KaosDevice said:
Is it just me or is this movie just actually three really neat looking game sessions strung together?
Well the movie is based on a series of graphic novels that all take place in the same city, Basin City, and sometimes include the same characters and locations. There are, if I recall correctly, seven full length novels, and one shorts (like, three to ten pages) collectoion.
The movie is just three of the seven full length ones (not any particular ones, just the ones that struck the director as, uh, good to go tegether).
But yes, you could easily run a d20 modern game similar to the movie- a series of oneshots with coherent continuity but divergent characters (just because they worked together on one job doesnt mean they will again. Could be pretty interesting actually- and a nice way to build up a city with a lot of interesting history- have the players play specific individuals thru its history, etc.
Actually, that wouldn't be a bad way to introduce ppl to DND - give them a set of prewritten characters to play through a one to three session arc, then give them a different set of characters (like, let someone be a fighter, then a mage, etc) and continue the story but "five years later" or whatever, build a continutity around those two events, and show the players how to make up thier own perminent PCs , and have those PCs enter another five years later.
Doing it like this would be perfect- new players could learn how to play BEFORE they make important character decisions, and when their "real" characters start, the players are already hooked into the campaign - they have both a sense of the world as well as ties to its backstory (as they, well, created said backstory, at least in part).