I’m turning something over in my head lately. I watch a lot of news. It’s easy sometimes to fictionalize what we see, if there’s a great story there. I’ll be telling this through my campaign idea.
Real World Story
Wikipedia Link: 2010 Chilean Mine Collapse
In August of 2010, 33 Chilean Miners were trapped when there was a collapse in the copper mine where they were working. 69 days later, as a result of relentless hard work, every miner was rescued. There were no fatalities. What could have been an unspeakable tragedy turned out to be a great human triumph. Click the link above for more on this.
What I’m Doing
My take on this is simple: Replace any mention of Chile and its people with dwarves. Rescuing dwarves from a collapsed mine sounds so perfectly D&D that I wouldn’t be suprised if similar stories weren’t written years ago. Perhaps the the campaign hook is that the PCs find themselves in a dwarf settlement, and its dwellers are occupied with the rescue of these trapped miners. From there, the possibilities abound.
The Answer
To answer the question I pose above, the comedian in me knows it’s never too soon. The challenge comes in the ability to present things properly so that no subject is ever off-limits. The best, the true masters have this ability. The most effective way to acheive this ability, in my view, is to push the limits of subject matter.
The same holds true for campaign and adventure building. Crafting current events into fiction is a time-honored tradition. The activity makes your game relevant to the people sitting around the table. You can always go rescue the princess, but try to stopping an ether storm that could have been prevented by the local wizard’s guild. (All the while knowing that failure to do stop the flow results in irreversible damage to the surrounding area.) That has resonance.
So adapt the stories you see on CNN. You should know your players well enough to know what they’ll appreciate, and how to present it. Don’t be afraid. Even if your story falls flat, your players might catch on and appreciate what you were going for. At the very least, doing this will prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
Campaign Building
I have a plan for this, and I’m interested to see where it goes. I am going to take a concept, work on it some, talk about my process, and by the time I’m done, I will have put together a campaign outline, an encounter, and a full-length adventure, all of which will be available here at RPGMusings. This will actually allow me to go back and tie up a loose end with my Tarrasque series, among other things.
So until next time, friends, watch your threatened squares. There may be more going on around you than you’d otherwise catch.
IMAGE NOTES: The dramatic picture of the Chilean Mine belongs was previously published on the Mother Nature Network, in a post about the Chilean mine.
I like to use real-life events in my ideas but at the end they do not resemble the truth behind them. It’s the difference between having the players know and watching them realise that you have used something straight from the healines. It is hard, I think, to consider placing something into a game directly, without some minor changes (no pun intended). I’d feel the need to disguise it.
I look forward to seeing how it evolves.
It’s worth mentioning that using a news item can take at least 2 forms: all and some. I’m of a mind that says “some” for a few different reasons.
1) A lot of people watch/read/otherwise consume the news. If your players figure out early on what story you’re telling, you might find yourself holding the bag if you get the rug pulled out from you at a bad time.
2) The news isn’t always good. Real people get hurt. I don’t like to make light of another’s misery. If you use too many details, it may start to look and feel like ridicule.
With this campaign design, I’ll be using the mine collapse and recovery as my starting point. From there, it’s going to go spiralling in different directions. I hope that by the time I’ve tied everything up at Level 30, elements of the collapse will be reflected in the final images.