Being Inspired by American Gods

Story inspiration is everywhere. I love pulling story ideas from the things I see, the movies I watch, songs I listen to and books I read. The first iteration of the Shark Bone Podcast was all about pulling story inspiration from media and work-shopping it into something usable at the table.

I want to do more of that. This article is more of that.

I read a lot. It’s something I developed a love for early in life and has stuck with me all these years. Recently, I finished American Gods by Neil Gaiman and decided I was going to tear into it to look for story ideas. I’m not going to gear this completely towards GM’s, however. Story ideas are important for players, too. And there are plenty of seeds for both in this book.

I picked up this book because so many people around me recommended it over the years and said it was amazing. I’ll be honest and say that it wasn’t my favorite. I give the book a solid 6/10. The book is well written and the characters are absolutelyamazing, but the story meanders around so much that I was constantly losing the threads.

I read the version with the author’s preferred text, which is linked above. It was long. Because the story was so hard to follow, I almost put the book down a couple of times, but soldiered on because everyone said it was so great. I was sure that the story would pick up and that all the threads would be wrapped up neatly and I’d understand all the bits that were confusing. That didn’t happen. Even so, the characters are so well-written and realized. I wanted to see what would happen to them. I cared if they lived or died, if they reconciled, if they got what they were searching for. For that alone, I’m glad I finished it.

I want to begin digging for story ideas on the player’s side. With so many great characters who feel so alive, it’s not hard to find inspiration to make characters you play at the table better.

The first idea I grabbed was giving a character a useless hobby. On the whole, I think Shadow’s coin tricks are exactly that. It’s a small detail that he uses to draw attention to himself, for the most part. It also makes him different that any other characters that might find themselves in that situation. It will serve that purpose at the table, as well. Your borderline corrupt cop who likes making origami to pass the time is a lot different than any other borderline corrupt cop. Those useless hobbies are also a fun way for the GM to customize small bits of the story for the character. Bribing your way past a bouncer with a perfectly folded crane is much more flavorful than bribing them with $20.

Next, I want to talk about character goals. Goals are wonderful things for a character to have and I very much encourage you to come up with goals for your PC, even if the game you’re playing doesn’t specifically call for them. With that said, Shadow doesn’t have any specific goals throughout most of the book. He goes along with the story simply because he has nothing better to do. That takes him on a grand, multifaceted adventure and he meets tons of interesting people and has experiences he’d never have, otherwise. It made me think and reconsider my stance of “Always have a character goal”. It’s OK if your character doesn’t have a goal. But, if you choose not to have a goal, go with the flow and see where that takes you.

Towards the end of the book, though, Shadow does find a goal. He finds something he cares about, and when he does, he throws himself into it completely. He literally gives his life to accomplish the goal. Is your PC that driven with their goal? If they’re not, is there a goal that they might be that driven to accomplish? Maybe you should switch to that goal.

Finally, for the player’s side of things, the book made me think aboutcharacter relationships. It’s no secret that a character with ties to the world is more involved in the story and has more hooks hanging off of them for the GM to use. Those same relationships are also examples for the player to know how the character relates to the rest of the world. So, the character hates their mother. Does that affect how they respond to other mothers or motherly figures in the world? If they had a trusted mentor betray them, how does that affect relationships with other mentor figures? These relationships don’t have to be with living characters, either. As long as your PC has a memory of someone, you can use their relationship to that memory as a template for other relationships in the game world.

One more thing about relationships: your character’s perception of those relationships may not always be 100% true. As they say, reality is in the eye of the beholder. Just because your character has a tie to someone who is a great friend doesn’t mean the other character feels the same. They might simply tolerate the character or perhaps they feel more than friendship and await your PC’s proposal. Don’t be surprised or upset if the GM plays those characters different than your idea of them.

For the GM side of things, I pulled a couple situations and a story hook that you can use to make things interesting at the gaming table. The first situation is that the PCs are hired to work for someone who turns out to be much more connected/powerful than they thought. This is an easy, and fun, way of getting the group involved in something that is “above their pay grade”. Because their employer is so much more powerful and connected, they’ll be running in circles they’d never had access to, otherwise. The social expectations they encounter could be completely different than what they know. They may run the risk of serious consequences for the most minor of slights. Also, they’ll be able to network and make some very powerful friends that prove very useful as the story advances.

The second situation that I thought would be fun is that of a shadow war. I thought this aspect of the book was rather fun, even if I didn’t see it get a lot of treatment. The fact that the war was being fought in the shadows and behind the scenes meant that the public saw very little of it. All the rumors and bodies left in its wake meant that the general public knew something was off, but had no idea what was going on. I think this would be a great situation for the PCs to be in, especially if they are working for some powerful patron. Perhaps the group needs to go clean up a battle site to recover some artifact or dispose of bodies the authorities would find strange. This situation is very Men In Black.

The last thing I pulled from this book is a story hook. A god has died and you must resurrect them. There are so many situations that could surround this hook. Why does the god need to be brought back? What happens if they’re brought back wrong? Who’s going to step into their place if they’re not brought back? What’s going wrong with the world now that the god is not there to do their job? To make this situation even more serious, I would add a timer of some sort. Perhaps they only have until the next sunrise. Or maybe the god’s child will be born in not more than two weeks and if the god is still dead at that time, the child will inherit their power. It could even be tied to decomposition of the god’s body. Once the heart can no longer be awoken, the god cannot be raised.

This book is full of really fun ideas. These are just a few of the ones I liked in particular. I hope they inspire you and your games.

Our Partners

https://www.essaygeeks.co.uk/ is an online essay writing service for all needs. It is in great demand among students because a wide range of academic papers is available here, and everyone will be written flawlessly. If you are a student who struggles with writing academic assignments and worries about the time limit, a professional writer can do the job for you. Be sure that your paper will be written according to the latest writing standards and that it will be deeply thought out, originally written, and free of grammar mistakes. The writer who performs your order is ready to become your trusted partner and stay in touch with you through the process. Give all the details about your paper and get an excellent result.

https://us.proessaywriting.com/ is one of the most reliable companies that offer help with writing any type of essay. This service is very popular among the groving number of customers. A lot of people who want to save their time and dedicate it to other important things are ready to hire a professional expert to have quality content written. A great number of them are students, but other categories like bloggers, journalists, or writers are also welcome. Only skillful writers with the right qualifications and years of experience are working here. They deliver premium papers that are written from authentic sources, so you shouldn’t worry about the originality of the text. They are well-formatted, coherent, and free of mistakes. The company guarantees your property rights and your privacy.


Posted in Articles | Tagged american gods, , hooks, , , , , | Leave a comment

Episode 335 – Alien Gifts #5

In this episode, Vincent has a close call with the cops.

The music for this episode is The Darkside by Audiobinger.

The forums are now at sharkbonepodcast.com/forum.

Posted in Actual Play, Podcast | Tagged , , , , science fiction, , | Leave a comment

Episode 334 – Alien Gifts #4

In this episode, Vincent receives a vision of the horrors to come and then battles a Korthun Kaos.

The music for this episode is The Darkside by Audiobinger.

The forums are now at sharkbonepodcast.com/forum.

Posted in Actual Play, Podcast | Tagged , , , , science fiction, , | Leave a comment

Episode 333 – Alien Gifts #3

In this episode, Vincent and Amon continue their flight from the Korthun Hunter and are forced to face off against it.

The music for this episode is The Darkside by Audiobinger.

Posted in Actual Play, Podcast | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Episode 332 – Alien Gifts #2

In this episode of my solo played Cypher System superhero RPG, Vincent learns something about his mentor and faces a new danger.

The music for this episode is The Darkside by Audiobinger.

This episode is also available on YouTube!

Posted in Actual Play, Podcast | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Episode 331 – Alien Gifts #1

As an experiment, I ran a solo session of the Cypher System RPG tonight and recorded it as an actual play podcast. I had fun doing it, though I feel a little self conscious about it. I’ve never done anything quite like this. I did have a lot of fun playing, recording and editing it and I do hope you enjoy listening to it.

Music for this episode is The Darkside by Audiobinger.

This audio podcast is also available on YouTube!

Posted in Actual Play, Podcast | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Episode 330 – Age of Rebellion Character Creation

It was Saturday evening and my plans to hang out with friends fell through. I had nothing to do. So, I poured myself some tequila, cracked open my brand new rule book of Star Wars Age of Rebellion Roleplaying Game and turned on the mic.

I think I’ll have to re-make the character because I’m pretty sure I did the math wrong in my head when I was spending the character creation XP. However, it was fun. Enjoy!

Posted in Podcast | Leave a comment

Episode 329 – Mistborn Adventure Game Review

A couple months ago, I was contacted about the opportunity to try out and review the Mistborn Adventure Game. I didn’t know anything about it at the time, but I agreed out of curiosity and this is the result.

Spoiler: I really dig it. Give the episode a listen to find out why and what’s so special about it! Then, check out the game over on DriveThruRPG.com.

Posted in Game Reviews | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The State & Future of The ‘Bone

It has been close to nine months since I stopped making regular podcast content. I don’t regret stopping. I do regret tying so much of my own self-worth and identity into the podcast that I created.

It’s been an interesting road to walk, these past few months. I’ve relaxed. I’ve gamed. I’ve gamed some more. I’ve gamed a lot, and, I’ve gotten super busy with family activities. If I hadn’t retired the podcast when I did, I likely would have retired it a few months afterwards due to how busy I got.

Even though life has kept me busy, I’ve made time for gaming. While walking this nine month road, I tried my hand at setting creation, posting the articles here on the site. I tried writing up actual plays based on my home game. I tried my hand at creating YouTube videos, both with my son and by myself. I designed a system and play-tested it with my home group. I ran a full 11 level Shadow of the Demon Lord game! I indulged in the hobby that I love so much.

Playing, planning and running games is what I love and it’s what drew me into podcasting in the first place. Being able to do it as much as I have has been wonderful. But, I don’t feel complete when that’s all I’m doing. Close to it, I suppose, but not complete.

I enjoy creating content for other gamers and I haven’t found a good outlet for that, for me, yet. I’m still experimenting and searching for what to do next. I love creating stories, so perhaps I’ll try writing an adventure.

Thank you all for the wild ride that was the Shark Bone Podcast! I hope you’ll walk the road to the future with me, with all its twists and turns and road signs that seem to lead all places and nowhere all at once.

Posted in Articles | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Fate Dice Threats & Advantages

Earlier today, I was listening to the first episode of the Excess Advantage Podcast (which I was a guest on) and I was struck by an idea. It’s probably not a new idea; after all, there are no new ideas left, right? But it’s not one that I’ve come across and I thought I’d give a go at developing the idea into something that I could use at my game table.

In the episode, Christopher was explaining to me how the Threats and Advantages work in the Genesys RPG put out by Fantasy Flight Games. It got me thinking, as it did while we were recording, how much I enjoy systems that have a system or rule to expand the pass/fail roll. There’s Complications in the Smallville (Cortex Plus Dramatic) game, there are Exceptional Successes in the New World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness and Degrees of Success in Mutants & Masterminds 3rd Edition. Those are all games that I do or have enjoyed and my enjoyment of them is in no small part due to the expansion of the rolls.

While I was listening and thinking, I thought how cool it would be to have a system for Threats and Advantages that wasn’t tied to the dice rolling for success and failure. That’s different to how Genesys does it, since the symbols for Success & Advantage appear on the same dice, just like how the symbols for Failure & Threat are on the same dice. But, since I want to port this into games that use traditional dice that have numbers on the faces, I needed something that works in tandem and doesn’t interfere with how the game’s mechanics work.

I turned the idea over in my head for a few minutes, trying to see how I would implement it when I realized that I was just looking for pluses and minuses. Which are already a thing. Fate dice! Fate dice are perfect for it since the dice only show a plus, minus or blank face. In Fate, the symbols cancel each other out, just like Threats and Advantages in Genesys. I realized this was my answer. This is how I can expand the dice rolls in other games!

Now, this is an idea that I’m noodle-ing, nothing more. I haven’t brought this to my table or play-tested it at all. If you choose to try this out, understand that you’ll likely need to make some tweaks to it to fit your table’s style and the game you’re playing.

Here are my current ideas on implementing this:

  • When rolling the dice in your system of choice, in addition to the dice you normally roll, roll two Fate dice.
  • The Fate dice will give you one of several results: (+,+),(+,0),(0,0),(0,-),(-,-). A (+,-) counts as a (0,0) since they cancel each other out.
  • Each (+) is an Advantage and each (-) is a Threat.
  • Each Advantage can be spent by the player who rolled the dice to:
    • Add a bonus to another PC’s roll. Could be a +2 in d20, a Boon in Shadow of the Demon Lord, +1 die in World of Darkness or Burning Wheel.
    • Add +1 to their Armor Class or Defense score for one round.
    • Gain some narrative perk, negotiated with the GM.
  • Each Disadvantage can be spent by the GM to:
    • Add a penalty to the player’s next roll. Could be -2 in d20, a Bane in Shadow of the Demon Lord, -1 die in World of Darkness or +1 Ob in Burning Wheel.
    • Give an NPC a bonus to their next roll against the PC, just like the bonuses a PC can give to a fellow with an Advantage.
    • Inflict a narrative disadvantage onto the scene.

That’s what I’ve got. I’m going to chat with my home group and see what they think. Maybe I’ll give this a try in our next Shadow of the Demon Lord session, if they’re willing! I hope this adds to your games. If it does (or doesn’t) or if you’ve got thoughts, share them with me! I’d love to discuss them. Join the frenzy!

Posted in Articles | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment