A grumpy retired baseball player and a sassy hotshot Japanese lawyer ...

A writing block breaker idea from my daughter. :-)

Get a big stack of colored index cards.

Write down your story’s characters on one color of cards, one character per card. (This is good to get the feel of your characters by throwing them into random scenarios! But if you want a more generic game, write down different characters like “princess” “retired baseball player” “hotshot Japanese lawyer” etc.)

On another color of cards write down some basic emotions like “sad” “angry” “grumpy” “sassy”.

Scenarios! On a third set of cards write down any scenarios you can think of. From basic things like “fight” and “trapped in a thunderstorm” to “abducted by aliens."

Keep the piles separate, but shuffle each individual stack.

Draw as many characters as you want (even just one!) and then one emotion card for each one (everyone’s gotta feel something!), then one scenario card.

Say you get:

Auto Mechanic, Soccer Dad and Yankees Fan. For their emotions you get angsty, volatile and numb. And for a scenario you get Lost At Sea.

For the scene you’re going to write, an angsty auto mechanic, a volatile soccer dad and a numb Yankees fan are lost at sea together. (You can decide if these emotions are how they feel about the situation or maybe that’s just how they’re feeling when they get on the ship!) And go with it!

As she then mentions, it's a lot like the popsicle game we played when she was a kid so colored popsicles sticks will work too. That's described in the Dragon Writing sticks prompt.