Random posts from a writer who loves cats and coffee. An American Democratic woman with chronic illness (respiratory) who lives to read, write, and binge watch Netflix or Hulu. Married to a hot foodie who plays lots of video games. I'm not just a broken human, I'm also uniquely maladjusted but fun!
My theme is a month of prompts and ideas for tabletop role-playing games or prompts for fantasy writers.
Battle Grandma
Use whatever base campaign you like. But all the adventurers are grandmothers. (Not modern-day ones. The classic stereotype of old women.) The weapons aren't swords and arrows. Instead, you have knitting needles, an army of cats, slippers, frying pans, etc. Also, players start with much higher stats, because they have life experience. Dexterity might take a hit from arthritis. Prune juice might give a boost to constitution.
Maybe a dragon doesn't need to be slain... perhaps it just needs a scarf and booties.
My theme is a month of prompts and ideas for tabletop role-playing games or prompts for fantasy writers.
The Family Campaign
The island of Cammaniot was once relatively peaceful. Then one large family, the Thorors, decided they wanted to rule everyone. First, they divided the other families and friends, turning them against each other. They offered to help groups attack each other. Once numbers were depleted, they attacked. This continued until the Thorors were the ruling group.
Centuries later, the Thorors still rule, but are locked to the evil alignment. The balance must be restored or it will trigger an apocalypse, one that evil will win. The party is tasked with uniting the smaller groups and families to rise up together to defeat the Thorors Family before they destroy the world.
Will one member of your party be from the Thorors family? Will they really want to take down their evil family, or are they a double agent?
My theme is a month of prompts and ideas for tabletop role-playing games or prompts for fantasy writers.
Endearing Hearts Campaign
Players write up a blurb about a living loved one of their characters. (Spouse, sibling, parent, pet, etc. Whoever the character would be closest to.) The game begins with all players visiting the local medicine person or healer. Their loved ones are not merely sick, they have corrupted souls!
Journey together through dangerous and barely-charted lands to find the soul healer. But be warned, for this world has one soul healer and one soul corrupter, and no one knows which is which. Killing one kills the other, and would not only kill the players loved ones but make them unable to move on.
Failure to get to the soul healer in time triggers a zombie apocalypse where the loved ones (and all other zombies, which is anyone who died since the campaign began) must be killed before a new soul healer and soul corrupter can exist.
(Where do they come from? Perhaps birth. Perhaps certain high priests or mages. Maybe one or two party members might get the power, and learn that even they don't know if they are a healer or corrupter, as the role switches based on a currently unknown variable.)
This can be a short campaign or a very long one, depending on how you run it.
(This is not an A to Z post. Please scroll for those. Thanks.)
Some of the theories about the current pandemic. Are they crazy? Worse, are they true?
The Earth Theory:
Not taking climate change seriously enough? You aren't the only species living here, but you are the one causing the problem. So the Earth is getting rid of a bunch of you to save itself.
See movie: The Happening
The X-men / Heroes Theory:
Evolution has caused some people to evolve with superpowers. There's a way to prevent it, but only if the entire population is inoculated. There are already people who won't take the vaccine for polio and whatever. So a new threat was needed, one that would come with a global pandemic so laws could be passed requiring every healthy person to get the vaccine, and to do so with minimal resistance.
See TV show: Heroes
Zombie Theory:
A government was testing a virus. Because that government owes China way more money than it can pay, they opted to secretly test there. But it mutated and got out. And now it has spread across the globe. Naturally, that government will never admit to what it did. I mean, come on, you've got people being violent against anyone who likes like they might have ancestors from any part of the entire Asian continent. The person may be smart, but people are freaking stupid.
See movie: Outbreak
Time Travel Theory:
Why hasn't a time traveler come to stop this? Because time travel isn't possible? Or because a time traveler actually started this?
Robot Theory:
A company has created AI robots who can do all the jobs people do. Except people do the jobs. People not doing the jobs is called unemployment, and a high rate of that costs politicians elections. However, if there were a reason that people couldn't do jobs, if they had to stay home, then the robots could take over. The governments would give lots of their money to this company for these robots. So much so that the company would become the world's largest economy. And the robots could end wealth inequality. Robots can't allow people to suffer, therefore they can't allow poverty, starvation, homelessness. They'd have to make sure everyone had enough. They also couldn't allow wars. Some versions of this result in the robots killing all the humans.
See movies: Wall-eI, Robot
Why am I writing about this?
🐇 Plot bunnies for stories. Does anyone want to read these stories right now? Probably not. I don't. But these things are in my head (and on the Internet, because no sooner do I think it than I see someone else mentioning it).
My theme is a month of prompts and ideas for tabletop role-playing games or prompts for fantasy writers.
This is the last post of the BB&B campaign. Next week will be something else. So here are a few bonus prompts or ways things can go:
Different ideas.
The "Beyond" section might be a time portal. 🦖 There could be dinosaurs through those doors! It could be a journey to 💣 the Civil War times. 🌇 Maybe it's a dystopian future.
Perhaps it's a portal to another place. An alien space ship? 🛸 Maybe it's a ship out at sea. 🚢 It could be a desert landscape. 🏜 It's the island from LOST! 🏝 Or perhaps it's Antarctica.❆
Players could just be humans. Race could mean something else. There could be an "east side / west side" division. Age could also be a separator, such as teens, senior citizens, twenty-somethings, thirty and forties, and the fifty to senior set.
It could be a different kind of store. Or start online and players get transported somehow. Or perhaps the entire thing is online but players cannot log off until the game ends for some reason.
Consider the skills that were assigned to the classes. There should be challenges that require those to be used. Maybe the "beyond" section is an escape room that the players didn't know they were signed up to do.
Or maybe the government has created this "beyond" room as a way to test for humanity. They suspect there are aliens, robots, angels, elves, etc among us. This is a way to prove they're right, or wrong.
For a really odd game...
Supermarket Sweep (Yes, that episode has someone named Jamie. No, it isn't me.)
The players need to find certain items in the store, based on clues, to defeat the monsters.
Or, print out pictures of a few items from the store site. Keep the prices on a list for yourself. Drop all the pictures on the table. Players have to get between $100 to $120 in items, without being over or under. The reward is a special item or XP.
There are a lot of ways to make this work. It's a different kind of campaign for people who want to mix things up.
Please come back next week for the Endearing Hearts campaign.
My theme is a month of prompts and ideas for tabletop role-playing games or prompts for fantasy writers.
The characters have been created. The setting is in place. It's an object quest.
It is just an object quest, right?
The doors seal shut. The other customers and employees vanish. The lights turn dark purple. All communication is cut off. The windows are boarded up.
What's that sound? 👾
What the players need now isn't that object, it's something to protect themselves. Will they work together now? Try to feed each other to the monsters?
Everyone is trapped in the mythical "beyond" section. There are traps, monsters, whatever your imagination desires. The players only have what was declared at the start of the game, plus their cart (or whatever) items. Those are your weapons, armor, magic staffs, provisions, and mounts.
If a player takes an item out of their cart (or whatever) and allows it out of their sight or arm's length, it vanishes. Unattended shopping carts/ baskets vanish after five minutes. 🛒 Other players can take items from an unattended cart/ basket. Or another player could volunteer to watch a cart/ basket so it doesn't become unattended.
No one can leave the "beyond" section, except for the "retail workers." They can sneak off to the backroom. Once there, they can trade any one item from their cart for something in the backroom. (Fitting in a shopping cart is not a requirement for a "retail worker." So, hypothetically, they could trade a bath towel for a forklift.)
No one can return to the store selling floor without their sought object. Once out of the "beyond" section, everything on the main selling floor is in play. (Grab all the shower curtains for a net. Rip out the light fixtures to use as swords. Crank relaxing music on the sleep therapy machines.)
The "boss" will be in the store. Defeat the boss, scan the object, pay, get out. Can only one player win? Will the scanners work? Will any players who aren't "retail workers" know how to operate that scanner? (Thank goodness for self-checkout?) There is no communication with the outside world, so credit cards and phone payment isn't available. It's cash only! Which players had the foresight to list cash on their character sheet? Will it be enough money?
Getting outside means the players are no longer customers.
My theme is a month of prompts and ideas for tabletop role-playing games or prompts for fantasy writers.
Yesterday I mentioned that my posts this month will have inspiration for various campaigns (or story ideas). The first one is the creation of an Urban Fantasy, what I named the "BB&B" campaign. Today you'll find out why.
But first, I promised there would be one more category for the character sheet. Will you let your players pick these (good), have them drawn out of a hat (neutral), or make them discover the truth through the game (evil)? Does that give you a hint as to what we're about to do? That's right, it's the players...
ALIGNMENT:
Lawful good - Here to purchase items on their list.
Neutral good - Regular customer. Has some items on a list, will check out the sales, and will also end up buying a bunch of other stuff.
Chaotic good - Came for the sales and bargains.
Lawful neutral - Comparison shopper here to consider making a purchase, maybe.
Neutral - Has never been to this store before.
Chaotic neutral - Here to browse, mosey around, kill time, or get in their daily steps.
Lawful evil - Here intending to steal items.
Neutral evil - Here to complain to customer service, intent on getting a refund. Might not have a receipt, might be an item that can't be returned, or maybe they're mad about something the can't control so they're here to fight over 99 cents because that's something they can do.
Chaotic evil - Here intending to wreck the place.
So where is "here"?
Click movie trailer
That's right. This Urban Fantasy campaign, set in 2020, takes place in a
Each player may put up to ten items in their basket, cart, or arms. (Or hiding spots on their person, for those lawful evil characters.) Then get the bonus items (see "A" post for details).
Attention shoppers! There's a special item here today.
Is it worth a million dollars? Is it a one of kind prototype? Maybe it's a magic lamp?
Each character believes they MUST have this object.
(It can be one item for each character, based on their desires. Or it can be a single item and the players have to fight each other.)
"Where is it?" the players ask the customer service clerk.
Past the bathrooms are a set of blue double doors. Just go in there and ask for WarLeo. Take your cart (or whatever) with you.
A white rabbit appears and the player is temporarily hypnotized in place.
Once all players are in place, the "beyond" section, the rabbit vanishes and the fun begins.
Tune in tomorrow for the next set of ideas for the BB&B campaign.
