Steal ideas from absolutely everywhere. Steal ideas from like five different places and watch how by the time you've combined the disparate sources of inspiration, they come out the other side looking unique and cool. Steal from the obscure things you grew up with: books you read that weren't popular, games you know your friends didn't play, movies your parents made you watch as a kid-- isolate the coolest concepts/ideas in them, scratch the serial numbers off, and fit them into your game.
For one thing you can pick something in your mind that you think would be cool - just one thing. Could be "fighting a dragon", or "stealing a boat" or "fighting a pirate crew on an airship", or "defending a train from undead attackers". Anything you like. Let's go with the train.
Then you need to refine it - what is the train? Why are the undead attacking?
So come up with a cool reason - there's a mummy lord being transported in their sarcophagus, and the undead are his minions trying to release him.
Awesome, now you have a BBEG for the party to face, a reason for the event, and a reason the train won't stop - the undead are massing.
Now decide how you could make this a D&D game. The logical approach (to me) would be to consider the train as a long, straight dungeon crawl. To make that interesting, you need to have the carriages all be different in some way, and to have them change as they will likely move back and forth.
Now, why are the party there? Escort mission for the mummy? maybe too linear. Hitchhiking? Perhaps there are nobles or merchants aboard who have protection, so hired the party? Maybe they are escorting a different cargo? And that leads to - what if the mummy is a red herring? What if their cargo is the target?
So now we need to set up the red herring - the party needs to find the mummy, in sarcophagus, near the start. And not too obviously. Perhaps a description of the train being loaded, with luggage and what seems like a large coffin being loaded into the cargo carriages alongside the large crate that the party is guarding. Now at some point when the party are asking "why are undead attacking the train?" the reason will become "clear" and they will zero in on that coffin. They will ask around and be told it contains a mummy they are transporting to the Bri'ish Museum. And they will latch onto it like it's their lifeline. Cue them trying to fight through a zombie horde on a train to get to the coffin.
Throw some blocked carriages to necessitate the old "fight on the roof of a train" scene, and then have a bridge come along to separate them into separate carriages, and then a few more encounters, a chance to de-hitch the back end of the train as Zombies run at them, and then the final fight - where you reveal...
the mummy is just a dried up corpse, not a cursed one. And the undead are pulling apart the crate they were supposed to guard to reveal... hmm. Needs to be something they weren't mentally preparing to fight. Maybe a Lich or a Vampire, or a Necromancer.
Final boss fight and boom, one litle adventure planned!
It all starts with a simple idea, and as others said, it can be stolen - what if a necromancer is actually an ancient evil sorcerer? What if a bald man with a scarf tries to steal the moon? what if a volcano erupts and reveals an ancient city full of half-stone undead? What if a good-natured but greedy gnome manages to resurrect the dinosaurs on a private island? Wouldn't it be cool if the players fought a blue dragon whilst on a sky-ship in a thunderstorm?
Everything can be a source of inspiration. From that childhood stuffed animal you used to have, to the animal documentary you are watching today. Read books. Watch movies. Look at art. Listen to music. If you actually think about it, you will find yourself flooded with inspiration. I borrow, steal, adapt, warp, and twist all sorts of things from all sorts of things. Model characters off of characters in books you like. Create monsters based on mythology that is hundreds of years old. Make a magical diamond ring imbued with the spirit of a pink panther. Make an evil bumblebee that causes chaos and destruction wherever it goes. Take all the dark cults and secret rituals from every book you have ever read. Say that Heffalumps and Woozles are fun loving fiends who find enjoyment in stealing what your strongest desires right out of your grasp. Create a Dnd monster based around a law of chemistry that you studied years ago in science class. Create stories based around X-files episodes you saw long ago but they still haunt your dreams and now you are terrified of port-a-potties. Maybe Elvis really didn't die, he is just hidden in another dimension. The same dimension of your Dnd story. Nacho Libre could be found singing in a tavern or you might meet him in a pit fight. Maybe the scientific name of that fish would work really well as the name of the insane wizard in the tower. Really, anything can be a source of ideas. Be open minded and always think about how this thing that you are observing could be incorporated into a story.
I have a hard time getting ideas for games plz tell me what helps you and share that knowledge with the world
Steal ideas from absolutely everywhere. Steal ideas from like five different places and watch how by the time you've combined the disparate sources of inspiration, they come out the other side looking unique and cool. Steal from the obscure things you grew up with: books you read that weren't popular, games you know your friends didn't play, movies your parents made you watch as a kid-- isolate the coolest concepts/ideas in them, scratch the serial numbers off, and fit them into your game.
"Good artists copy, great artists steal."
-
Pablo Picasso-CharlesthePlant
Definitely, take characters, locations, and plot threads from various sources. Blending it all together helps to turn it into something new.
“When you take stuff from one writer, it’s plagiarism, but when you take it from many writers, it’s called research.” - Wilson Mizner
For one thing you can pick something in your mind that you think would be cool - just one thing. Could be "fighting a dragon", or "stealing a boat" or "fighting a pirate crew on an airship", or "defending a train from undead attackers". Anything you like. Let's go with the train.
Then you need to refine it - what is the train? Why are the undead attacking?
So come up with a cool reason - there's a mummy lord being transported in their sarcophagus, and the undead are his minions trying to release him.
Awesome, now you have a BBEG for the party to face, a reason for the event, and a reason the train won't stop - the undead are massing.
Now decide how you could make this a D&D game. The logical approach (to me) would be to consider the train as a long, straight dungeon crawl. To make that interesting, you need to have the carriages all be different in some way, and to have them change as they will likely move back and forth.
Now, why are the party there? Escort mission for the mummy? maybe too linear. Hitchhiking? Perhaps there are nobles or merchants aboard who have protection, so hired the party? Maybe they are escorting a different cargo? And that leads to - what if the mummy is a red herring? What if their cargo is the target?
So now we need to set up the red herring - the party needs to find the mummy, in sarcophagus, near the start. And not too obviously. Perhaps a description of the train being loaded, with luggage and what seems like a large coffin being loaded into the cargo carriages alongside the large crate that the party is guarding. Now at some point when the party are asking "why are undead attacking the train?" the reason will become "clear" and they will zero in on that coffin. They will ask around and be told it contains a mummy they are transporting to the Bri'ish Museum. And they will latch onto it like it's their lifeline. Cue them trying to fight through a zombie horde on a train to get to the coffin.
Throw some blocked carriages to necessitate the old "fight on the roof of a train" scene, and then have a bridge come along to separate them into separate carriages, and then a few more encounters, a chance to de-hitch the back end of the train as Zombies run at them, and then the final fight - where you reveal...
the mummy is just a dried up corpse, not a cursed one. And the undead are pulling apart the crate they were supposed to guard to reveal... hmm. Needs to be something they weren't mentally preparing to fight. Maybe a Lich or a Vampire, or a Necromancer.
Final boss fight and boom, one litle adventure planned!
It all starts with a simple idea, and as others said, it can be stolen - what if a necromancer is actually an ancient evil sorcerer? What if a bald man with a scarf tries to steal the moon? what if a volcano erupts and reveals an ancient city full of half-stone undead? What if a good-natured but greedy gnome manages to resurrect the dinosaurs on a private island? Wouldn't it be cool if the players fought a blue dragon whilst on a sky-ship in a thunderstorm?
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
Everything can be a source of inspiration. From that childhood stuffed animal you used to have, to the animal documentary you are watching today. Read books. Watch movies. Look at art. Listen to music. If you actually think about it, you will find yourself flooded with inspiration. I borrow, steal, adapt, warp, and twist all sorts of things from all sorts of things. Model characters off of characters in books you like. Create monsters based on mythology that is hundreds of years old. Make a magical diamond ring imbued with the spirit of a pink panther. Make an evil bumblebee that causes chaos and destruction wherever it goes. Take all the dark cults and secret rituals from every book you have ever read. Say that Heffalumps and Woozles are fun loving fiends who find enjoyment in stealing what your strongest desires right out of your grasp. Create a Dnd monster based around a law of chemistry that you studied years ago in science class. Create stories based around X-files episodes you saw long ago but they still haunt your dreams and now you are terrified of port-a-potties. Maybe Elvis really didn't die, he is just hidden in another dimension. The same dimension of your Dnd story. Nacho Libre could be found singing in a tavern or you might meet him in a pit fight. Maybe the scientific name of that fish would work really well as the name of the insane wizard in the tower. Really, anything can be a source of ideas. Be open minded and always think about how this thing that you are observing could be incorporated into a story.
Movies, books, tv shows, the internet, games, google, etc. Everything is fair game.