Do you watch TV shows and movies to get ideas for your campaign world?

[Sunseeker]

Sure, and I've "borrowed" quite a few concepts from quite a few popular movies too.

Running "The Nothing" was fun.

 

[MNblockhead]

I do, often those sparks of inspiration never get the engine of creation running. I get far more use out of books. When I read a book, I can pause and think on something I've read and daydream how it would be cool in a game. I may even take a quick note for later use. I rarely pause a movie or TV show. I like immersion in the few shows/movies I watch. I'm sure they impact my world building and adventure design, but nowhere nearly as directly as books do.

And it is not just fantasy books. Inspiration comes from strange sources. Two recent examples:

No Mercy: True Stories of Disaster, Survival and Brutality is not only a great read but gives some excellent ideas for creating compelling shipwreck scenes for your low-level play.

A History of the World in 100 Objects. I like to read history. But in terms of giving game ideas, I find digest-style history books that give cool factoids across a range of periods and cultures to be most evocative. This book is especially good for this. Every picture could be the macguffin for an adventure. Great book for sparking ideas.

 

[S'mon]

I definitely get inspiration occasionally from eg Game of Thrones (turns out if players haven't seen the show it may be a bad idea to use the icky bits...) and films - eg long ago I used the first Batman movie with a Joker-type villain. Probably more often I use real life, eg my long running Neo-Nerath vs Altanians conflict was originally inspired by the Balkans conflicts of the 1990s with a bit of South Africa in the same era. My version of 1980s Classic D&D module Master of the Desert Nomads moved the Master from Sind to Ylaruam, and he became less an Ayatollah Khomeini,
more an Osama Bin Laden or Omar Al-Baghdadi.

 

[Jhaelen]

Most of my inspiration still comes from novels.

Movies and TV shows are too 'obvious', imho, especially the well-known ones.

 

[mflayermonk]

Do you watch TV shows and movies to get ideas for your campaign world?

I do. I watch a lot of TV, and I see it as research. I see the stories as inspiration to give me ideas for my own worlds.

What kind of output do you get from your PCs? I find much of the enjoyment of a tv show or movie is in the dialogue (which varies, but is in general good).
PCs tend to have get me over dialogue and roll a skill check. Crafting good dialogue takes time.

As far as the warring human factions plots, most groups I've done that with do unexpected things. Current king fighting with rightful king? Lets start a shield store!

 

[Silver Moon]

I definitely get inspiration occasionally from eg Game of Thrones

So, TKP ?

 

[Ratskinner]

I don't start watching a show with the intent to steal from it, but I'm not shy about stealing when I see a good idea that I think I can translate into the game.

 

[S'mon]

So, TKP ?

My Yggsburgh campaign which had the strongest GoT influence. No TPKs but at one point the
PCs did lead their men into a disastrous ambush, get captured (some killed), the survivors got
to watch their men being murdered, and they were in irons for months before being rescued.

 

[CydKnight]

I do not watch TV Shows and Movies to get ideas for a campaign world or character but I likely do get ideas from them through osmosis.

 

[MarkB]

I find wildlife documentaries more inspiring, especially for monsters and monster tactics.

The miniscule Velvet Worm, which hunts by touch and vibration, and attacks using sprays of adhesive silk, scales up nicely to a fearsome Underdark predator.

Antarctic orcas working together to create weaponised shockwaves of water to break up ice floes and dislodge their prey can inspire similar combined attacks for larger sea monsters to deploy against sailing ships.