High-Concept Dungeon
I did this mess once. It was in an Exalted game, so I had a convenient excuse baked right into the system. The party was adventuring in the Wyld, which meant that nonsense, chaos, and pop-culture references were par for the course. The plot hook of the day involved repairing a broken artifact, so the party needed to find something called a “hellforge” to make the fix. And if you know Terraria, you already know where this story is going.
The group heard rumors of lava caves in a Wyld zone, so they took picks and shovels out into the weird wilderness to find their forge. They were expecting crazed fair folk and mutant monsters with every step, but it was actually a pretty uneventful trek. Or at least it was until they started digging. Needless to say, my players were pretty surprised when the ground started coming up in perfectly cubed chunks. I was grinning ear-to-ear when I flipped the play mat to reveal a 2-D grid. It was completely covered over with sticky notes, and as my players dug I had them pull up the sticky notes one by one to reveal the network of chambers and hazards underneath. The various caverns, mushroom forests, and underground jungles from the game were all represented, and the party burrowed straight down through all of them. (If you’ve never played, here’s a handy map for reference). My players alternately laughed and rolled their eyes as they encountered the familiar monsters and locations of Terraria. And when at last they got to 2-D Hell, half of them had to fight off a bone serpent while the other half hastily reforged their maguffin. It was a good time, and a pretty successful session.
My point in recounting this tale is that a veritable ocean of inspiration is swirling around out there. We may be tabletop gamers, but we play board games and video games too. We watch movies and read novels. We get inspiration from all over the place, and a surprising amount of it can be adapted to TRPG campaigns. If you use something obvious like Terraria or Pac-Man, you’ve got a lighthearted session with a healthy dose of 4th wall breaking on your hands. But you can also try for a more earnest version of copy-catting. I’ve seen that turn out some pretty cool ideas too.
Question of the day then: Have you ever lifted ideas from another medium (video games, movies, etc.) and turned it into content for your tabletop game? How did it work out?
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Have I ever *not* lifted content from another video game?
I don’t have a particular anecdote-worthy story, but the first campaign I ever DMed was a solo campaign for my long-time best friend. She had played Baldur’s Gate, so she was familiar with the Sword Coast region. She hadn’t played Baldur’s Gate II, though, so I lifted and reflavored a bunch of the quests and set them on the Sword Coast. She had good fun with them and never knew the difference. I believe she eventually played BG2, but found the quests sufficiently reflavored that they weren’t ruined.
Nice! I’ve never played any of the Baldur’s Gate games myself, so I’ve got to ask: what were the good quests?
One time I was lazy/rushed for a one shot in a Haunted House, so I just lifted the Clue Manor layout for the ground floor and used the movie for inspiration on the top amd added various sufficiently haunted stuff in each. I was rather sad the players never found either secret passage.
More recently and extensively, in a game I’m running I’m using the Zerg from Starcraft, as well as taking inspiration from the completely-different-not-at-all-the-same-please-don’t-sue Vord from Codex Alera. One idea I’m shamelessly stealing from Codex Alera that was touched on in Starcraft is the mulitple large factions in the world duking it out and not particularly concerned about just another monster, and primitive ones at that. By the time they realize just how big a threat the Zerg are it’s mostly too late, and up to the PCs to take out the Overmind before the Zerg consume the world.
Problem is that the PCs are also entangled in the factional infighting, making it more challenging to set that aside for the greater good. Worst of all, they decided to be an evil party, and not a “Ghengis Khan” evil that can forge an empire and unite disparate parties under one banner, but a Fighter “murder-hobo” evil. Still not sure how they’re gonna pull it off. Of course, I think one of the most fun parts was having them fight broodlings and zerglings as random encounters early levels. They thought nothing of it, didn’t even bother making knowledge checks. It was only when they found a village overrun by these things that they staryed taking them a bit more seriously, and even now they’re more concerned with their personal factional grievances than with figuring out how to nip this invasion in the bud, even though two of them have played SC and know how dangerous Zerg are. Funny how that works.
Maybe there are plot ideas in the form of the M:tG equivalent of the zerg:
http://mtg.gamepedia.com/Sliver
I think there are some fun “zerg in a magical setting” nuggets to mine there. Good luck keeping your world in one piece!
Not a seasoned GM by any stretch, so the biggest reference I’ve done is reskin a part of a module.
The party was exploring the grave of a wizard obsessed with clockwork constructs. This was reworked to essentially be the tomb of Nox from Wakfu, complete with lifedraining mecha-flies. Went right over everyone’s heads unfortunately.
I had to do some Googling myself. Is this Wafku thing worth a watch?
I’d say so. Yeah. If you like D&D and Pathfinder, you’ll probably like it.
Might find the difference between the plot-heavy adventure episodes and lighthearted messing around episodes breaks the flow a little bit, but I would definitely recommend it. Essentially, it’s French anime.
I am currently building a mech fighting game, using the ship building rules from Skyborne from Drop Dead Studios.
It will have some tropes and ideas pulled from Evangelion, Gundam, Armored Core, Ring of Red, etc…
Hope it turns out well!
Will your PCs need to be drift compatible?
This was a thought for having them roll a check that the goal was to get close to the same result and not to meet a DC.
I feel it may come up as a “Mega Mecha *cough*Zord*cough*” that they find and have to use to defeat an ancient evil…
I think part of the fun is finding things that don’t translate directly across, and figuring something out that makes it possible.
Well hey, let us know how it goes! Laurel is currently running a Sentai-themed Exalted game, and giant robot battle challenges are not in her wheelhouse. (Poor kid didn’t have a TV until she was in high school.)
I added what was essentially a “Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes” from Harry Potter as a shop in one of my cities. It included the sort of stuff you’d see there (candy, prank magic, things like that), a long with some “discount” magic items. The one PC bought a “ring of invisibility” that only turned her arm invisible.
One of the players recognized what it was supposed to be right away, but the others took a while. It a fun little Easter Egg to throw in; it can be hard to make shops interesting.
I subscribe to the idea that “the shopping trip” should be interesting once per campaign. Role-play it out. Haggle a bit. Get to know the shopkeeper who may or may not be relevant later on. Once that initial shopping trip is over it’s on to handwave city.
…
Unless of course you’re fresh out of Skiving Snackbox supplies.
In my current campaign, an upcoming stage in the plane of elemental earth is going to be run as a platformer. I run through Roll20 these days, which lends itself to this sort of thing!
Much respect to you for trying that in f2f gaming though, I doubt I would have dared!
That shouldn’t have been a reply, sorry!
Ah man… I miss this sort of thing. It’s always cool to put in over-the-top effort and go for some bizarre custom-rules setup. I need to get off my duff and add some more weirdness to my ongoing games, especially because Roll 20 is right there for the purpose.
I am somewhat disappointed to hear that your players didn’t “accidentally” drop a voodoo doll into the lava and summon the wall of flesh
I don’t think I’ve stolen any video games to use on my players, but I did use a song… Hotel California… they didn’t realize what was happening (one of them even tried to order wine!) until they asked the bartender why their exit was blocked by an invisible barrier, he replied “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave”
I hope you had the guitar solo cued up for that line.
I think I piped up a while back about a Bohemian Rhapsody adventure I ran, in this comment section some months ago. I’ll just ride your coattails this time, Voidman. 😀
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/random-encounter is where that one’s at
My DM had an entire country/region in his homebrew setting that was one giant love song to Monster Hunter. Giant monsters and kaiju roamed the area. The inhabitants were mostly barbarian tribes, with the leadership and elite forces being Titan Maulers.
It was a lot of fun, and we kicked some giant monster ass and raided some ancient tombs the monsters had prevented sane people from getting access to.
Did you ever figure out some good “Shadow of the Colossus” rules? Climbing on giant monsters is as awesome as it is mechanically complicated.
My DM doesn’t do this too much, but one time he did add some optional items in a witches hut in the shadow realm to the rise of Tiamat module right before we went to stop the Tiamat summoning ritual. The items were a fluff ball with abjuration magic on it, something i forget with a necromantic aura, and a weird pot with unknown magic surrounding it. Unbeknownst to all the players but me, the items were all based on yugioh cards, kuriboh, monster reborn, and the pot of greed. Me and the DM were having trouble not calling the plane of shadow the shadow realm while talking together, and that eventually led to us deciding the pot of greed, represented by forcing you to immediately draw 2 cards from the deck of many things, being thrown in somewhere would be hilariously awful, and later the DM also decided he would do the other 2. Luckily and sadly, no one ever used the pot, though kuriboh did save our caster’s life. I think the fact that I broke out laughing as soon as the DM mentioned the pot might have alerted the other players, not laughing at stuff has always been hard for me.
You’ve activated my trap card! Roll a reflex save. 😛
I’ve generally taken some inspiration from other media sources as a GM, the most obvious of which is a call of Cthulhu game I’m planning where my notes are literally just the lyrics to “Hotel California”.
I had to double check that this wasn’t a double post. Did you notice TheV0idman’s comment up above? It looks like more than one gamer has found inspiration in The Eagles.
So who has put the Dude get put into one of these games? “…Man, could you change the channel?…Ive had a rough night, and I hate the f**kin’ Eagles.”
it is a double post I left the word “who” out of the first post, and I could not successfully delete the first post.
I got you. 🙂
you mentionned once that someday, all those dungeons picture were actually coherent and would get mashed up into one continuous giant picture. i cant wait to see that
Totally. It looks really cool. Maybe we’ll even show it to the rest of the world soon. 😛
I’ve had an idea of using Welcome to Nightvale as an actual radioshow in a nWoD game. The idea was to listen through and pick the episodes that could be turned into fun arcs and then have the players listen the episode before the game (or just play short parts at the beginning of the session) and then run with that.
Well then. I’ve got some listening to do.
Funny story: Laurel and I were just talking about doing a “paranormal investigator kids” campaign in the style of Gravity Falls. This could be the kernel to actually kick-start the conceit into a real game!
Haven’t played since college and haven’t DMed since high school but if I ever get another group together one of my ideas I want to do is a ravenloft darklord based on David Lo Pan from Big Trouble in Little China. His situation is basically that of a ravenloft darklord already: Evil. Supernatural power and supernatural control over an area which he is also bound to. And the thing he most desires always just barely out of his reach
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzh0qe8PUnY
Get the band back together, man! That’s an idea that deserves to see play.
Heh. I have totally lifted stuff from other mediums for my D&D campaign. That story about the skeleton archer that died like a chump? Inspired by spider jockeys from Minecraft. My group has also run into Super Mushrooms and Piranha Plants a la Mario, Minecraft Creepers, the corpse of a Broken Lord from Endless Legend, and Vine Stalkers from Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.
I’m justifying all this by having there be an increasing amount of dimensional disturbances in the campaign world. That’s how our Warforged got from Eberron to “standard fantasy D&D world that’s kinda sorta Forgotten Realms but with the serial numbers filed off” — he basically got sucked into a negative space wedgie one day. So far, it’s just been the occasional thing they run into where I say “even with your Nature check of 21, you’ve never heard of anything like this,” but there might be more ramping up later.
The ability to draw inspiration and make D&D stat blocks for things from literally anywhere is one of my favorite parts of DMing. I think of a cool idea that originally came from another universe? I can use the heck out of that!
What were your minecraft creeper stats?
Creeper: Medium plant – Unaligned
HP: 20 (3d8+6)
AC: 10
Speed: 25ft
STR 10(0) | DEX 10(0) | CON 14(+2) | INT 5(-3) | WIS 10(0) | CHA 4(-3)
Skills: Stealth+4
Vulnerabilities: Fire
Senses: passive perception 10
Languages: —
CR: 1/2 (100 XP)
Feats: -Plant Camouflage (creeper has advantage on Stealth checks when in areas with ample obscuring plant growth)
-Fire Susceptibility (if creeper takes fire damage, it must make a Con save [DC is 10 or half damage taken, whichever is higher] or immediately Explode; if creeper is reduced to 0 HP by fire damage, it immediately Explodes)
-Lightning Charge (if creeper takes lightning damage, the radius of Explode increases by 20ft, the save DC increases to 14, and the damage increases by 6d6; this effect lasts for an hour)
-Fear of Cats (creeper is frightened of cats and cat-like creatures and will not willingly move within 50 feet of one)
Actions: Explode (20ft radius sphere; all creatures within range must make a DC 12 Dex save or take 6d6 bludgeoning damage; targets take 1/2 damage on success; creeper dies when Exploding)
Tactics: Attempts to sneak up on the largest group of non-Creepers and Explode.
Creepers also spread spores when exploding, which may grow into new creepers depending on how the growing conditions are (basically anything that’s good for moss is good for them).
CR 1/2? Yo… I would not want to tangle with this guy at low level. Looks like I’m rolling tabaxi this campaign.
Heh, yeah, CR 1/2 is what the CR calculator I’m using came up with, but I think it’s mostly concerned with the low HP and AC (I don’t think that particular program handles insane burst damage suicide bombs very well). It probably makes sense to bump it up to at least CR 1… Maybe even 2 or 3, since the explosion will be making the squishy casters fall over for a while, if not outright insta-gibbing them.
Still, from what I can gather, that’s roughly in scope for what Creepers can do to you in Minecraft — at absolute ground zero, an unarmored Steve? can end up taking like double his normal max HP, and that’s without the lightning supercharge.
Fun fact: most of the distances in that stat block are taken directly from Minecraft (well, almost directly — they use meters instead of 5ft squares, but 7 meters is right around 20ft, for example). Not sure about how the walking speed translates into D&D terms, but I remember Creepers walking somewhat slower than players, so 25-20ft seems about right.
…Man, now I want to try to get some better numbers for the walking speed. Of course, I’d have to fire up Minecraft in order to do that, since Google doesn’t seem to have the answer to this suddenly very pressing question (You have failed me, internet!) Ah, the life of a nerd.
Maybe use trap damage to try and ballpark CR? I mean, these guys are more like traps than creatures anyway.
It was an impressive job of translation though. That things bears an truly frightening resemblance to its digital progenitor.
Ooh. That’s a direction I hadn’t considered. Thanks!
Just goes to show how much I’ve used traps so far. I should try to incorporate those more.
I once tried putting together something loosely based on System Shock, but in a magical setting. The players would wake from stasis cells in the basement of a keep with an undead/abomination infestation, and have to piece together what happened from notes and journals left around before finding a way out, hopefully dealing with the cause (a demon-binding artifact mishandled, letting it fuse with the keep’s resident ghostly servant and turning it malevolent). Sadly I lost the notes in a crash and never felt like trying to redo it.
Doing a proper “piece together the story from handouts” game is A LOT of work. I think that’s why you tend to see it more often in modules than in home games. It’s a call effect if you can pull it off though!