Plots/ Cool stuff stolen from Fiction for your Campaign

[Waylander the Slayer]

SPOILER ALERT








I love reading and naturally there have been times when i have used ideas from books i have read in my campaign. Here are a couple of examples:


Recently read the Liveship trader trilogy from Robon Hobb - the whole idea of the origin of the liveships (shells of unborn dragon eggs), the Sea serpents and the "pirate" culture so intrigued me that i had to work it into my campaign.

I read a book a while ago- dont remember the book - the book had an isle of seers. The true nature of the island was pretty horrific though. The nation that the island was a part of used to send anyone with the ability of foresight here. They were virtual prisioners who were encased in rock(think a large cavern with living caskets) and only fed so that they can prophecise.


What are the ideas that you have gleaned from books?

 

[JoeGKushner]

Well, sometimes it's not even something I've directly lived as much as mood and tone. The theme for Robin Hobb's first series, the Farseer, is pretty dark and dangerous with a high focus on specific characters and the bonds they build which encourages a lot of interparty action and NPC buildup with the action almost taking place off the side for much of the adventure. "Yeah, after you kill some soulless entities, you get back and discover that your woman has left you!" type deals.

Other times though, yeah, locations, names (I almost always go for the lesser known characters), and even whole themes have been snatched. This may sound funny, but most of the Black Library's Warhammer fiction material is very easy to do this with.

 

[Tinner]

Ripping things off

I am constantly borrowing ideas from all sorts of sources. Here's a small list of some that worked well.

I used the Pattern from Amber as a trap once. Big magic path that you have to complete or die, yet gets progressively more difficult to move through.

I based an entire campaign on the the song "King of Pain" by the Police. Each of the images named in that song made an appearance in the game world. The players were quite puzzled by the dungeon inside the corpse of a "blue whale beached by a spring-tide's ebb."

Most of my NPC's are based on people I know. My college yearbook continues to be an excellent source of ready-made personalities for characters.

I can't count the number of magic items I've stolen from books and cartoons. We've had dozens of Thundarr the Barbarian SunSwords over the years, not mention Elric's blades by a 1000 different names.

 

[diaglo]

i converted the animal races from

Watership Down (made up humanoid rabbit men)

and later the Secret of NIMH (a bunch of wererats in an evil wizard's tower)

and of course the Prophet Pen Wen from Lloyd Alexander's series


and many, many, many, many other authors. much of my inspiration comes from my reading. even the nonfiction stuff like in the daily newspaper gets incorporated.

 

[Eosin the Red]

I based an entire campaign on the the song "King of Pain" by the Police. Each of the images named in that song made an appearance in the game world. The players were quite puzzled by the dungeon inside the corpse of a "blue whale beached by a spring-tide's ebb."

I based a campaign off of the entire Synchronicity album...weird (welll 90% of it). Murder By Numbers, Miss Grendinko - "anybody alive in there, anybody alive in there, nobody but us in here, nobody but us", Wrapped around your finger, damn it was a fun game but I think I was starting to go crazy from listening to it too much.


Oophs,. and of course King of Pain. I did it much the same as you each verse was a scene or occured in the game.

 

[Waylander the Slayer]

I had not considered songs before....hmmm...something new to consider..."babys got back.....

 

[Psion]

Morganti blades and other tidbits from Brust's Dragaera

 

[Chaldfont]

The show Farscape has some great ideas for games. The one I used was to establish the villain and then switch things around so that the PCs have to work with their archnemesis to achieve their goals. The whole time they were waiting for him to double cross them (which he did).

 

[Tinner]

I based a campaign off of the entire Synchronicity album...weird ... <SNIP> ... and of course King of Pain. I did it much the same as you each verse was a scene or occured in the game.

So now I'm dying to know. What did you do with the "King" himself?
In my campaign the King was actually an aspect/Avatar of Death. Which really bothered the Paladin and Cleric when the couldn't turn the "large skelton in a black robe"

 

[Ion]

I based an entire campaign on the the song "King of Pain" by the Police.

"King of Pain"! Thats genious! I love that song...