* The Journey System

Role-playing is storytelling, by keeping this in mind, the Game Master will find it much easy to keep priorities straight, make calls on odd rules, mediate disputes, make certain everyone has fun and surprisingly enough- it will enable the Game Master to craft excellent adventures quicker than ever before.

What do the movies “An Officer and a Gentleman”, “Beverly Hills Cop”, “Star Wars”, “The Wizard of Oz”, and “Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone” all have in common? They all follow the most common skeleton used in storytelling: the Hero's Journey. These movies would appear to have very little in common from a story perspective. They look different, they feel different, they seem to have very different plots, but they all follow a very predictable pattern if one knows where to look. The Hero's Journey is a set of markers that have been used to tell stories since before the birth of Christ (although the Jesus story is an excellent example of the Hero's Journey). By using the Hero's Journey, a Game Master can give their adventure a good tempo that will help move the game along and make the players feel as though things are moving properly. The Journey System will allow the Game Master to create a workable adventure in very little time, and still retain the originality that distinguished the examples of the hero's journey given above. Just because the Game Master is following a system, does not mean that the adventures will all look alike or even all feel the same. The System in fact, enables the Game Master to create radically different adventures that still hold the player's interest and provide challenge and entertainment. Also of benefit to the Game Master is that by hitting the proper story markers of the Hero's Journey, the players will feel as though they are part of a story and this encourages them to play along. They get to feel like the heroes and it feels good, so they tend to play in a way the encourages the story rather than playing in a way that stiffles it. Incidentally this structure works whether the players are playing good guys or bad guys. As to how this can work for any role-playing system, take a look again at the movies listed in the beginning example. “An Officer and a Gentleman” would be a Military RPG, “Beverly Hills Cop” Would by a d20 Modern or a Ninjas and Superspies campaign, Star Wars would likely be a campaign for the Star Wars RPG (no surprise) or some other generic Science Fiction RPG, “Wizard of Oz” could be GURPs or any edition of Dungeons and Dragons, while “Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone” would likely be a modern fantasy campaign. Despite this, they all follow the same journey. Follow the hero's journey and reap the rewards.