Retroclone Title Inspirer

I'm not complaining when I say that I have 101 things on my brain at the moment. The day job is keeping me busy, fatherhood is awesome, there's always a two minute DIY job around the house that takes an hour and I'm bouncing off the walls happy about starting out as a zine publisher.

I did NaNoWriMo years ago now and they had a line as part of their advertising pitch that busy people were perfect for doing NaNo. Busy people have ways to cope with being busy most of the time: they manage everything, keep plates spinning and friends, family and customers smiling.

That sentiment is something that I've come to appreciate more and more. As I said on a G+ post yesterday, even if you enjoy your work, it's still work, it still takes effort and so on, but you do at least enjoy it. And that's cool too.

All of that aside, I am very busy, so why the heck am I thinking about writing my own simple OSR/D&Dish system? Come on brain, give me a break!!

Part of the problem is that there are so many good little systems out there now. Their existence is a creative provocation. Talented people are streamlining systems, paring things back and adding new twists and evolutions to already interesting ideas. (side note: I'm really looking forward to when The Black Hack arrives through my letterbox in a couple of months) It's an evolutionary meta-system (or something), people taking ideas, adding something, seeing how people respond, then someone else takes it, puts their own spin on and so on. Ideas spread, and the meta-idea of making one yourself is a contagious little thing.

That's what I'd be doing: my plan is to take an already stripped down system (and a non-D&D one to boot), make it about dungeons and monsters and exploring, but have something a little different to 3d6 and so on. I'll leave out my working title for now (because they always change), save to say that it is one of the combinations of titles below on my retroclone title inspirer!

For my day job I sometimes write books, and there is a neat site where you can buy pre-designed book covers: sometimes, when looking for a cover for a particular book, I find a cover that makes me think about something else and has me wondering about writing a different book. In the same way, maybe this table will inspire you to think about a retroclone or DIY-D&D system of your own.

The Retroclone Title Inspirer!

d20
1	olde	hack
2	ugly	box
3	odd	book
4	dragon	page
5	sword	tome
6	low	sheet
7	blood	mod
8	new	paper
9	ghost	card
10	null	clone
11	omega	note
12	copper	draft
13	death	text
14	blank	volume
15	under	pamphlet
16	bone	tome
17	echo	tract
18	angel	codex
19	empty	manual
20	fire	folio

Note, this isn't a generator, it's an "inspirer". If the suggested title seems silly, maybe it will still inspire something awesome.

Or maybe it will just be something silly.

PS - one of the 400 combinations in the table IS the working title for my little thing. Place your bets.