u/WailingBarnacle

I’m currently jotting down setting ideas for a campaign set in an urbanized solar system. I essentially want every round body (or round enough in Haumea’s case) to be developed in some way. That doesn’t necessarily mean human habitation, just the presence of infrastructure. The system is of course owned and regulated by countless megacorporations and their subsidiaries, so when it comes down to it, a place is probably ultimately colonized for resource extraction and monetary gain. The reason for cities, habitats, and or arcologies is just housing for the workers.

So I’ve done a lot of idea scrapping recently. Delving deep into Isaac Author, skimming through forums, rereading some novels and rewatching some shows just to give me as many ideas as possible and throw them all in to create intriguing and details for the setting. However, I’m really having trouble coming up with what makes the moons of Saturn (minus Titan of course), Uranus, Neptune, and the trans-Neptunian dwarf planets interesting. I’m trying to give every place at least one unique and defining factor to keep them all from being uniform grey city worlds.

Obviously an easy way to make every planet and moon unique is to throw in terraforming. But that feels a bit too utopian for me. I chose Mars’ defining characteristic to be its failed yterraforming efforts. It’s supposed to feel like an abandoned construction site. Its surface was carved up and riddled with holes, but work stopped pretty early on.

So I’m curious to hear people’s ideas on the topic. What you’ve seen or done in your own settings. For anyone else developing a similar setting, I hope this can help you too.

I’ve gone and started my campaign centered around the idea that the sky has gone utterly dark and the land is ravaged by endless winter. However, I have no idea what the cause should be and every session my players (rightfully) put pressure on me to reveal hints and clues about the ultimate cause of the phenomenon so that they can eventually solve it. But there is nothing to solve yet.

I already know I don’t want the cause to be divine in origin. I think that explanation is a bit too mundane. However, the people of the world don’t know that. So I have made it a big part of the conflict that the people blame the gods. People believe they are being punished by their old gods for abandoning them. So, there is widespread rejection of Big Religion™ that recently converted much of the region. Conflict ensues.

Anyways. Every session I worry that I will answer some minor question about the weather or what not that will invalidate whatever cause I eventually decide on. Of course I can just retcon past answers, but that doesn’t feel satisfying. Especially not to them when half of the campaign is going to be centered around solving the mystery. Changing clues to that mystery halfway through would suck. Thankfully up until now I’ve been able to give pretty vague answers, but I’d really like to start seeding clues.

I would greatly appreciate any ideas people have on the source of the phenomenon or advice on how to further stall coming up with an answer without ruining the campaign lol

Hello to all those who have played through (or just read through) Stonehell Dungeon. Despite the glowing praise these books have received, I am still somewhat on the fence about getting them. I’ve been able to skim over several pages, but nothing (other than the glorious formatting and maps) has really stood out to me. I know the lower levels get a lot more zany, so it’s not the relative basic-ness of the upper levels that’s giving me hesitation. What I want to know from you are some standout moment or highlights you have had while playing/running the megadungeon. Other than how easy it is to reference at the table, what makes it stand out? What moments stand out?

I’m finding it difficult for me to organize my session prep as a DM. I typically create a new tab on my campaign doc labeled ‘Session #’ and start jotting down ideas. Then I try to stitch those ideas together into a strong opening scene and a hand full of other scenes that they are likely to encounter.

My problem is when it comes to how much I end up writing for a particular scene. They quickly become bloated with bullet points and sub bullet points listing out bits of information I want to be able to give to the PCs if they ask and reminders to me on how to run certain things. In the end, I have a bunch of information put down in writing that should help me run my next session, but ends up just being hard to reference when I’m at the table.

So how do you go about it?

I’m finding it difficult for me to organize my session prep as a DM. I typically create a new tab on my campaign doc labeled ‘Session #’ and start jotting down ideas. Then I try to stitch those ideas together into a strong opening scene and a hand full of other scenes that they are likely to encounter.

My problem is when it comes to how much I end up writing for a particular scene. They quickly become bloated with bullet points and sub bullet points listing out bits of information I want to be able to give to the PCs if they ask and reminders to me on how to run certain things. In the end, I have a bunch of information put down in writing that should help me run my next session, but ends up just being hard to reference when I’m at the table.

So how do you go about it?

I’m writing a short story that involves the characters salvaging a derelict ship. Though, that is more so the set dressing than the explicit point of it. What I’m trying to work out is what this process actually looks like. Again, not because the point of the story is to write out every step and every detail of the salvaging process, but because understanding the broad strokes will help me insert the characters and what they are going through into the scenes.

I’ve tried researching the steps of real world salvaging work, but I’ve found it to be surprisingly difficult to lock down any concrete details.

I guess I’m asking what you think is a reasonable progression of steps? Exterior visual assessment —> engineering deck to physically check stability of core systems —> deck by deck structural survey —> pulling flight log and other data from terminals. Or maybe they go to the command deck first to see what the terminals have to say about the state of the ship’s core systems? Would they shut everything off completely before stripping it? Or would they keep everything running at the safe minimum output? I’m not really sure.

For a bit of context, the ship is in pretty much pristine condition. It’s more or less fully operational, but nobody wants to actually own it anymore because reasons. So it’s being scrapped for parts by the characters.

I tend to have a lot of ideas for the general concept of a story, or more specifically, how to open and start a story. I find it really hard to stick with them and see it through to the end because I struggle to find what should actually follow up that opening. Not so say I abandon what I write, I just take long breaks and can only seem to sit down and write two paragraphs a week to continue it to see where it goes. I find myself getting really hung up on the minute details of what should happen (slowing down my work flow) and often find myself struggling to decide what should even happen (keeping me from making any progress). Curious what people have to say about this and what advice you can give me that I can try and employ. Thanks in advance!

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