I've enjoyed playing Dungeons & Dragons on-and-off for roughly a decade now. Not only is it one of the most fun and imaginative games I play, it's also a challenge to balance with life's many other projects.

Because of time constraints (it can be difficult to commit to an ongoing campaign over many weeks) I began specializing my dungeon mastering style to “one-off” games. A one-off is a plot that you play through completely in a few hours with no loose ends. Characters might stick around for a series of games, but each game is independent.

While there are lots of prefab games that you can download online, I have the most fun adapting creative ideas that I grab from various media. Which is why, when my big brother and our nephew asked me to run a game, I took inspiration from a song by the Arrogant Worms titled The Last Saskatchewan Pirate.

The plot was simple: Three brothers (played by my own brother, our nephew and another friend) lost their farmstead along the mighty Saskatchewan River, and turned to a life at sea - rather, a life at river – plundering the crops of other farmers as they float down towards the market. It's worth noting, it was Saskatchewan in name and geography only; it was a full D&D fantasy setting.

Meandering through the plot and all of its twists, the players tousled with the law, and a clan of bugbears who had also moved into town and began robbing the locals. The game wrapped up when the brothers and their small crew were led into a trap by vigilante farmers.

They successfully escaped, but without the shipment they'd aimed to hijack.  However, to their luck, the tunnel they escaped into led them to a hidden treasure. The brothers retired wealthy men, and may re-appear in future campaigns as rich treasure hunters, traveling the globe.

Another game I ran recently was a D20 Modern session based on the cult-classic movie The Warriors. Except it was set in Toronto, and it began with a congregation of all of the city's gangs at the infamous Jane & Finch corner. The players had to safely cross the city and make it back to their home turf in The Beaches (a notorious haven for retired gang members living out the twilight of ther lives in seniors' homes. -ed.) using whatever resources were available to them.

Crunching old ideas into places they were never meant to go (ie. prairie pirates with D&D) can really breathe life into your gaming sessions. They can really kick start a compelling story, allowing you the freedom to traverse and idea that had previously captured your imagination along with all of the variables that come from letting your players influence the direction of the plot.

I've run campaigns stretching over many months in the past, and I might do it again one day. But for now, finding inspiration in unlikely places for one-off games is what's been floating my pirate boat lately.

Do you DM? If so, where do you draw your inspiration from?