The Stuffer Shack Press book Truly Terrifying Vampires is full of a lot of really interesting ways of creating horrific monsters – completely unlike the overused tropes of today. One refreshing way it achieves this is be making their behaviour, their origin story, and even their appearance and mannerisms unsettling, disturbing, and creepy, NOT by simply giving them cool new abilities or super-destructive powers.
Throwing out all the usual fantasy roleplaying setting races, choosing completely different races, and then exploring what different cultures and adventure scenarios evolve from it…
You’re GMing when you’re struck with an awesome idea for a new setting or campaign. This is so cool you simply can’t wait for the current campaign to end. Instead, you throw the player characters into this new reality. I call such sudden shifts Everything You Know Is Wrong (EYKIW), wherein everything both players’ and characters’ assumed about the universe and how it functions is [Read the article]
As I was reviewing the 2012 SOTY finalists I had an idea for an article about using contests in roleplaying. As usual when my brain presents me with an idea, it was at an inopportune time. I quickly noted the idea, shot off a query to Tourq to see if he liked it and then… promptly forgot about it! Never fear dear reader, your host [Read the article]
Often when we name a place in a campaign setting, we pick something that “sounds cool,” whether cool is an evocative name like “Dark Skull Peak” or just a combination of sounds that sounds neat. While this will usually work fine, if you’re trying to make a given fantasy culture feel exotic or foreign, it helps to make the names of things match both the [Read the article]
I’ve been steadily expanding my campaign setting “The Isles” for years. Most recently, I’ve been filling in basic descriptions of places which were nothing more than names on a map. Here’s a technique I’ve developed for generating ideas (when I don’t already have an idea in mind) for a particular settlement. I look at the place on my map and think about the local geography. [Read the article]
The big game is coming up and you need a different adventure for your group of experienced players. Everyone has played through the usual stuff millions of times and it’s time for something fresh and new. You sit down to write… and nothing comes to mind. You’re drawing a blank, unable to even come up with a basic plot line to build upon. Don’t worry, [Read the article]
Welcome Worldbuilder! I’m told that you want to make your monsters stand out from those of other crafters, that you want your fell creatures to still be known for what they are, yet also distinctive and refreshingly new. You also want them to be challenging and full of surprises for those who’ve studied them from other realms, yes? You have set a large task for [Read the article]