Artificer's Intuition

"If love's a word that you say, then say it, I will listen" - Start the Machine, Angels and Airwaves In stories everywhere, we see love being a huge motivating factor for many characters.  Yet in games such as D&D, I've seen it very little.  PC's either have romances with NPC's that don't really go anywhere.  So far in my games, there's little romance between PC characters.  I'm hoping that will change soon (especially when you throw a couple into a game). How do I incorporate that change?  By thinking about what love actually is, means and how we feel it. Psychologists will tell us there are many different kinds of love.  I'm not trying to analyze each aspect/difference in a relationship, but just in general. When we are in love, we feel invincible, especially if the task at hand is related to the one we love.  Slaying a dragon, is easy when it holds our love in its sinister clutches.  With love, we will face any fear, accept a...

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end" - Closing Time, Semisonic The adventures that I create now are all player driven.  When I first started DMing, I threw together an adventure idea and then let me players play it (there was very little choice, as it was what I had prepared).  I had to "sell" the adventure to them in order to get the game going.  Needless to say, the games weren't as fun as they could've been.  It wasn't until after a few months of DMing that I tried to make an adventure with one of the players in mind, and let everything feed off of that.  When we played that adventure, it was extremely well received, and from there, the rest is history. I'm now working on another adventure.  Some of my readers might wonder why I take so long in creating these adventures and why I write about them so much.  Basically, I tend to run marathon games, where the players sit once a month and play for about 8 hours st...

"Not all treasure is silver and gold, mate." - Jack Sparrow I spent yesterday evening browsing TV Tropes and Idioms since there was nothing on TV, and I wasn't able to go and see Iron Man 3 yet.  For some reason, I simply read through the Pirates of the Caribbean page, and while doing so, had my entire imagination fire up again.  I don't think I've ever given those movies enough credit for how they have impacted my thoughts on D&D games, but last night, I realized they have always been a strong focal point for me. No matter what people say about the plot, movie length, or anything else, the Pirates movies are about one thing: characters.  I never found scenes boring, or dull, or making me wonder how long the movie would go, simply because the characters were so engaging.  How does this translate to D&D?  Quite simply, the characters in your game.  I have the privilege of DMing for a solid group of roleplayers, a few of which bring ou...

"Always in motion is the future" -Yoda When life knocks you down and kicks you in the ribs, we tend to flee into our own sanctuaries to cope.  Alternately, we tend to escape into our sanctuaries when we're happy too.  They just give us a great way to relax and enjoy the good times. Star Wars has done all of those things for me.  It was there long before Dungeons and Dragons, and has greatly influenced my life and creative outlooks and inspirations.  I got into Star Wars when I was about 8 (this age seems correct in my memory, as I know that Episode I came out when I was 9).  My first Star Wars action figure was a Han Solo that came with a carbonite slab to freeze him in.  I was a Jawa for Halloween when I was 9, and I was young Obi-Wan Kenobi when I was 10.  My Lego building adventures always ended with some sort of epic lightsaber battle, and I always wanted to know about all of the aliens in Jabba's Palace.  I also played the Decipher ...