“I’ll wait for the muse to strike.” Exactly!!! Last session that I ran, I postponed the start by 1.5 hours and furiously rewrote 3 major rooms…and it was totally worth it! And I explained the delay exactly that way, “When the muse strikes, she strikes.” Thanks for all you do!
As I've said before, you, sir, are a gentleman and scholar. Very, very cool of you to not only grab a shirt but also to do a shoutout. Fun coincidence there, or a case of great minds stinking alike, I gave you a little plug in last weekend's Collectibles News episode as well. This was a really interesting episode too. I work in a similar fashion with my writing. I jump around as the inspiration strikes.
I was curious about this, since your writing is so concise yet gives so much for the DM to run with. One my favorites is the crew of the Sea Genie in P1, every member gets barely a sentence but you get a great feel of what kind of people that crew is composed off and the freedom to have your own interpretations. Keep up the good work.
I've written modules for the RPGA, groups to run, etc. but I've always found them restrictive. My best writing is actually for home campaigns. In such cases, I think over an overall 'plot' only in terms of what the bad guy is doing and how the world around them is reacting to it. I then come up with a starting event to get the players in the setting and the first adventure or two. After that, I wait to see where it goes and then fill-in the background. I still write each 'module' in terms of what they will be doing for the next week. Funny thing is, after running 40+ sessions, I'll have a campaign all written out. I can then go back to it, combine them, remove PC specific things, flesh out points the players were interested in or worked out well, limit or cut-out those which didn't, etc. In the end, I have a 'play tested' campaign which I can run for other groups. Writing full modules or campaigns without seeing them DM'ed is hard. TBH, most WotC campaigns are so generic and childish that I never really play or DM them.
Good episode! It's interesting, you are an "inspired by cosmic emanations" creator. Also newt that you draw the basic picture and then decide how you want to get weird with it. So planned, yet room is left for whim to take over.
Do you think you'll ever do a show on 1st edition Psionics? I've been playing since the early 80s and I'm still fuzzy on how it works. It came up in game recently and I just had to be honest and said "I have no idea how Gary wanted 1st edition Psionics to work." lol
Speaking in "Gygaxian Wierdness," there has been quite the Kurfufal on Twitter about the Mythic Underworld. Do you think that adventuring underground is a type of travel to "hell" or more naturalistic weirdness?
For my two cents: I think there's room for both the mundane "Dungeon" and the more eldritch "Underworld" in any given campaign, although I personally prefer to call them "Labyrinths", as I think underworld is better used to describe the lower planes. For example, the Caves of Chaos are a mundane dungeon while Castle Greyhawk is a eldritch labyrinth, and they both exist within the same world.
What really triggered me was your time travel idea. I am thinking about this for years. In my mind, I have the idea of letting my players travel back in time to the era of Vecna and Kas from the village of Saltmarsh, because the entire world of Oerth is taken over Dagon. The players have to prevent that from happening in the past, where Saltmarsh was a town of evil Flan, who worshiped Dagon and managed to imprison two sirene princesses for eternity to have always plenty of food from the sea and also to please Dagon. Or go even further back to an Oerth early bronze age culture. The players have no friends there and are completely on their own, with the thread that their future Oerth is lost forever, but they might find new friends and learn long forgotten spells or find strange magic items. I hope you find time and inspiration to write sonething about time travel on Oerth; would be fantastic.
“I’ll wait for the muse to strike.” Exactly!!! Last session that I ran, I postponed the start by 1.5 hours and furiously rewrote 3 major rooms…and it was totally worth it!
And I explained the delay exactly that way, “When the muse strikes, she strikes.”
Thanks for all you do!
I enjoy all of Greyhawk Grognard videos 🎉🎉
As I've said before, you, sir, are a gentleman and scholar. Very, very cool of you to not only grab a shirt but also to do a shoutout. Fun coincidence there, or a case of great minds stinking alike, I gave you a little plug in last weekend's Collectibles News episode as well.
This was a really interesting episode too. I work in a similar fashion with my writing. I jump around as the inspiration strikes.
Very happy to help your channel, my friend! Keep up the great work.
I was curious about this, since your writing is so concise yet gives so much for the DM to run with. One my favorites is the crew of the Sea Genie in P1, every member gets barely a sentence but you get a great feel of what kind of people that crew is composed off and the freedom to have your own interpretations. Keep up the good work.
I've written modules for the RPGA, groups to run, etc. but I've always found them restrictive. My best writing is actually for home campaigns. In such cases, I think over an overall 'plot' only in terms of what the bad guy is doing and how the world around them is reacting to it. I then come up with a starting event to get the players in the setting and the first adventure or two. After that, I wait to see where it goes and then fill-in the background. I still write each 'module' in terms of what they will be doing for the next week. Funny thing is, after running 40+ sessions, I'll have a campaign all written out. I can then go back to it, combine them, remove PC specific things, flesh out points the players were interested in or worked out well, limit or cut-out those which didn't, etc. In the end, I have a 'play tested' campaign which I can run for other groups.
Writing full modules or campaigns without seeing them DM'ed is hard. TBH, most WotC campaigns are so generic and childish that I never really play or DM them.
Thanks for this. Wisdom of the ages! 👍👍👍
So, what’s the status of T6?? 😜😂
Good episode! It's interesting, you are an "inspired by cosmic emanations" creator. Also newt that you draw the basic picture and then decide how you want to get weird with it. So planned, yet room is left for whim to take over.
Do you think you'll ever do a show on 1st edition Psionics? I've been playing since the early 80s and I'm still fuzzy on how it works. It came up in game recently and I just had to be honest and said "I have no idea how Gary wanted 1st edition Psionics to work." lol
I'll add it to the list. :-)
I would love to understand the 1st edition Psionics too… if it can be easily employed, my players may go with it too.
The Zanti Misfits shirt is awesome! Also great vid on the process!
Speaking in "Gygaxian Wierdness," there has been quite the Kurfufal on Twitter about the Mythic Underworld. Do you think that adventuring underground is a type of travel to "hell" or more naturalistic weirdness?
That is a highly subjective question. It really comes down to taste of how a DM runs their setting.
For my two cents: I think there's room for both the mundane "Dungeon" and the more eldritch "Underworld" in any given campaign, although I personally prefer to call them "Labyrinths", as I think underworld is better used to describe the lower planes. For example, the Caves of Chaos are a mundane dungeon while Castle Greyhawk is a eldritch labyrinth, and they both exist within the same world.
🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉
What really triggered me was your time travel idea. I am thinking about this for years. In my mind, I have the idea of letting my players travel back in time to the era of Vecna and Kas from the village of Saltmarsh, because the entire world of Oerth is taken over Dagon. The players have to prevent that from happening in the past, where Saltmarsh was a town of evil Flan, who worshiped Dagon and managed to imprison two sirene princesses for eternity to have always plenty of food from the sea and also to please Dagon. Or go even further back to an Oerth early bronze age culture. The players have no friends there and are completely on their own, with the thread that their future Oerth is lost forever, but they might find new friends and learn long forgotten spells or find strange magic items. I hope you find time and inspiration to write sonething about time travel on Oerth; would be fantastic.