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| I have GOT to read Book of the New Sun, dude. (art from FloatingDisc on reddit) |
I’ve experimented with using Kyle Latino and Kenny Webb’s excellent AGNOSTIC: TTRPG Prep Method as a way of dragging unread books into my hobby space, and it works very well at what it sets out to do. However, its reliance on physical stacks of books (however satisfyingly tactile) makes it harder to account for the rest of my media backlog; video games, graphic novels, films, shows, and other works all technically live elsewhere but still occupy the same mental shelf.
What follows is a modified approach to randomized adventure creation with a narrower goal: turning whatever you’ve been meaning to consume into immediately usable adventure material, without requiring completion, mastery, or, perhaps most importantly, guilt.
Step 1: Create a Source List
Create one list using one of the following prompts. You may repeat this process later to create additional lists, but you only use one list at a time when running the procedure.
Roll a d6 or choose:
1. d4 works from outside the genre of your game system (think Expedition to the Barrier Peaks)
2. d6 works from different media types (e.g. poem, video game, adventure module, film, TV episode, etc.)
3. d8 works recommended by friends or internet strangers
4. d10 works taken from any RPG’s list of inspirations/acknowledgements
5. d12 works that come to mind immediately, without looking anything up
6. d20 works from twenty different creators (no repeats)
Each entry must be a specific work, not a franchise or genre. Once the list is written, do not edit it. Note: don't roll the die size when creating the list, use the maximum result for how works many to write down.
Step 2: The Six Questions
You will answer the following six questions to form the basis of an adventure. Start with any question.
1. Purpose: Why is the party here?
2. Place: Where does the adventure occur?
3. Persons: Who will be met during the adventure?
4. Problem: What obstacles or complications are faced?
5. Prize: What is gained or at stake?
6. Peculiarity: What secret, connection, or strange history exists here?
For each question, roll on your source list to select a work. You may roll the same work multiple times across different questions.
Step 3: Where You’re Allowed to Look
After selecting a work for a question, roll a d6 to determine where the answer must come from:
1. A randomly selected page, scene, panel, level, or equivalent
2. The first half of the work
3. Someone else’s review, commentary, or direct explanation
4. An image, map, diagram, or music piece associated with the work
5. A synopsis or summary
6. The title, cover, prologue, epilogue, or other story framing material
You may paraphrase, but you may not invent something whole cloth. Do not look elsewhere in the work. If the result seems unhelpful, write it down anyway and interpret it minimally.
Step 4: Synthesis
Once all six questions are answered, revisit any questions answered insufficiently, then use meaningful dungeon and adventure construction tools to translate the results into playable material. In particular, this procedure pairs well with:
- Arnold K’s Dungeon Checklist (K!1)
- Sersa Victory’s Cyclic Dungeon Generation (K!5)
- Josh McCrowell and Warren D.’s Designing Dungeons
Use those tools to produce and arrange locations, monsters, traps, and rewards. The media sources provide content whereas the procedures above provide structure, ya dig?
The intent of this method is not to extract the absolute “best” idea from your backlog, but to extract an idea or two and move on. If it helps you kill two kobolds with one crysknife and rescue Vault 13, or finally stop scrolling long enough to make something playable, then it’s doing its job. Plus, nothing is stopping you from going back to revisit something that made you think "hey, I think I like this a lot and I am going to give this some more attention."
d10 List of Lists (to flesh out your burn pile)
1. Moldvay’s Inspirational Source Material from B/X D&D
3. Everything covered by Exits Examined
5. NPR's "Your Picks: Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books"
6. ISFDB's Highest Rank Titles of All Time
7. The Saturn Awards Past Winners
