This works for players, too. I know cause Big Chunky Bubbles from Comedy Bang Bang has been a valued sorcerer on our campaign for over a year. Soups and stews.
I had a pair of DMPCs for the party to fight in a tournament arc: Saul Carolina Jack and Sir David Pent. The first is a Barbarogue build, the other a ranged Monk that is also speced towards close-combat grappling.
spoilerThey’re Snake and Raiden from MGS. Their names are wordplay on David + Serpent/Snake and Saul C. “Saucy” Jack.
This is good advice except for the bit about Dora the Explorer. That would require watching Dora the Explorer.
Sub in any genre movie or TV show you know well. If you players catch on and recognize it, that’s even better, because then they think they know what to expect, and that’s when you zag on 'em.
There’s plenty of episode synapses available everywhere for every show. You don’t have to watch them, just have to read them
I’ve stolen places from different shows and plot beats from other shows quite a bit since I started DMing about a decade ago
Only recently did someone catch on that the location (the dungeon they delved into) was stolen from a show (well, more “heavily influenced” by a show (think someone gave a elevator pitch for a location and I built from that)) though no one has caught on yet that they’ve been exploring Idaho now for 2 years. I’ve even laid maps down on the table for people to look over and no one’s caught on yet.
I should rewatch that. And actually finish it this time.
First I watched it on TV and you know how that is for continuity.
Then I watched it downloaded and got distracted.
The dungeon layouts from malls and subways is just stupid. Just placing rooms is not a meaningful portion of the work in designing a dungeon. If you want to steal one, there are so, so many already designed for TTRPGs already and available freely.
It’s not awful. My friend playing just a pure ranger is carrying combat encounters. Here soon though, I should start taking off. I’m gonna give up being Batman who doesn’t kill and pick up a longsword.
My spell focus is a gem which I embedded in my belt along with batteries for electrical supply to augment my attacks! I have a grappling gun attached to my arm Monster Hunter World style! I wear all black and have arachnophobia! My alias is ‘webs’!
Those bonus I’ll be claiming soon. I’m gonna be doing it spider themed though.
A friend I play with in a different campaign has an artificer named “Tony Spark” and he slowly built him an Ironman suit. Dm knew what was going on, rest of his ground didn’t.
Almost happened in the last Warhammer session I was in. DM made a door that had three locks depending on knowing alchemical symbols, formulae, and the geocentric model. Because the GM forgot that Warhammer doesn’t have a flat “magic knowledge” roll like Arcana in D&D 5e, the party mage doesn’t know anything, the rest of the party was illiterate, and everyone got so frustrated that everyone except my character tried either breaking the door or entering through the window while the wizard was still home and foiling their attempts. To our credit, we were able to figure out the first two locks with trial and error, with the first being a very simple balancing of the four elemental triangles around a plus sign in a plus shape, and the other being three symbols in a vertical line, the problem was seven symbols to be arranged in a circle. After my party face character shook herself from her puzzle frustration and realized that the wizard is actually home, she just asked him for what we came here for, he was cordial about it, and we left when we got it. During that time, the GM gave the solution (because Wizards are assholes that love to brag about their genius to the stupids) which taught us that in geocentricity, neither Venus nor Mars are closer to Earth than Mercury is, and the sun is between Venus and Mars because of course it is.
I more meant the layers of their concentric orbits as distanced from their center (the Sun or the Earth). Considering how quickly Mercury orbits the Sun while being the closest planet to it, it makes sense it’d be at perigee more frequently and with less variable distance than other planets that have a wider orbit.
What’s funny is that no one’s mentioned Ironsworn’s slew of random tables that are completely free online, much less the wealth of similar on Perchance. 🤓
I don’t understand how cereal box puzzles would translate over to DnD.
I also don’t know about ripping off movie and TV characters and just swapping out the names. I suppose it depends on the character, but I feel like this is the easiest one to tell that it was “stolen”.
Using Pokémon descriptions for monsters is aces though, even if you use the older mons. I think Monster Hunter monsters would also translate over pretty well.
See I think the tv characters idea is great. You’re not going to literally imitate them. But you also don’t need to build every single NPC from scratch and method act lol. Sometimes I’ll go “alright this dude is basically Barney Stinson” or whatever in my mind and then just let it roll.
And even if you do create “original” characters, it can be extremely helpful to imagine your fantasy casting for them to aid in your roleplay. This big guy is John Goodman, that suave rogue is George Clooney, the gnome over there is Jim Carey.
Exactly. Just because you’re inspired by something doesn’t mean you are being unoriginal. And honestly, you’re just playing pretend with your friends. Who cares if you lift some ideas?
The most important thing is that everyone is having a good time.
Basically I just figured out what I needed to know for the bare minimum to run a game
Then my friends and I discussed it and that I was really new at it so things might be rough, and the DM screen is basically a quick reference guide for things you’ll need to know
That was back in the days of DnD 3.5
With the new group I’ve got we decided to do 5e (which I had never ran before) so I picked up a starter set and ran it from there, which was really easy to do
A few quick tips for you: don’t be afraid to improvise, don’t be afraid to ask for a moment to look something up, don’t worry about doing different voices for everyone you roleplay as it ain’t necessary, and most of all have fun
Basically the biggest hurdle for DMing was getting past my nerves to actually commit to a date
Oh! That’s a great idea. And actually fits my lifestyle better, I travel a lot so another problem would be getting into a group and then leaving them high and dry when I moved.
Not the person you asked, but another forever dm who likes it.
I fell into it because I wanted to play and the best way to control scheduling was to run the game.
If you like to write stories that’s wonderful - take a look at some of the pre generated adventures in any system to understand how the different components work in pen and paper games. Just remember that no plot can survive contact with the players unscathed (after all it’s group story telling)- and some level of improve skill will help the overall experience. After that just have fun.
You can’t. You can do better sometimes but there will still be hiccups. As far as I’m aware the groups most likely to be actually consistent have been playing together since they were in school.
This isn’t meant to be discouraging at all! The opposite in fact. Don’t let those hiccups, common or rare, stop you. Just be aware of their possibility and ready to adapt. Ability to adapt is the most useful tool in the GM toolbox at the table and approaching it.
During a game of Star Wars d6 rpg i ran a group through basically the train job episode of firefly (that was in solo 12 years later) and they did not realize it until we were watching firefly together. I also ran them through the cloud city plot from ESB while they were on cloud city.
That’s what I mean though. If they are even somewhat aware of the characters you are borrowing from, they’ll know the NPCs are rip-offs, regardless of a name swap. I feel like you would have to do more than just change their name. Perhaps combining characters to make 1, or modifying character traits so they’re not 1:1.
I suppose it also depends on whether or not your players care about that sort of thing though, and if you as the DM don’t come clean about your shenanigans when caught.
I think the prior reply explained it best though. You’re not literally copying and pasting a fictional character into your world and just changing their name. You’re using good characters from fiction and copying their tropes into your world. Because those tropes work and they exist for a reason.
In any work of fiction, including building a TTRPG world, it is assumed you will be borrowing inspiration from other sources. I can’t imagine having to try to come up with 100% unique characters and ideas to run for my players. I’ve had lots of instances too where I come up with something I think is original and a player asks “oh wait, is this inspired by X?”
Point of the ramble being: everything has been thought of to some degree—it’s how the applications are used in your world that make them unique. Plus when we encounter a character that reminds us of an existing really good one, I think it makes it easier/more comfortable to get into a good RP mood with them. And even more fun when you do subversions of their existing character.
Yeah, after reading all of the replies, I get it now. I took the original post way too literally. I can see how recycling popular character tropes would be a good idea.
I never mentioned anything about the Dora the Explorer plotlines. That one actually sounds like a pretty good idea. And yes, they should get some from Go, Diego, Go while they’re at it lol.
I also don’t know about ripping off movie and TV characters and just swapping out the names. I suppose it depends on the character, but I feel like this is the easiest one to tell that it was “stolen”.
You wouldn’t put them wholesale into a game. For example, you’d mentally label an NPC as a ‘Spock’ and play him as intellectual and logical. Another as a ‘McCoy’ and play him as compassionate, emotional, and a bit of a catastrophiser. Obviously, you wouldn’t use them together as the crew of a ship (along with a ‘Kirk’ and a ‘Scotty’), that would be a bit on the nose. And you wouldn’t steal characters’ history or catch-phrases, you would just use the core of the character as a shorthand for personality, as a guide for how they might present themselves, think, and interact with others.
There’s no reason, say, a fantasy city council couldn’t be run by:
a ‘Hannibal Lecter’ (brilliant, urbane, lover of the finer things)
a ‘Lesley Knope’ (energetic, rules follower)
a ‘Sarah Connor’ (determined, uncompromising)
a ‘Stringer Bell’ (confident ambitious, maybe with a secret past)
a ‘Dr. Gregory House’ (cantankerous, confrontational, cynical)
While reading this comment I had the thought of a stoic warrior type that was very much an outsider to the society he was mostly operating in but very open to learning about the things that are new to him. Occasionally he would really embrace some part of that culture and make his own references to it.
I’d probably call him Jaxson and get away with it until he said indeed.
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