Comments on: Steal Smart: The Series

By: Ravenous Role Playing » Blog Archive » Friday Five: 2009-10-09

Ravenous Role Playing » Blog Archive » Friday Five: 2009-10-09 — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 22:23:52 +0000

[...] Steal Smart: The Series Out of ideas? Afraid of running dry? Need some inspiration? Do it the easy way… steal something from someone else! [...]

By: Katallos

Katallos — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 03:23:15 +0000

Stealing from other sources is a great way to come up with ideas in a pinch. It is practically impossible not to use an idea that has already been done before. I had a cool idea for dramatically changing the game world by having an evil cult cast a cataclysmic spell, only to find out that a nearly identical event is part of the main plot of the MMO Guild Wars.

By: newbiedm

newbiedm — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 20:57:52 +0000

@anarkeith: That’s a great idea! I know in Greece you are going to get some good names for this type of stuff, I spent a month there 5 years ago working during the Olympics… In my campaign right now we are playing in a location inspired partly by Pompeii. There’s plenty of stuff to steal from right on our world. Look out for future articles in the series, let’s see what Tim’s going to come up with…

@alex: What you’re describing works best if the group knows what to exepect from the campaign. I know in my particular case, I would have a hard time getting my players to accept such a scenario. But if the group wants it, then go for it! It’s all about fun. We played a game at this past Gencon that was a silly 2e D&D game involving monkeys flinging poo, silly puzzles and naked people. It was dumb but we knew going in it wasn’t going to be conventional D&D and had fun playing it.

By: Alex

Alex — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 19:19:14 +0000

Actually my group is in the middle of a semi-parody campaign totally inspired by outside sources. 90% of the material ;was unscrupulously stolen from a variety of sources. The region they’re in right now (Corneria) has town names from Final Fantasy 1, 6, 7, 8, Dragon Warrior, Pokemon, and Big Bunny. The first recurring plot-hook-generator they found was none other than Big Bunny himself (google Big Bunny) who, after asking the “tasty adventurers” to find his “lovely, yummy puppy” Muffin (a dire wolf not too keen on the adventurers or Big Bunny), tells the group stories a la the flash series which end up being metaphors for actual past events in the game world. Later on in the campaign more games, books, and movies will make their appearances. They’re having a great time with it.

Good ideas. Players will have a good time if they know where the references come from too. It will be a good giggle around the table if your group stumbles upon the pyromaniac Sorcerer who some call “Tim”, or a seemingly harmless bunny who turns out to be far more than they bargained for (to borrow from one specific source). Just make sure (unless your entire campaign is designed around taking from other sources) that you don’t overuse stolen ideas (or at least that you’re really good at hiding your thievery) lest you be accused of a lack of imagination.

By: Anarkeith

Anarkeith — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 18:59:19 +0000

Plenty of weird and wonderful stuff in our world, too. For me, Stonehenge became Witchhenge, a sort of Elven-Wiccan site. Meet an interesting shopkeeper recently? Make ‘em an NPC. I’m in Athens, Greece this week and the names of the Metro stations are going to be NPCs in a Greek-inspired culture in my game. Kalithea and Exarhia sound cool, right?

So many places around the world have local legends associated with them, beyond the mainstream myths. Find a place and dig through its history online. Check out Turku, Finland or Talinn, Estonia.

Sorry if I’m treading on future posts, but this is a great topic, and worth delving into, IMO!