I love to run non-standard versions of games. It gives me a chance to personalize an established setting to better reflect the kinds of stories I like to tell with my players. But on a more practical level, it really broadens the spectrum of games I find myself interested in trying out. I'll confess right now that I never met a RPG I fully liked as-presented. Usually there's some small aspect of it that I wish were different, and the beauty of being the game master is, of course, you can change anything you want to suit your needs. After almost a decade of running games, I've noticed there are five general ways I tweak a game in order to make it more interesting. I invite you to try using one of these techniques as a way to experiment with a game you might otherwise not run.

From least amount of work prior to starting a campaign to most, they are:

1. Emphasize Elements You Like: Read through whatever the core book of the game or campaign setting is and note all the phrases and ideas that grab you the most. If you're into lists like I am, you may even want to prioritize yours once you're done so you know what the top handful of ideas are. Then design your campaign in order to explore those elements and ideas in-depth.

Example: In the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for Dungeons and Dragons, magic is caught up in something called the Weave. This is the most interesting aspect of the setting for me, so if I were to run a Forgotten Realms game, I would most likely make it a spellcaster-focused campaign in order to explore the history and ramifications of the Weave. Where did it come from? How many different ways can you use it? How would the rise of Renaissance-like ideas about science and technology impact it?

2. Play With the Mythos: "Mythos" refers to the game's story backbone - the big picture history of the game world, all the assumptions about how the game world came to be the way it is and where it's going. By adjusting specific "facts" within the game mythos, you can come up with an entirely different form of the game that's still recognizable.

Example: In Mage: The Awakening, the mythos states that mages can use magic because their souls are "awakened" to the true nature of reality as something supernatural and that they all inheret the legacy of the ancient fallen civilization of Atlantis. As a variant, I decided that, instead, mages could use magic because they are the descendants of humans crossed with dragons, and that it was the trace of dragon blood that "awakened" a mage. Atlantis was the place where dragons once ruled, until they were overthrown, causing Atlantis to fall. This had ramifications for who the various Orders were and what the different Paths represented. The Exarchs became the Old Wyrms - the surviving dragons seeking to reestablish dominion over the world, and the Oracles that established the various Watchtowers existed to thwart their plans.

3. Play in a Mirror Universe: A classic trope of science fiction is one that lands the heroes in a mirror universe where everything is the moral opposite of their own. All the "bad guys" are the "good guys" and vice versa. Sometimes it makes for a more interesting game to switch the "good" and "bad" sides in the game and trying to justify it with an altered game mythos.

Example: What if, in the Star Wars universe, the Sith were the good minority within a corrupt Jedi order? What if the Dark Side of the Force was aligned with freedom and self-determination through the expression of passion and aggression, pitted against another side that was more interested in a kind of galactic fascism in which were trying to turn everyone into the docile, accepting followers of a corrupt elite?

4. Play In a Different Period: Every game world mirrors some slice of human history. Some times it's fun and exciting to set a standard game in a non-standard time period. A word of caution - make sure the historical backdrop is just a backdrop. It's there for flavor. If you start to worry about historical accuracy, then the setting becomes the star of the show, not the players.

Example: Think of Pathfinder set in the Wild West, or Call of Cthulhu set in Middle Ages Europe.

5. Tweak the Rules: This is the trickiest to pull off. But sometimes you love a game but hate the game's core rules, or at least some aspect of them. If you feel experienced enough, tweak the rules with a big house rule that you make clear to your players before the campaign starts. If not, it might be best to just borrow from a set of core rules you DO like.

Example: Adjust the core die mechanic for GURPS so it works more like the d10 pool system of World of Darkness. Both are point-buy systems, but if you feel the d10 system is more elegant, why not use it instead?

Mixing It Up: Use Any Creature from a Role-Playing Game in Any Other Role-Playing Game

Here's a cool way you can come up with some quick and original material for your game. I call it "mix and match." You take material from one RPG and translate it across into another. Most gaming systems have very similar statistics for characters and creatures, for instance. So with a little mathematical calculation and a good understanding of two different systems, you can translate the stats for a creature from one game into something you can use for another.

Example: Mind Flayer into Vampire: The Requiem

Step 1: Abilities to Attributes

We know that a rating of "10" in a D+D Ability is considered the average for an average person on the street, and that a rating of "2" means the same thing in the World of Darkness system. Therefore, all you need to do is divide the mind flayer's ability scores by 5 to get their World of Darkness equivalents (round down).

Strength 12 = Strength 2
Dexterity 14 = Dexterity 2
Constitution 12 = Stamina 2
Intelligence 19 = Intelligence 3
Wisdom 17 = Wits 3
Charisma 17 = Charisma/Manipulation 3


To get the mind flayer's Resolve and Composure scores, look at it's Will save, since that is the primary equivalent function of Resolve and Composure. The mind flayer's Will save is +9. To get a +9, it would normally need a Wisdom score of 28. Divide that by 5, round down, and you get a Resolve and Composure both at 5.

Step 2: Skills

When it comes to Skills, you can translate them across in the same fashion, using the same division forumla. Skill Dots in World of Darkness = Skill Ranks in D+D/5, round down.
So a mind flayer's skill dots would look like this:
Bluff +11 = Subterfuge 2
Diplomacy +7 = Persuasion or Socialize 1
Disguise +3 (+5 acting) = Expression (Acting) 1
Hide +10 = Stealth 2
Intimidate +9 = Intimidation 1
Knowledge (Any) +12 = Academics, Computer, Occult, Politics, Science all at 2.
Move Silently +10 = Another 2 in Stealth, for a total of 4.
Sense Motive +7 = Empathy 1

As for Concentration, Listen, and Spot, in World of Darkness those are all resolved by a Perception roll. So give the mind flayer a racial Perception roll bonus of +6 for it's ranks in those skills (It would have translated to 2 dots for each). If that seems too high - after all, even werewolves only have a +4 to their Perception in full wolf form - them halve that down to a +3. Just be sure you're consistant with other creatures you mix and match over so the stats are accurately reflected.

Step 3: Combat
Attack Bonuses: The mind flayer has a +8 to attack with its tentacles. But it only deals a d4 in damage. Since the World of Darkness doesn't seperate the attack roll from the damage roll, let's focus on how much damage the mind flayer would do with it's tentacles in the World of Darkness. A d4 is pretty much the lowest damage die in D+D, so let's translate that to a +1 attack in World of Darkness. That means that a d6 would equal a +2, a d8 would equal a +3, and so on.

Natural Armor Bonus: The mind flayer has a natural armor bonus of +3. That means it's equal to the protection provided by leather or hide armor. In the World of Darkness, leather armor provides a 1/0 armor rating. So we give our World of Darkness mind flayer an armor rating of 1/0.

Step 4: Powers and Advantages
Special Attacks, Qualities and Feats: This gets the most tricky, since these items are often the most unique to their various systems and usually require you to really break down each of these into their specific in-game effects in order to do a good job.

The mind flayer has the following items:
Combat Casting
Improved Grab
Improved Initiative
Spell Resistance 25
Telepathy 100 ft
Weapon Finesse

Since we're translating into Vampire: The Requiem, there is some precident for mental powers we can work with. Since mind flayers are supposed to be potent with their mental powers, let's give our average mind flayer the following Disciplines:
Animalism 2
Auspex 3
Dominate 5
Majesty 4
Nightmare 3

That takes care of the mental powers. Improved Initiative translates well into Fast Reflexes. The mind flayer looses Combat Casting and Improved Grab because there's no inherent penalties to using Disciplines in combat, and all the World of Darkness Merits that might cover Improved Grab require more Strength than the mind flayer would have.

Spell Resistance is an example of something unique to D+D, with little or no equivalent in the World of Darkness, or certainly not in Vampire. You might be tempted to throw it out, but you could also translate it using our handy "divide by 5" rule into a Blood Potency rating of 5. Vampires with higher Blood Potency are harder to influence with Disciplines, since most Disciplines that require a contested roll include Blood Potency in the dice pools.

So we are done. The mind flayer's new stats will give you what you need for things like its Health and Initiative.

Our final, translated mind flayer looks something like this:
Mind Flayer Creature
Attributes: (Mental): Intelligence 3, Wits 3, Resolve 5 (Physical) Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 2 (Social) Charisma 3, Manipulation 3, Composure 5
Skills: (Mental) Academics 2, Computer 2, Occult 2, Politics 2, Science 2 (Physical) Stealth 4, (Social) Empathy 1, Expression (Acting) 1, Intimidation 1, Persuasion 1, Subterfuge 2
Merits: Fast Reflexes 1
+3 to Percpetion rolls
Tentacles: +1 Brawl (L)
Blood Potency: 5
Humanity: 3 (Mind Flayers are incredibly evil)
Virtue: Possibly Faith (Mind flayers have an inherent faith in their own eventual world domination) or Prudence (Mind flayers are notorious for fleeing from battles at the slightest hint of defeat).
Vice: Pride (For lawful evil D+D creatures. Greed also works. Try Wrath/Lust/Gluttony for chaotic evil and Envy/Sloth for neutral evil).
Health 7, Initiative 8, Speed 9, Size 5 (Translated from Medium sized creature), Willpower 10, Defense 2
Armor Rating: 1/0
Disciplines: Animalism 2, Auspex 3, Dominate 5, Majesty 4, Nightmare 3

This creature might work as a hideously deformed Nosferatu (such as a member of the Rakshasa Bloodline) or some grotesque creature created through vampiric experimentation.