[Webstral]

I haven’t GM’d in years, I’m sad to say. The best analogy for my thought process when it comes to a specific area is the reverse of the way most people put together a puzzle. I start with a small idea and work outward. Usually, I have some sort of personal connection to the small idea. As I work outward, I learn more about the bigger picture framing the small idea, which obliges me to go back and revise the smaller idea. This is how most of my named ideas (Thunder Empire, Poseidon’s Rifles and the rest of the New England scenarios, Silver Shogunate, Blue Two, The Final Solution, and Roadrunners) have come into being. All of these ideas morphed from something else over time.

At the other end of the spectrum is big picture thinking. How do the big pieces fit together, quite aside from anything lowly player characters might be doing? This is where Manifest Destiny comes from. Putting on my strategic intel hat, I ask myself what the big players are going to be trying to do now that the food situation has more-or-less stabilized. Sometimes, the big picture thinking can stimulate ideas for the little pictures. For instance, The Final Solution came about as a result of thinking about the Snake River and Milgov’s interest in reestablishing rail-and-barge traffic between Colorado and the Puget Sound. Roadrunners came into being partially as a result of looking at the operational picture of the Mexican Army on or about 01 JUL 00 and thinking that someone would want to take advantage of the dramatic change in the correlation of forces in the area.