Thanks for all the enthusiasm, Daniel! As an old school gamer it was heartwarming to see one of my stories being used as inspiration here. Thank you for reading and I hope some of my other stories inspire future play.
Thanks so much for watching, I’ve been loving this Conan series and plan to read as much as I can find. Your storytelling is (not to repeat myself) inspirational!
Grim Jim Zub is the writer for the new Savage Sword series and also the writer for the dnd comics. His style makes me wanna live out the adventures in game too.
It is easy to find inspirations but you gave good advice on translating to useful material. I think one thing to keep in mind is that stories or movies are a closed plot, look to see how they cam be opened and offer alternate paths or outcomes, the pieces can stay but think how they can move more freely. Great food for thought as always!
I love this story, and this advice. I had run the game "Quest" and created an adventure similar to this based off of a story prompt in the book that said: "You come across a village of only children, with no adults in sight." From there, I created a feral society that worshiped a wild god, and once a month the adults transform into these wolfman type creature that hunt humans to sacrifice and eat. My adventure was a little more involved than that, but it sounds a wee bit similar to the Conan story, so I love this comic's story too! Thanks for this video!
Just discovered your channel maybe 3 or 4 days ago and I'm so glad I found it! Listening through your megadungeon series while driving for work. It's been very inspirational! Thank you!
What I love about this channel is that you're old, but your process and ideas are widely applicable to any generation and rule. Your advices don't sound like your average old-school D&D channel who cling on to old systems and fantasies they provide.
I've been following for awhile now and just realised your only at 17k subscribers. Man, I just assumed you were in the millions! Up with dnd shorts n bob world builder.. How do we pump this out! It's some of the best content available
@@bobhill9845 nah I been watching him since he was will from what culture, he's a good dude. Obviously very knowledgeable, he makes what sells. I'm not a fan of min maxing game breaking stuff so doesn't really interest me but I don't think that's the kind of attitude we try to foster in the community. Unless your saying it in fun with of course. His content is obviously popular. Ryokos guide looks imoressive and his monthly looks to have a lot of valuable content
I really enjoyed this video. Not only is a Sword & Sorcery-themed adventure it gave me a good review of the new Savage Sword of Conan. I recently went through the entire run of the original Savage Sword before I started my own "By the Sword" live play, OSE, game over on my own channel. The Savage Sword of Conan comic is a much better template for Sword & Sorcery D&D than the Conan novels. I had a thought on your adventure for how to get the players involved with the child and get a heads-up on the village. Have the party rescue the child from some threat like a wild animal or a natural hazard. This ingratiates the child to party and gives them a solid reason to help them. You could also leave them clue of previous people being buried alive to let them know something was up. As far as my own inspiration. I often strt with a catchy, "pulpy" name for an adventure and work my way from there. Some of the adventures I have written for my campaign are, "Beast of the Red River", "Isle of The Eye", the "The Devil in Ice", amd "the House of Skothos". Other times, I am inspired by a picture or, much as you were here, a story from a comic or even just a scene.
A lot of my inspiration comes from places I have visited or passed through for work. I've had the fortune to have seen much of the US and work (I'm an archaeologist) sends me to some desolate areas in the SW U.S. as well as the Great Basin. So, if I need to describe a location, I just flip through the Rolodex in my mind of places I've been and crib from that. For example, to and from work, I pass through a small canyon area full of agricultural land. On the hills above the road, I pass by this set of ruins. Probably some collapsed house but the concrete piles and pillars make it look ancient. Since I know that area like the back of my hand, I could quickly sketch out a map and whip up a quick and easy description.
I have been finding all of the appendix N content that I can find and listening to audio versions while doing housework and such. I have found it very useful for worldbuilding.
Usually I get more inspired by a concept than story specifics. As you were talking about the Conan story it made me think of a similar situation that could work in a game. The hook would be the same, but the details would be very different. Situations in stories are a good source of inspiration for all kinds of settings. Music usually only inspires me for more modern set games and stories.
Pretty much everything is inspiration for me. I threw together a one-shot for my kids just based on my day at the office once. Guess who I modeled the ogre on?
Great video Daniel, this is the kind of content that we need to see more of, generally speaking. Those of us who are "old" (to paraphrase the commenter above), need to share our techniques and tools that we've been using for a long time to add content from various sources to our games, regardless of what those games might be.
I find certain movie plots inspire me for the hook of sandbox. Equalizer 3 makes for a good starting scenario. In fact, I’d argue a lot action movie plots make for great main or side scenarios in a campaign setting. Same for heist movies.
So, im thinking, maybe the way to make it a random encounter is that during the night while theyre resting with the caravan, the ambush happens and they wake up in those shallow graves. But the strange thing is that aside from the bodies from the caravan, the strongbox, and maybe basic provisions (things directly usable by a small village like food and tools), everything, including most of their gear still remains. This would give them the option to engage with the adventure, or figure out how to deal with arriving in the destination town with most of the goods and no caravan, potentially opening up another adventure at that time
You're skating awfully close to my territory. ;) I have a presentation I was going to give at Origins a few years ago, but COVID wrecked that plan and I haven't had a chance, yet, to get back to it. Anyway, my presentation is about how to take an inspiring picture and turn it into a setting or adventure.
I recently watched an old b-movie that had bad acting, bad special effects, but a clever, semi-original plot. It took place in the time period it was made (mid-1990s) but was easily adaptable to a fantasy setting. I find many horror movies can work like this, and some can be scaled to a campaign level experience (for example, the Cenobites from the Hellraiser films lend themselves well). I derive a lot of inspiration from obscure films, and even some modern setting action/adventure films can be disguised to fit a fantasy world. Virtually any heist movie could be reworked but should have a flexible and adaptable DM in case the party decides it may be too difficult to pull off.
This is a great advice. People need to break out from the regular type adventure and embarace the weird and the horror in games. Old D&D aventures has this kind of approach.
I can usually rely on my players getting involved with whatever I put in front of them. I typically design a location based on a book or movie or series, change it a little to fit the setting and make it less obvious where it came from, and then see how the situation will develop. I sometimes pre-plan several different ways for things to unfold, but they are more like a guideline for me on what might happen rather than what I'm expecting will happen. One of the side adventures was lifted straight from Gummi Bears, with a castle that appeared every 100 years. I made it so that the castle is a haunted location and inhabitants are all ghosts, but don't know it. The players had great fun interacting with people centuries removed from their time. Everyone got sad when dawn came and they all dissipated into the morning mist.
Lately I've been trying to get into Appendix N stories like the Dying Earth and Three Hearts and Three Lions so that I can make a setting that is somewhat close to the implied setting of B/X. I also like seeing how details from those books were interpreted by Gygax and Arneson and then later turned into gameable mechanics and using that as inspiration for how to do it myself.
This is an excellent video! What I've been trying reecntly is to break the story down into its most "juicy" elements - a few words each that describe the main appeal of the element. I then see which of those elements are interconnected and can then combine them in various ways, or with existing locations in the world. It's basically an expanded version of the "How to brainstorm for D&D" video by GFC DND, but taking into account existing sources of inspiration!
This is where the most appropriate hook is probably the ol’ reliable rumors or notes, and if things dont go as planned you can rewrite them and recycle the event for a different time
Good Video and reminded me to order from MidTown! I slightly disagree on the setup though... and again this depends on your group. but I see no reason why you can't start the story with them buried under rock... simply turn to one of the characters and ask them what was happening just prior to that.... determine why there were there...side benefit... this also gives you another plot. you could even have the child show up to help them out... here is your in to the village especially if any of the characters are hurt (give them a save to start the adventure) this would work fine for any group that is used to Pulp Adventure.
I’d do that in a one shot, but reducing a group to low HP and taking all their stuff is just not something I’d do. But as you say, different tables play differently.
it might be that i am just inexperienced, but i don't come up with things where my players have to put the clues together to figure out what to do. they do that without me forcing it. i just come up with NPCs who act on their motivations, the PCs intervene or don't, and then the NPCs proceed or adjust accordingly.
Hello there, Daniel. I am also very hyped by the regular Conan the Barbarian series, by Titan Comics. Take a look! Also, I've just released an adaptation of "The Tower of the Elephant" as a RPG adventure, compatible with Old-School Essentials. Can I send you the PDF? Thank you!
@@BanditsKeep Oh hell yea. Maybe we'll be able to high five at Compleat Strategist or Twenty Sides Store if we are shopping at the same time. Stay awesome, dude.
This is something that have been bugging me. Most adventures needs powerful creatures, makes, gods and powers. Very few adventures are built around people with people's motivation and strength. Very few adventures are built without a lot of combats. It's too much about traveling and killing monsters. With some luck will be some instigating fantastic idea or concept, usually some horror element. But that's pretty much all the same problem.
In my campaign the vast majority of situations are just conflicts with people - either social, political, or occasionally with violence. That being said - I love a good monster of the week type adventure. Both in my long running campaigns and one shots.
My first game shop own was named .. George. So any time an ogre or giant captures a PC, .. well it was an old joke. Grade school age back in the 1980's, and children have limited read skills, but we really wanted to learn how to play D&D. So the teenagers taught us to roll 3d6, roll under. And used comic books as story board plot actions such as Star Wars and Batman comics. Superman was just too over powered. Other than children nit picking over the lack of written information and Lack of Rules .. Children argument, I can, no you can't, that is not how it works, says you. He cheating at dice again ! Devolves into plastic baseball bat fights.
Thanks for all the enthusiasm, Daniel! As an old school gamer it was heartwarming to see one of my stories being used as inspiration here. Thank you for reading and I hope some of my other stories inspire future play.
Thanks so much for watching, I’ve been loving this Conan series and plan to read as much as I can find. Your storytelling is (not to repeat myself) inspirational!
Grim Jim Zub is the writer for the new Savage Sword series and also the writer for the dnd comics. His style makes me wanna live out the adventures in game too.
Yes!
This is RPG university compared to the other D&D channels! Cheers mate!
Thank You!
It is easy to find inspirations but you gave good advice on translating to useful material. I think one thing to keep in mind is that stories or movies are a closed plot, look to see how they cam be opened and offer alternate paths or outcomes, the pieces can stay but think how they can move more freely. Great food for thought as always!
Agreed.
I find that story beats are better for us DMs to create than stories.
For sure
I love this story, and this advice. I had run the game "Quest" and created an adventure similar to this based off of a story prompt in the book that said: "You come across a village of only children, with no adults in sight." From there, I created a feral society that worshiped a wild god, and once a month the adults transform into these wolfman type creature that hunt humans to sacrifice and eat.
My adventure was a little more involved than that, but it sounds a wee bit similar to the Conan story, so I love this comic's story too! Thanks for this video!
That sounds very cool
Thank you Daniel! Your channel is such a goldmine and inspiration! You continously give great advice and insight!! A true treasure for us B/X heads!!
He’s the reason why I’m into OSR and play OSE.
I appreciate that!
Just discovered your channel maybe 3 or 4 days ago and I'm so glad I found it! Listening through your megadungeon series while driving for work. It's been very inspirational! Thank you!
Awesome, welcome!
I enjoy all of Bandit’s Keep videos
Thank You!
What I love about this channel is that you're old, but your process and ideas are widely applicable to any generation and rule.
Your advices don't sound like your average old-school D&D channel who cling on to old systems and fantasies they provide.
'you're old' 👴
Thank You!
Daniel is a old school player and DM. He is not an old person. Fer fuk's sake.
I've been following for awhile now and just realised your only at 17k subscribers. Man, I just assumed you were in the millions! Up with dnd shorts n bob world builder.. How do we pump this out! It's some of the best content available
Thanks, I appreciate the support. I imagine sharing the video would help if you can.
DND shorts is just lowest common denominator slop
@@bobhill9845 nah I been watching him since he was will from what culture, he's a good dude. Obviously very knowledgeable, he makes what sells. I'm not a fan of min maxing game breaking stuff so doesn't really interest me but I don't think that's the kind of attitude we try to foster in the community. Unless your saying it in fun with of course. His content is obviously popular. Ryokos guide looks imoressive and his monthly looks to have a lot of valuable content
I really enjoyed this video. Not only is a Sword & Sorcery-themed adventure it gave me a good review of the new Savage Sword of Conan.
I recently went through the entire run of the original Savage Sword before I started my own "By the Sword" live play, OSE, game over on my own channel. The Savage Sword of Conan comic is a much better template for Sword & Sorcery D&D than the Conan novels.
I had a thought on your adventure for how to get the players involved with the child and get a heads-up on the village. Have the party rescue the child from some threat like a wild animal or a natural hazard. This ingratiates the child to party and gives them a solid reason to help them. You could also leave them clue of previous people being buried alive to let them know something was up.
As far as my own inspiration. I often strt with a catchy, "pulpy" name for an adventure and work my way from there. Some of the adventures I have written for my campaign are, "Beast of the Red River", "Isle of The Eye", the "The Devil in Ice", amd "the House of Skothos". Other times, I am inspired by a picture or, much as you were here, a story from a comic or even just a scene.
Nice! I like the start with a name approach
This is a great rundown for the process of transforming narrative source material into an adventure. Great as always!
Thank You!
A lot of my inspiration comes from places I have visited or passed through for work. I've had the fortune to have seen much of the US and work (I'm an archaeologist) sends me to some desolate areas in the SW U.S. as well as the Great Basin. So, if I need to describe a location, I just flip through the Rolodex in my mind of places I've been and crib from that.
For example, to and from work, I pass through a small canyon area full of agricultural land. On the hills above the road, I pass by this set of ruins. Probably some collapsed house but the concrete piles and pillars make it look ancient. Since I know that area like the back of my hand, I could quickly sketch out a map and whip up a quick and easy description.
I have been finding all of the appendix N content that I can find and listening to audio versions while doing housework and such. I have found it very useful for worldbuilding.
Nice
Usually I get more inspired by a concept than story specifics. As you were talking about the Conan story it made me think of a similar situation that could work in a game. The hook would be the same, but the details would be very different. Situations in stories are a good source of inspiration for all kinds of settings. Music usually only inspires me for more modern set games and stories.
For sure
Pretty much everything is inspiration for me. I threw together a one-shot for my kids just based on my day at the office once. Guess who I modeled the ogre on?
Nice!
Same. I’m forever DM so my mind is constantly monitoring for inspirations. Just happens.
Great video Daniel, this is the kind of content that we need to see more of, generally speaking. Those of us who are "old" (to paraphrase the commenter above), need to share our techniques and tools that we've been using for a long time to add content from various sources to our games, regardless of what those games might be.
For sure
Hey thanks! I absolutely love the relevance and general game master knowledge I can get around these parts
Thanks!
Awesome! I've been doing this very thing using folklore/folk tales
Great!
This is extremely cool. Great source of inspiration. I will steal this and change it for a mushroom cave and underdark dwellers
Nice!
So many Conan stories are excellent D&D adventures. There's good historical reason for this. My favorite is The Tower of the Elephant.
For sure
I find certain movie plots inspire me for the hook of sandbox. Equalizer 3 makes for a good starting scenario. In fact, I’d argue a lot action movie plots make for great main or side scenarios in a campaign setting. Same for heist movies.
I agree
So, im thinking, maybe the way to make it a random encounter is that during the night while theyre resting with the caravan, the ambush happens and they wake up in those shallow graves. But the strange thing is that aside from the bodies from the caravan, the strongbox, and maybe basic provisions (things directly usable by a small village like food and tools), everything, including most of their gear still remains. This would give them the option to engage with the adventure, or figure out how to deal with arriving in the destination town with most of the goods and no caravan, potentially opening up another adventure at that time
OH THAT CONAN COMIC IS SO SWEET!!
Yes!!
You're skating awfully close to my territory. ;) I have a presentation I was going to give at Origins a few years ago, but COVID wrecked that plan and I haven't had a chance, yet, to get back to it. Anyway, my presentation is about how to take an inspiring picture and turn it into a setting or adventure.
Sounds cool, hopefully you’ll get a chance to present it soon
I recently watched an old b-movie that had bad acting, bad special effects, but a clever, semi-original plot. It took place in the time period it was made (mid-1990s) but was easily adaptable to a fantasy setting. I find many horror movies can work like this, and some can be scaled to a campaign level experience (for example, the Cenobites from the Hellraiser films lend themselves well). I derive a lot of inspiration from obscure films, and even some modern setting action/adventure films can be disguised to fit a fantasy world. Virtually any heist movie could be reworked but should have a flexible and adaptable DM in case the party decides it may be too difficult to pull off.
This is a great advice. People need to break out from the regular type adventure and embarace the weird and the horror in games. Old D&D aventures has this kind of approach.
For sure
Next issue of Savage Sword will have Cary Nord as artist!!!! Could not be more exited.
What!! I didn’t realize that. So stoked
I can usually rely on my players getting involved with whatever I put in front of them. I typically design a location based on a book or movie or series, change it a little to fit the setting and make it less obvious where it came from, and then see how the situation will develop. I sometimes pre-plan several different ways for things to unfold, but they are more like a guideline for me on what might happen rather than what I'm expecting will happen.
One of the side adventures was lifted straight from Gummi Bears, with a castle that appeared every 100 years. I made it so that the castle is a haunted location and inhabitants are all ghosts, but don't know it. The players had great fun interacting with people centuries removed from their time. Everyone got sad when dawn came and they all dissipated into the morning mist.
That’s awesome - I could even see um having a long lived NPC - perhaps an elf - remember the castle and the ghosts from before
Most adventures a friend of mine used to run where based on the original smurf comics. We never knew:)
Lately I've been trying to get into Appendix N stories like the Dying Earth and Three Hearts and Three Lions so that I can make a setting that is somewhat close to the implied setting of B/X. I also like seeing how details from those books were interpreted by Gygax and Arneson and then later turned into gameable mechanics and using that as inspiration for how to do it myself.
For sure
I read that "SSoC" issue too and enjoyed it. I also thought it could form the basis of a decent fantasy RPG session.
This is an excellent video! What I've been trying reecntly is to break the story down into its most "juicy" elements - a few words each that describe the main appeal of the element. I then see which of those elements are interconnected and can then combine them in various ways, or with existing locations in the world. It's basically an expanded version of the "How to brainstorm for D&D" video by GFC DND, but taking into account existing sources of inspiration!
Cool
Another great video as always!
Thank You!
Painful to have to skip a new video, but just until I read SS #2 !
Definitely read it first, great story
Great advice! I just went through this process today, when I converted “The Oregon Trail” into a one-shot!
Nice! The video game or is there a book?
another stellar video topic and execution, thanks for the valuable tips and experience
Thank You!
This is where the most appropriate hook is probably the ol’ reliable rumors or notes, and if things dont go as planned you can rewrite them and recycle the event for a different time
Indeed
Good Video and reminded me to order from MidTown!
I slightly disagree on the setup though... and again this depends on your group.
but I see no reason why you can't start the story with them buried under rock... simply turn to one of the characters and ask them what was happening just prior to that.... determine why there were there...side benefit... this also gives you another plot.
you could even have the child show up to help them out... here is your in to the village especially if any of the characters are hurt (give them a save to start the adventure)
this would work fine for any group that is used to Pulp Adventure.
I’d do that in a one shot, but reducing a group to low HP and taking all their stuff is just not something I’d do. But as you say, different tables play differently.
The Eye of Argon is just begging for this treatment.😂
Indeed
Sound advice. I like the way you think.
Thank You!
Another great video.
Thank You!
Another good video.
Thank You!
it might be that i am just inexperienced, but i don't come up with things where my players have to put the clues together to figure out what to do. they do that without me forcing it. i just come up with NPCs who act on their motivations, the PCs intervene or don't, and then the NPCs proceed or adjust accordingly.
That sounds right to me
Hello there, Daniel. I am also very hyped by the regular Conan the Barbarian series, by Titan Comics. Take a look! Also, I've just released an adaptation of "The Tower of the Elephant" as a RPG adventure, compatible with Old-School Essentials. Can I send you the PDF? Thank you!
That’s awesome, sure I’d love to take a look
At first glance I thought it was another Barsoom thumbnail, and now Ive disappointed myself that it isnt :(
Not this time, I wonder if anyone is currently doing any Barsoom comics
Midtown comics? In Manhattan? Are you a fellow Noo Yawkah?
Yes!
@@BanditsKeep Oh hell yea. Maybe we'll be able to high five at Compleat Strategist or Twenty Sides Store if we are shopping at the same time. Stay awesome, dude.
This is something that have been bugging me. Most adventures needs powerful creatures, makes, gods and powers. Very few adventures are built around people with people's motivation and strength. Very few adventures are built without a lot of combats. It's too much about traveling and killing monsters. With some luck will be some instigating fantastic idea or concept, usually some horror element. But that's pretty much all the same problem.
In my campaign the vast majority of situations are just conflicts with people - either social, political, or occasionally with violence. That being said - I love a good monster of the week type adventure. Both in my long running campaigns and one shots.
My first game shop own was named .. George.
So any time an ogre or giant captures a PC, .. well it was an old joke.
Grade school age back in the 1980's, and children have limited read skills, but we really wanted to learn how to play D&D.
So the teenagers taught us to roll 3d6, roll under.
And used comic books as story board plot actions such as Star Wars and Batman comics.
Superman was just too over powered.
Other than children nit picking over the lack of written information and Lack of Rules ..
Children argument, I can, no you can't, that is not how it works, says you. He cheating at dice again !
Devolves into plastic baseball bat fights.
Sounds fun!