My son and I went to Nuke-Con this past Saturday. I am hoping that next year we will get more time to game. He could only attend from about 3pm - 8pm due to an overnight camping trip Friday and a library event on Sunday. Still, he comes up with a few gems no matter where we are.
Tonight I reminded him about the Howerter post. I mentioned it because I shared that I was proud of him for being imaginative. Before I could say much more, he looks at me and says,
What if the dolphins could make their own bubbles and float into the sky? Why not into outer space?
See, I've been sitting around trying to figure out the ecology of some kind of huge creature that floats in the atmosphere due to a huge air bladder filled with hydrogen. I figured that it goes into low-orbit to escape predators, thus humans take advantage of these creatures to fly into outer space.
While I am pondering the questions of how and why, my son asks the most important question in any game: Why not?
I posted about a race of dolphins that adventured on land because I like ideas that are so far removed from anything I could invent. The more I thought about it, though, I wondering why they would go through all the trouble to create the equipment necessary to adventure on land. On land, they can use swords, but they can't take them home. Even if they did, they serve no purpose. Potions don't work underwater either. Many spells do not function or cannot be controlled underwater. Again, why would they bother?
To see what's there.
I had to admit to myself that OSR games that I play are similar. Why does a group of sentient folks adventure in the Elemental Plane of Fire Seriously, the plane of Fire. In my 1e days, we went to the Plane of Magma. Why did TSR actually make a book about adventuring in Hell?
Why not? My high school group went to Tiamat's lair just to knock on the door. They went off the map in Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth just to see what was North and West. Spell research turned out to be mostly useless in game play, but it was great to have spells like Itchy Teeth, Boomerang Sword, and Explosive Diarrhea. I think one of the guys actually tried to make evil Ioun Stones and launch them in a sling against various monsters. (Critical fail and the stone circled his head draining hit points until the Cleric stopped laughing and cast Remove Curse.)
So, I look forward to sailing the spaces between the stars in a small crystalline sphere. With a dolphin. Maybe the bubble can somehow interface with another's ship navigation system. The dolphin are mildly psionic, so why not?
For what it is worth, Explosive Diarrhea did get one use in play. The mage cast it on Iuz the Evil and he failed the save. Mind you, it didn't save the party, but at least one researched spell actually worked.