget the exact name, though).

Oh, and a native American trickster god formed the basis for a whole side-quest (and is still relevant to the party).

[boomwolf]

Well, as far as making up new dungeons is concerned I tend to choose a "theme" for it, then make a random scribble on a piece of paper (without looking), and attempt to build a lyout based upon it.

Makes my dungeons hard to predict, and often quite interesting...

[Drathmar]

Books. Good Books, Bad Books. British books, 'Merican books, all sorts of books. Sometimes the worst ones give me the most inspiration. Sometimes one make my head asplode with applicability.

I agree. I play mostly D&D, and I pull from my vast collection of fantasy novels that I've read.

[SgtCarnage92]

Fantasy artwork. Either on Devian Tart or places like Elfwood. A lot of the imagery presented has inspired character ideas or ideas for locales, and thus an adventure surrounding them. Certain videogames have some decent adventure ideas. As far as literature goes, don't limit yourself to just fantasy lit for ideas. Other genres have inspired more than a few things. I had an adventure based off of a Sherlock Holmes adventure. (Hound of the Baskervilles, I was shocked when one of my players recognized it).

[eggs]

I have a cup of coffee and think really hard and write down whatever bullet-points come out.

But anything that ends up in campaign planning is typically just a deluge of brain crud accumulated from years of tasteless, ambitious and undiscriminating reading.

Though I suppose I draw more from horror fiction than anything - isolated environments, a claustrophobic presence of impending conflict, going just a bit too far when **** hits the fan - even when the subject matter itself doesn't have anything to do with the experience of the horror genre.

[Need_A_Life]

This is a reference for modern games. Fantasy games vary somewhat.

World of Darkness. Lots of fluff = Lots of material to rip off :smallwink:
TVTropes. Click "Random Page" a few times and ideas come a-running.
Adventures. Pre-made adventures typically have a lot of good ideas. I take those and leave it waiting by the telephone for my call. I'm heartless like that. :smallamused:
Theology. I study theology and there's a veritable s**tload of material there. People rarely recognize it for what it is, as those stories have been told thousands of times before with minor variations.
Books. I read a lot of books. I read a lot of old, obscure books. Very few of my players read the same books. I steal with impunity.
TV-series. Usually not for the plot itself, but for the pacing. Conflicts and obstacles need timing to make them interesting, rather than frustrating. I get that sense of timing from people who do it for a living.
Conspiracy theories. Not the theories themselves, gods no, but for the details. Say what you will, but these people tend to point out events that the rest of us don't worry about. Those details can be used for inspiration. Especially in an investigation-driven game.

[Eldan]

Science: I must admit, half of the time it is cracked articles that give me ideas for monsters, but I also read actual papers and articles.

Books: I read tons of books. For about a year now, I had an idea for a campaign vaguely based on China Mieville's Kraken. (A giant squid gets mysteriously stolen from a London museum with no trace and a biologist and the members of the London Police's Cultist Squad (forgot the exact name), namely a detective, a history professor and a young sorceress, have to find it before it potentially ends the world.) That book has so many weird ideas, especially for cults and philosophies, I've been ripping it off for Planescape for about a year now.

[TheThan]

I steal liberally from Saturday morning cartoons, as well as 80s tv.

[Ravens_cry]

Everything, too much so.
The trouble is getting them all into a coherent mass.

[Mikeavelli]

Old TSR Games:

I like 'Sandbox' style games that have a world and story set up, but otherwise allow the characters to solve the problem in whatever way they choose, whether that be arduous diplomacy and problem solving, or rampant murder. TSR was writing modules that did this with games like:

Dark Sun: Shattered Lands & Wake of the Ravager
Al-Qadim: The Genie's curse.
the 'Gold Box' series.

Which no-one if my group has ever played, so they can't call me out for stealing those adventures wholesale.

I have also, at various points in my DMing career, stolen the entire plot of the Quest for Glory series. It doesn't lend itself to a direct translation (too much railroading required) - but tweak a few things and you're golden. Unfortunately, my players have played those games, so it's not as easy to steal their settings.

When it comes times to create a dungeon, I've got a habit of grabbing the floorplan of a dungeon from an old RPG. Ultima Underworld, The Stygian Abyss, is actually a great one for this, and I've used just about every level of the Abyss as a dungeon.

Etc.

[Dr.Epic]

Oddly enough, for characters it's usually whatever anime I just recently watched.

[Dust]

I settle down with a cup of tea or cocoa and listen to music. Classic metal, mostly. Things like Rhapsody just bring ideas flooding in.