Commonplace fears

Wired magazine have published a copy of Lovecraft's Commonplace Book. A commonplace book is a list of ideas and thoughts, and Lovecraft's provides some great insights into his thinking and writing process.

You can even see clear progression from concept to story, with entry forty two (Fear of mirrors—memory of dream in which scene is altered and climax is hideous surprise at seeing oneself in the water or a mirror. (Identity?) [Outsider?])being clear precursor to Lovecraft’s The Outsider.

From a gaming point of view it is simply an amazing resource full on scenario and scene ideas. I find simply casting my eye down the list the list sparks off story ideas with almost every entry.

The Nentir Vale reimaged

A little while ago I was casting around for a system to run a fantasy game and received some great suggestions. I checked a few out, but that itch to run a fantasy game never really got scratched, so I decided to throw caution to the wind and pick up some D&D 4E.


I have mentioned before playing D&D was a bit of geek blind spot for me, so I was a little unsure of what to expect. After getting familiar with the material and thinking about it some more, I came to conclusion that I could do what I wanted to do with the game, that being to run a character driven game with a strong story, that also had the essential flavour of D&D. The secret, I came to realise, would be a strong group of players.