Last time, we fleshed out our mind map some more. As I was originally doing the mind map, an adventure idea came me:
A small town is haunted by a ghost of a rogue who, while fleeing justice, fled out of town into the worst winter blizzard the town had ever seen. Without shelter, he quickly froze to death, but his spirit remained behind, haunting the town and its residents. They know it’s the ghost of the old thief because on deep winter nights, they can hear ghostly strains of a tune he used to whistle constantly. During the haunting, small items disappear out of the villagers’ pockets unless a small item of value is placed outside the door of each house. The items always disappear by the time the winter storm abates.
But recently, the pickpocket ghost seems to be taking more than small items. Pets have started disappearing and during the last storm, a young boy who’d been tucked warm in his bed was found frozen to death on the same spot where the thief’s body was found. The village priest has tried to exorcise the spirit many, many times to no avail, so the villagers have now turned to the PCs for help. They want the PCs to get rid of the pickpocket ghost for good.
(This adventure start will be fleshed out into a full adventure in the upcoming The Adventure Creation Handbook)
This is a simple mind map. You can find whole books and websites dedicated to mind mapping and it can get pretty complex, using different colors and symbols to relate items to one another. I’ve found I don’t need all of that; circles and lines by themselves are enough for me. If another way works better for you, then use that.
Now, I happened to work all of the ideas on the mind map into my adventure start, but you don’t have to. It’s perfectly okay to use just a few ideas or even none. The point of a mind-map is to get your ideas flowing and jump-start your creativity. This is your tool: use it however it works best for you.
[Photo courtesy of Klearchos Kapoutsis via Flickr Creative Commons 2.0]
Other Posts in this Series:
- Before You Write an Adventure: Finding Inspiration–the Mind Map
- Find Inspiration–The Mind Map, pt. 2
Articles Zemanta thinks may be related:
- Using Mind Mapping for your RPG Planning from RPG Circus – RPGBlog (rpgcircus.com)
- Using Mind Maps (usingmindmaps.com)
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