I recently read a short article or micro-blog post about the scale of evil in fantasy role-playing game adventures and sessions. The question was asked why is everything on such a large scale? A necromancer raises an army of the undead, an entire world is threatened by the opening of a portal into a hellish world, and such grand and epic storylines. No one is going to say that these are bad plots or undesirable situations for players and Game Masters alike. However, where are the smaller plots? Where is the mad alchemist bleeding a unicorn for his magic projects? Where is the boy with some evil thing living in his cupboard? Where is the woman chained to an altar awaiting the sea monster to take her as a sacrifice to leave the village's fishing boats alone? Where are the myriad of small personal horrors and injustices waiting to be dealt with?
The answer is they are wherever you want to come up with them and slot them into your game. That is if you are into that sort of thing. Not everyone wants to start from scratch. Not everyone needs to be a world builder. These intimate sorts of plots should crop up different places. Game designers that want to should get on this need. They can always be used as one shots, convention scenarios, side-stories, and whenever a diversion from the usual is needed. They can certainly come in handy for gaming groups to try out a new game. They would give a taste of what it is like without a lot of pre-preparation and actual game time to run through them. They can also be expanded; part of some larger storyline; or from the same game and author who constructed them so, strung together to form a complete storyline. So, if you design and author games and you are reading this, go make with the tippy-tap and garner yourself a wider audience.
Music: Music: P & V by Anthrax and Strange Encounter by Steel Prophet.
