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Have you converted your favorite novels into a campaign setting?
Hello Gamers!
I know that some of the gaming companies out there managed to take our fantasy novels and convert them into campaign settings. Wheel of Time, Black Company, and Lankhmar are ones that jump to mind right off.
My question is...What fantasy novel(s) have you read that immediately screamed out to create a campaign setting for that that a professional game company has not done?
It can be a little as a character class taken from the novel to the entire world itself.
For me, I had a mercenary ranger who could "smell" evil deeds similar to the character Hurin in Wheel of Time, a very minor character in the early novels. The PC's hired him on as an elaborate tracker. The mechanic involved was that the character would have a scent ability that allowed him a bonus to track based on the deed done. If it was mass murder, the strongest vile deed, it would be a good bonus (+5) and the trail didn't age on the scent. Whereas a simple murder by someone who may not be evil would only net a +1 and the ranger had to stay on the trail or else the "scent" fades away.
I am rather surprised that the Dark Border series by Paul Edwin Zimmer hasn't been optioned as a setting. I remember hearing some rumor a long time ago that someone was writing a GURPS sourcebook, but it never came about. Come to think of it, I heard it before Paul died; his death could have complicated things.
The three big inspirations for my current campaign is his work mashed together with the Amber stories by Zelazny and Dune by Herbert. Now that I have rules for dragonmarks and spellscars I have to figure out how it all comes together.
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I've ripped off bits and pieces from my favorite novels to use in campaigns, but never a novel in its entirety, or alone. For example, I started a GURPS game in the late '90s that, had the players already read Game of Thrones, they could've recognized a lot of bits. But the world was more a riff on pseudo-Europes (like Warhammer's Old World or 7th Sea's setting) than anything really Westeros-specific.
"Steal from one, it's plagiarism; steal from many, it's research", right?
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Shortly after d20 Modern was released, I used Stephen King's Dark Tower as a multiverse. The first session involved the PCs meeting at a job interview at the Tet Corporation in New York. My plan was to have the game start out as corporate espionage and exploration of strange occurrences. Unfortunately, the group fell apart after three sessions.
No I haven't tried. I never really thought A Little Character Goes a Long Way: A 35-Year Collection of Ziggy Favorites would make for a good campaign setting. But who knows...
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I haven't actually done it, but there are quite a few which I've wanted to turn into campaigns.
As far as Fantasy novels, I really wanted to turn Goerge Lucas's Willow world and novels (Shadow_Moon, Shadow_Dawn, and Shadow_Star) into a campaign setting. And of course, I've always wanted to do Highlander.
In the Sci-Fi realm, I've always wanted to use the Alternity/D20 Future rules to run campaigns based on David Gerrold's Star_Wolf novels, John Steakley's novel Armor, and Fred Saberhagen's Berserker series.
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Every time I start thinking about using an existing setting or something from a novel or movie, something August Derleth said to Ramsey Campbell comes to mind.
Young Mr. Campbell wanted to write some stories set in the Miskatonic Valley, Arkham, etc. August Derleth said something like, "Why? Make up your own scary place."
Which is where Goatswood came from.
The ghost of August Derleth guilts me into making up my own stuff. I need more time on the couch.
I made a 3.0 campaign world out of Michael Scott Rohan's (what a cool name, a Tolkien surname!) winter of the World. Worked out fine, but had to house rule the hell out of spell casting, ended up a lot like 4Es rituals.
I've done it, and I've participated in campaigns run by others that did it.
Personally, I've done a LotR type campaign or 2, and to this day, draw a lot of my cosmology (if nothing else) from Michael Moorcock. And the Cthulhu Mythos.
I was in a Black Company campaign done long before 3Ed ever hit the shelves. The same guy also ran a campaign based on Glen Cook's Garret, P.I. novels.
I've done this a few times, mostly back in my days of 2nd ed D&D. I ran a game in David Eddings' Belgariad/Mallorean world, played in a party of Elenic knights from his Elenium/Tamuli trilogies who were transported into Ravenloft for a short time.
Earlier this year I cobbled together a D20 Modern rules adaptation to run a game set in the world of Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files since the Evil Hat FATE system version isn't available yet. That game was one of my most successful non-D&D campaigns so far.
The next time I do something like this I want to use an existing ruleset for a G.I. JOE game, or adapt something else for a everyday modern humans transported into a fantasy world like in Guy Gavariel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry.
A little over a decade ago, I wrote some 200 pages worth of notes for using Dennis L. McKiernan's Mithgar with The Window (I wish I still had those notebooks).
I would buy a setting based on the Malazan novels in a heatbeat. Then again since they books are supposed to be based on the author's campaign it might not be that far fetched an idea.
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This might sound a little too mundane, but a while back I played in a game that was very firefly-esque. No direct theft of characters or setting, but the premise was spot on. It dissolved.
A little off topic, but my favorite novels were already done. I've always beena fan of the Wild Cards shared setting and it's been done twice, once for GURPS and most recently for M&M.
That said, I thnk it would be fun to do a take-off of Mary Gentle's Grunts where everybody plays Orcs.
A little off topic, but my favorite novels were already done. I've always beena fan of the Wild Cards shared setting and it's been done twice, once for GURPS and most recently for M&M.
That said, I thnk it would be fun to do a take-off of Mary Gentle's Grunts where everybody plays Orcs.
I think I heard of the Wild Cards supplement. I'm a fan of GURPS, so I may have come across it. Not too familiar with M&M though I've looked at a couple of times.
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