This is the first of what will probably be a slew of ideas involving role playing games. I've been inspired to write these because of the frenzy accompanying the release of the last Harry Potter book.
I've noted elsewhere that I get visits from hapless game masters looking for Dungeons and Dragons adventure ideas. I was watching the History Channel the other day and came up with the following ideas just by watching a one hour program:
1) Why not have your characters go on a state or government sponsored expedition to locate the source of a great river? Perhaps the city or town where they happen to be lives and dies by what happens to the river and it would be of interest to the inhabitants of the town or city to know all they can.
2) Who knows? Maybe there is gold mine at the river's source? In effect your players would become prospectors. If there was an undiscovered gold mine, then surely that would attract the attention of rival political powers, powerful non player characters, nasty monsters and so on. Think of what happened in Tolkien's The Hobbit after Smaug the Dragon was killed. A fierce scramble ensued to battle over the slain dragon's hoard. Players might find themselves fighting to hold on to their new treasures or having to use their diplomatic skills to do the same.
3) One issue that was pointed out in the History Channel program is that adventurers and explorers of human history often didn't find what it was that they were looking for. For example, Ponce De Leon did not find the Fountain of Youth, nor did Christopher Columbus find a passage to India.
4) Remote islands in our own world are often used as prisons. Devil's Island off of Guyana was used by the French for generations and housed many of France's most famous convicts. Adventurers could be asked to free some prisoners off of such an island.
5) Game Masters should really think twice before they use the old "there's a nearby dungeon which used to belong to an old wizard" adventure. Why? If there really was an old dungeon nearby, then chances are that if there was treasure in the dungeon, then other more powerful non player characters would have already gone on an expedition to plunder those riches.
And speaking of information and law, I will be writing more about these matters in RPG's soon.
Posted by The Mighty Wizard at July 20, 2007 02:07 AM