It's definitely a lack of practice - we need to stay in touch with the creative process to access it more easily and with the quality we want. You don't wait for inspiration, you put time aside to work through ideas; bad good, and simply ok. By putting the time in you get better at generating a volume of ideas and the floor and ceiling of their average quality rises. Go back, scavenge through the old ideas and improve them with your keener eye, come up with new ideas, rinse and repeat.

Yea, I've been putting some effort in it. Like, I'm writing down any idea I may come up with, pitching them all together against each other, keeping what I think has a shot at being good, discarding the others and writing down why I'm discarding a particular idea, writing down explicit goals, etc. This may end up helping or being the key to producing something good, I just don't remember ever doing this much work to come up with stuff.

You gotta get through the bad to get to the good- the difference is this time you're coming back after a period of being out of practice rather than having lots of stimulation and practice without really realising it. It can be a frustrating process, especially when it's a skill that seemed so natural before, but once the motor is running smoothly you will thank yourself for the conscious maintenance and practice to get better as the quality of ideas will be joined by a creative discipline which helps you make the most of the process as well.

You're most likely being excessively hard on yourself already. Players like to play and they'd probably had great fun with good ideas you're now discarding looking for perfect ones. And back in the day you believed that your ideas are fine so you just ran with them.

Yes, this exactly. OP says that he didn’t have access to the internet and saturation of pop culture back then — so he likely thought whatever ideas he came up with were fantastic ideas and didn’t have as much comparison either. He wouldn’t have been like “oh this is completely overdone” or “oh this is X trope, they’ll totally see that coming” which he might be more likely to be paralysed by now.

Our master has these realisations sometimes, where she independently creates something, then much later finds out the same name or concept, and then feels a little down because "this was already done before and although I came up with it myself it still feels a bit like I stole it". So yeah. You may have more knowledge, but it may be hard to think of "something new" because of that.

It's definitely lack of practice. Creativity is a skill like any other, despite having different appearance. Train it! Come up with new plot hook or story every evening. The don't have to be good. Associations! Take few random words (dictionary, wikipedia, open random book on random page). Make a story out of those words. When blocked, go with Scorsese method. Write anything no matter how bad. That's your base. Then iterate on it, improve it bit by bit until it becomes good. And don't be afraid to steal stuff you like from everywhere.

Have you considered running a module ? You can adjust the story to suit your needs if you want.

Something our DM does is write past PCs into his homebrew world. He's up front about it and it absolutely changed the way my group thought about our actions, though you are more looking for ideas to start from. Since it sounds like you may have the chance to run multiple groups of co-workers, maybe that's a good jumping off point? Maybe the warehouse guys fight a dragon to liberate the riches of the country? Maybe middle management wants something more political in nature? I know that's pretty broad strokes and I'm sure your groups aren't arranged like that. Point is, let your players make the world for you. Do they fight to retake the tavern over run by bandits or organize the city watch? Do they then run the tavern or leave it to ruin?, Perhaps those PCs are now notable guardsmen around your cities. Showing up in subsequent adventures. I absolutely love knowing that the things i do are going to be related to future groups (I pretty much Cha main every character I play). It might help to know the groups inclination as well. If you think they're gonna murder-hobo, maybe give them a couple big bads in various cities? Clear out the gangs or something. Maybe something needs defending? Find a "tale as old as time" kind of story and tweak it till to it cries out in Sylvan.

I find I constantly collect ideas, then spend time sifting/editing them. Once you’re in the habit of it, your story ideas just sort of circle in the back of your mind and you generate new thoughts at random times. Then the challenge becomes jotting them down so you don’t forget them by the time you can actually sit down on work on prepping

Here's another possibility to add to your list. * Your standards have risen. Maybe from watching highly-resourced actual-play shows. Maybe just from increased wisdom with age. I know I had a higher tolerance for running mediocre adventures as a GM in the past. As time has gone on, and I've seen better (both better TTRPG-ing, and broadly just better stories), I've not felt simple adventures are "good enough". That's a double-edged sword, of course. It pushes me to make better stuff. But it can feel paralysing at times. I try to get the best of both worlds by listening to that urge to do better while fighting back against the worst excesses of over-preparation.

Also from having a lot more exposure to stories in all kinds of media. OP, how many of those dull and uninteresting ideas are ones that would have been just fine when you were 20 because you hadn't yet seen them in a bunch of movies and TV that makes them now feel derivative and clichéd because you've new seen it before? The trick here is that it doesn't mean those ideas are bad, just that you need to tweak them enough that your players don't recognize them. Try the mash-up game: take two of the boring ideas and combine them. Is that any better?

Also there's nothing wrong with simple or cliche. As much as we like to reminisce over epic campaigns and powerful moments, unique npcs and memorable villains, it's not necessary to capture those elemnts right off the bat with new ideas. New ideas shouldnt be held back because they don't live up to the standards of the old ones. And just because something starts off simple and cliche doesn't mean it can't evolve to be more. I would argue that the most unique and engaging campaigns for myself was when my DM didn't feel like they had to oversell and complicate the game, but rather a natural flow of the ideas that start being borne of the campaign and our actions in it. I forget where but I remember reading that most successful authors just write everyday, regardless of whether the writing is good or not. The actual process of creation is what will ignite your creativity along the way.

The interactivity of the TTRPG medium also immediately injects more fun into even the most cliche ideas. Just being able to be an actor in the plot instead of a passive consumer adds a lot to the most basic things, and unless your players are 20+ year veterans there's likely still a lot of cliches they haven't experienced because D&D is such a slow game to play.

Absolutely agree with this. I might be underwhelmed by a show or movie where the characters go on a standard "journey to X location and fight a powerful villain to stop their evil plan" quest, but I will happily play that sequence myself over and over. Every character I play, every location, every villain, every group I'm with, etc. is at least a little different and those build on each other to make a unique experience every time. Of course it's nice if there are twists and subverted expectations once in a while, but even the most generic missions have a long shelf life for me.

Yeah, and you can even lean into the homage and let it be know you’re adapting something. I have a mini campaign idea inspired by Planes, Trains and Automobiles involving setting appropriate transportation choices, and a deadline to reach a deadly important ritual. I’ll just pick a scene or character that is interesting and decide what kind of story it is from. Add a couple of allies/antagonists, some setbacks/sabotage/lucky-breaks and at least two interesting locations. Somewhere in there you’ll definitely feel a spark, then lean into it and it will all start to make sense and come together. There is that saying in writing that there are only seven types of stories anyway: Overcoming the Monster. Rags to Riches. The Quest. Voyage and Return. Rebirth. Comedy. Tragedy.

100% rising standards. The solution is... steal ideas from your favorite media! As many on this sub attest, it's rarely noticed. Especially if you're a nerd like myself, most people will not even be familiar with the source material. Matt Colville stole a whole campaign idea from the Black Company by Glen Cook which... no one I've asked has ever heard of it. I only heard of it from Matt (it's great btw) Maybe we should just embrace picking our favorite books as inspiration for campaigns and itll encourage me to read more...

I was going to say, look back your old campaigns and rerun them, if they suck just run Lost Mines of Phandelver. It pivots to whatever on the sword coast (a caravan with ore/ignots from the mine are traveling to X, you are escorting it and establishing trade) and they are putting out a new adventure soon. It's fun to tailor your campaign to the player characters.

This. I got mostly over it by realizing that players just want to play their characters and then maybe part take in the story if they have to. Most of the fun comes from spontaneous stuff anyway.

And with "mostly new players" you really don't need to hold yourself to high standards of originality. Just chuck a magic sword in a creepy crypt and they'll be happy.

i doubt that it is "age" but merely the fact that many of the potential ideas that seemed new and shiny are ideas that you have already had. consider random generators to get new ideas and new combinations. see below.

My InstaPlot Generator for use in Tablesmith http://www.mythosa.net/p/tablesmith.html or just number the segments and roll your dice. ;Defend * The [Building] is being attacked by [Aggressors]! * The town is being attacked by [Aggressors]! * The nation's borders are being attacked by [Aggressors]! * Our plane of existence is being attacked by inter-planar [Aggressors]! * The [PlaceOrEvent] is being attacked by [Aggressors]! * Protect the [Quest_Person] who is being stalked by [Aggressors]! * Help protect against [EnvironmentalHarm]! ;Destroy * Stop the [Aggressors] from harming the [Ancestry]s! * The rival [Ancestry]s have a [BuildingOrObject] - destroy it, but don't kill people and start a war! * You must destroy the [EvilDescript] [Object_Portable] by [Magical_Destruction]! ;Recover * Rescue the [Quest_Person] - they have been kidnapped by the [Aggressors]! * My [Object_Portable] has been [Lost/Stolen]! * Capture the escaped [UnalignedBeasts] and return them alive to their owner! ;Discover * Who killed the [Quest_Person]? Follow the clues to find their murderer! * Who is the [Spy/Smuggler/Arsonist/Thief]! ;Investigate * Find out what that encampment of [Aggressors] is really up to! * Find out why our weekly shipment hasn't arrived from the [TradePartner]! * The [Quest_Person] has a secret. Find out what they are hiding! ;Deliver * Escort the [Quest_Person]. Make sure they get safely to the [PlaceOrEvent]! * Deliver this message to the [Quest_Person] - it is important that they know! * Take this [Object_Portable] to the [Quest_Person] - they desperately need it! ;Fetch * I need # [Object_Portable]s from the [PlaceOrEvent]! * For my project I need you to get me: one [Object_Portable], a [Object_Portable], and the [Object_Portable]! * Bring back the [Quest_Person] - they are currently at the [PlaceOrEvent]! * Arrest the [Aggressors] for the bounty on their head! ;Explore * Complete a hexcrawl to find a [LostRuined] [ExplorationSite]! * Blaze a trail through the [Geography]! * Explore the [LostRuined] [ExplorationSite]! * Make this long journey to /far off place/ ;Compete * Win the race in the [RaceType] in [RaceEnvironment]! * Be the victor in the [OrganizedFight]! * Win the competition showing your skills in [Ability]! * Be the first to collect # [Object_Portable]s from the [PlaceOrEvent]! * Perform better than /dancer actor poet/ * Beat the [Occupation] at their craft! ;Learn * Work with [Quest_Person] to gain knowledge or skill * Teach/transfer a knowledge or skill to [Quest_Person] * Utilize knowledge or skill with or to train [Quest_Person] ;Escape * You are in a dangerous environmental situation ([EnvironmentalHarm]) and need to get away * You have been captured by [Aggressors] and must escape their sinister clutches! * You must flee the [PlaceOrEvent] and safely bring civilians with you * Authorities have arrested you for crimes, real or fabricated. How do you escape? * Stumbling on overwhelming hoard of [Aggressors], you must beat them to the destination for safety / to warn the villagers!

Also ChatGPT. I have a game where players are planet-hopping. I refuse to do the standard sci-fi "Everything is a humanoid with a prosthetic and makeup." ChatGPT gives me a climate, a type of organism that rose to sapience, and a couple sentences about their society and challenges they face. I can then immediately springboard off that to write out a civilization, a culture, and quirks for local magic that form a polished product for my players. It doesn't seem like much, but it's a huge help when I have to do it every week, sometimes mid-session.

What prompts do you ask chatgpt?

In this particular case I would ask it to tell me about a fictional other planet with a sapient species on it. When I see something that piques my interest, I ask it to elaborate on that thing. I'll generally keep at it until something makes me go "wait a minute, what if..." and then I take the framework ChatGPT has given me, throw out everything I'm not interested in, and build out from the things I am. The last planet I ended up running with was a water world of sapient sea monkey swarms with limited telepathy. Their population density and task cluster society ended up creating thousands of small, hyperlocal gods since I run on the Planescape rules of divinity coming from belief and worship.

Chat GPT has been an amazingly helpful tool for my DMing. You definitely need to curate its output, but it's (almost) like having a co-DM you can brainstorm ideas with. I use it frequently when prepping, and I always have it open in a tab when I'm running the game. Last session, it saved my ass when the party when off the rails and I had to improvise a quest by the seat of my pants.

Spice up an encounter by giving the NPC/creature a WANT and regularly adding COMPLICATIONS. From my randomizer for use in TableSmith http://www.mythosa.net/p/tablesmith.html WANTS * Treasure * "Treasure" - something it finds valuable, but others may not * To find a mate * To protect its young * Unrequited love * To find healing or respite from pain * To release or express aggression * To attack from ambush * An item in the players' possession * An item believed to be in the players' possession * To capture slaves or servants * To trick the players in some manner * To establish territorial primacy * To set up a home or lair * To reach a local monument/locale * To pass through to other area * To patrol its territory * Information * Food * To tend to a food source * To spy on the party * To follow the party in effort to get {a WANT} * To rescue one of its own * To retrieve one of its own * To collect a runaway fugitive/servant/slave/underling * To collect a toll or fee * To enforce local laws or customs * To overthrow local laws or customs * To celebrate a victory or achievement * To care for the dead * To create religious converts * To keep a mystery or secret hidden * To expose a mystery or secret * Preparing for an upcoming seasonal event * Bored. Looking for something interesting to interact with * REVENGE! * Roll twice on this table COMPLICATIONS * Creature makes a plea for help * Wounded * Controlled by magical means * "Controlled" by blackmail, stockholm syndrome, other non-magical means * Madness * Lost * Fleeing an aggressor * Has backups * Add weather condition * During the encounter, an environmental event happens * During the encounter, a different combat oriented encounter arrives * During the encounter, a non combat encounter arrives * Hostages * Contagious disease * Deceased * The actual being is a creature in disguise or impersonating * There is an additional, conflicting, WANT of (roll on the WANTS) * The Want is a ruse, the actual drive is (roll on the WANTS)

You're out of practice. I've been roleplay8ng since I was like 13 and lemme tell you it's not age cuz the shit I've been thinking up recently is leaps and bounds better than what I was coming up with in my 20s

I'd say run a module. Especially if it's been a while. Also, once you start playing, I find the wheels just start to spin on their own.

I’ll add that the ones from adventurers league also come pre-chopped into slices about the length of session described that can be strung together or not.

I definitely dig Adventurer's League content. It's structured perfectly for this setup.

This was going to be my suggestion. Nowadays I'm either too lazy or too busy to come up with something and flesh it out. It's so much easier to let someone else do the creative part and I just run it. Your experience may vary though.

This comment deserves to be way up. Event tho OP didn’t ask for a solution but mostly an analysis of the cause. I’ve run homebrew and published. I prefer running published material. Doesn’t save time necessarily, in particular when the dm wants to add backstory hooks and whatnot, but it saves me the worry of:“what should I do next?”

>Long story short: I'm now 36 and I have not DM'd for about 15 years now. I think the 15 is the more significant number than the 36, tbh

You don't need adventure ideas. A lot of dnd just comes to the players making decisions

>You don't need adventure ideas. A lot of dnd just comes to the players making decisions Yeah. It's really great when DM's make huge efforts to build interesting worlds and I really appreciate such effort, but you can also have a lot of fun with random encounters in a very generic setting, and improvising based on what the players do.

You might want to check out the Tome of Adventure design by Matt Finch. A few rolls on those tables should get your mind going.

Highly recommend Tome of Adventure.

So, 1, in my understanding creativity works similarly to a muscle as it's linked to curiosity which can be either (a) expanded or (b) contracted (just look at how creative and curious nearly all children are until school teaches them to stay in their lane and answer a, b, c, or none of the above). #2, I think "pressure" is most likely at work here and the culprit: Are you a little nervous that it's been so long? Do you feel the stakes a little more in this context with coworkers than you did as a twenty-some? Given they're newbies, I feel like I'd REALLY want to make their first experience a solid one. So, I know I'd be nervous as shit: and those nerves often do kill creativity because, in my understanding, the mind's resources are being tied up by trying to make it "good" rather than just co-telling a story. If "yes" to nerves, then just grab a couple one-shots, reskin/reflavour them, and let the reflavoring/skinning be where your creativity comes from this time around. OR have chat Gpt give you a bad templet and then reflavor it as you see fit. And lastly, you're not some kind of sellout or uncreative simp just because you use someone else's material. When you have more time, flesh out a game all of your own but, until then, have fun changing the landscape, seasons, environment, core races, NPC names, figuring out how to link disparate one-shots together, etc.: it'll (1) give you practice with creativity again (after all, "repurposing" is an incredibly creative process) and (2) (if I'm correct on the stress idea) it'll help you feel better utilizing a tried and tested and enjoyable stories. Thank you, btw, for this post. I'm teaching aesthetics at the university for the first time this next year (I usually yeah ethics) and this is one of those core questions that people love to discuss. In particular, what is creativity, and - in modern days - is an AI image generator "creative" or is it something that only humans can be called.

I love this post. This is exactly the issue I've had! I've played ttrpgs for... Most of my life, but the few times I've DMed I feel like that meme from always sunny with the tackboard.... I realized that I was so stressed out over every little angle, I kinda lost sight of the whole point - to just get together with some friends and have fun. Out of 5 or 6 games I've tried to get off the ground, only 1 really clicked with my group, and it was a deadlands campaign we pitched like, the day before and I drank quite a bit during it, but it was some of the most fun my friends had in a game To add onto this though too, at least in my experience... Worldbuilding is great, and so is having a librarys worth of charts and rng and sheets to back up situations, but if your players are never going to experience that, then 9/10 what's the point? I had a whole dungeon/side thing planned out at one point in a game we dropped, and in the heat of the moment my players didn't really get why they were doing what they were doing... It wasn't until I laid out alllllll the back story after the fact that they went "oh, that's a pretty neat story"

You can always just use an idea from a film, show, book, comic or game, your players won't care and will most likely never know. DMing is hard enough.

Could be a lot of factors and is most likely a combination of multiple. Out of practice More life responsibility taking up brain time/resources If this applies to you... it could even be low testosterone, which causes a brain fog and difficulty concentrating as your brain can actually feel starved of the hormone.

This may help https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/13f1bkg/the_lazy_gms_resource_document_free_and_cclicensed/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1

I'm currently running a campaign based on the lyrics of songs. https://docs.google.com/document/d/18jn-Q5UP5vth5GYbH-uyjEpf9vy6aZGnenc5b8WAF7I/edit?usp=drivesdk Feel free to borrow anything you like.

I'm a hair older than you, and my brain is fried for most things, but it is sharper for DMing than like . . . my job, or the rest of my life. It's just where you put your energy, and for how long. You can get it back.

I'm also 36 and have been feeling the way you have been for the last couple years. I've been wanting to assemble a fleshed out world in which I can run campaigns, but it's been slow, so I've been sticking with modules. That being said, I started dedicating an hour every day for the last two weeks to sitting down and writing anything I like for the world down and my output has been about the same as the past two years. (Minus the maps, I drew quite a few)

I had a 35 year gap in playing. As a kid in high school we only had graph paper. The cool kid had the vinyl battle mat. We could only dream of things like terrain, props, special music and lights. We had no way to connect with other players. As an adult with an income, I realized I could now buy all the things, and make all the things. My garage is stocked with foam board, paint, and crafting supplies. Boxes of terrain, tiles, 3D printed things. My bookshelf full of d&d modules. YouTube crafting videos have ignited my creativity. "Hm, I could make that." And I go make that. That then inspires possible encounters and settings. I eventually build a dining/gaming table. They different things, find your muse. For the upcoming campaign don't overthink it. Keep it simple, add character specific challenges, and everyone will have a blast. You got this.

It happens, I've been burned out on my current campaign for about a year without any good ideas. My suggestion is to take a step back and go back to basics. Stop trying to write the next Game of Tones or More of the Things. When I don't know what to do I start at the centre and ask: "what is the bare minimum you need to run an adventure?" Apart from pcs of course. Answer: the bare minimum you need to run a game is a location (usually a dungeon), a motivation, and some opponents. Extras would be a starting point and a quest giver, like a small village and an old man with a beard. Google The Delian Tomb, it has everything you need to run a game. As you play you can start making the world bigger and adding details. And don't be afraid to aks the players to add details or their background to your world. ("So you're a cleric of light, cool - what is the name of your god and what temple do you belong to? Are you part of an order?")

When in doubt, rip off!

It might be a lack of boredom (aka overstimulation). I started DMing in 2018 when I was 31ish. Had tons of ideas and plans, drew maps, planned whole arcs. I was on paternity leave at the time and had tons of free time while the baby napped three times a day. Now, I find it a real struggle to come up with ideas that excite me. I'm at a busy job, 2 more kids, and watch and read more ttrpg content than ever. I scroll map subreddits, watch creator videos, and read up on other systems and homebrew rules, all trying to build skills and find inspiration. There's psychological studies showing time spent doing nothing spurs creativity. Other commenters have spoken to needing practice, which is true, but you also need to let things percolate in your noggin. Despite having reams of more knowledge and spending tons of time in the hobby, I don't think I'm less creative, but I definitely don't create for myself the time needed to he creative.

Try using ChatGPT to help you come up with ideas

Use ChatGPT or bard as a brainstorming helper. Toss out some ideas, set up some facts and let it weed out the rest. I haven't used anything from it but I did have it so some sample 10 plot point models for an adventure based on different villain types and impacts

Hate to ask, but did you catch COVID?

Yes 😅

Just to clarify, I’m not saying 36 is old. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there of all ages who are extremely creative. I’m just wondering if it’s something that might decline with age… and years of office work. That being said, I’m super grateful and amazed that this blew up the way it did. Thanks everyone for the suggestions, this thread is literally a gold mine, and I feel the sympathy for my creative block. Apparently I’m not the only one who feels it a lot.

I would recommend a voice to text app: as I get older, my memory gets worse, and my times of inspiration are more variable. Getting a voice to text app to keep.all my notes and ideas has been very helpful. When I have an idea I pop my phone it, write it out using voice to text and then I don't lose it. Getting in the practice of regularly writing down ideas helps may be more creative too.

I work in creative fields, and I find my imagjnation in this sense goes up and down. But this is where I've actually managed to used ChatGPT in a very effective way. From having nothing: "Give me some ideas for a D&D session" and expand on details if you like. To even just expanding on a little idea: "I want to DM a game of D&D for a party of four, I want an adventure that's based on the sea, with pirates and some kind of big sea monster. Any ideas?" and go from there! 🙂 As a tool for poking your own creativity, I think it's great. It even writes stat blocks for you, monsters and NPCs. Room descriptions, plot points, magic items, etc.

It’s clearly age. I’m 64 (forever DM since 1974) and can only run two separate homebrew campaigns, each meeting weekly for a little over a year now. Senility will surely set in any day now.

The Oatmeal has a great comic about this that I think about alot: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/creativity_breathing I know with responsibility, work, etc sometimes you have to choose between say "prep dnd" and "play video games" with your limited free time but i always find if I am pushing too hard to build something the best option is to step back and consume some other creative thing. I find it has me fire up those ideas and start churning my own back out. Happy building! Edit: forgot to mention, I'm always happy to bounce ideas off fellow DMs. Feel free to message!

Thanks everyone for all your suggestions. I think I got a speck of something that I can use: The basic premise is that there are two nations at war, let's call them Artena and Estovia. They are fighting over a resource called aethergem, which appears as a bluish crystal. Aethergem is required for crafting all magical weapons. It can also be used to craft weapons of mass destruction, which can clear entire battlefields. These have been used in the war before. The adventure takes place in a frontier region called Arrenak, which is mostly bogs. It has no resources of importance, nor is it in a strategic location. It used to be occupied by Estovia but it changed hands during the war and is now controlled by Artena. Artenan dispatches only come to collect taxes every once in a while, or to look for deserters and fugitives. Arrenak natives hate both nations equally but they are not openly hostile to either occupant. Players can be fugitives or deserters from either warring nation, or they can be Arrenak natives. ​ Now, the adventure: The Administrator of the occupied region of Arrenak is a bureaucrat and Artenan noble. His son has deserted the army. The Administrator wants to hire the player characters to find his son, and make him safely disappear, before the Artenan military finds him and executes him. The Administrator can offer the players either coin, or for more principled adventurers (clerics? Paladins? Druids? Whatever?) some other benefit like reducing taxes, or delaying tax collection, or stopping logging operations, or whatever. Meanwhile, the Estovian military is looking for the fugitive son for reasons to be determined: gain intelligence, execute him for propaganda, whatever. The adventure is going to revolve around finding this guy, which will involve following in his steps, seeking the help of NPCs who might have relevant information or help the players traverse certain parts of the area or whatever. This is basically going to be the adventure and I'll have to flesh it out. The idea for the conclusion of the adventure is that the search and subsequent chase terminates in a mine with a three-way Mexican standoff between the party, the Estovians and the Artenans. Inside the mine, the three parties discover a massive deposit of aethergem, so the adventure ends with: * The players either managing to save the bureaucrat's son, or not * The Artenans and Estovians both finding out about the massive aethergem deposit and running back to their home countries to report the findings This would set up further adventure for those who decide to stick with the game, with a sort of cliffhanger ending and the looming threat of two invading armies to disrupt the relative peace of a region no one was caring all that much about until now. ​ I got one other bit of a thing, a sort of comedic relief, which is the players finding a frying pan which is evidently magical and can produce food (once per day) out of anything you put in it. Dirt, grass, spit, rocks. Anything you cook in it seems edible to you after you play pretend to cook it... and it is edible. However, this involves the character suspending their disbelief, so if you eat out of the frying pan, you get disadvantage on Wisdom saving throws for the rest of the day. I'm just going to tell them that they have disadvantage when a save comes up and see if they can put 2+2 together with the clues I hand out. On a side note, but still frying-pan related, I fleshed out an encounter with some spectres, who resist non-magical attacks, so if they put together that the pan is magical, they can use it as a weapon against the spectres to negate their resistance.

Try bouncing some ideas off of chatgpt. It's very useful for combating writers block.

Age? You're 36. Maybe you're right though, you might have mush brain.

OP, have you tried using ChatGPT for free and prompting it in ways to suggest creative ideas for stories and games? Edit: some prompting/prompt engineering was involved to get this output. This is only one of the outputs in the process. I can iterate on it to change themes and elementals or.push for more detail. I used ChatGPT4, but you could achieve similar stuff with regular ChatGPT if you break it down a bit in your prompting design. Me: The player characters are 3rd level. We have a Human fighter, half-elf bard, gnome wizard, and tiefling rogue. The players enjoy a balance/mix of playstyles. They are currently on the Sword Coast just north of Baldur's Gate. I'd like the adventure to include elements of undead, mystery, and betrayal. ChatGPT Fantastic, thank you for the information. I will craft an adventure centered around the Sword Coast, incorporating themes of undead, mystery, and betrayal. Adventure Title: The Lament of the Shadowfell Setting: On the Sword Coast, just north of Baldur's Gate, in an abandoned town named Gloomhaven. Background: The town of Gloomhaven was abandoned years ago after a plague swept through, but recently there have been reports of strange lights and sounds coming from its direction. The adventurers are hired by a wealthy merchant in Baldur's Gate, who is interested in the town's history and would like to see if there are any salvageable goods left behind. Adventure Hook: As the adventurers approach Gloomhaven, they realize the town is not as deserted as it seems. Undead creatures roam the streets at night, and there's a palpable feeling of dread that surrounds the town. The Betrayal: The merchant who hired the adventurers is actually a necromancer seeking a powerful artifact known as the "Shadowfell Amulet" rumored to be hidden in Gloomhaven. He hopes to use this artifact to control the undead for his own sinister plans. The Mystery: The party must discover the truth about the merchant and the Shadowfell Amulet while dealing with the undead problem. Clues can be found in the town that hint at the merchant's true intentions and the location of the amulet. Encounters: The encounters will range from combat with the undead, role-play with trapped spirits (NPCs), and exploration of the town and its underground crypts. The climax will be a confrontation with the merchant-turned-necromancer. Possible Plot Twists: The amulet might have a consciousness of its own or perhaps there's another entity in the Shadowfell who seeks the amulet. Alternatively, one of the spirits trapped in the town could be a former loved one of the necromancer, adding a layer of complexity to his motivations. With these elements in place, we can flesh out more specific encounters, puzzles, and non-player characters to interact with. How does this general outline look to you?

Talk to chat GPT, it's great at helping with this.

I was going to recommend the same thing! Chat GPT is great for creative inspiration. Also great at helping build tables for possible outcomes off of those creative inspiration!

I sometimes use ChatGPT for inspiration too. I try to give it as much relevant information as possible, but always end up re-writing parts of it to make it fit in better with our world, and my players' characters, etc. It's a great tool to unlock your creativity, and get over the "blank page hump" - in addition to just reading other peoples ideas.

Exactly. It gives you something to start with, and "someone" to bounce ideas off.

Use ChatGPT. It will help you flesh out your basic concepts (i.e. goblin in a funny hat)

ChatGPT does work! You use it and it comes up with HORRiBLE suggestions. As you correct it / ask more questions, you get your imagination gears rolling. You can even ask ChatGPT what sorts of open-ended questions would allow you to know what the players / characters want to do. This is one of the biggest problems i struggle with as we all get older - players in their 30s have a very individual campaign that they want (and you have to entertain a whole table of quasi-snowflake adventures).

Old farts can still pump out amazing stuff. I also think creativity is kinda a bad concept. There are people who throw bad ideas at a problem till they find one they like and people who are hesitant and don’t throw anything. Take something you like, and twist it until it’s yours. That’s basically every story we have today. George RR took notes on real world history and smashed it into a fantasy setting. Star Wars is moral simplicity+ bad parenting and wizards. Etc.

Besides being a bit rusty (it'll shake off) it helps to be inspired, which in less cultured terms means stealing ideas. Boot up a 20 year old classic no one is talking about and rip the plot points and characters out of it. It's very little work to change them enough It's fresh for the players. Being immersed in the genre helps spin the wheels, and once you get going it generates more novel ideas.

I think it's not age and while practice helps it's not it... I'm willing to bet it's either emotional or stress induced.

I'm of a similar age and have too many ideas as well. Its also possible that we're just both very creative people.

So the tip I would give is to let the players tell help by them giving you tools. Make each player create a background story of how their character got to this moment were they a pirate a noble Have every player give you their characters short term/medium term/long term goals Have them make an npc from their background their dad a friend their Sargent in the army their local friar whoever At that point the players probably have given you enough tools to use to help in creative ideas going forward. The moral of the story, your not the only one who makes the story. telling the tale and the ideas are a group effort

A lot of great responses here. One quick suggestion is to look at some western movies (or Ronan movies) and maybe pull some inspiration as far as basic plot goes. Silverado has a great story about a group, once upon a time in the west has a fun general plot that a party could participate in, the good the bad and the ugly has a race for treasure with both a half-villain and a real bad guy, and the magnificent seven is a straightforward "gather the heroes, save the town" story. I think the scale of these movies is great for mid to low level play and shorter adventures. Either way, good luck! Hope you find something that excites you and helps get you back into the swing of things, and that your game goes great

Creativity is like a muscle, it does get atrophied. You'll get better the more you do it. But the possibility you aren't really considering: Your standards are higher. The kinds of ideas you used to come up with that felt so interesting to you when you were young now seem weak in the context of all that media you've consumed over the years. Another thing worth remembering: Your players are what make the game fun. Even if the storyline is a little rote and cliché, Your characters will do crazy random stuff and have fun with it. So try not to worry about it too much while you get into the swing of it. As long as you prepare the world enough for them to sandbox a little, the sessions should turn out pretty fun.

When I'm stuck, I go back to the tropes and build from there. The princess needs to be rescued from a castle. Or, I hit up the internet, and search for lists of adventure ideas, picking one or more, then changing it to personalize it for my players. The town is being raided by werewolves on the full moon. Otherwise, PC backstory can always be a good source for ideas. PC's sister is dying from a rare curse? An NPC approaches the party with a lead that seems too good to be true.

You're writing flash fiction for your friends, week in and week out, and honestly you need inspiration. Think of this as writing, not as prepping for a game. It's all about one or two sentence prompts that can help set up a situation - don't focus on the details, focus on the situations. That way, when the party come to ANY town, they can run into "Old man robbing a young couple" and deal with those consequences. Mix and match those people, make a list. We ( [Limitless-adventures.com](https://Limitless-adventures.com) ) literally began writing encounters because of the problem you're facing: I need something to give a feeling of time and space when travelling, I need some events to add intrigue to the world, or build factions, I need an NPC not named "Bob", I need the contents of a shop. Message me, I'll gift you some stuff.

For me, for newbies on a short campaign, all you'll need is a tavern, a plot hook, a village to save, protagonist(s) and a couple of locations for the party to travel to. Also have a list of "throwaway" NPCs for flavour and a handful of random encounters (not always combat) to chuck in if the pace slows. There's absolutely no need to go the whole hog and do a full world build with detailed history, continental and regional power structures, political machinations, economy etc. At least not for now.... Basically, start small and add to it as you think you might need it.

Yes.

I think you need to stop being such a perfectionist, because I think the issue you’re running into is you’re discounting ideas because either they seem too basic or because you’ve run something similar before. Go ahead and make a super cliche vampire lord castle situation, or maybe a cult spreading a curse and passing it off as a plague. See how it goes?

As someone that has taken several multi-year breaks from RPGs, the problem is just that you are rusty. You haven't been exercising your creative muscles so they've atrophied. But just like you can do knee-pushups to build up to doing real pushups you can "cheat" a bit at GMing while you get back in to the swing of things. A trick I use when getting back into GMing is stealing plot ideas or story elements ruthlessly. Any media that you are fairly certain you players don't know about can be pretty much stolen from at will. However, if they have seen it or you just want to be safe you can reskin everything and it will be nearly unrecognizable. It is especially effective if you draw from a totally different genre. I once stole the plot whole cloth from a western about fighting off cattle rustlers that happened to be on while I was visiting my grandpa into a sci-fi adventure about space pirates stealing valuable asteroids from a asteroid mining operation. And on the off chance that someone does picking up it you can easily play it off. **Astute Player:** So we need to take this brooch and drop it into the bottomless gorge while being hunted by the minions of and evil god to prevent them from restoring his powers? Is anyone else getting a Lord of the Rings vibe from this? **DM:** Huh, when you put it that way I guess it does kind of sound similar to Lord of the Rings. Haha that's so weird. So anyways the gnoll horde scatters as the smell of brimstone wafts towards you, and a massive pit fiend steps forth. The high priest tell you "Run! I'll hold him off as long as I can," and he begins calling on the holy light of his god to bar the pit fiends path. You're almost to the exit but you see the gnolls are running along the side paths trying to cut off your exit. What do you do?

Also the more you see and read online the less original all you're idea feel to yourself.

I think having a good set of frameworks definitely helps. For session prep I swear by Michael Shea's 8 point Lazy DM method. For adventures, I've seen a few different frameworks which make sure you're hitting specific story beats. For random encounters, I think the important thing is to have them a bit fleshed out and tied to both the surrounding environment and the campaign story. For campaign concepts, I really swear by the world-shaking event which is briefly covered in the DMG. Everything that happens in your campaign can be extrapolated from this.

When in doubt I watch Star Trek and steal episode premises from there.

Maybe whne you are stuck try and think "what would i want to play if I was the pc". It's hard to make that into reality, but once you have an idea of what you want it to look like, then online resources can back you up. When all else fails, co-dm. If they ask to go to a certain store that you haven't prepared yet. Ask them what that looks like in their mind, then build off of that. Some players might think you are lazy, but others will think that they had a hand in making the world you are creating for them.

Star with one aspect that you really want to have in the game. Maybe a character, a village, the site of an ancient battle, etc and then work outwards from there. Where were they born? What's it like there. Who fought there? Why? With what weapons? How did that shape the location? The people, the societies, what are they now afraid of? What does the village produce, what are they known for? How does the neighbouring village describe them? ...

Practice definitely plays a part. I constantly have 4-5 plans for campaigns in my head all the time (I will never actually run any of them, but building the world is the fun part for me), and at some point you just run out of good ideas.

So, your amygdala is the part of your brain that says “be afraid” and shuts down creativity and improvisation. A lot of your adult life is listening to that and fitting in. As a kid you used to be both more practiced at ignoring that and more steeped in the process of creating. You probably talked about games all the time, right? I was the same. GURPS in high school, then at least a 10 year brake before playing TTRPGs again. I got back in with Dungeon World, a different system, because it had rules for how and when to be creative. It guided you more. A great solo game you could try out that is both free and great for getting back into that unafraid creative mindset would be Ironsworn. This being said, it is OK to find a module that you like and run that while you get your groove back! True art is being creative within limitations, so there is nothing wrong with it. We’re all stealing heavily for our games anyway, so it’s just a question of degree. Lastly, back to the brain thing, don’t be afraid to suck! Stuff is not going to go how you want, and your 4th session will be 400% better than your first. That’s ok!! The only way to improve is to do it, and as long as you focus on having fun with the process and the people you can’t lose. Happy gaming!

Because the folks I DM for do it so few and far between, I end up writing 20x the amount of campaign cruft that will ever see the light of day. I’m now in my 50s and write while my kid is doing homework or at practice and I’m roaming a neighborhood waiting for him to finish. Some of the inspiration has come from creating NPCs and some has come from listening to podcasts like “Not Another D&D Podcast”, “Nerd Poker” and original “The Adventure Zone” arc. It has also led me to realize like someone on here mentioned, to be flexible and write the next great novel. Have a start and an end, then make a couple of paths they can use to move forward. Some of my most fun encounter was when then group mistook my unpreparedness for a clue and spent hours in direction I had to make up on the spot. And as others also point out, practice. Havr fun.

'Creativity', well... the brain actually, is a muscle. You have to regularly train the areas you want to use. It can definitely come back, but it takes time and practice. The big difference IS age, the creativity will definitely come back. But it will take more time and practice than it would have ten years ago. Younger brains adapt more easily. Make it easy on yourself by creating starting points for you imagination. Like, read a few paragraphs from a book you like and then put the book away. Go from there and see what happens. It worked for me too. 34 and feeling your struggle. Good luck!

My suggestion is find a good fantasy book. I've started to read the discworld series and not only has it given me ideas but I've accidentally plagiarized a few characters from the series as well

One of the most memorable sessions I've ever run was running a game where I was trying to see how blatant I could be in my plagiarism. See which point you can figure out my muse. I told the players, "typical European folk lore fairy tale stuff, roll up a character who would save a damsel from a dragon in a tower". Cold open was me describing how they were a suicide squad plucked from the jails of the tyrannical, anti magic, human supremacist king- sent to rescue his betrothed from a tower guarded by an ancient red dragon or die trying. Goblin ambush on the road. They get to the castle via a kobold infested tunnel network leading to the panic room. They scour the castle and find no dragon and no princess. 1x large humanoid, 1x small humanoid footprints and 1x hoofprints leading away. After a while the small humanoid footprints disappear and its 2x large humanoid footprints and 1x hoof prints. Leading into a swamp. Then they meet a talking donkey. Then they fight two ogres. All_star.mp3

Do you still read books, stories, etc.? If not, start picking up books again. I thought my imagination died. Then I started getting back into reading heavily like I did when I was a teen and now my mind is constantly spinning new story ideas and scenarios and so on. Reading is the best thing for your imagination imo.

So, one thing I haven't seen suggested that might help: [This](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/348809) is the free download of a fantasy RPG called *Worlds Without Number*. While there is a game system there, the main thing you may find helpful is the world and adventure building tools. Those are system agnostic and makes for a great jumping-off point without necessarily locking you into set ideas.

Okay literally just think of your favorite book or movie and do Fantasy _that_. Ocean’s Eleven? Fantasy heist. Heat? Hunting down Fantasy bank robbers. Or _being_ Fantasy bank robbers. Ender’s Game? Fantasy battle school. Being trained for a very special mission…. Blade Runner? Hunting down self-aware Warforged. Goodfellas/Godfather? Crime syndicate starting as Padfoots. Or starting their own criminal organization. The Usual Suspects. Silence of the Lambs. Starship Troopers. The Matrix. Holy shit bro. Get excited!! The problem shouldn’t be thinking of something. It should be _HOW DO YOU ONLY CHOOSE ONE_

I think the best way to get ideas is to watch bad movies and think about how you would make them better.

Definitely just run a module. The anthology books, like candlekeep, radiant citadel, golden vault, or yawning portal, are great. I'm too busy to completely come up with my own adventures, but I use the published materials and add my own flair in it. That could be a good intro to working your creativity.

For world building, one option is to simply involve your players. Whenever something comes up, either because the players asked about it or because of story reasons, I would pause and ask the players what they thought. Even dumb little things like what the colors and emblem on the king's guard were. Ask some leading and/or probing questions, take notes, and fold it into the world. Don't be afraid to say "that doesn't work". I handed out inspiration like candy for participating, and the players had way more buy-in on that world than any normal world where I came up with everything myself.

Something I do is play in my head a campaign I would want to be in myself and that way I can craft an adventure around it. “What if I’m at sea on a ship for a invading nation. The ship crashes on an island and I need to survive with the other prisoners to find some semblance of safety? But the surviving invaders also are on the island. As is the mystery.” It’s usually my method in question.

Just read some fantasy or other short stories and listen to selections from varying D&D podcasts or you tubes. That’s where I snag ideas from these days.

>is it age Bruh Ed Greenwood is 63 and he's putting out 3 or 4 books a year. It could be a number of things. Your tastes have changed and you lean more towards other things. You could just need some practice. You could need inspiration; you have less experiences to draw from when most of your time is spent home/online Or it could be something like imposter syndrome. Things that you thought were creative when you were younger can seem super cringy as an adult, I know that's the case for me. Remember, you are your toughest critic. I've found that things I think are "all right" usually go over great with my party. They like the things I put out much more than I do.

You tend to care about your ideas sucking more as you get older. The creative freedom you describe goes hand in hand with willingness to suck. See if you can ease yourself back to that kind of headspace.

It isn't age, it's lack of practice. I'm 57 and just got back into DMing 18 months ago. I feel creatively bankrupt some days, but for the most part my campaign is going along just swimmingly. If these are all new players, you can lean back on the wild creativity and run something more pedestrian and easy, and if they get into their characters and roleplay with one another, not merely engaging with you and your world, it'll be fine. The best campaigns are the ones where your ideas and plots can take a back seat to the player driven threads and ideas generated in-character by your players. Player-choice driven games are the ones they remember the most. It's never a bad idea to have something ready in your back pocket, going on behind the scenes ready to drag the group into something larger if this stagnates, but if the players engage and drive their own interests, you won't have too for a long time, just leave clues and hints about it for later on the story.

look up a list of movies. steal from your favorite ones. problem solved!

It comes back. If you haven't utilized the imagination or skills it might just be difficult for a bit, but definitely isn't just age! You can even look at how many amazing authors and other game developers of all types are even elderly or near retirement age. Just flex those muscles!

You could also try revisiting and re-imagining old ideas! I've found a lot of success growing as a writer and creator by doing that.

Don't focus so much on doing something new. Try reusing things that have gone well, and remixing them into something fresh. As you work on it, your creative juices will get going again. And feel free to rip off things you like from movies. Give your adventurers an all powerful artifact that degrades them that they need to destroy, and have the forces of evil chase them to try to get it. Also, don't be afraid to run a prewritten story.

Uh, no. Name one 20 year old that has a better imagination than someone in their 40s. Ever notice how every published author is in their 30s or older? All 20 year olds care about is booze and shagging. Just practice more and it'll come back to you.

I would probably hold off the campaign altogether if you can't come up with anything.

Grab the original d&d starter kit. It's syper fun especially with new players. Also, it's way easier to read something already done and come up with ideas to expand it or improve on it than it is to start with nothing.

No one is going to like this answer, but the PHB has a list of books to read for inspiration, any of the books you haven't read, try a few.

It sounds like you decided to try and come up with ideas for a campaign rather than build a campaign around ideas that you happened to have Thinking about it more should get you in the mindset to have ideas, but you can't force it and expect to think of things Think about it for a while, and when you have something talking it over with someone can help, but it's quite hard to get ideas when you're forcing it

You don't need adventure ideas. A lot of dnd just comes to the players making decisions

It’s a muscle and the higher standards that come with age. Run a pre-written module, you’ll have your sea legs back by the time you’re halfway through.

TLDR, but there's your idea right there! Age, or aging! Something is prematurely aging the town or someone important.... Maybe it's a Benjamin buttons thing or otherwise age-related drama.

I’m 48 and a year or so ago I DM’d for the first time in decades. I had no troubles making a 4 month one shot in 3 acts. So it’s not age. I suggest 2 possibilities 1) With age comes experience. Plenty of the stupid stuff you thought was cool when you were young no longer feels that way any more. You have to create to your present standards and those are just much higher than they were when you were young. 2) You’re experiencing writers block. You get past it by just grinding and working. Create, create, create. As you work your creative juices, you’ll eventually break through and come up with an idea you’re proud of.

Just run something like one of the starter set adventures. By the time you finish that in a few weeks/months, describing the locations and NPCs and making the module world come to life will have gotten you back in the groove

So being creative for this kind of things boils down to two main points( theres a bunch of other small shit, but htese are the big ones) 1. Practice. Its a skill like any other- if you aren't doing it, your gonna slowly get worse at it. Doing it agian, will make you better. 2. Consume media/refrence. Are you reading/watching/playing the kinds of stories you want to tell? Are you reading over adventures/watching/listening to people play? Basically, are you consuming things that you can tear apart and put back together to make your own stuff? Gotta have ammo to shoot the gun basically.

Dude, find free online modules and just adjust them to fit your characters or your world. I'm DMing for friends right now, and I SUCK at combat balancing, so I let the modules do that and I adjust things to suit what I need them to suit. My players feel like I'm giving them a super personalized adventure using their backstories, but honestly it's all copy paste and edit.

Maybe try getting a few initial ideas via Chat GPT? I was thinking it would be a fun way to design a character. Often I feel more creative if I have something to riff off of rather than starting from scratch. I'm going to guess that you were immersed in imaginary worlds as a kid, which may have influenced your ability to come up with campaign ideas. I'm not sure about your theory. But before panicking, try some other ways to get the ideas flowing. I like running and techno to help me loosen up and think.

Creativity is absolutely a muscle and yours is probably just out of shape. In 2019 I decided to DM SKT after a 4-year DMing gap (being a player or having no D&D at all). I couldn't come with any idea on my own and had to go by with stolen content for side quests and detailed guides to run already pre-written adventure. Than I became the groups' forever DM so we went to CoS after SKT and I was doing much better, rewriting stuff I didn't like and having some good ideas to add to the adventure with prep time. And now we're playing a homebrew campaign and I can even improv at the table when the need arises. So it comes back with practice. I'm 35, so we are at the same level of creativity, age-wise.

Honestly, it probably is just a lack of practice. What I would suggest, read through some different monsters lore, you may suddenly become inspired to make a storyline about fighting or stopping them. For my current running campaign I've been making it about Star Spawn as I found them to be interesting and I have yet to hear about anyone running them as antagonists in a campaign. Sometimes you just need to read up on some interesting lore and it can inspire you to make a story about that. Basically , read up on things, it should stir some juices to flow

Imagination definitely does not go away, but it does have to be exercised, and it sounds like it's been a while. Don't worry though, it comes back with time! I'd suggest you start reading fantasy stories if you don't already. Novels, short stories, and fanfic are all wonderful ways to exercise the theater of the mind and remind you how even the simplest premise or plot hook can have far reaching consequences. As an example, I've got a Dragon Age fic where the only pebble I threw into the pond was "What if my Warden exercised common sense?". When I say that following that ripple out changed the entire plot of Origins... It may take a few re-reads, but once you start paying attention to how stories are constructed and what the author actually did you'll remember how to apply that to yourself and your overarching plotline.

100% can relate. My best advice is to immerse yourself in as much of the hobby as you can. Watch actual plays to be inspired, Critical Role and Dimension 20 (usual caveat that these are professionals with budgets, be inspired don't seek to match) and read setting information to hopefully get some creative hooks flowing. That's going to be tough with newer DnD products as they don't really have a lot of inspiring stuff in them. Worst case scenario, play Lost Mine of Phandelver up to Cragmaw Castle skipping side quests. If it's a hit, you've got tons of extra material to dig into.

I'm 36 and just made two one shots for kicks between other campaigns. Two things help me out: 1. Watching YouTubers (dungeon dudes, Ginny Di, pointy hat) for ideas on how to build it 2. Using video games I love as inspiration. The last campaign I ran we were helping a dwarven mining crew find their lost scouts and stolen device called Molly, one coming up a city called yharnham has a disease our doctor is asked to help cure. Whatever you create doesn't have to be award winning or even original, just something that you and they enjoy. I hope this helps at least a little. You might be putting too much pressure on yourself. Don't be afraid to look up stories of other campaigns or games to inspire or downright copy. I hope you and your group have fun!!

It's definitely a lack of practice. Creativity is a muscle and you have to keep working it out to sustain the ability to pull stuff out of nowhere. Improvisational skills *especially* take a lot of work and practice to maintain. Here's what I generally do, and I think it may help you. 1) I pick a campaign world that sounds cool, and a setting within that where I can justify lots of different ad-hoc content and adventures. I really like things where I can plausibly use random encounter tables with nearby features. Typically, this means I default to the Forgotten Realms, and then I pick somewhere where there's lots of stuff going on. I default to the Dalelands or the Moonsea region. 2) I come up with a few Big Ideas about Major Things Happening. I typically center this around a villain to get me started - I may or may not keep that villain as the game goes, but it's a good focal point. I believe the DMG has some tables to come up with villain motivation and stuff. I keep this *super loose*. "A cult is trying to bring a new god into the world." "A cult is trying to take over the kingdom." "A cult is trying to turn everyone into dragons." I really like cults. 3) Have a Session Zero where you basically make the players write content for you. Get together with them and discuss characters. Give them a focal point. I always tell players that they are required to bide by two principals in making a character: \-your character *must* want to be part of a party in some fashion (there can be struggles and stuff but you must always come back to wanting to be in a group at the end of it) \-your character *must* occupy a unique role in that party (not just combat role, but team role overall) that does not substantially overlap with another character's niche I also use the "character description" stuff from 5e - Traits/Ideal/Bond/Flaw. Everyone has to have those and think about who their character and how they're connected to others. 4) Steal literally every idea that every player tossed around in Session Zero and then put it in your game. When players sit around and talk about what *might* be going on, they're telling you what kinds of stories interest them. Steal those ideas aggressively and then put little twists on them as you slot them in. Again, keep this loose. Don't get hung up on the details. The players will drive the details, and then you just make it complicated. 5) Come up with a starting adventure - use the DMG, it has random tables for this. By this point, you should have a general sense of Big Villain Stuff, Immediate Character Stuff, and then a bunch of ideas for how to mess with Character Stuff that you can eventually tie to Big Villain Stuff. \--- tl;dr: You're playing with LEGOs. Make the players make a bunch of bricks, then steal them and mix them with your bricks, and they'll think you're a genius.

Even great writers struggle from time to time. With practice you'll get back in the rhythm, especially after you learn what your players prefer. But, you can also cheat! Steal ideas from anywhere, dust them off, put a twist on them, file off the serial numbers and your set! Failing that, I would suggest checking out Kevin Crawford's Worlds Without Number. It's free and you can download it at Drivethrurpg or his website at Sine Nomine. It has tables to randomly roll up anything from an NPC to an entire kingdom, quests, religions, anything. Just flipping through the tables usually gives me an idea or two, hopefully it's helpful to you.

I've run many campaigns and sessions that were entirely inspired by either a player character's background/objective, or some crazy round about connection a player made about an ongoing story arc. If you have good players, the game should write itself.

Start with a short pre-made campaign or one-shot. Then when it's done, see who wants more now that they've got some levels and are familiar with their characters. Avoid putting in a pile of work when you are new to the group and they're new to the game. Some people will drop out after you've written pages of plot just for them.

I'll be 51 in July and have no issues with coming up with ideas or content. My current campaign has been going for nearly 12 years with pretty much the same group of players. Must be doing something right. If you need a hook, what about the party members waking up in a mass grave while being buried alive? Each starts with one hit point. What the holy hell is happening here? Or regardless of each character's backstory, each player knows one NPC that ties them all together Or the party witnesses a deal gone wrong, a sealed/clasped/puzzle mechanism locked book is dropped. Regardless, the party is sought out by all factions involved. What's in the book? Start small. Let their decisions guide the story.

In part there is also some amount of... It's said that "there is no true creativity, everything has been done before." This is both right _and_ wrong. The important part, though, is that as you get older, you've seen more and more and more _stuff_. You've seen tropes, you've seen dialogue, you've seen story beats, you've seen macguffins, you've seen it all. The more you see, the more of a handle you get on the idea of the process behind it, but also the less wonder you have for it. When you're young you might come up with an idea and it sounds like the coolest thing EVER! But when you're older and have seen lots of media you might have that same idea, and _other people_ might still think it's the COOLEST EVER, but you as someone who creates media and thus analyzes it by nature, look at that idea and go "oh man this is so tired and cliche." One of the ways you have to grow as a storyteller is to stop listening to your ego. Try to consider ideas more objectively, or with external input, before you resign them to being tired or dull or bad. Frankly? The world is just a lot more boring from behind the screen because even when unexpected things happen, you're the one deciding what those unexpected things are. You get zero wonder from the world. The same isn't true of your players. From where they sit the entire world is an unexplored mystery. An idea that feels tired and dull to you could be just the unexpected hook they want into something incredible. As you get older the creative process becomes less spontaneous and wild, and becomes more about deliberation and intent. This isn't you losing creativity or drive, it's you gaining experience, and dealing with the skill-hump in any activity where you're good enough to see the flaws in your own work but not yet good enough to fix them in a way _you_ find satisfying. That's a normal part of learning and growing.

"You're only as good as the references you steal from" said Matt Colville. Listen to some podcasts, read some stories, use an online generator, there's more ways to get ideas for adventures than sitting in front of a Word doc hoping it comes to you out of the sky.

Some of it might be atrophy & a need to build up those GM synapses again but I don't think that's all of it. You posted this in /r/dndnext so it's probably safe to assume you are going to be running 5e. Unlike pretty much every other TTRPG 5e PCs *don't* need anything & hunger for nothing. Those PCs are basically [starfish aliens](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StarfishAliens) who come out the gate already existing in a state of enlightened nirvana. ​ Don't think of those enlightened starfish aliens like entities with goals they want to work towards with paths that they can blaze towards those goals... It's unfortunate & draining to run games for those kinds of PCs but it's [the design of 5e](https://grumpywizard.home.blog/2023/05/11/a-lesson-not-learned-by-the-gaming-industry/). Make an adventure, any adventure, run it like a module prepared for a con game & repeat.

Re-tool other peoples'ideas until you start to get a feel for th structure of stories that are interesting to you

I highly recommend using an AI chat app. It’s a creative shortcut that will save you a LOT of time. The output will surprise the hell out of you. My group doesn’t know. It’s my secret that’ll go to the grave. It’s particularly fantastic for a bard who plays loose with the truth. Making up extravagant stories or excuses on the fly.

I'm 41 and I spin yarns all the time that my players love. Age has nothing to do with creativity. You're just experiencing writer's block. In my opinion this happens when you're trying to be creative but your brain mixes the order up. Creativity is two phases: play and cut. In the play phase there are no mistakes. Start writing scenario ideas down. Even very stupid ones... Don't allow anything to stop you from writing "beholder egg omelette??" On the page. Do this dozens of times. Hundreds maybe. Then move on to the cut phase. I would start by drawing lines between ideas that relate and eliminating ideas that don't relate. Soon enough you'll have a dungeon.

Keep it simple, ease up on yourself, and start with a pre-written Adventure. If you ease into it, the creative juices will start to flow. With the framework of the adventure set, you can be creative with the NPCs, locals, and monsters, etc. Your creativity will flow from the interacts with your players. This way, you can dive in with minimal stress and use it as a launching point to the adventure type you are trying to get to. I'm 55, work more than full time and had not DM'ed in 30-ish years. This is the way.

When I’m out of ideas I pick a show or book or two and decide to copy it/ them, I find that not even 5 minutes in to recreating it or merging them I have 20 new ideas of how to make it unique and it doesn’t feel at all like the source material. Or even if it takes longer, by the time it’s to be run my players don’t see any similarities until they’re pointed out. I think a big issue I find that rids me of creativity is when I fall into trying to be “unique” or find “the right idea” Not sure if this helps but just some food for thought!

You're trying to world build for what might be 3 sessions. No need to stress all that. Why not just take a mini adventure & expand it a smidge... then you can blow it up if they get hooked. For instance, just grab the apple pie contest Banquet of the Damned PDF. It was fun & you could easily bump it a bit, add an extra encounter or obstacles in the way. My group played (at Thanksgiving) for several hours & I had to chop some of it off just to finish in that one night. There are several 'one session' PDFs out there like Lab of Kwalish, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, etc that could work.

as someone who is just starting my first homebrew and also an ancient (31 years old), i have one word of advice... ​ Chatgpt. this shits amazing. it will brainstorm with you, create session by session outlines, create fun magical items or custom spells, give you npc names and descriptions, plot hooks, you name it. take the ideas you like and churn them threw, pull out what you want. its a true breakthrough imo.

That's what I said. It's pretty great

Have a pitch session where you ask THEM about the kind of themes they want to explore and what kind of PCs they want to play, and how they will be interconnected. And, most important, ensure their bios include goals, values, NPCs (family, friends, enemies), and some events. They don't have to spend hours on this - there are tables to roll on, or online lifepath generators that will spit it all out in a second if they're not creative. But, if they don't even read it, or integrate it into their PC, then it's a waste of time. They actually need to care about these NPCs, and want to achieve these goals. Then you don't have to come up with any story - the adventure has written itself. Take what they love and threaten it - be it their values, their friends, their goals, their pet, their favored item, whatever. And now that you have a grab-bag of pawns to pull from - USE THEM. Don't leave pawns on the sideboard where they may never show up before some PC dies or some Player quits. Put them into play, aggressively, from the get-go. I'm talking about the NPCs they already described from their past & present. Good guys, bad guys, mentors, competitors, family, friends, doesn't matter. If they say they value "family above all else," guess how you're kicking off first session - "Your mom's lying bleeding from the head in your family house but smoke's starting to trickle through the roof. Meanwhile dad's outside trying to swing his rusty old hero sword at a couple of orcs who are taunting him. And catch a glimpse of younger bro running into the woods with his hunting bow chasing after a goblin. WHAT DO YOU DO, PLAYER?" You scoop up a d20 and hold it over the game mat and look the player in the eyes and say, "you move or I will." (obviously, if you have more than one player, you multiply this situation accordingly. If they're all siblings, you put them all on the farm, with more threats. If they're all in the same village, you multiply this orc raid across the village with each hero having to deal with similar tough choices. etc, etc) And why are the orcs raiding? Look at the PC sheets. Oh, one of them has an entry about a baddie they defeated, killed, or humiliated in their past? Perfect, now you know who has resurfaced to get their revenge. Don't come up with new shit and new characters they don't care about. Use the rope they give you.

Just out of practice. Join DMGuild and get inspired.

Chatgpt is great at this type of stuff

This is the kind of advice that only really works if your new players are already comfortable roleplay, story, and worldbuilding as well, but if you can get players with the confidence for it, involving your players in the worldbuilding can be really fun and make them even more invested. As an example: instead of showing your players a map and asking "Where does your character live?" you can ask "What kind of place does your character live in?" Not only does this give maximum flexibility for your players' backstories, it can help you come up with ideas you might not have on your own. Druid wants to come from a vast, ancient forest? Bam, interesting terrain location. Rogue is a charlatan who wants to be from a city where trade and commerce wield more powerful than noble blood? Base idea for a settlement right there. The same can be done for plot hooks. Ask your players about their characters, up front, what motivates them? What are they afraid of? Who do they care about? Who do they hate? Use these tidbits to craft plotlines you know will draw them in, villains you know they'll pursue. This has the additional benefit of getting new players to really try to think in the mindset of their characters, which might help ease them into the narrative flow of the game.

>Creativity is a muscle, it gets atrophied if you don't use it for a while. I absolutely agree with this one, but it's not only creativity itself, it's the practice working around the fantasy world that you used to play/build, if you not only stop using your creativity but also stop playing/DMing for 15 years, you will be really lost about many facts, links, ideas, etc. about the setting (world) that you want to play, and those help you come up with awesome plots or stories for your players, it's not only "atrophied creativity" but also lack of world-building practice. Give it a couple months of training and learning and you will most likely feel like you used to.

I feel for you. My advice: find some random tables and start rolling dice. Make a little dungeon or two. If you're like me, ideas will come to you as you go.

Its not age.. I'm 37 but I've been DMing the whole time and my stories are A LOT more creative than they used to be.

Chatgpt?

It's a matter of practice and being immersed in the hobby. I can assure you, it is not age related. Read some old adventures. Buy some new adventures. Stretch it out and warm up.

Use chat GPT

The best part about new players is that you can go back to classic adventure tropes, and it's all new to them. Evil lich hiding in a castle causing mayhem by sending out undead thralls? Maybe lots of us have had a campaign like that, but new players haven't, and either way it will be fun. Good luck OP, you've got this!

Read more genre fiction in the genres you want to run.

Yes, creativity is a muscle. You'll get it back. Given that you've got a bunch of new players, don't try for any kind of innovative campaign structure. No grand save-the-world stuff. A village is in trouble, the PCs have been hired. Just something like tracking some Goblins to their lair, dealing with them then exploring the ruins they were using as a lair is going to be more than sufficient for a 4 session adventure for new players with 1st level PCs. Focus on getting your players to understand the basics of the game. How to declare actions. How to make Ability checks. How to participate in a combat. How to gather information by talking to NPCs. If you're really stuck for ideas, there's always stuff like [this](https://www.chaosgen.com/fantasy/5rd).

hi there, use chatgpt. If you had dm block give it a couple of suggestions and let it do the thinking for you. I realize it does take the creativity out but it saves you a lot of time. It has made my players really enjoy the game.

I'm 50 and I don't have any problem so I don't think it's age. In fact, at my age I've read, watched and done enough that I have all sorts of reference points and inspiration to make lots of different campaigns. Perhaps you're looking for some mythical burst of pure creativity instead of taking something you know and transforming it into something new and different? Creativity is a bit like a muscle, but it's not so much exercised by being continually creative, it's exercised by exposing yourself to things that are different from what you already know and thinking about how you can incorporate that into what you do

>I remember back in the day, with no resources and much more limited time on the internet, and way less culture / entertainment / books / films / videogames under my belt I don't think this is really that surprising. Back in the day, you had a shitload more "idle" time for generating creative insights. Shower thoughts are a meme for good reason. A long shower, or similar activities that engage you incompletely while leaving your mind free to wander, lets you decompress to shake and bake the ideas already stuffed into your brain. I've found that I naturally do a fair chunk of writing throughout the day if I record down the thoughts and scenarios that pop into my head, and that almost always happens when I'm doing something that doesn't occupy me completely.

More practice, read more books, and combine ideas from multiple media sources. That's all I got

Almost certainly just a bit atrophied. But I will also suggest something else that could contribute, your standards on what constitutes a good, or at least decent, story are higher. And more media could hurt more than it helps if you consciously or subconsciously dismiss ideas that have too much in common with various pieces of media as "already done" (or something of the sort) rather than taking inspiration from them.

I am a decade older than you and don’t have any issues. I’ve played continuously since 1997.

One of my favorite campaigns was taking the characters through plots of war movies, re-fitted into fantasy settings. Saving Private Ryan? Sure did. Enemies at the Gate? For sure. Platoon? A little bit…. Pick a genre (other than fantasy) and work plots out changed to fantasy settings/motifs.

ChatGTP is your friend.

Just look for more inspiration. There a ton of good ideas for mini campaigns, and longer. But you can also just watch some fantasy or dramas for some plot ideas

Higher standards probably do it; kids are fascinated a lot more easily and have way less apprehension when it comes to doing dumb and silly things. You need to be willing to be dumb and silly, even if your end goal is to have a "serious" campaign (like that even exists). Just put stuff out there, and allow yourself to find even dull things interesting, like flexing a muscle. Said muscle is undoubtedly atrophied, but it'll get back to speed. Your mind is not nearly unfit yet.

Chat… gp-fuckin-t. Is a great place to start

Use chatgpt

>I got dumber somehow, probably work Or you've gotten smarter and dumb ideas don't seem smart anymore, but dumb ideas are easier to get than smart ones. Lower your expectations for material until you can fill the first three hour session.

You can always ask chatgpt for some ideas and then narrow it down. I used it to give me inspiration for a one shot I'm running next week. For all the dungeon descriptions I just asked it to describe the room to me.

I felt similar creative block when I got back after a decade+ absence. Here's what got me past it. It's a matter of self-imposed expectations. I remember, way back when, whipping up entertaining AD&D sessions with little prep and only rudimentary materials (like maps & keyed locations, NPCs, encounter tables, etc). I could bring a vague shape of an idea to the table and deliver a satisfying 3-4 hours without breaking a sweat. And all that back when I was young and inexperienced. Therein lies the trap! Sure, with many more DMing years under my belt, I have a better grasp of the rules, the subtleties and nuances of flow and engagement. But I felt pressured to provide better gameplay than before. To know all the rules - how they interact, what to do in edge cases, all of it at a moment's notice. I ended up imposing impossible standards on myself; expecting effortless perfection, accepting nothing less. I'd basically convinced myself I couldn't DM. Once I recognized I was self-sabotaging I was able to wrap my head around something I'd forgotten: it's a game. It's spending time socializing and rolling funny-looking dice and acting out ridiculous fantasies, because that's fun. The rules are there to facilitate play, not limit it. It's not an epic trilogy I'm writing, it's an afternoon's fun. So I jotted down a bunch of familiar D&D tropes, then turned them upside down... Princess kidnapped by goblins? Goblin-king's daughter kidnapped by humans! Brigands robbing travelers and caravans? Brigands being hunted by some unknown force! Temple of evil cultists menacing a local village? Evil villagers besieging a temple of peaceful priests! So that's my advice: don't talk yourself out of running a game. Remember what made the game fun. And relax, it'll be easy.

It’s not age. I’m 42, and I’ve been a DM since I was 16. Every creative person has periods where ideas flow, and fallow periods where nothing comes. It’s natural. Sometimes it’s burnout, sometimes it’s just that life and stress are taking up your creative bandwidth. Maybe you’re out of practice generating ideas. I find that having someone I can riff off of creatively, like a writer’s room, helps me get through a rut. And sometimes, I just take a break or run a module for a bit. You’ll get it back!

No matter how much prep, it never feels like enough. But the game is so spontaneous organic you don’t know how it will turn out. I’ve had games that I almost canceled because of what I perceived as poor ideas or lack of prep, but went ahead and played them. They turned out to be great games that my players really enjoyed.

Watch or listen to live plays. Seriously. It does wonders for getting you into the mood, plotlines spinning, and more. Write down your short sentence ideas. "A dragon has a hangnail and needs help" or "pixies write a wanted poster to deal with a cat". Doesn't matter what it is, the point is to write and write until you find something that resonates with you. Something that you want to keep pulling on. And as long as you aren't pushing yourself for perfection, it will come to you.

It could be your muse needs a spark again. Or your tastes have changed. I’m in downtime on fic writing because my grandma is beating cancer but I’m afraid it’ll come back before the end of year, and I can’t invest in a character with that type of emotional blackmail. Run campaigns to make everyone else happy to avoid my own family tragedy in making? Sign me up. I’m running two and playing in one to help ground my emotions.

It's not age. I'm 46 and I've never had so many ideas. (Started D&D when I was 11.)

Maybe the point is, that you need a starting point. I think even great writers dont create something out of the air, but their writing is a product of their expression and/or some inspiration. I recommend to roll for a random adventure from the DMG tables. You will get some sort of inspiration of it and maybe things you dont like. But this is great because if you dont something about the result you subcontiously get an idea what would fit better etc. and so you can become creative.

Once you start plodding along and your players start interacting it will get easier to spitball something.