Need inspiration? Great ideas for your next adventure are just a click away.
As any DM will tell you, game mastering can be creatively rewarding and also exhausting, with inspiration the fuel to keep you going. I find inspiration everywhere. Here's some live action ideas available on popular streaming platforms to kickstart your imagination.
But more useful to game masters are the one-off movies that manage to come up with fresh ideas. The Cube (Amazon) took the modern dungeon crawl to new nihilistic depths. If you're looking for inspiration for your traps, the Saw series (HBO) is chock full of ideas on how to maim people. For a more nihilistic approach, there's the recent The Platform (Netflix) and Meander (Amazon).
The other great inspiration are horror movie monsters. Monsters inspired by other cultures are always fascinating stuff, which is what makes The Ritual (Netflix) and No One Gets Out Alive (Netflix) so much fun. Each feature monsters with surprising depth that differs from the aforementioned menagerie of slashers, demons, and killer dolls.
One of my family's favorites is the live action Frogger (Peacock), inspired by the original video game, in which contestants compete to run an obstacle course to reach the exit the fastest (Peacock). Also on Peacock is Create the Escape, where kids compete (with the help of professionals) against their parents to create elaborate escape rooms. And then there's The Titan Games (Peacock) which has over a dozen types of physical challenges, many of them pitting contestants against each other in real time. All of these shows provide great ideas for puzzles and traps in your dungeons.
Your Turn: There are way more live-action sources of inspiration on streaming channels than I can possibly catalogue here. What's yours?
As any DM will tell you, game mastering can be creatively rewarding and also exhausting, with inspiration the fuel to keep you going. I find inspiration everywhere. Here's some live action ideas available on popular streaming platforms to kickstart your imagination.
Documentaries
Documentaries have taken off as streaming has become more prevalent, which means there's now a dizzying variety of true crime, post-apocalyptic scenarios, and deep delves into esoteric topics. Of particular use to game masters are historical documentaries that cover everything from wars to fortifications to historical reenactments. Netflix and HBO have too many to list here, but you can easily browse their selections online.Horror Movies
Horror movies increasingly have their own mythos, going as far back as H.P. Lovecraft. This modern take means that there's an endless series of Friday the 13th (Netflix), Hellraiser (Netflix), Halloween (Netflix), and Child's Play (Hulu) media to pick and choose from when looking for horror inspiration. Franchises in their own right, each of them has (eventually) tried to explain the origins of their villains, along with the universe that contains them.But more useful to game masters are the one-off movies that manage to come up with fresh ideas. The Cube (Amazon) took the modern dungeon crawl to new nihilistic depths. If you're looking for inspiration for your traps, the Saw series (HBO) is chock full of ideas on how to maim people. For a more nihilistic approach, there's the recent The Platform (Netflix) and Meander (Amazon).
The other great inspiration are horror movie monsters. Monsters inspired by other cultures are always fascinating stuff, which is what makes The Ritual (Netflix) and No One Gets Out Alive (Netflix) so much fun. Each feature monsters with surprising depth that differs from the aforementioned menagerie of slashers, demons, and killer dolls.
Reality Competitions
Reality competitions sit in a curious space between having contestants who aren't (usually) actors compete in games with sometimes a rough outline of the rules. The shows focus much more on the spectacle of winning and losing than the details, but many of them are essentially obstacle courses and (hopefully non-lethal) trap-laden exercises in survival.One of my family's favorites is the live action Frogger (Peacock), inspired by the original video game, in which contestants compete to run an obstacle course to reach the exit the fastest (Peacock). Also on Peacock is Create the Escape, where kids compete (with the help of professionals) against their parents to create elaborate escape rooms. And then there's The Titan Games (Peacock) which has over a dozen types of physical challenges, many of them pitting contestants against each other in real time. All of these shows provide great ideas for puzzles and traps in your dungeons.
Your Turn: There are way more live-action sources of inspiration on streaming channels than I can possibly catalogue here. What's yours?