Completely Tapped

[Aaryq]

I've been playing many of the Palladium games religiously since 1997. I've had plenty of good groups, a few dreadful groups, and everything in between. I haven't been able to GM for about 3 years and I'm completely tapped out. I have no new ideas. No good ideas. It's as if my imagination has been surgically removed.
From a stroke of luck, good timing, and carefully drawn out planning, my original gaming group is getting together again for a few weeks. We've got 4 IRL sessions guaranteed and will continue via Skype after that. They want me to run a PFRPG campaign and I'm hitting a frickin' wall. I know that they're going to end up as spies (members of a spy ring) in a regional rebellion (they'll have to choose to side with the rebels or the current power structure).
I can create the world for them, no problem. With little to no effort I can create a region, a few NPC's, regional history...you name it. The problem I'm having more than anything else is generating adventures to fill the world I created. I don't want to copy from TV and Movies because everything I can stomach watching is something they've seen so originality would be thrown out the window.

Has anyone else just run out of ideas? Has anyone else lost their imagination? Am I going insane?

How does one recover their imagination?

[Glistam]

I recharge my imagibation through reading books I either haven't read in a long time or have never read. Occassionally a TV show or movie will work for that too, but it's less certain. Exposure to more stories (or to stories I have forgotten) tends to jumpstart my own idea factory.

[tobefrnk]

In my GM experience, a game is not GM's alone. You don't need the whole idea, just a solid defined part, because as we all know, the players help you "write" as it goes. With the amount of experience you have, you know this as well as any of us. Have you tried any of the online Story or Plot Generators?

http://www.plot-generator.org.uk

They can be hit or miss, but they might be enough to spark kernels of ideas that you can then develop to your liking.

I'm an comedy improviser and after 14 years of improvising on stage, I have never run out of ideas. When I teach improv, one of the things I endeavor to instill in my students is the concept that they need to stop the judgment in their head. The hesitation on stage is always due to them not thinking their idea is good enough. So, perhaps you are not "tapped out", but merely thinking, even subconsciously, "This idea isn't good" when in fact it's perfectly serviceable and would play out great once the characters from your play group come in and transform the story.

[Aaryq]

That's not a bad idea generator. That might help.
And I am really self-critical. I've shot down a lot of "not good enough" ideas that came up in my head.

[Nightmartree]

That's not a bad idea generator. That might help.
And I am really self-critical. I've shot down a lot of "not good enough" ideas that came up in my head.

So take those not good enough ideas and make them better?what makes them not good enough?how do you change that or make it better?if the scenarios doesnt work one way what can you do to make it work?

Edit: annnnnd just checked the dates *facepalm* im a bit late

[Alrik Vas]

Adding a wild card to the group can help, if you've got access to someone who not many of you have played with before. Sometimes that alone is a good enough catalyst. If you don't have the time or opportunity for that, well...we can dump ideas on you.

I've found that blurring the lines can get old in a rebellion. Something interesting is have the rebels be morally right in every capacity, but reveal some cold, hard facts about the setting later on that make them the worse of two choices. Like, the evil king's bloodline, which is childless currently, is the only thing that can suppress some ancient terror because his ancestor sealed it. You have the advantage with fantasy storytelling to do things like that. So evil king continues his reign of terror and the world isn't destroyed, or king is deposed and ancient evil threatens to devour the world.

Leave the choice up to the characters.

Edit: annnnnd just checked the dates *facepalm* im a bit late

pffft, late? It's the palladium forums, if you're not a year past the first post's stamp, you're not late.

[Nightmartree]

Edit: annnnnd just checked the dates *facepalm* im a bit late

pffft, late? It's the palladium forums, if you're not a year past the first post's stamp, you're not late.

in that case les jus say this tree is early

[TeeAychEeMarchHare]

What's "not good enough" to you might be "Holy BALLS epic AWESOME!!!111!!!" to your players.

I ran a Twilight: 2000 campaign for a while back in high school. Keep in mind that I graduated in 1997....some of my players STILL talk about the adventure where they were rooting around in a Soviet genetic research facility, hoping to find a cure for a bio-weapon they got sprayed with, and ended up fighting MP5-toting rats the size of German shepherds and a monkey with an M60 and a love of throwing hand grenades.

I don't consider it my best work. Actually I probably wouldn't put it in my Top 20 for adventures across all the gaming systems I've GM'ed for (Rifts/TMNT, Shadowrun, D&D 2E, Twlight:2000 2E, Twilight: 2013, Star Wars D6, FFG Star Wars, and probably a few others I'm forgetting).

GM burnout is tough. I've been dealing with it for almost 2 decades. It doesn't help that I had to take a long time off from gaming, since I had no one to game with. I think it helps to play a while, and read all your books and just see where your mind goes. Video games can help too. Taking part in a game based of FFG's Star Wars system, as well as going thru some of my books and playing a couple Assassin's Creed games has made my mind come up with a globe-spanning Rifts campaign that also goes into orbit, and maybe to Wormwood, along with a secret enemy .org, a couple of villains, and a couple possible allies.

Now I just have to take it from grey matter to electrons....

[Blue_Lion]

Some methods I use to create adventures.

Brain storm right simple 1 to two sentence at the most. things on a paper then pick one to expand on.
example
1 Clear out a vampire nest.

2 Rescue children kidnapped by a cult.

3 AI sending supplies/troops to town X to invade town Y.

4 Find the missing hero.

5 Produce a porn video.

6 Relocate people to clear room for empire Z.

Then I can use this one of two ways, let the players pick one off a job board and develop it in a off the cuff adventure to weave into a grand or I can pick a few them into a grand plot.

Start- missing hero
middle- produce porn
end- clear out a nest of vampire.

So a local hero went missing after checking several bandit camps/ruins searching for clues, the party finds out he was last seen working on an adult entertainment project. The people on the project will only talk/work with the PC if they help produce adult entertainment. While producing the entertainment(scripted on screen adult entertainment best handled with a d20 modified the PB or MA as PP, to avoid uncomfortable rping, with non production RP interactions handled by rping) party learns nest of vampires is using it to draw people into a location(or feed on the entertainers) to feed on them. PC clear out the vampire nest to discover they had turned the hero. (Depending on the players and you well you can flesh it out this brain storm can grant you several sessions with varying level of fall out.)

I also have my own meta plots like test CS gen 3(brain storm design test items for the next gen CS gear I have three different lines of body armor and CS vehicles with ideas adapted from RL military vehicles) or crazy hetz arming the true FoM. (once I get all my work retyped and edited I might post these as GM resources perhaps during my deployment if I have time, I really need to stop volunteering. Not that I think is great, but I am sure it might give some one some ideas.)

Other idea rip of idea from a TV episode or series arc.