Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Drabble

A drabble is a 100 word story. Exactly 100 words. Hyphenated words are debated so it's up to you. You can have up to 15 words for a title.

This is a challenge in brevity! And in choosing words that will do multiple duties.

Set the timer for 10-15 minutes, become friends with the word counter on your word processor, and have at it.

BTW, There's a good history of drabbles at The Drabble Project

PS: If you need a plot:

Here are a few plots from The Big List of RPG Plots by S. John Ross that might lend themselves to beginning, middle and end rather than the prompts written here that just get you started. There are many more plots there with lots of twists and themes. That site is overkill for this exercise but might be useful for ideas for stories.

Any Old Port in a Storm
The characters are seeking shelter from the elements or some other threat, and come across a place to hole up. They find that they have stumbled across something dangerous, secret, or supernatural, and must then deal with it in order to enjoy a little rest.

Better Late Than Never
Some bad guys have arrived and done some bad guy things. The characters were none the wiser. The bad guys have now made good their escape, and the characters have caught wind of it in time to chase them down before they make it back to their lair, their home nation, behind enemy lines, etc.

Blackmail
An antagonist has something to hold over the heads of the characters and make them jump. This could be any kind of threat from physical to social, but it depends on the villain having something - even if it's information - that others don't have. Now, he is pulling the strings of the characters, telling them to do things they don't want to. The characters must end the cycle of blackmail, deprive the villain of his edge, and keep him temporarily satisfied while doing it.

Breaking and Entering
Mission objective: enter the dangerous place, and retrieve the vital dingus or valuable person. Overcome the area's defenses to do so.

Capture the Flag
The characters must secure a military target for the good guys. There are bad guys there that prefer not to be secured. The fundamental tactical scenario.

Clearing The Hex
There is a place where bad things live. The characters must make it safe for nice people, systematically clearing it of danger.

Delver's Delight
The characters are treasure-hunters, who have caught wind of a treasure-laden ruin. They go to explore it, and must deal with its supernatural denizens to win the treasure and get out alive.

Don't Eat The Purple Ones
The characters are stranded in a strange place, and must survive by finding food and shelter, and then worry about getting back home.

Escort Service
The characters have a valuable object or person, which needs to be taken to a safe place or to its rightful owner, etc. They must undertake a dangerous journey in which one or more factions (and chance and misfortune) try to deprive them of the thing in their care.

Help is on the Way
A person (church group, nation, galaxy) is in a hazardous situation they can't survive without rescue. The characters are on the job. In some scenarios, the hook is as simple as a distant yell or crackly distress signal.

Hidden Base
The characters, while traveling or exploring, come across a hornet's nest of bad guys, preparing for Big Badness. They must either find some way to get word to the good guys, or sneak in and disable the place themselves, or a combination of both.

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