Real Life As Adventure

[Scribble]

A common practice in many good television shows is to take a subject or event that's on the minds of the populace and twist it up a bit to fit the themes of the show.

The original Star Trek used to do this a lot.

So my question is do any of you use the events of real life (things you see in the news or read in newspapers/magazines) as the basis of your adventures?
I've seen it suggested before in Dragon, and through other sources so I'm guessing there are.

If so do you find these create more memorable adventures? Do they feel more emersive?

Do you think doing so gives the players more of a sense of accomplishment as they can in a way feel like they have some say into the world around them?

Does it take away from your gaming experience in some way?

What do you think?

 

[DragonLancer]

I've never did that in D&D, but I did quite often when running Vampire the Masquerade.

 

[Turanil]

A few months ago I had a thread closed, because I proposed to turn some event into a plot for d20 CoC / d20 Modern. It began well, but after a couple of posts it degenerated into a flame war.

However, apart from this idea which looked perfect (IMO) for a modern horror game, I never feel like using real life events as a basis for D&D adventures. I don't see what it would bring interesting or useful. Lets say that there would be a scandal about children abuse revealed somewhere. It's terrible for sure, but why use it as a basis for a D&D adventure? I prefer not.

 

[Scribble]

I've never did that in D&D, but I did quite often when running Vampire the Masquerade.

In what ways?

Did you find it added to the game?

Took away from the game?

Lets say that there would be a scandal about children abuse revealed somewhere. It's terrible for sure, but why use it as a basis for a D&D adventure? I prefer not.

True, while I can't see this as being a good plot, there are plenty of other things going on right now, war, governments being overthrown, conspiracy theories galore...
I take it then that you feel it would detract from the game were a DM to cull his ideas from real life?

 

[DragonLancer]

In what ways?

Did you find it added to the game?

Took away from the game?

With Vampire it was very easy to take a real world situation and rework it slightly to make either some background event or even to make a session from it.

I don't think I had anything take away from the game from it. Some of it would probably leave a bad taste for some people so I won't go into details here to avoid offending anyone, but for such a game it worked well and certainly helped raise moral issues for both the players and the characters.

But I used anything from governmental scandals, local events, well publicised deaths, wars, drugs issues, and worse (which i won't go into) and it helped to create a more realistic approach since I had plenty of real world material to drawn upon.