Dungeon Masters! Game Masters! People who avidly play all other tabletop RPGs! I have and am compiling a new resource for you to use to help you before, during, and after the game creation process.
I've been playing Dungeons & Dragons since 1980, along with a great many other pen & paper RPGs. During these many years, I've taken a lot of what other people have created for use in my own game adventures. I've taken items and ideas and used them directly as is, or as inspiration to create something similar but in my own fashion, or something totally different. It's high time I give a loud and thunderous 'Thank You' to all those people, and to give something back to this wonderful worldwide community.
RPG SceneShots is officially my first attempt to do this. The idea for it came about from three experiences that I'm glad my mind put close together.
The first happened as a DM, noticing a lack of art and photos within adventure modules to show the scenes within them. Yes, there was / is often a good paragraph of descriptive text for such scenes that a DM reads to players. But for detail-oriented and inquisitive players, many times this description just wasn't enough, and I found that a separate photo would often be much more help to these players, since they could keep the photo in front of their eyes and better envision their character in the scene.
The second experience came about also while DMing, and working to make use of mobile devices as gaming aids. My first way was to use simple text messaging to relay messages directly to a player, messages that only their character has need to know, such as when they make a successful passive perception check and notice something other players don't. Taking pics with our phones was happening a lot, also, and being shared through social media. That action gave me the idea to use photos in a similar fashion just for my players, as a quick way to show an item, NPC, setting, or a number of other things. As smart phones, notebooks, tablets, and other mobile devices increase in number and use, their use at the gaming table should match.
The third experience happened during my video gaming time. I play a lot of computer games; it's my day job. During my time in these games, I see a great many scenes that I think would make for an excellent setting in a D&D or other tabletop RPG adventure. So, I started taking screenshots to save them and perhaps come back to them for inspiration later on.
Then, one day, the cells carrying these events around in my brain suddenly bumped into each other, and the idea for SceneShots sparked. And here it is!
Now that it's planted, I aim to have it grow from here. Going beyond the screenshots I personally take, I want to scour the Internet and grab screenshots, wallpapers, and other free photos and art to add to the compilation here. The main thing is to try to keep it categorized to help make finding a pic to use a quick and easy process.
So, my fellow tabletop RPG players, make use of SceneShots as you will! And if you have questions, comments, concerns, or other consideration for me, do please send 'em. And game on!
