Comments on: Kicking Things Off: Campaign Openers

By: John Lewis

John Lewis — Thu, 28 May 2015 06:20:21 +0000

Thanks for the compliment Sam.

A big part of my technique is to not connect my “crafted ideas” to any specific campaign elements. Instead I use things that come up in play to connect prepared stuff to on-the-fly stuff as seamlessly as possible. A lot of the time I use the players’ own ideas to fill in the gaps; less work for me and it rewards the players for correctly “figuring out” my interesting plot lines!
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By: Samuel Van Der Wall

Samuel Van Der Wall — Wed, 27 May 2015 09:15:12 +0000

I can definitely testify to John’s “on the fly” abilities. Also, he does a great job at masking to his players what things are prepared versus on the fly. We often can’t tell which elements of the game were ones that were carefully crafted versus ones that he thought of literally moments before. I think that is one part of what makes him a great GM, being able to seemlessly blend what is prepared with what is on the fly.
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By: Vincent Frey

Vincent Frey — Tue, 26 May 2015 23:59:09 +0000

Great stuff as usual, John! I could definitely get some use out of these and look forward to the next post.

By: John Lewis

John Lewis — Tue, 26 May 2015 02:00:04 +0000

@Aeternal;

Well, four of those openers were basically ones I’ve used in the past. Two of those were made up on the fly without really much preperation. The other examples I threw together at about 3:30 a.m. while finishing the article.

I guess my “inspiration” comes from 30+ years of gamemastering and a strong love of story-telling. My creative process is all about focusing on “interesting” elements. Things that make the players ask questions and want to interact with the world. Truth be told, I create a lot of questions ahead of time but no answers. Answers are discovered along the way (although my player usually think otherwise).

To answer your question regarding the time and effort I put into this article. I normally like to be a week or two ahead in writing but my life is crazy right now. This article was written on my lunch break at work from 3:00 to 3:30 a.m. (I work the graveyard shift). I usually give an article a lot of thought first then sit down and knock it out in an hour or two. But truthfully, this article was literally just something I put together after a conversation with a coworker about how much I loved the opening “musical” sequence to Guardians of the Galaxy (it really sets the tone of the movie).

I was thinking of expanding the article with another 10 or 20 openers, maybe fleshed out a little more. Is there a demand for that? Is that something you guys would find useful?
John Lewis recently posted…Can YOU Make Money By Roleplaying? – Ways to Make Money Roleplaying

By: Aeternal

Aeternal — Mon, 25 May 2015 23:30:39 +0000

So… John, been following all your blog postings via email and I had a question… how long did it take for you to come up with those examples… where did some of them come from, I am not implying you lifted them, on the contrary I really liked them… I tend to have simple ideas, like ones from a published D&D module… while those ideas you have aren’t complex, they are creative… I don’t think I could have thought up some of them on my own unless I was having a good day doing so. Does it come from a goal to ‘write’ or did you have some background on creative writing… how do you sit down and how long does it take to type out things like that… specifically this blog posting. Thanks in Advance!