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I finally picked up D&D 4th Edition (just the Player’s Handbook) and as I flipped through it, an interesting thought comes my mind. Every class has a well-defined role during combat, be it healing, blostering others, crowd controls (through shifting and pulling), debuffing (marks, combat advantages), area of effect damages and a scissor-paper-rock system (the types of Defenses – Armour, Will and Reflex). It looks like the designers took a page or two out from Game Design Patterns.

This got me wondering though. Who is responsible for building effective characters. This question, however, can be broken down. What do you mean by effective? And in what situation?

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Those monasteries are located all over at the most inhospitable places of the realm. Nested against hills with no villages in mile, upon a storm-wrecked island or sometimes in a wing of a collapsed and abandoned castle. One visiting the place should take some heed and be braced for the sight that would greet them if they step into one. Only the caretaker of the monastery is alive. Inside, hundreds of skeletal monks, still in their robes, tirelessly makes copies of important treatises, tomes and religious texts. What magic keeps them going? Isn’t anyone particularly concerned about this? Why would adventurers need to go to such a place, anyway?

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This site was launched in early February 2009, and with the intent of writing one fantasy plot hook per month.  I had in mind to keep this ‘one plot hook per day’ going for six months, and seeing that it is August, I think the experiment has reached its end. This of course, doesn’t mean that I am stopping. I am going to take a break, change a new theme for my WordPress blog, and write a 24-hour RPG.

So for those who are following the site, don’t be alarmed by the lack of updates. Yes life has gotten busier for me – soon I will place a RSS feed from my other blog (the Struggling Games Developer) so you would know what are the ‘interesting’ things happening in my life (interesting is relative anyway, don’t you agree?)

Hopefully, I would return with science-fiction/horror plots. I have been watching lots of Star Trek and Babylon 5. If inspiration and luck strikes, for the next three to four months, there may be once per day Science Fiction/Horror plot hook. Stay tuned!

PS. It’s not over for fantasy plot hooks yet. I will write them once per week if inspiration strikes

In the midst of a vast, sprawling city, its architecture dating back to years long ago and showing distictinve heritage of different empires, are ruins where squatters dwelled. And within the ruins, is a long untended gardens, it’s hedge wall overgrown, the smell of rotten fruits spreading from within, and the pavements leading to it cracked and broken apart by weeds and grasses.

No man, it is said, set foot within the garden and goes  into the depth and had emerged alive.

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A kingdom is falling apart because of a prophecy. Ancient ruling houses have began to war with each other. The sons of the king began to plot to overthrow their father, but first have to deal with each other. Meanwhile, merchant houses secretly began a covert war through the use of spies, assassins and adventurers. All are determined that they are destined to stop an ancient evil, become a glorious ruler and other grandiose dreams. What madness have stricken those people?

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The night before, there was a thick mist, a rolling fog that covered the entire dockside. The next day when the sun is out, a large ship, its kind never seen before, is out in the bay, it’s masts broken, its sail tattered, its hull encrusted with ice. A dead ship appearing at the bay, out of nowhere. Where did it come from, what is on it, and what does this portends? No one is willing to go near to the ship, and the adventurers are dispatched to find out what is it and to ensure that it is safe to approach it and towed it away.

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It is well known that the forests and hills of Sandhornvale are haunted; the small folk called them ’spirit lights’ and they appear as small orbs of pale white lights. They danced at various spots and landmarks when midnight comes, and lingers for an hour before disappearing. A few believe they were ghosts or spirits that did not passed over to the after-world, while sages and sorcerers believed that there’s nothing supernatural about those lights at all – they are the creations of sorcery. What are those lights, exactly?

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When is the last time you have a 100% in character role-playing session? Is that a myth, like the unicorns or the GM who makes profit from doing professional GameMastering? In more than a decade of game-mastering, I can count with one hand the number of sessions which can be described as “immersive and in-character”. It’s not just the out-of-character jokes; it’s more than that. I always find that most of my friends are usually playing caricatures of the archetype they have chosen or an extreme on the spectrum.

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