With this tool, you’ll never run out of ideas
Sometimes you are caught with the need for a brand new investigation without lead-time to read and personalise a new module. You could make something up in a rush, but without special tools, it is easy to default to cliché and stereotype. There are tool for randomly generating content, but they often end up as mad-libs that resemble b-movie Clue sequels.
The Overdrawn Draft Method
You’ll need a random oracle device (Tarot cards, story dice, ungulate entrails) and a grasp of the acronym SPEARS:
- SITE — a location for your investigation
- PERSONS — the allied forces involved
- ENTITY — the spark that sets off the mystery (usually something supernatural or extranormal)
- ACTION — what happens when those two interact
- RESULT — what happens next and what will continue without intervention
- SENSE — an underlying theme or sense of story beneath this whole thing
Rather than rolling a dice or drawing a card for each heading, instead roll or draw nine symbols total, and draft from this selection. You cannot use the same symbol twice. It’s a case of looking over the symbols and deciding which of these is the site, and so on. This process of drafting is key for making the whole thing feel coherent.
Taken together, you can boil it down into a hook and a horrid truth, then apply an investigation structure of your choice on top.
Worked example
Nine cards of the major arcana are drawn: the Sun, Strength, the Fool, the Moon, the Lovers, Temperance, the Chariot, the High Priestess, and Death.
- S— the High Priestess — a nunnery
- P — the Fool — pilgrims
- E — Death — ghosts
- A — Temperance — a mellowing or lessening of the pilgrims’ souls
- R — the Chariot — the pilgrims are taken to another realm, having been weakened
- S — the Moon — a reflected inversion of their piety remains
Hook: An acquaintance went on pilgrimage two weeks back. She has yet to return. This is merely one case amongst many this month.
Horrid Truth: Ghosts at the pilgrimage site have woken (why? perhaps a broken / stolen relic) and have been assaulting the pious through grievous dreams and visions. The pilgrims’ spirits are stolen away and their bodies charged with revenant energies in a hellish inversion of their devout former lives.
Other applications
This draw-50%-too-many-and-draft-from-that procedure can easily be applied to other systematic game elements — GRAPES for regional description (geography, religion, achievements, politics, economy, social structures), Five Room Dungeons (guardian, puzzle, drain, climax, twist), ect.
The possibilities are considerable.
