The DM's Percentage

[Mark]

Everyone gets ideas from somewhere, sometimes, and either uses them wholesale or makes them more their own. Some DM's use modules and published settings exclusive, while others write each and every detail by themselves...but they still have had some influence from outside sources. Whether it is the daily newspaper, history books, or sci-fi/fantasy novels, something always has some influence on how a campaign setting is generated and run.

So what is The DM's Percentage in your game?

(...also, what are the influences and how much do you change them?)



Don't forget to chime in on the entire RPG Survey Round-Up!

 

[Darkness]

I'm mostly influenced by the voices in my head.

 

[howandwhy99]

I like to place modules in different locations around the map. If things change in the interim I can always rewrite the story or pull it out completely. Most of everything else (campaign world, npcs, adventures) is my own.

[/hiding from the Darkness]

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

More or less original.

What I do is that I look at my map and try to figure out who would want what in the area where the PCs are. So basically I stare at a large piece of paper until I go crosseyed and pass out. When I come to, I have the adventure.

I try to stay away from books and movies. I sat in a game once where a new DM had a great idea for a campaign based on the whitecloaks in Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series. In the DMs old group no one had read the books, so he thought he was on to something cool. But in the new group everyone had read the books and they were really turned off by the cameos of all the "Wheel of Time" characters the DM thought he could sneak in. Ooops.

Besides, when I tried to write an adventure based on "Beaches" they nearly kicked me out of the group.

 

[Hackenslash]

50/50.....ish !!!

I would have to go for a 50/50 vote, as I tend to get the idea for an adventure in my head, during my drive to work, on the bus, eating a meal or whenever, wherever ! So once I get the idea I then develop the plot lines and then link the Player Characters into them, somehow. I would say about 50% of these plot lines come from other sources, like movies, books, personal experiences and historical events etc...Very rarely do I use published adventures, I think only a handfull in about 18 years of play. But I would admit to getting ideas from other sources 50% of the time. The other 50%, well who knows for sure, Conciously it seems like an original idea, but sub-conciously, it could be a re-working of someone elses idea, book plotline or a movie or whatever. I would like to think that I have had original ideas but who can really say for sure ??? I do try and make my adventures interesting and enjoyable and tend to always have some twist at the end, either a good twist or a bad twist, depending on how the PC's performed, and I usually tie-in this twist into the next plot line for the next adventure.

 

[eris404]

If I'm understanding this correctly, I'd say about 60-70% of the worlds I create are inspired by or stolen from other sources. Because one of my campaigns takes place in Victorian England, lately I've been heavily influenced by the books, The Devil in the White City, The Crimson Petal and the White, Perdido Street Station, The Scar and the books in the Newton's Canon series. I have another campaign that uses the City of Cauldron from Dungeon as well as interesting campaign-bits from Dragon (such as the Nameless Legion) and bits of flavor from Robin Hobb's novels.

Interestingly, I did a campaign about a year back that was eerily similar to the premise of the book, The DaVinci Code...

 

[Desdichado]

When I'm pimpin' game groups, I let my DMs keep 30% of the profits. I take 40% and the rest goes to overhead - new source books, dice, Mountain Dew, etc.

 

[Mark]

Funny man, JD...

If I'm understanding this correctly, I'd say about 60-70% of the worlds I create are inspired by or stolen from other sources.

Yup. You understand it perfectly.

 

[Macbeth]

I use about 80% of my own stuff with aroun 15% coming from books, TV, movies, etc. and 5% being modules from Dungeon. I think this balance works well: everyhting is made part of my campaign, but when I need to I can fall back on modules.

 

[Mark]

Quite a spread so far. Any more folks want to add in their two cents?