Using Real-World Photography As Adventure Prompts

GMs are always on the lookout for good adventure prompts, and sometimes those inspirations come by way of great fantasy or science fiction art. But why limit yourself to merely make-believe when it comes to inspiring ideas to stun and amaze your players? Especially when the real world offers a wealth of wonderful and idea-generating locations, as gathered into collections by photographers and various other online curators over the years.

I’ve located a short selection of such photography collections, and provided a few adventure prompts to go along with one of the pictures presented in each link. The adventure prompts are suitable for Numenera, but also for The Strange (so keep this link in your bookmarks).

Photography collections with prompts: http://www.montecookgames.com/using-real-world-photography-as-adventure-prompts/

How Story Gives Life to Game Mechanics

Game mechanics are meant to simulate and model elements of a story to create an RPG. 

A story without game mechanics can’t be an RPG. Without game mechanics of some sort, you haven’t got an RPG, though you may have an interesting narrative. So mechanics, yeah; you need them, and preferably good ones. But sometimes mechanics are over-valued, which isn’t great. In fact, an RPG that puts game mechanics before the story that the mechanics are meant to simulate begins to lose its way.

Here’s why:

 http://www.montecookgames.com/how-story-gives-life-to-mechanics/