Artwork and Inspiration: The Work of Angela Deane

Continuing my (mini) series of inspirational artists, I would be remiss to not include the distinct aesthetic of Angela Deane's art. More specifically I want to discuss her "Ghost Photographs" collection. 

While unified by a common artistic theme, the notion is immediately applicable to role-playing games. There are a number of layers to the idea of the ghost within an everyday milieu. Ghosts are primarily invisible. Do people (in society) feel invisible? Ghosts are a remainder of something historical, dead, or representative of the past. Ghosts, by nature, seem to shun attention (at least explicit attention), yet Deane's ghosts almost revel in the exposure. 

They are, in essence, regular "people" going about their lives. It sort of begs the question as to whether non-ghosts can see the ghosts, but at least superficially, they are visible to us. Ghosts also represent "other", a repetitious theme in D&D. 

Regarding role-playing games, I mainly regard her work on two levels. The first is rather superficial or trite: How about a species of creatures (or actual ghosts), who have departed their bodies, yet are obviously in a liminal space between alive and dead. They are visible to living humanity, but they occupy a certain location within the world (geographically or metaphorically speaking). People know about them, and the players can interact with them. The second is more of a sociological concern: who are the "ghosts" within your setting? Are they obvious contenders like orcs, kobolds, half-orcs, whatever, or are they a particular subset of society who can add a level of political/socio-cultural nuance to your campaign? The latter (in my opinion) is more interesting. I'm inclined to combine the two ideas: a species of "ghost-like" creatures who are shunned, avoided, and loathed by society. They are visible to the naked eye, but  have been made "invisible" by the whim, and purposeful ignorance of the living. They are cursed to wander the earth seeking release. They might not even be aware they are dead. Maybe the PCs can help, maybe they cannot. Alternatively, they could be an interesting class or playable race. 

Personally, I like the everydayness of the series, and it highlights the idea that often inspiration is under our nose, waiting to be discovered.

Happy gaming. 

The Unpredictabilities of Role-Playing

The last few weeks have seen the end of my Anthropophagi of Xamboola playtest. Overall I was pretty happy with how it ran, and of course, there are plenty of amendments to include. When designing the town/city of Xamboola I believed it would be somewhere the party would want to stay for an elongated period of time. I thought it had everything they needed. There were bits of "the old city" they had not explored, as well as some more localised adventuring possibilities. Surely that would keep them entertained. 

Anyway, in the true fashion of a pack of vagrants they did the exact opposite of what I expected — travelling for two weeks to the nearest city of Yithorium (it's in the ASSH universe for those who care). Hey, they wanted some magic ID'd! Luckily I had a couple of mini-encounters already up my sleeve, but the city itself was a completely untouched area. 

There has been one theme or idea that has been very resonant with me lately. It actually was a learning curve that eventuated from designed the Xamboola adventure. Basically, I read a kickass Conan story, and it was filled with so much vibe I needed to game it. The idea that I've been kicking around lately — and I've seen it discussed on a few blogs too — is simple: begin with a vibe. For me, Howard's action-packed prose was all it took to get the first ideas on paper, and the whole thing snowballed from there. How does this relate to my first anecdote? Glad you asked.

I was presented with a similar situation on Wednesday night. Basically I had a pretty distinct vibe of what Yithorium was like. There was a bit of gazetteer information on it, but the rest was a distinct mental image residing in my imagination. As a DM/Ref I have never been great at running games on-the-fly. I excel when I've thought about things, planned encounters, giggled to myself at the NPCs that emerge from my warped brain. But generally there is a level of preparedness that goes into my running of games.

In an attempt to be more comfortable with the unknown, and with a looser style of play, I have begun writing tools to assist with this process. Some of you may have seen/downloaded the first three of my NPC Toolkits. I had those at the table with me. I was surprised at how well some random dice rolling worked in creating two distinctive NPCs. The adventurers had been lured to Yithorium mainly to get rid of accumulated wealth and items, but they had also heard some strange rumours from Xamboola. With that barest framework a large portion of the session was essentially ad lib — or rather, unplanned. I had no idea what was to eventuate, but the narrative sort of naturally unfolded. One of the PCs wanted to enquire about the strange rumours. Others wanted to hunt for magic-users. I used a table to roll up an inn. Ideas emerged through role-playing: a strange concept for the town guards, and the city's mores and values. After the session my brain was alive with creativity and more ideas came to me to develop for next time. 

My point, I guess, twofold:

1. I need to make more tables!

2. It's really amazing what happens when your plans go out the window.


This is probably nothing new to most (or all) of you, but it was a nice reminder to plan a little more loosely. I had an entirely different adventure planned, but I'd rather give the players autonomy. Now, time to get back to the adventure writing.