GM brainworms

[dsatow]

I don't know about everyone else, but I get GMing brainworms.  I'll come up with an idea for a game or villains that will not fit into my current campaigns and I can't push it out of my mind until I either create the characters and/or run  the game.  The only other option that might work is if I get stressed out and busy over something else (usually work) that I can't think about hero for about 1-3 days.

 

Do other people have this issue?  And if they do, how do you deal with it?

 

Also, any amusing stories behind it?

[Netzilla]

I refer to it as "GM A.D.D."

As for how I deal with it; not well.

[Ragitsu]

It happens to me too. Any ideas that pop into my mind get typed down ASAP. I never know when i'll have the opportunity to use them, but they'll be around if an opportunity presents itself.

[Armory]

Yes, this happens to me all the time.  I have a fairly large text document crammed with story notes and plot ideas.  I've been running a group of four players for about 9 years.  They each started with one character, and now all but one of them has two.  So I have subplots and NPCs all over the place, and new ones pop into my head all the time.

 

In fact I've planned to run them against an Evil Universe version of themselves for years now.  I finally got to check that one off of my list over the last two gaming sessions, and it will continue next month. I've had these villains sitting around for at least five years, so I think had more fun debuting them than the players did fighting them.  

 

[Ninja-Bear]

Same here! I’ll even go to different systems and work on stuff even though I should be working on the current game/system.

[Ragitsu]

[dmjalund]

no proof this is Genetically Modified!

[BoloOfEarth]

The problem I have is going places and having GM Brain kick in.  My wife and I went to Little Ceasar's Arena to watch Trans-Siberian Orchestra.  I spent the first half hour mentally running a super-fight through the place, figuring out how the PCs and villain NPCs would use features of the venue during the battle, how I would hex-map it, and so on.  I understand this is a fairly common GM ailment.

 

I'll also often read a news item or online article and immediately see ways to turn it into a hook for a Champions adventure.  A great example was "U-Who", a sunken German WWII sub whose identity was in question from when it was discovered in 1991 off New Jersey until 1997.  It got turned into a WWII plot to deliver a robot armed with a bio weapon, but which got discovered by VIPER and turned against the PC heroes.  Lots of fun.

 

Likewise when I heard that Donald Trump Jr. dropped his Secret Service protection for a week.  Not hard to turn that into a kidnapping involving a Russian super-agent, a secessionist supervillain team, and another supervillain team who framed the PCs for the kidnapping. 

 

Generally, if I can't turn such a brainworm into an actual Champions adventure involving the PCs, I'll use it in a news item (I create a news sheet, the Hero.Net Herald, which I use to recap the prior adventure and introduce stuff relevant to the night's adventure, plus other side stories as filler or red herrings).