#RPGaDay2025 - 9 Inspire

 


#RPGaDay2025 - 9 Inspire

If your game doesn’t inspire, why do you even play it?

Even in the last post, I discussed the idea that an RPG is exploration, and exploring an imagined world can be richly rewarding, but without inspiration in it, it can simply be a trudge. Inspiration is a spark of the divine, an awakening of something that is memorable and worth pursuing further. I think that here’s where I find many fixed adventures to be monotonous and boring, they lack inspiration, and once everything is codified and locked into place in a rigid text they no longer feel welcoming to explore beyond their confines.

Inspiration comes from the players around us, the rules, the things that we might have encountered in the outside world that we want to bring into our sessions. It can come from anywhere, and it becomes a powerful source of creativity when we build on it with a “Yes, and…” mentality rather than just shutting it down.

When running a game, I always strive to get inspiration from everyone at the table, even if it’s only a little bit from reluctant players. It’s always with the intention to create a welcoming experience where everyone has had the chance to provide an element of the world, to make it more than just the vision of a single person, and hopefully something that transcends the sum of its parts.

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