Confessions of a Game-Mistress

Have you ever noticed what people really remember about a fantasy movie?

(Well, other than guys noticing shades of gratuitous nudity…)

It’s the stuff. It’s the details of a life that catch people. “Harry Potter is really cool, it’s about these kids in a magical school. They have magic wands and cauldrons and pet owls….” Butterbeer and Bertie Bott’s Any Flavor Beans. The time-turner. The flying Ford Anglia, and the whomping willow. Even the unique creatures that are not protagonists or dangers sort of fall in here. Kneazles, for instance.

You see how the simply-described items from the books make clear images in your mind? Detail like these make a setting endearing because players can envision them. My imagination’s good - it has to hold a few worlds in it, after all. But your players, though you wish they would, do not live and breathe your game (well, except for a few - R., you know who you are…). They don’t have the vision that the GM has of events and people and places and things. So, as a GM, you have to create that vision for them. Details help that. A player may not be able to grasp a nation of demonically-tainted elves and the bloodthirsty civilization that they have created, but the black curving infernal steel dagger each young elf receives at maturity, inscribed with intricately patterned flowing designs and spidery black runes, with a custom-fitted grip of pale leather wrapped in wire, that they can grasp.

You see? And how many plot hooks does that generate?

Pick a few details about each race, group, or place. A local brew of beer or wine is a good choice to get you thinking. Players appreciate that one - I always found myself disappointed in the usual inn with just ale. And their characters develop favorites, and that builds character, plot and story. (You can help that idea along if the players don’t run with it - have each of them roll a d20, the higher the roll, the better they like it.)

I once ran an entire plot arc around one character’s obsession with and efforts to obtain a rare and magical beverage that he’d decided was the greatest drink in the world. Sounds extreme, unless you’ve been the poor fool driving around town in the modern-day version of this quest.

Slivers of detail like this are the building blocks of the world, and the vision they invoke will keep your players coming back for more.