So here is a fun topic: borrowing from other sources. By that I mean taking things from books, movies or games you enjoy and making them a part of your own game. My roommate is currently DMing some for us and he borrowed Meepo from Dota 2. I borrowed the story of Santa Claus to make a cleric. What do you borrow from? How do your make it your own? Tell us about what inspired you so much that you just had to include it in some way.
For a starter adventure for my friends, I "borrowed" the map of the town of Harken from another adventure and a custom dungeon map I found online and then filled both with my own NPCs and monsters.
There has been more than one occasion where I will squirrel away cool names of clients that come across my desk at work for NPCs later.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
So I had a Pixie (race modified from 4e) whose player is a huge Disney fan. She had originally given me the back story that she was found unconscious by a ranger (another party member) and had no memory of her past. I gave her the full experience. She found out she was the lost princess of the Petal Blossom Court of Feywilds. She had a older sister who was sick and desperately needed the help of a magical flower to heal her. She even got to reconnect with Vix, her forgotten fairy dragon best friend. Her reward for the mission was, of course, a magical tiara.
I Borrow from everything. I borrow concepts, tropes, names and anything else I can get my hands on. Joe Abercrombie is one of my favorite fantasy authors and I borrow from him left and right. Characters from his books have downright become NPC's in my games. Right down to the names and basic descriptions. His character names, especially for his northmen, are just so damned evocative. Logan Nine-Fingers, The Dogman, and Caul Shivers.
The Dark Eye, a German role-playing game, has a god named Phex. Phex is openly worshiped as a god of Commerce, Trade and Fortune but there's another side of Phex a side of Phex worshiped in secret. Phex is also the god of thieves. Phex has made it into everyone of my games since I learned about him. I play him up more like two sides of a coin, the Phex that's worshiped by thieves I describe more like the Crooked Warden, the Nameless Thirteenth, from the Locke Lamora, Gentleman Bastard, novels by Scott Lynch.
I borrow sometimes complete settings if I am stuck. I created a world and some things are fleshed out to the minor details and players ignore that and want to go to random generic city, or town or castle, they search for history, my players love to read the lore. So sometimes in the thick of things I borrow from all kinds of mediums. Sometimes I need to retcon some things to make it fit but my players are fine with that so in my world I have some things from Warhammer (Empire name Reikland), League of Legends (Bildgewater, love that place), Yarnham (influences) and the lore of the dead wandering the desert (Tomb Kings). if it fits your world why not?
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So here is a fun topic: borrowing from other sources. By that I mean taking things from books, movies or games you enjoy and making them a part of your own game. My roommate is currently DMing some for us and he borrowed Meepo from Dota 2. I borrowed the story of Santa Claus to make a cleric. What do you borrow from? How do your make it your own? Tell us about what inspired you so much that you just had to include it in some way.
For a starter adventure for my friends, I "borrowed" the map of the town of Harken from another adventure and a custom dungeon map I found online and then filled both with my own NPCs and monsters.
There has been more than one occasion where I will squirrel away cool names of clients that come across my desk at work for NPCs later.
Great! What kind of cool names do you come across
I personally like borrowing from Dark Souls and Bloodborne, to the point that I have a city know for its Bloodhunters called Yharnam
So I had a Pixie (race modified from 4e) whose player is a huge Disney fan. She had originally given me the back story that she was found unconscious by a ranger (another party member) and had no memory of her past. I gave her the full experience. She found out she was the lost princess of the Petal Blossom Court of Feywilds. She had a older sister who was sick and desperately needed the help of a magical flower to heal her. She even got to reconnect with Vix, her forgotten fairy dragon best friend. Her reward for the mission was, of course, a magical tiara.
Brilliant!
I Borrow from everything. I borrow concepts, tropes, names and anything else I can get my hands on. Joe Abercrombie is one of my favorite fantasy authors and I borrow from him left and right. Characters from his books have downright become NPC's in my games. Right down to the names and basic descriptions. His character names, especially for his northmen, are just so damned evocative. Logan Nine-Fingers, The Dogman, and Caul Shivers.
The Dark Eye, a German role-playing game, has a god named Phex. Phex is openly worshiped as a god of Commerce, Trade and Fortune but there's another side of Phex a side of Phex worshiped in secret. Phex is also the god of thieves. Phex has made it into everyone of my games since I learned about him. I play him up more like two sides of a coin, the Phex that's worshiped by thieves I describe more like the Crooked Warden, the Nameless Thirteenth, from the Locke Lamora, Gentleman Bastard, novels by Scott Lynch.
ClassDunce those are fantastic examples!
I take alot from the lore of Destiny and GoT
I once cribbed the basic structure of an obscure ps2 game called Shifters and edited it into a small campaign.
I borrow sometimes complete settings if I am stuck. I created a world and some things are fleshed out to the minor details and players ignore that and want to go to random generic city, or town or castle, they search for history, my players love to read the lore. So sometimes in the thick of things I borrow from all kinds of mediums. Sometimes I need to retcon some things to make it fit but my players are fine with that so in my world I have some things from Warhammer (Empire name Reikland), League of Legends (Bildgewater, love that place), Yarnham (influences) and the lore of the dead wandering the desert (Tomb Kings). if it fits your world why not?