Generating Operation and Mission titles!

I love naming the adventures and campaigns I develop. Sometimes, it is fun to generate an adventure name and then work from there. A great example of one of these generators is for the Astonishing  Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea, though it works for all D&D/fantasy type games.

Here is a neat little trick for modern/sci-fi mission titles I was told about through the forums I read; It is the Metal Gear Boss name generator!

Roll d% twice on the following table. The resulting mission is titled "Operation <roll 1> <roll 2>". It works better than you'd expect.

Any other good examples?

Random Feng Shui fight setup generator

Juncture

1. Contemporary.
2. Past.
3. Ancient.
4. Future.
5. Netherworld
6. Pop-Up.

Objective

1. Protect NPC(s).
2. Locate NPC(s).
3. Plant object.
4. Retrieve object.
5. Capture site.
6. Destroy site.
7. Assasinate NPC(s).
8. Capture NPC(s).
9. Guard site.
10. Roll twice.

Enemy Faction

1. Ascended.
2. Eaters of the Lotus.
3. Guiding Hand.
4. Jammers.
5. New Simian Army.
6. Four Monarchs. Roll 1d4: 1 = Fire, 2 = Ice, 3 = Thunder, 4 = Darkness.

Location

1. Temple.
2. Casino.
3. Laboratory.
4. Mansion.
5. Castle.
6. Restaurant.
7. Forest/Jungle.
8. Nightclub.

Twist

1. Car chase!
2. Bomb!
3. Ambush!
4. Outgunned!
5. Innocent bystanders!
6. Helpful NPC!

Summer games! and a brief update on the Purple Coast!

I've always have had a lot of trouble running games over the summer; either I've just wrapped up a long running campaign and I need a bit of a refractory period before the next one, or all my players have disappeared for the summer and no one is around to game.

I've tried a few things to try and over come the summer lull. It is a great opportunity for a new GM to step up and run the new regular game. A couple summers ago, one of my friends took over for the summer and ran a heavily homebrewed version of the Pokemon Tabletop rules. It was a fantastic game and really kept us all playing through the entire summer.

The other strategy we tried was running alternating one-shots or short, 2 to 4 session games. This was a great opportunity for us to try out strong, tiny game ideas. For example, the same woman who ran the Pokemon game ended up running a short Honor and Intrigue game which introduced a lot of my extended group to the Barbarians of the Lemuria system (a personal favorite). This strategy also let me run Dark Heresy for all these 40k neophytes, which was so much fun I had to blog about it.

This summer, I ended up starting a new weekly campaign which has been absolutely wonderful. The weeks running up to GenCon the players were able to cover a lot of ground, leaving us with a great cliff hanger before we all headed out to GenCon.

This coming Sunday my group is picking up deep within the Cloakwood Forest hunting down the lost Manse of a lost, legendary wizard. And a mine the Iron Throne is interested in...acquiring. While also saving Ankylosaur babies from Allosaur assaults!