ZDL

Read George Polti's The 36 Dramatic Situations. It's a list of plot elements that have a snappy title, a list of participants in the plot element, a brief discussion of how it works, and then (unfortunately dated) references to dramas that used them.

Using this when building a world, or a campaign, or a local setting, lets you quickly set up a bunch of conflicts (ideally with interlaced participants so that single NPCs (or PCs) can be in different roles in different dramatic situations. Then you just let the events flow logically, and as the dramatic situations get resolved you get a plot. PCs can interfere with these dramatic situations and thus have an impact on resulting plots even if the overall setting is far larger than they are.

For depth in world-building I use a rule I call "Y-cubed". (I got it from somewhere else but can't recall the source anymore.)

For every detail you make, you ask the question "Why" three times.

So a village the characters have reached stop all work every 77 days for a festival. Why? It celebrates an ascended local hero who saved the village from a magical blight. Why 77 days? It took 77 days for effort for the blight to be defeated. ... And so on.

This is a rapid way to both build depth in your setting quickly, as well as inspire possible mysteries and intrigue for investigation later.

A slight modification works also for giving NPCs depth.

The number drops a bit when the polls are done in secrecy. Still far higher than any western government, mind.

To clarify for any pseudo intellectual who happens to be reading:

" is true for you utter idiot" is not an example of the ad hominem fallacy.

" is true because you're an utter idiot" is an example of the ad hominem fallacy.

Glad to be of service.

Have you considered taking a communications course so you don't sound like a pretentious, obfuscating jackass?

Eschew gratuitous obfuscation. (See what I mean?)

In AI alone, we lead the world.

*Deep Seek has entered the chat.*

There is a certain crowd that seems to insist on there being only One True Way to play RPGs, and that is the dungeon crawl (or sometimes they'll also permit the hex crawl to join that list).

Before I click, is this another One True Way video?

Maybe you want to edit this so there's a direct link? Like putting in !unlockthread@lemm.ee in the text somewhere (or whatever the link format is)?

Any of the 1PG games.

I think even darker (as the response to @Glide@lemmy.ca indicates). When I see incel behaviour from a man, I make damned sure that man is always in my sight and at a distance. And I won't accept any drink from him, nor any invitation to go somewhere else, even if it's in the same building.

Well yes. It's about sex and specifically forcing sex.

They're wannabe rapists, in effect.