The most common question for any creative
person is: ‘Where do your ideas come from?’ Right on track with this is the
other most common question: ‘Where do you get your inspiration?’ If you ever
find yourself interviewing any creative person, do them a favor and avoid
asking these kinds of questions because there are only three possible answers;
the most common being ‘They come from God.’ The second is ‘I haven’t a clue.’
And the third: ‘I’m a creative genius, now go and bring me a sandwich.’ Of
course there is a fourth one and the one I try to use when responding to such
banal lines of questioning, and that is ‘Drone strike.’ I use this mainly
because it seems to be the popular answer to most questions these days. The
truth is that most of my ideas come from Dungeons and Dragons.
When I was younger I played a lot of two
things: guitar and D&D. Most of the time I ended up as the Dungeon Master –
which is the person who makes up the story line of the campaign, places
beasties in a appropriate locations and then turns them loose on the hapless
characters. Sound familiar? Yep, it’s exactly what authors do. Dungeon
Mastering is prime training ground for budding authors. I heartily recommend
that college level creative writing classes start including DM-ing in their
curriculum and here’s why.
The DM has to outline the plot but by no
means are events going to turn out like the DM plans, much like a novel. The
most interesting (and challenging) part is that each character is played by a
real life person. That means that things like this happen:
DM:
“At the end of the passageway is a ‘T’ junction. To the right it goes down
about twenty feet and ends in a golden door, to the left it goes about twenty
feet and open in a cliff face which plummets several thousand feet to a river
of lava. What do you do?”
Half-elf
ranger: “I throw the dwarf at the door, breaking it off then jump off the cliff
with the dwarf and the door. Using the door as a surf board I ride down the
river of lava to enter the dragon’s lair by the back entrance where we sneak in
and steal the stone of Alkabrekablech and skedaddle before the dragon wakes
up.”
DM:
Okay, slow down – first the dwarf throwing. Roll and seventeen or more.”
Dwarf
fighter: “Wait a second here. I knock the ranger out, feed him to the dragon
then steal the stone while he’s busy munching.”
Thank you mister Dwarf. My point exactly.
Anything can happen and, to be sure, most probably will. As a matter of fact,
just like in life, the most probable thing that happens is usually the thing
you never would have thought of.
Now I’m sure that you’re thinking “Well why
don’t people just record D&D sessions to write books?” and the answer is:
they do! And to see the result, I refer you to a Jim C. Hines article on the
subject: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2014/12/02/jim-c-hines-how-to-turn-your-dd-campaign-into-a-really-bad-novel/
Okay so the campaign itself may not result
in a great story but it makes good practice. So all you budding writers out
there grab a dice pack, sixteen bags of Doritos, forty liters of Mountain Dew
and lock yourself in the basement with a few friends for a weekend of D&D! And
if you’re a creative professional and you ever get asked where you get your
ideas from, remember: drone strike, it’s the American answer to everything.
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