Game Mastery

As I mentioned in my Lessons of NaNoWriMo post, one of the things I learned about my writing is that a structured outline does not inhibit my creativity, it simply displaces it. Instead of coming up with crazy plot twists on the fly, I start filling in details when all the plot twists are set in stone.

My biggest problem GMing recently has been a lack of flavor. NPCs turn out bland. Locations lack description. Flavor exists in the world, but I don’t bother publishing it. My theory (which came at about 1am last night and kept me up till about 2am last night) is that if I stopped writing complex plots by the seat of my pants I’d take time to invest creative energy into juicy bits of detail. After I finish this game I’m going to try running somebody else’s published adventures just to see what happens. With any luck I’ll start leaving my mark as colorful NPCs instead of Lost-esque plot twists.