What have you stolen lately for your game?

[WayneLigon]

Man. What haven't I stolen...?

I tend to steal the sense of scenes, gestures, props and the 'look and feel' of tons of movies and TV shows. Most often for NPC's they won't see again.

Last session, when they talked to the weird gem merchant in the bazarre, they probably didn't realize I was channeling Truman Capote as Lionel Twain from Murder by Death.

The 'look and feel' of the imperial city of Andrana is ripped off from both Dune and The Chronicles of Riddick: that overblown sense of decoration and dress. There is nothing that doesn't have something added on, stapled, tied, bound with flowing veils, etc.

When the dwarf was engulfed in an illusionary fireball, the NPC who realized it was just an illusion yelled 'Stonetalon, you are not on fire!' ala Talladega Nights.

 

[Robert Ranting]

...Just file off the Serial Numbers...

Well, since someone else mentioned AE...

I have to admit that I'm guilty of "stealing" a lot for my setting and games.

My most recent "theft" was during an encounter with Russet Mold and Vegepygmies. The PCs were in this underground complex, and kept finding corpses covered in mold (they fortunately were wise enough to stay far back from the mold). When one PC (the Mojh Ironwitch, who has darkvision) scouted out an unlit room by himself, he spotted a pair of boots sticking out from a table, and after getting down on the floor to peer at the corpse, heard a scuffling behind him, and turned to see a pair of little green feet moving on the other side of a table, edging away (Riffing on the cornfield and basement scenes of Signs), and later the party was exposed to a vegepygmy bodyguard bursting free from the bloated corpse of a guard (inspired by the chestbursters in Alien).

My most successful "theft" to date was an adventure I ran in my first AE campaign, where the PCs stumbled across a prison for Spellcasting criminals. The prison was inspired by the most recent Hollywood rendition of The Count of Monte Cristo, and the jailers were Harrid (an AE monster) which have more than a passing resemblance to the Skeksis from The Dark Crystal. I went so far as to actually have each of the Harrid the party encountered resemble the individual Skeksis from The Dark Crystal, particularly the Chamberlain, General, and the wierd Mad Scientist (I can't remember his actual title off the top of my head). To top it off, a new player had joined the group for that adventure, a Shark Totem Warrior who proceeded to re-inact the interrogation scene from Pulp Fiction ("Common, [CENSORED], do you speak it?!") word-for-word upon capturing one of the Harrid. Oh, and I seem to recall using the soundtrack of "The Rock" (as in, the Brockheimer film) as fight music.

Also, as a general rule, my setting is full of random references to movies I like. In particular, the Tarrasque is an aquatic creature that frequently attacks the archipelago inhabited by the Faen (basically Halflings and Gnomes), only to be repelled by a Phoenix goddess of rebirth summoned forth by the Twin, orange-clad Spryte Bards who serve as it's priestesses and bolster it's powers through rousing musical numbers...

Robert "Shameless References Abound" Ranting

 

[Particle_Man]

To be a little bit tasteless, in the current Savage Tide game, there's a scene where the PCs find a body that's been killed by a critter near the sea. I'm changing the body to make it into that of a man wearing khaki shorts, a khaki vest, with a stingray barb in his chest. Crikey!

Must be a meme. A campaign I am in has a druid named Steve Irwin with a crocodile familiar. We all make jokes about in what manner the character is destined to die.

 

[diaglo]

No, I'm not talking about actual thievery.

you know whenever i see your user name i always think of Napster. i hope you appreciate that this thread title has given me more than a few laughs.

 

[Voadam]

For me the movie Saw II. Actually the ads for it and a review I read as I don't watch many horror movies.

My party is investigating the home of a sadistic rakshasa they killed. He enjoys having people get into situations where they are destroying themselves and inflicting great pain on themselves as they try to extricate themselves. Very into barbs and such.

So I have his basement with a couple of prisoners with interesting plot information that ties Lord of the Iron Fortress into Banewarrens and prepares them for things to come. The way down to this basement is trapped and the arcane trickster got past a few then got cocky and didn't follow up on searching for others, setting off a complex trap designed to have people savage themselves and get caught up in more traps as they get pushed on by fear of big obvious dangerous oncoming traps.

Going down a stairway the AT set off a lightning spell trap that he dodged but caught half the party. The stairs then flipped revealing blade edges and spikes which the already damaged paladin and cleric proceeded to fall on. These hazards could be avoided by going down slow and stepping carefully, but scything blades came out of the walls at the top of the stairs and started slicing an advancing pattern down the stairs driving people down the spiked stairs.

At the bottom there is a locked door. When the trap engages the lock retracts into the door. It can be reached but you have to reach your hand fully in if you are going to manipulate the tumblers . . .

In addition there is a massive clanking sounding as a blade golem activates secret doors from its side chamber taking a few rounds to get to the room and attack, so there is more pressure at the bottom to get through the lock quickly before the golem comes out.

 

[sckeener]

Ripping can be fun...for both the players and DM.

I can remember one game that I played in with co-workers where the rips became in jokes. To me it was a beer & pretzels game that I was playing mostly just to network with co-workers and just have fun. However the game got to be a bit humorous in that we kept track of what our DM was watching. Whatever movie or show he watched that week, we could count on it being in the game that week.

I think my most recent rip was from BSG & SAW. I stole the breeder farms back on Caprica, substituted Mind Flayers for the Cylons and had them using a prison to get their victims. Local Shar priests were running the prison and knew nothing about the Flayers except that their female population was being 'blessed' with empowered offspring and the all prisoners were going crazy. The Shar priests were using the prisoners and anyone else they could grab in Saw - like setups on their annual holy days. Those that survived were considered blessed through loss and could be accepted into the local church.

 

[FnordBear]

Well lets see. For a short-lived D20 future game I ran I completely lifted the entire premise of Star Trek Enterprise (basically everyone was the crew of Earth's first FTL ship capable of long-range long-duration exploration)

In other games I have lifted various elements from just about everywhere. For an upcoming campaign I will be lifting the Necromangers (or the concept there of) from Chronicles of Riddick. The idea is essentially a mobile theocratic army/empire making thier way across the landscape converting and enslaving all in thier path "Convert or Die!" and the PCs kingdom just happens to be right in thier path.

For a Star Wars game I had the players encounter an "Ancient Droid Fighter" in a lost vault deep beneath Coruscant. It bore a striking resemblance to a VF-1 Valkyre

Then there was an IRC based D&D game that had an "interesting" encounter with an inept warrior and his singing/dancing harem that only preformed songs about how mighty he is. (Damn you Xena!)

 

[LordVyreth]

A few years ago, when that article about Crimmor came out in Dragon, I noticed that they seemingly coincidentally called the local burial crypt Silent Hill. It inspired me to make a complete October/Halloween themed adventure involving parallel worlds and some of the series monsters. My session last week ended with the party just meeting a man with a metal, triangular helmet...It's been good so far.

 

[Voadam]

Names

As for other gaming stuff inspired by things I've seen or read, I use federal court judge names as PC and NPC names all the time now.

I'm playing Sir Merrick Garland an Aasimar Fighter in a Temple of Elemental Evil pbp game and I was playing Thoma Griffith an orcish ape-totem barbarian in a different game (Merrick B. Garland and Thomas Griffith are on the D.C. Circuit), I was Hael Boudin duergar ranger in a City of the Spider Queen game (Michael Boudin is chief judge for the 1st Circuit).

I'm playing Miltiades inquisitor of Rao in a Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil game after reading the name in a passage of Herodotus and the same for my soulknife Aristogoras in a different pbp game.

 

[Torx]

This one falls into the 'not so recent' catagory. Some time back I was introducing my players and their characters to Sigil for the first time, and I scraped and stole everything I could to really describe the alien and deadly nature of the city. One of the things I stole was from 'Samurai Jack.' In one episode Jack comes across this wizened, angry, old man who meandered with his hands shaking. When Jack accidentally bumped into him he turned, pointed his fingers, a crackle of lightning emitted, and the poor sap was turned into a chicken. Then the old man resumed his demeanor and continued on his way.

Of course one of my players bumped into the old man and instantly began to cluck and peck his way through Sigil. Later on, after the other players were able to restore him, another of the characters picked a fight with some vrock, not knowing how dangerous they were. I scrambled to come up with a way out of the predicament, since the two demons were far too tough for the party. In a moment of heightened dramatic tension, as one of the vrock was about to land a killing blow, the old man wandered through the fight. He bumped into the demon and, yes, turned him into a vulture. The character who was just saved promptly beheaded the beast. The other vrock arrived on the scene to see his fellow demon dead and this prime holding the offending sword. The vrock looked menacing for a moment and then screamed, "Thank you! I hated that guy," and hugged the PC.

I think it captured the capricious nature of Sigil pretty well.