Shameless Movie Scene Rip-Offs You Got Away With

[Ahnehnois]

I kicked off my campaign with a rapid intercut between one poisoning, one explosion, and one group of thugs storming in to take a (presumably) innocent man. I couldn't believe no one got the reference to a similar scene in the Dark Knight.

I don't usually rip off entire scenes though; just little bits and ideas.

 

[Stormonu]

Forget scenes, I do entire campaigns

- Pirates of the Caribbean
- LOST
- Robyn of the Woods (Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves)
- Dracula (AKA, Ravenloft)
- Alien(s)
- Night of the Living Dead
- Star Wars (as a fantasy game, with one of the PCs being the lost son of the Black Knight)

I've also helped my brother set up a bobsled race through a mountain that mimicked the mine chase in Temple of Doom

I've also done a dungeon inspired by Dragon's Lair

 

[The Shaman]

The adventurers in our Flashing Blades game went searching for a German mercenary to whom they owed money. They found him wrecking a tavern after a dispute with the owner - turns out the mercenary is diddling the tavern owner's wife, and the owner had the temerity to say something to him about it.

The adventurers were trying to convince the mercenary to leave the tavern before the provost-martial's men arrived to arrest him; the mercenary said that the tavern owner "has to ask me to stay."

Cribbed straight from Butch Cassiday and the Sundance Kid. Neither player noticed, as far as I could tell.

I did crack up one of the players when I explained that an encounter involving mistaken identity and a duel was called, "Waiting for Berault." The other player didn't pick up on the Samuel Beckett reference.

 

[Nymrohd]

Back in AD&D I did a spelljammer campaign based on Aliens. Yeah, we nuked those bastards from orbit. It was the only way to be sure.

 

[Murder of Crows]

I used the Bridge of Kazad-dum scene once, before the Fellowship of the Ring came out. None of my players had ever read Tolkien before. A few years later, when the movie came out, one player made the comment "It's like there was someone there right in the room with us and made it into this movie!"
I also have used the ambush scene in Red Dawn, where the high school kids pop out of the ground and wipe out the Russian patrol.

Oh, and I used a tactic from a older movie, where British soldiers stood in lines with their single-shot rifles facing against a bunch of Zulu warriors, instead converting it into crossbows. The first line would fire, then stand and reload, while the second line would advance through the first lines ranks and fire, followed by a third line, then back t the first line, etc etc.
Can't remember the name of the movie though...

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Oh, and I used a tactic from a older movie, where British soldiers stood in lines with their single-shot rifles facing against a bunch of Zulu warriors, instead converting it into crossbows. The first line would fire, then stand and reload, while the second line would advance through the first lines ranks and fire, followed by a third line, then back t the first line, etc etc.
Can't remember the name of the movie though...

Sounds like... Zulu! This was basic British tactics of the day. And it worked really well. Zulu (the movie) was based on the Battle of Rourke's Drift, where about 100 Brits fought off around 10,000 (depending on the source, I've seen anywhere from 8,000 to 14,000) Zulu warriors that way. Killed at least 3-4,000 of them and only lost a handfull of men. (Of course, the day before the Brits lost about 1,500 at the Battle of Ishlandawana [sp?] because the were spread out too thin. And it was foggy.)

 

[El Mahdi]

...Oh, and I used a tactic from a older movie, where British soldiers stood in lines with their single-shot rifles facing against a bunch of Zulu warriors, instead converting it into crossbows. The first line would fire, then stand and reload, while the second line would advance through the first lines ranks and fire, followed by a third line, then back t the first line, etc etc.
Can't remember the name of the movie though...

Was it Zulu?


Ooooops...ninja'd by Ed!

 

[wolfpunk]

I have used Ambrose Bierce's "Haita The Shepherd" and "The Secret of Macarger's Gulch" as the main storylines in two adventures.

Probably some of the most rewarding and scariest stuff I have ever run.


Sorry I know these aren't movies, but too good to pass up on. In case any of you have never checked out Ambrose Bierce, that guy could write.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Oh, and I used a tactic from a older movie, where British soldiers stood in lines with their single-shot rifles facing against a bunch of Zulu warriors, instead converting it into crossbows. The first line would fire, then stand and reload, while the second line would advance through the first lines ranks and fire, followed by a third line, then back t the first line, etc etc.
Can't remember the name of the movie though...

Probably either ZULU or ISANDEWLANA

 

[Thunderfoot]

I'm loathe to give this one out because I still use variations on this to this day.

I ran an adventure (several times) where the party had to assault a giant's fortress. The fortress is either a coastal fortress or mountain fortress which is harassing shipping, trade or travel. by firing giant ballistae at the passers-by.

The entire adventure is lifted from The Guns of Navarone. What can I say, I love movies about WWII...

I also have written but never run a hostage situation on a boat in a harbor based on The Raid on Entebbe.

Oh well, cat's out of the bag now.