CHAINMAIL: 06.09.2023
Including - Improve Your Adventures and Campaigns by Focusing on Threats, On Worldbuilding: Dragons, and The Emotion Thesaurus.
Improve Your Adventures and Campaigns by Focusing on Threats - Alphastream Game Design
If you want to create more dynamic and interesting antagonists in your game, it's worth understanding the BBEG (big bad evil guy) doesn't have to be a "guy" at all. Instead of thinking about "villains", it can be better to think about "threats". The wilderness can be a threat, metaphysical energies can be a threat, and insanity itself can be a threat. Check out this blog post that does a much better job explaining this idea and ties it back into Apocalypse World's Fronts system (which deserves its own post).
On Worldbuilding: Dragons - Hello Future Me
Who doesn't love a good dragon? Or a bad dragon? Honestly, adding any dragon tends to make things interesting. This video breaks down the different common archetypes of dragons and how they interact with people and the world around them. give yourself a refresher on these big scaly beasts so you can run them better in the future.
The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression -Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi
"ANXIETY
DEFINITION: mental apprehension and unease; a sense of foreboding
PHYSICAL SIGNALS:
Rubbing the back of the neck
Crossing the arms, forming a barrier to others
Standing with one arm holding the other at the elbow
Clutching a purse, coat, or other object
Wringing one’s hands
Twisting a watch or ring
Scratching
Hands repeatedly rising to touch one’s face
..."
The Emotion Thesaurus is another resource for writers that I think can be just as useful for DMs. This is a reference book that breaks down practically every emotion you can think of, describes a page's worth of physical signals for you to use when describing the actions of characters feeling that emotion, internal sensations one would feel when experiencing that emotion, mental responses to the emotion, long-term side effects of dealing with the emotion, and much more. When exploring the personality traits of PCs or NPCs, this book has proven valuable in helping me step away from the cliche and go deeper into how they can express how they feel. Grab the book, place it with all your other DM reference material, and pull it out when the players are arguing to surprise them with evocative emotional descriptions.
I hope these resources inspire you! If you haven't already, the best way to stay up to date with everything hothead related is to join the discord! See you next week.