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Thread: Unusual Inspirations
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2018-01-15, 09:19 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2015
- Location
- Gondor, Middle Earth
- Gender
Unusual Inspirations
Sure, in fantasy RPGs you'll draw ideas from Lord of the Rings and Conan, for Sci Fi games you'll have ideas from Star Wars and Star Trek, and for Cyberpunk you'll have things from Neuromancer and Blade Runner (just to name a few), but what are things that you have or currently implement in your RPG playing, world building, and/or making that you think not many others do?
Rules
1. Any genre, any reference/use of anything. Why is this rules section even here?
2. The idea of "unusual" is subjective and opinionated. If you think no one would usually reference that, it counts. Unless you would like to argue about it that is.
For me, I've taken a lot of high fantasy inspiration from the songs by the bands Twilight Force and Glory hammer. One example in particular is that I've had an idea for a Half Elf Rogue character for D&D or Pathfinder (whichever I get to use it for first) named Lynd, based off the character of the lead guitarist of Twilight Force.I'm a Lawful Good Human PaladinJustice and honor are a heavy burden for the righteous. We carry this weight so that the weak may grow strong and the meek grow brave
— The Acts of Iomedae, Pathfinder
Avatar made by Professor Gnoll
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2018-01-15, 09:49 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Location
- Dallas, TX
- Gender
Re: Unusual Inspirations
I built a Flashing Blades 17th century Parisian rogue based on Disney's Aladdin.
I built a 2e elf based on Tarzan.
I built a mystical superhero for Champions based on a combination of Dr. Strange and a statistics professor I once heard lecture.
And I built a 3.5e gnome with an Ancestral Relic as a tribute to Alan Rickman. (I designed him on the day Alan Rickman died.) It was a hooked hammer that once belonged to his ancestor Grabthar, who used in in a major battle allied with the dwarven king Warvan and his sons.
The PC doesn't know this yet. When he finds out, I intend to find an opportunity for him to say, "By Grabthar's hammer, by the sons of Warvan, you shall be avenged."
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2018-01-15, 10:17 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2007
Re: Unusual Inspirations
I reference folk music, both traditional and contemporary. Child Ballads are good, because there's a lot of supernatural characters and a ton of Robin Hood and Knights of the Round Table stories.
Then on the plain, these champions met, a grisly sight to see
There were three feet between their brows, their shoulders were yards three
You'll open the gates, cried Jock o' North, you'll open them at my call,
And with his foot he has drave in three full yards o' the wall
He's bade them return to old Ireland once more
Or broadside and broadside upon them would pour
This brave Irish hero has made this reply
We will never surrender, We'll conquer or die!
So it's broadside and broadside on each other did pour
And louder and louder the cannons did roar
This brave Irish hero has gained victory
Hurrah for true lovers - may they always run free!
Up did speak proud Percy there, and oh but he spake high
I am the lord of this castle, my wife's the lady gay
If thou art the lord of this castle, sae well it pleases me
For ere I cross the Border fells, the ane of us shall dee.
We work, we eat together, we need no swords
We will not bow to the masters or pay rent to the lords
Still we are free, though we are poor,
You Diggers all, stand up for glory, stand up now
From the men of property, the orders came
They sent hired men and troopers to wipe out the Diggers' claim
Tear down their cottages, destroy their corn
They were dispersed, but still the vision lingers on
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2018-01-15, 10:19 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
- Location
- The Lakes
Re: Unusual Inspirations
In the fantasy setting I'm working on over in that other thread, a lot of imagery and detail influence for the "old gods" (Anzillu) was taken from music -- Monster Magnet, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Portishead, etc.
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2018-01-15, 11:11 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2014
Re: Unusual Inspirations
I often pull not from story elements, but individual scenes and visuals in movies, games, etc.
For instance in Half Life 2 those tripod things shoot a big gun that distorts light around it when it fires to make a kind of fisheye lens effect centered at its barrel. That's really cool. I use that visual sometimes.
I also like to take inspiration from things like mythology or religion, but reskinned into a new context. (For instance the 3 Fates who share an eye from the story of Perceus become 3 rogue AI who communicate with the world via one shared comm array, Pegasus becomes a ship, demigodhood becomes gene-encoded permissions that allow access to corporate-level secrets in a megacorp. That kind of thing.)
But first and foremost my favorite:
Asking my players questions that make them sweat and have no good answers.
Questions like:
(To Character A) Who do you believe is the most despicable person in town? Why? Cool. Character B, why don't you feel the same?
And then there's THIS a-hole. The moment you see them you know your day is about to get worse. Who are they and how are they gonna make things go bad for you?
And if I really have trust built up with my players I can do things like having the very first sentence in the campaign be:
So A, you've got Whip's forearm pressed against your throat and her sawed-off barrel pressing against your thigh. What did you do to make her so mad?
Let my players complicate their own lives. Makes it more fun.
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2018-01-16, 12:33 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
- Gender
Re: Unusual Inspirations
I play in a Dragon Ball Z roleplay, a series about fighting for the sake of fighting. so of course somehow, the most inspiration I've drawn from for this is Undertale. a game all about pacifism. by making my main character's super form be cosplaying as Asriel Dreamurr and firing rainbows at everything, and setting all the fights to Undertale's soundtrack.
In a MLP roleplaying, a setting of magical ponies playing a magical videogame to save a world, I of course make a hacker straight of Tron and the Matrix blended with modding and sandbox/mmo gamer culture.
for fantasy worlds I have so far made an explosion-happy pyromaniac goblin merchant prince fire mage inventor who wields a shot gun straight out of a pulp novel, and a female hobgoblin artificer who treats making magic items as a form of programming and wants to bring an industrial revolution to her nation to improve their quality of life. because technology somehow inspires my fantasies?
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2018-01-16, 05:16 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2009
- Gender
Re: Unusual Inspirations
I once built an Aboleth based on Quark from Deep Space 9.
He had an Orc based on Mourn."You want to see how a Human dies? at ramming speed."
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2018-01-16, 05:57 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2009
- Location
- Germany
Re: Unusual Inspirations
My Bronze Age Wilderness settings take most of their inspiration from neo-noir movies and games, near future sci-fi in particular. Metal Gear Solid, Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner, Mass Effect, that kind of stuff. What I take from them is the characters and conspiracies, the dark environments of cities, and the weird nature of very inhuman AIs for spirits.
We are not standing on the shoulders of giants, but on very tall tower of other dwarves.
Spriggan's Den Heroic Fantasy Roleplaying
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2018-01-16, 06:19 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2008
Re: Unusual Inspirations
Probably the oddest thing I've used for inspiration was a friend's greenhouse management textbook, which ended up informing a colony on an ice planet in a space opera game I ran. In a similar vein academic engineering papers have shown up more than once in that same game.
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2018-01-16, 06:50 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2013
- Gender
Re: Unusual Inspirations
In L5R I briefly played a Tsuruchi archer who wanted to be Green Arrow. I teamed up with a Kaiu engineer to make trick arrows. Sadly, the game died before I could use any.
I had a Hiruma bushi who continually told tall tales of his tanuki ancestor - Pecos Bill stories reflavored for Rokugan.
I also want to play a Hida berserker type, Obtuse and as brutal and low-brow as they come, married into the Crane for political reasons. He will have two retired Kakita jesters to help him learn the ropes of civilized society. The Jesters will, obviously, be reskinned Statler and Waldorf.
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2018-01-16, 07:16 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2013
- Gender
Re: Unusual Inspirations
This picture by the talented and highly inspirational artist Naree Puttapipat.
Spoiler
It's a combination of my love for dinosaurs I had as a child with the appreciation for barock arts I gained as an adult. If I had a chance to play a musketeers and dinosaurs campaign, I would do so without any hesitationPlay the world, not the rules. Numbers don't add up to a game - ideas do.
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2018-01-20, 07:05 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2016
Re: Unusual Inspirations
I like drawing maps based on technical diagrams; e.g. the bones of the inner ear, or the inside of an integrated circuit.
For characters, I use a lot of musical theatre: I've got a bard based on Yum-Yum from The Mikado, and a group of villains inspired by various songs.
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2018-01-21, 03:12 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2011
- Location
- Odesa, Ukraine
- Gender
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2018-01-21, 03:56 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2008
Re: Unusual Inspirations
I've used X-COM for fantasy before. The PCs were essentially agents of a tribal chieftain in a small stone age archipelago, who get invaded by some high tech invaders, what with their steel and their ocean going ships (Unknown Floating Objects) and their advanced thaumaturgy that doesn't even seem to involve chanting around fires while throwing bones and herbs in.
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2018-01-21, 09:46 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2014
- Location
- Colorado
Re: Unusual Inspirations
I've made characters based on Jean Claude Van Damme's Frank Dux from Bloodsport, and lots of Steven Seagal based characters. Qui gon jin. Mads Mikkelsens tristan from the King Arthur with Clive Owen.
Currently I've got a pair of shapeshifters who dont just impersonate but in fact are a half dozen modern hollywood stars. They were part of a circus of the stars troupe for a while but, being several hundred years old, he was the actual Doc Holliday. Lately i've made the transition from lots of Mads Mikkelsen based characters to Benedict Cumberbatch, but with my shapeshifters the movie star inspiration dial has turned up to 11. Or rather 12.
12 famous people for him to be exact. 21 for her.Last edited by VincentTakeda; 2018-01-21 at 09:53 PM.
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2018-01-22, 09:50 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2015
- Location
- Gondor, Middle Earth
- Gender
Re: Unusual Inspirations
I made a monster once based on on the titular monster from the YouTube webseries Uncle Samsonite. I never got to use him though.
The idea comes from here if anyone cares: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UC4ghmQ1XZN0CIEcW81qWf8AI'm a Lawful Good Human PaladinJustice and honor are a heavy burden for the righteous. We carry this weight so that the weak may grow strong and the meek grow brave
— The Acts of Iomedae, Pathfinder
Avatar made by Professor Gnoll
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2018-01-22, 11:10 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2008
- Location
- New Zealand
- Gender
Re: Unusual Inspirations
I ran a game based on a crossover of Fallout and D&D, using 4e D&D rules. Take one magical utopia, apply
nuclear weaponsmegaspells, leave to stew for 200 years. The plot was actually inspired by Fallout Equestria, and the game was also influenced by my decision to set it in North Queensland, because I didn't want to draw my own map. For example there's a town there named after Proserpina so I needed to add a new deity to be the consort of the Raven Queen.
The war was between the human/dwarven alliance and the elves, and vaults were demiplanes designed to fit the village archetype of fantasy stories. The players fought slavers, undead, left over superweapon angels, angry fey, and a whole bunch of mutated creatures, like owlbears and three headed dragons. Well, technically they didn't fight the three headed dragon, they ran away like sensible people and collapsed a vault on it. They ended up resurrecting the god of peace, breaking one of the core tenants of the setting, that "War, war never changes" and winning the game.
That makes a scary amount of sense.Last edited by Excession; 2018-01-22 at 11:14 PM.
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2018-01-26, 08:34 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- Hastings, MN
- Gender
Re: Unusual Inspirations
I get a lot of inspiration for characters of all stripes from the Total War games. As I play them, I tend to see army units on the battlefield and go, "wow, they look cool! I wanna play an RPG character based on their look and equipment!" Though conflicts can arise when I play something from a game set in Antiquity in a setting that's more Renaissance or a more Renaissance-like character in a more Dark Ages setting.
"Reach down into your heart and you'll find many reasons to fight. Survival. Honor. Glory. But what about those who feel it's their duty to protect the innocent? There you'll find a warrior savage enough to match any dragon, and in the end, they'll retain what the others won't. Their humanity."
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2018-01-26, 10:08 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
Re: Unusual Inspirations
Current campaign I am running is inspired by historical fiction about India and about Moorish Spain (basically it has its own version of East India Trade Company, ancient demons buried deep in black jungles, an elvish Alhambra, an elvish Cordoba with dwarven "Jewish" quarters etc...) and by the signing of the Magna Carta.
I think i ended up here after I read a couple of John Master's India books, visiting Spain and I don't know how exactly I decided to add the Prince John's tragic story.
Before that I made pretty much a whole campaign based on the flying cities of Heroes V and swimming in the sea next to a beautiful beach and imagining emerald coasts. It was with a Mesoamerican and a bit of Polynesian flavor.
Even before that I invented a whole campaign around the image of a bush I saw in winter covered in snow with little birds inside it combined with the history of the Winter war between the lightly armed "elvish" finns and the much bigger armies of the "orcish" soviets with their war machines.
So I guess I am using mainly history and traveling for my main inspirations.Last edited by Couatl; 2018-01-26 at 10:10 AM.
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2018-01-28, 02:32 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2015
- Location
- Gondor, Middle Earth
- Gender
Re: Unusual Inspirations
I'm a Lawful Good Human PaladinJustice and honor are a heavy burden for the righteous. We carry this weight so that the weak may grow strong and the meek grow brave
— The Acts of Iomedae, Pathfinder
Avatar made by Professor Gnoll
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2018-01-28, 04:48 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2009
- Location
- Boston, MA
- Gender
Re: Unusual Inspirations
Funny you should ask -- I just started playing a D&D barbarian based on a Police Academy character.
Last edited by Dimers; 2018-01-28 at 04:48 AM.
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2018-01-28, 03:04 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2013
Re: Unusual Inspirations
I've based characters on sticky-note doodles.
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2018-01-31, 03:27 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2014
- Gender
Re: Unusual Inspirations
I have always been fascinated by the concept of "living water" that takes human like shapes.
Spoiler
So the inspiration for an evil elder god that my players end up calling forth during the game, it came in the form of a huge cloud I saw once, it kind of had the shape of a star destroyer, and then I was all like "Can you imagine a huge cloud like demon raining hell on earth?"
Spoiler
So that was the source of ideas that lead me to create him, he's basically a sickly yellowish cloud with orange electricity crackling around, after it takes over the entire sky around the place it was summoned it stars raining a bright yellow colored water that stings the eyes so bright it is. Yellow stinky and eldritch rain!
The players had to prepare a special shaped pool and the yellowish water accumulated there started taking ever changing humanoid forms and talking to players.
It looked and felt very eldritch my players really liked and keep saying how original it looked.
Can't remember the name I gave him tough :<
But yeah a cloud was my inspiration.
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2018-02-09, 03:27 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2018
- Location
- Italy
- Gender
Re: Unusual Inspirations
For plots and campaign comic books are an obvius answer: I am corrently warking an a short adventures base on a wolverine short story of wich i don't remember the name.
I like drawing maps based on technical diagrams; e.g. the bones of the inner ear, or the inside of an integrated circuit.
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2018-02-10, 06:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2015
Re: Unusual Inspirations
German modernist art magazine Jugend is absolutely amazing for dark, depressing campaign inspiration. They started publishing in 1892 I believe and looking through the online archive is amazing inspiration (the magazine was overtaken by the Nazis in the early 30s though so after that it's, you know, bad)
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2018-02-10, 07:02 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2012
- Location
- toulouse
- Gender
Re: Unusual Inspirations
i used fallout's post-post-apocalyptic feel for a chizo-tech world, helped a lot by starship troopers 2 for the claustrophobia. hell, my players didn't know until session... 14? that they weren't in a vault but in a craftworld type spaceship. stargate atlantis i think was the original inspiration, i just inherited the idea from its creator.
other influences included but weren't limited to: cannibal holocaust, the jungle by upton sinclair, morrowind's deserts (ald-ruhn especially), lots of film noir tropes, silence of the lambs for the macabre aesthetics, warhammer 40k, the roman empire, the chicago blues musical scene, brazil by gilliam, halo odst, industrial metal, cyber metal (props to paul wardingham's first album for being the go-to soundtrack), road movies like fear and loathing in las vegas (even if i never watched that movie), the american civil war, the colonization of north america, theocracies and dictatorships (say what you will, but man if the nazis aren't a case study of how to enslave people by propaganda), and looney tunes. i also added my very surrealist nightmares that are both disconcerting and comforting because there's always a sense of normality despite the sheer horror (oh, i'm being eaten by maggots? that sucks. what's for lunch besides me?)
... believe it or not, that universe is actually coherent and tailor-made to give players mood whiplash once they leave the gaming table. on more than one occasion, laughter and high fives were interrupted by these words: "dude, did we really commit genocide? we're monsters!!" funny thing is unlike 40k, it's grimdark only to outside observers. most people actually like their lives despite the omnipresent threat of danger. i'm really proud of that. nothing gets more boring than cripplingly bleak tones non-stop. here, you'll have a barbecue with music and feasting, and everyone will be happy. ok, so you're eating the warriors killed in repelling the last attack, but it's to honor their souls so nothing goes to waste. in our society, cannibalism is kind of slightly frowned upon. in that one, it's normal and it's a grief mechanism tinged with base pragmatism since food can be scarce.
now, when i design characters, i'll tend to throw left-field references around. my current character in rogue trader is drawn from the history of my home city, and that raised a few eyebrows, since i'm the only one from that city at the table. it's not too often you get a history lesson about the city you live in from the gung-ho character. my first character in whfrp was inspired by child soldiers and stockholm syndrome. that was probably a bit too tragic to think about for any length of time. my "holy" characters usually follow the "good is not nice" philosophy, with paladins going for groin-attacks, inquisitors using torture, and clerics being foul-mouthed grumps. and once did i combine the joker and bugs bunny into one character. i'm never to be so cruel to a dm ever again.