Setting up an encounter based on an illustration?

Bullgrit

Adventurer

• Jun 21, 2011

• #1

Have you ever set up/designed an encounter for a game based on an illustration that you particularly liked?

Did the encounter turn out like the illustration made you imagine? Or did the PCs do something completely different?

How about illustrations for an encounter in a published adventure? Is there a particular module encounter with an accompanying image, (not a tactical map-type image), that turned out completely different than shown in the illustration?

If you can, show the illustration in this thread.

Bullgrit

 

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Dioltach

Legend

• Jun 21, 2011

• #2

When I first discovered D&D and other roleplaying games, various illustrations opened my eyes to a wide range of possibilities. The first I realised that wilderness adventures were possible, for example, was when I saw an illustration showing a group of adventurers fighting off giant watersnakes in a boat in a canyon. I designed an adventure involving a maze of canyons and channels.

Plus, Larry Elmore's drawings were always very inspirational when I was a teenager.

 

Rel

Liquid Awesome

• Jun 21, 2011

• #3

I feel that I should share a resource with everybody at ENWorld who isn't aware of it. It's the Geomorphs produced by "Risus Monkey" or Ethernaut as he's known here at ENWorld. His blog is a very cool commentary on gaming in general but his Geomorphs are just totally awesome.

Risus Monkey: Geomorphs

The short version is that he's looked at dozens of pictures from various gaming resources (especially old D&D modules) and then drawn maps of what he envisions they look like from the top down. But they are drawn in such a way as to have entrances and exits in positions where you can place several such maps together and voila! Instant dungeon!

Check it out. I think you'll be impressed.

 

Nebten

First Post

• Jun 21, 2011

• #4

[sblock=Skeleton in Water, nuff said]

[/sblock]

 

Orius

Legend

• Jun 22, 2011

• #5

I bet we won't get to the end of this thread without a Paladin in Hell.

I never personally ran that encounter, so I'm not putting up any of the versions of that picture.

 

Starfox

Adventurer

• Jun 22, 2011

• #6

I have a friend who draws. He and I play rather collaborative games. He often draws scenes from my games, but sometimes draws scenes involving characters and setting from a game that have not happened in-game. I often use these drawings as inspiration and try to enact that scene. This works out very well, as my friend is a lot more inspired when drawing than he is when talking; it is much easier for him to suggest cool new scenes in this way.

 

Ethernaut

First Post

• Jun 22, 2011

• #7

Rel said:

I feel that I should share a resource with everybody at ENWorld who isn't aware of it. It's the Geomorphs produced by "Risus Monkey" or Ethernaut as he's known here at ENWorld. His blog is a very cool commentary on gaming in general but his Geomorphs are just totally awesome.

Risus Monkey: Geomorphs

Click to expand...

Aw shucks! You say the nicest things.

(More geomorphs in this style will be coming as soon as regain access to my drawing tablet)

 

Lanefan

Victoria Rules

• Jun 22, 2011

• #8

I've set up entire adventures based on an illustration, but not so much done it (at least, not consciously) at the single-encounter level.

Last adventure done like this was based on the picture on page 89 of the 4e pre-release book "Worlds and Monsters" - the long bridges looping through the air were the key, and I worked out what might be at the end of each one. Of course the party took a long detour to check out the tower in the background (where they most certainly were not supposed to go unless they were about triple their at-the-time level); they only lost one PC, it could have been worse.

Lan-"also, Rodney Matthews has done a bunch of adventure-inspiring art"-efan

 

Oryan77

Adventurer

• Jun 22, 2011

• #9

I can't think of a time where I actually did that. But I do get inspired by landscape illustrations all the time and create locations based off of these images. I'll even create encounters to place in these locations because I thought it would be a fun place to have a fight.

 

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balam_br

Explorer

• Jun 23, 2011

• #10

Yeah, i get lots of ideas for encounters (and sometimes adventures) looking in illustrations...

I suggest This link, im used to browse in illustration sites like this to get my creative juice flowing.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=133

 

Last edited: Jun 23, 2011