Television and other fiction can be a great source of ideas for stories. I've used Star Trek episodes for adventure ideas, and I've used the Babylon 5 TV series for a campaign setting. In both cases, I adapted a science fiction series to a fantasy campaign world. The same idea can be done with movies or books.

A very important thing to remember is that you should not expect to reproduce the show in the game. Your game can get the PCs in the same situation, but you should not expect the same outcome. Otherwise you risk a railroad. The whole point of this is to set a situation up, and see what the players and their PCs do. Otherwise, you might as well pop in the DVD and watch that instead.

For one campaign, I decided to adapt the show Babylon5 to D&D. What I did is a good demonstration of how to transform the elements of a show to something different.

Here's an important point, don't tell your players what you're doing, and make sure you change enough things so it isn't obvious. Your campaign will be better for it, and it'll help prevent railroading tendencies if you relate too closely to the show. It will also stop them from googling up spoilers.

******* spoiler alert *****
There may be some spoilers here as I talk about the show.
******* spoiler alert *****

Babylon5 is a space opera. I decided to make my D&D setting a sailing "opera". Space and the age of sailing are kind of similar. So I used a program to generate a watery world with lots of islands. The islands being "planets".

I mapped out all the major alien races to the D&D races. I also renamed them, so in the game, there were no "Minbari" or "Narn". I had the elves designated as the Minbari equivalent, and the dwarves as the Narn, and the gnomes as the Centarui. This led to some surprise for the players as the dwarves had recently overthrown an occupation and enslavement by the gnomes. This radically altered their perception of the world. It wasn't the same old game.

The series made a big deal about telepaths, and how human telepaths had to be registered. In my game, I decided that telepath mapped to arcane magic users. Dwarves had no telepaths, so they had no arcane magic users (which was also a nod to previous D&D editions). Humans just recently discovered Magic, so I let them be wizards, but no sorcerors. Instead of PsiCorp, the organization that all humans telepaths were required to register with, I made the "Circle of Magic" a wizards guild.

The show took place on the space station Babylon 5. I decided to rewind the clock and start my game before the Earth-Minbari war that later inspired the station to be built. Partly because if my PCs were to run B5, they'd need to be leveled, and party because doing so would encourage more deviations from the show.

I also decided to follow the human side of things, so my starting party was required to be all human and all serving on a military ship. This set the tone for character creation. The players accepted this as I had got their buy in to play a naval campaign, where the PCs served on a ship. We'd all recently seen Master and Commander, so they were inspired. They'd also never see the series, so was pretty safe from spoiling it.

With this in place, the first few adventures were missions where the ship sailed somewhere, and the PCs were sent in as an away team (similar to star trek). The PCs were junior officers or enlisted. I gave them some meta-game guidelines on behavior (as in don't be over-bossy just because you're an officer to another player). They handled it well.

I also brought in back-story elements where the humans have first contact with the elves and it starts a war. This in turn led to the Battle of the Line, an major event in the campaign and it surprisingly followed the series outcome.

Now one reason I was able to follow the series more closely, and it was risky, is because the character creation phase required the players to effectively make PCs that would follow orders and likely end up in the same scenarios. If I had let them "pick anything", I would have run a different campaign in the same universe. In the same vein, the PCs could have grown dissatisfied with the military and turned pirate, which would have led to a different outcome.

This is something you have to accept as a GM, you can't mirror the show exactly. Your goal should be to capture the flavor and style of the show, not the exact recipe.

The trick to transforming a show is to adapt the ideas and material to fit your game and setting. There's a wealth of shows to steal from, and the act of transforming it will actually reinvigorate the idea. Otherwise, you might as well just buy the "Knight Rider" RPG and be done with it.

Feel free to put some comments with show treatments turned into D&D fantasy campaign. Knight Rider may actually be a good example of a challenge:

There's this good agency, that's got this wagon, except it's really a wizard who's been polymorphed. And it talks, and sometimes the wagon, I mean wizard can cast spells, like Magic Missle and Turbo Boost to help out the PCs.

Not all shows make good campaigns. But sometimes an episode might work...

Janx

I wrote a program to do this a long time ago, and actually thought about writing a blog entry about the method I came up with.

Anyway, the method I devised is this:

Lookup the age category/life expectancy for the race involved.

Assume that for your population that there is an even distribution, across age.

If you had a pop. of 1000, and the life expectancy was 100, then that would be 10 people at age 1, 10 at age 2, etc. (math= pop divided by life expectancy)

Multiply this by the % of females in the population (50% for humans). This gets us 5 for a distribution.

Now look at the age categories, and figure out the breeding year range. This is basically the begining of adult hood, to the beginning of the last age bracket. Let's say for humans that's 20-80, which is 60 years. If you had to estimate, assume 1/2 or 2/3 of the life expectancy. This is the span.

Now folks don't crank out babies every year, it's simplest to statistically spread them over their breeding span. Divive the breeding span (60) by the age of maturity (20). We get 3. THat's basically 3 kids per person.

Multiply that by the first number, you get 15.

That means for a population of 1,000, whose life expectancy is 100 years, they will crank out 15 people next year. This seems plausible for humans.

Repeat that math for each year you want to pass.

The interesting mechanic is that a shorter lived race has a lower maturity, and they will basically crank out kids like candy.

Let's say you got 1,000 Kobolds that live to age 30, and mature at age 15.
1000/30*.5=16.67 population distribution
30/2=15 = breeding span
16.67*15=250baby kobolds next year


Now this formula is far from realistic or precise, but it's close enough, and the results compare well against real humans, and produces more babies for short lived races, less babies for long lived races. If you actually plug in real human numbers, it is remarkably close to American growth rate (at least it was when I designed it 15 years ago).

The mortality rate is sort of effectively applied by virtue of the life expectancy. Since Kobolds have a short life expectancy, it is already assumed lots of kobolds are dieing.

I designed this formula years ago, when I had an elven nation that had lost a lot of people in a war, and time was passing, so I needed to know how big they would grow back to, after 100 years after the war (barring other cataclysms).

If you're just looking for a generic answer to "time passed, how many people are in this empire or city?" it is close enough for government work.

Hint: Applying multiple years is easier if you write a small program to loop through the math and add it all up...or just stick it in a spreadsheet.

Janx

Way of the Tiger

Tora Meijin Lo Huang founded Tora No Do (“Way of the Tiger”) 200 hundred years when he was lost in the mountain hills. He searched for the way for hours when he caught glimpse of a white tiger. He followed the tiger, loosing sight of it, only to see it again as it led him. Finally he found himself on a road leading to his village. The tiger was no where to be seen. He arrived in his village to see invaders from the Dragon Clan attacking. He took cover, hoping to see an opening where he could save his people. From out of nowhere, the white tiger sprang into the center of the invading men and began tearing them to pieces. Lo Huang knew then that his time to strike had come. He leaped in among the men and fought with such ferocity that few of the Dragon Clan survived to run away. Villagers say that day that they saw only one tiger that day, and it was Lo Huang, savior of their village.



The Tora No Do style is an aggressive style preferring quick strikes against the enemy over advanced grappling, dodging and throws. Practitioners of this style are skilled in hunting their prey, having patience to wait for the opportune moment, and then to attack with full force and disregard for pain and injury, just as the tiger would.



As students advance in skill, they are recognized by being allowed to wear belts of the appropriate color. A student advances to a higher ranking by defeating a fellow student of equal ranking in an honor duel, the Shoushin Sainou.

The rankings are as follows:

Ranking, Monk Level, Belt, Title
Jukyu, 1, White, Tabite
Kukyu, 2, Yellow, Wakamono
Hachikyu, 3, Yellow 1 tassel,
Sichikyu, 4, Yellow 2 tassels,
Rokkyu, 5, Green, Wakamusha
Gokyu, 6, Green 1 tassel,
Yonkyu, 7, Green 2 tassels,
Sankyu, 8, Brown, Bushi
Nikyu, 9, Brown 1 tassel,
Ikkyu, 10, Brown 2 tassels,
Shodan, 11, Black, Sensai
Nidan, 13, Black 1 tassel,
Sandan, 15, Black 2 tassels,
Yondan, 17, Black 3 tassels,
Godan, 19, Black 4 tassels,
Rodan, 21, Red & White, Meijin
Sichidan, 23, Red & White 1 tassel,
Hachidan, 25, Red & White 2 tassels, Meijin Sensai
Kudan, 27 Red & White 3 tassels,
Judan, 30, White 1 tassel, Tora Meijin


One common misconception is that belt level rankings match a character’s level in Monk. The table above indicates an approximate Monk class level to a given belt level. Typically, a character must reach that level, before being allowed to participate in Shoushin Sainou. It is even possible for a character to be higher Monk level than belt level.



Basic Etiquette

Always bow before entering the dojo

Always remove shoes before entering a building (home or dojo)

Always bow to superior before speaking

Never interrupt a superior, wait to be acknowledged before beginning

Always bow when before leaving

Always address a superior by their title, not their name


The Shoushin Sainou

Each martial artist strives to attain mental and physical discipline. Their achievements are recognized by the Shoushin Sainou. It is a contest where all eligible students for a belt rank fight each other. The combat is non-lethal but brutal. The victorious student is promoted to the next level and the master puts a new belt or adds a tassle to the student’s belt. Some Shoushin Sainou have many students vying for the honor, and each round pits two students against each other in elimination tournament style.



The Batsu Fumeiyo

Honor is what binds society. Honor is gained through loyalty, duty, respect, and service to others. When that honor is forsaken, the Batsu Fumeiyo must be undertaken. As there are four ways of wind, there are four paths to honor, thus there are four parts to restoring one’s honor: Sacrifice, Pain, Humiliation, and Redemption. The Batsu Fumeiyo is required of one who has committed the greatest crimes. Few survive the ritual, but all have their honor redeemed.



Basic Combat Techniques (below black belt):

Punch
Reverse Punch
Back Fist
Spinning Back Fist
Uppercut
Reverse Uppercut
Throat Strike
Ridge Hand Strike
Reverse Ridge Hand Strike
Knife Hand Strike
Palm Strike
Double Palm Strike
Clenched Fist Strike
Elbow Strike
Round House Kick
Side Kick
Front Kick
Thrust Kick
Stomp Kick
Hook Kick
Axe Kick
Crescent Kick
Spinning Back Kick
Spinning Side Kick
Spinning Round House Kick
Spinning Hook Kick
Spinning Crescent Kick
Jump Front Kick
Jump Side Kick
Jump Round House Kick


Basic Blocks:

Overhead Forearm block
Middle Forearm Block
Downward Forearm Block
Double Forearm Block
Knife Hand Block
Double Knife Hand Block
Leg Check
Knee Block
Wrist Block
Double Wrist Block
High X Block
Low X Block


Dojos of Tora No Do

There are several dojos that teach the Way of the Tiger. They were formed by former students of Lo Huang and they have spread to distant lands.



Dojo of the White Claw

One such dojo is the Dojo of the White Claw. It is led by Meijin Shin Yu. The dojo teachs the philosophy of the Tao-Dan. There are 50 students at this dojo, of various ranks. Many of Master Yu’s pupils join the Navy Corps to serve as marines. The Dojo of the White Claw is located in the Wu Kyen province on the Tarais Island.



Resources:
http://japanese.about.com/blbeginkanji.htm

http://www.karatebc.org/history/

Janx