shameless cribbing and theft

[big teej]

greetings playgrounders,

as a dungeon master, inevitably, you steal something.

an idea from a childhood cartoon
an idea from a movie
a book
another DM
these forums
video games
etc.

and, inevitably, you port this into your game with almost no changes (if any changes at all)

my question is what have you stolen, and how much have you changed it?

here's my list off the top of my head.
Dragon Balls - changed fluff, made a set that summons 1 of two creatures depending on circumstances "leviathan" or 'behemoth"
Chaos Emeralds - something I'm considering adding as macguffins
Umberhulk accountant - stolen from a playgrounder
Mortimer, the Orc Gentleman - ripped from Ratchet and Clank: going commando - changed to orc.
"the old code" - dragon heart, unchanged.

-iffyness- a warforged character that it could be argued was based off of Robo from Chrono Trigger


that's all that's springing to mind off the top of my head.

what are yours?

[DogbertLinc]

I have a bit of a shameless streak of ripping off the Tales series of videogames, from city names, to some plot points.

I recently stole the Shadow Mirror subplot from Super Robot Wars OG2, because a player made it oh so tempting in his backstory

I also once had a dungeoncrawl based on Gauntlet, that somehow became a somewhat convoluted storyline, in which the only thing resembling Gauntlet were the planes and bosses.


And then there was a time a friend made a one shot based on Etrian Odyssey that was the worst thing he could have possibly ever done with that idea. :smallannoyed:

[CTrees]

tvtropes.org

That'll pretty much cover it.

[Sir_Chivalry]

I shamelessly rip off things. At this very moment, it's FF12. Why FF12? Because it's the only FF I've come across that's got voice-acting that doesn't make me want to stab my ears!

[Keld Denar]

I planned a whole game who's core plotline was a blatent rip off of Daggerfall. Everyone's played Morrowind and Oblivion, but I have yet to meet another person IRL who's ever even heard of Daggerfall, much less logged the incredible number of hours in that game that I have.

[Piggy Knowles]

I steal ideas from books pretty consistently. Usually they give me the inspiration for a game, character or plot arc, rather than it being a direct rip.

For instance, from the Illuminatus! trilogy, I took the idea of a number of secret societies that all had the same name, but were very different in methods and goals. When you first started looking into them, you heard all sorts of contradictory information, and more research made it seem like they were just EVERYWHERE. In the end, the party discovered that the reason they seemed so omnipresent was because several organizations were all called the same thing...

Anyhow, here are some books that I can recall cribbing heavily from (in no particular order):

1. The Illumintatus! Trilogy, Robert Anton Wilson/Robert Shea
2. Pollen, Jeff Noon
3. Rice Boy, Evan Dahm
4. Schismatrix, Bruce Sterling
5. The Dragon and the Unicorn, A. A. Attanasio
6. Dune, Frank Herbert
7. The Worm Ouroboros, E. R. Eddison
8. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
9. Elfquest

That's just stuff that comes to mind right off the bat, meaning I've stolen major elements from them. But I know there's more than just that.

[CTrees]

I planned a whole game who's core plotline was a blatent rip off of Daggerfall. Everyone's played Morrowind and Oblivion, but I have yet to meet another person IRL who's ever even heard of Daggerfall, much less logged the incredible number of hours in that game that I have.

If I had a like button, I'd use it. My favorite was Morrowind, but Daggerfall is still ranked a lot higher than Oblivion, for me. Just wish it was easier to get the earlier games running properly on modern computers.

-------------------

TVTropes link aside, the only time I've really cribbed directly is my (planned future) Jurassic Park-inspired campaign. Taking tropes and running with them (or more commonly, inverting them), yeah, that I do.

[Keld Denar]

Psssst, you can download and play Daggerfall 100% free and legitimate off their website. You just need to download dosbox to do it, which is ALSO free, and then "mount" the CD, a drive, and away you go. I play it on my laptop when I fly. Its fun.

[MesiDoomstalker]

The oddest thing I cripped in my brief time as DM was a city map. I stole it from a Risk knock-off on my Ipod. Whoever designed the map was thorough. Beyond the general overhead appearance was all mine, but the city layout was totally ripped off.

[CTrees]

The oddest thing I cripped in my brief time as DM was a city map. I stole it from a Risk knock-off on my Ipod. Whoever designed the map was thorough. Beyond the general overhead appearance was all mine, but the city layout was totally ripped off.

Oh! Okay, I've gotta fess up to that - I've stolen maps of both cities and broader regions from, of all places, Dragonlance. See, I have a great Dragonlance "complete" atlas (complete as of the late eighties/early nineties, I don't remember exactly anymore). None of my friends have any familiarity w/ the setting beyond "it's a things" and maybe a few major names, so it's a *perfect* source to steal.

[Togath]

I've stated up a few creatures from video games with dnd stats before, mainly from FF 12 or the Dragonquest/Dragon Warrior series of games.
I also added Excalibur(the mythical sword, not the soul eater character) and it's scabbard into part of the back story of one of the counties in my campaign, I also stated up Caledbolg, but am probably just going to put it as a piece of treasure the characters obtain at some point.

[BlueInc]

Dragon Balls - changed fluff, made a set that summons 1 of two creatures depending on circumstances "leviathan" or 'behemoth"

So funny story.

I finished up DMing a campaign and I started asking the players what they would like in the next one. Ideas got thrown around for a while. One player brought up the Deck of Many Things that had massively derailed the plot and said that they would like wishes included in the campaign somehow. All of the players said that they'd like some of the traditional monsters in non-traditional roles in the next campaign like orcs, goblins, dragons, etc.

So I made a big campaign world in which dragons were the main deities; at special festivals, the dragons would grant miracles to the intelligent races as a reward for faithful service. The magical fields left behind by these festivals could be crystallized into "Wish Stones" by powerful enough casters.

Well, the refuse hit the fan and that continent was wiped out by a plague, leaving the remaining few dragons and their followers limping across the ocean to start anew; the races change extremely - orcs become peaceful farmers and shamans, the elves become masters of the seas, etc. The PCs eventually discover the nature of the plague that wiped out the old continent and have to find the few remaining Wish Stones along with the power of the dragons to wipe out the originators of the plague and save their new homes.

I worked on this for a few months.

As soon as I finished proudly explaining the concept of the new world, my players looked at me and said, "So, we're playing Dragonball Z?"

:smallfurious:

[big teej]

So funny story.
-snip-

I worked on this for a few months.

As soon as I finished proudly explaining the concept of the new world, my players looked at me and said, "So, we're playing Dragonball Z?"

:smallfurious:

ouch.

heh, I suppose the difference is I stole the concept on purpose, and am completely prepared for someone to catch it.

[Yukitsu]

I'm a bit like Atlus, in that I seem to have a perverse enjoyment in making giant towers, and giving the players a reason to try to get to the top of it, but that's not really anything specific. Of course, they got it from the tower of babyl myth.

I once took the vending machines from bioshock, just to annoy the players and added them in.

When I was a player, I told the DM of a test campaign that I was playing a holy warrior on a quest to pull the legendary Wii-mote Excalimote out of the television into which it was imbedded. Who so pulled forth the controller from the television would henceforth be the president of nintendo. He went along with it because we were just testing rules.

I'm not positive that I know where I got the eye motiff from my horror campaign, but I'm sure I got it from somewhere. It was otherwise very much similar to silent hill mixed with some slightly more Cthulian overtones (rather than the Freudian ones from silent hill)

[beyond reality]

In my current Eberron game I've stolen some from Terry Pratchett's Feet of Clay novel when it comes to the Warforged. The Warforged are partially animated by mystic scrolls imbedded in their heads (which helps to keep them in line and ensure they're more obedient). The Lord of Blades was created by a group of Warforged artificers who placed their minds into a single docent and then used pieces of their former bodies to create him, intending for him to serve as the race's new king. They put too many competing commands and desires into him however, leading to his current genocidal tendencies.

I ran a Deadlands campaign that stole shamelessly from the Dresden Files. Specifically I stole the Holy Swords, the Order of the Blackened Denarius (including Nichodemus and his invincibility noose). I even had a character (a huckster) linked up to one of the fallen angels after he snagged a coin. The only difference was that the character was all too eager to sell his soul for Ultimate Power!

[Geigan]

One of my friends has a bit of a thing for avatar so his first campaign had the four nations of the classic elements though the cultures were pretty unique and not cribbed. It was his first time DMing so it didn't go so great though we did manage to finish his campaign anyway.

He's trying something new now with just one element that we ourselves chose. From what he tells me there's this mysterious force that ravaged the land and appears to be coming back. The kicker is that fire is a myth here because of what element we chose and these forces apparently have it which spooks everybody out. So essentially everything was fine until the fire nation attacked.:smalltongue:

Of course this might just be more of a trope than a theft.

Another friend of mine stole a puzzle from one of the D&D movies. I don't know which on it was but it involved a gauntlet with swinging guillotines and a rotating wall that spewed fire.

[Knaight]

I draw from a wide variety of sources, but Dominions 3 seems to show up way more often than it should. I have a bad habit of stealing its nation names as a basis, then tweaking heavily until one wouldn't recognize them as stolen.

[Fenryr]

Some of my important NPCs are Magic: The Gathering characters.

From the forum I've been thinking to steal implement some great ideas.

A couple of future sidequests are from Golden Sun, Fire Emblem and the like.

[Axinian]

I have a bit of a shameless streak of ripping off the Tales series of videogames, from city names, to some plot points.
Nerifes is BBEG/Elder Evil for one of my campaigns, though he is a bit different than in Tales of Legendia.
I also totally cribbed a bunch of Tarot related stuff from Persona 3.

I don't usually steal monster stats directly, but I will steal their looks.

[Tzi]

I wouldn't say I shamelessly rip off, but I definitely borrow ideas.

Currently I have a quest that is part inspired by Pet Semmitary and Silent Hill series of games.

I think the most blatant is the Headless Horsemen of Sleepy Hollow, though the town is different and its origin are slightly different, it is still roughly the same basic story.

Another huge quest which is essentially a knock off of the movie "Zulu."

And there are parts where definitely anyone who has seen Apacolypto, will see the references.

[Silva Stormrage]

Oh I do this constantly, though I make sure to steal things that my players don't know about.

List of things I stole.
First camphain intro was basically stolen from 8 Bit Theater (Party was warriors of light sent by an insane king to rescue princess sarah and their first random encounter was werewolves).

Names:
Darion, Koltiara, Lothemar, Garrosh, Fairbanks, Alexandros Mograine + Renalt Mograine (And I included the part where Renault betrayed Alexandros his father.)

Luckily my players don't notice when I steal these things :smallbiggrin:.

[DarkestKnight]

Having not done a whole lot of DMing i haven't stolen much but i can cite a couple of things my dms have done.

reavers-Firefly (it was a spelljammer campaign...)
Marines and necrons (complete with flaying stuff) - warhammer 40k
starwars
diablo
team fortress 2
silent hills

for the most part there was a lot of swearing when we figured out the inspiration of our current plight.

[Serpentine]

The entirety of Deltora Quest is just begging to be turned into a D&D campaign. So far, though, I've only used it for one encounter/side-quest.
A plague of rats spills out of an abandoned city to scour the plains around it, spreading out a little further each night. The party have to get past that area, so they head on in. There they discover a powerful naga with a circlet that gives it the power to command swarms of vermin...

[Knaight]

The entirety of Deltora Quest is just begging to be turned into a D&D campaign. So far, though, I've only used it for one encounter/side-quest.

Problem: Doing this would involve reading Deltora Quest.

[Zaq]

God, what DON'T I steal? I don't GM that often, but man, on the occasion that I do . . . yeah. Let me think. Names and NPCs are often stolen wholesale from Magi-Nation, of which I have an unhealthily detailed knowledge (and of which no one else does, so although it's safe for them to assume "OK, Zaq sounds like he didn't just make this name up ten seconds ago, so it's probably from Magi-Nation," they don't necessarily know who someone is just because I call them Warrada or whatever). Video games often find their ways into whatever I'm doing in a more or less blatant fashion . . . in my 4e group, we're currently in Castlevania. THAT Castlevania. Explicitly. Yeah, that was my fault, though I regret nothing so far. I also once had a plot in which Zero (http://megaman.wikia.com/wiki/Zero) was a prominent character. (OK, I called him "Nil," but he was a red Warforged with long blond hair, white cotton panties, and an energy sword, and who died really easily but got better with no explanation whatsoever. The best part was when the party used a Potion of Mimicry to impersonate him and try to sneak past . . . the group that he was leading. This meant that I got to recreate that "You should have studied the blueprints better, Sigma! There is only one Zero Nil!" scene from Mega Man X2.) Oh, and the entire world map of the game is basically the map from Guild Wars, with several major groups left sorta-kinda intact. We had to deal with the White Mantle for a while. That was fun.

As a player, I'm little better. My current character in my 4e game (who was my infamous Truenamer in my 3.5 game . . . only character I've ever made in two separate games, just because I love him that much) was originally totally based on Enjirō from Santō Kyōden's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santo_Kyoden) Grilled and Basted Edo-Born Playboy, though he has since evolved quite a lot and become more solidly mine. My current character is an unholy fusion of Boatmurdered and The Chrysanthemum Vow (Yes, I have a thing for Edo-period literature. Don't judge me). I know I've mentioned my Inspector Gadget character more than once on this forum. (I actually watched Inspector Gadget for the first time in many, many years just a week or two ago. I think I made my character too competent.) I also made a character who was intended to be a D&D version of a character from the movie Versus (I call the character Kabuki Ham, but the original character doesn't actually have a name . . . if you've ever seen the movie, he's the one with the tie. You know, the crazy awesome one.)

So yeah. I steal shamelessly and frequently. Every so often I'll come up with something of my own, but even then, I'll usually name it after something else.

[Serpentine]

Problem: Doing this would involve reading Deltora Quest.Watch the anime instead :smalltongue:

[beyond reality]

I also had a recent encounter involving a Dream Master Quori imprisoned in magical glass sphere. The players started talking to the thing and I realized that I hadn't thought much about its personality or temperament. I'm no good at the "seductive demonic temptation" thing and I thought that simple, blatant evil wasn't that interesting for a being of living dream and nightmare...

So what I do is, on a complete whim, combine the personality of the Jerry Sizzler sisters from Kids in the Hall and Marik Ishtar (as represented in the Yu-gi-oh abridged series). The final result was disturbing and insane and even worse was recorded and now lives on the internet.

[Crasical]

I also added Excalibur(the mythical sword, not the soul eater character)

I've wanted for a long time to implement Madness ala Soul Eater as a sort of cosmic power source that could be tapped into on the lines of Good and Evil, so that someone desperate for power could trade their sanity for it. I've also been thinking about how one would run a game with 'split' characters, like the Weapons and Meisters from Soul Eater or Servants and Masters from Fate/Stay Night, where they really need to stay as a pair to be effective...

As for what I've done recently? Hmm. There was that one time I accidentally used a porn game character for my character art. That was embarassing, but not quite what's being asked here... but, I have:


Ripped off the name 'Red Minister'/'Crimson Noble' from Jade Empire/Wild Arms to refer to Vyrolka vampires.
Ripped off Guilty Spark from the first Halo as the malfunctioning custodian of an overrun outpost of a lost civilization.
Ripped off the concept of Golems transitioning from automaton to citizenry from Pratchett.
Ripped off lightning rails from Eberron.
Stole a one off NPC challenging a player to a MIND DUEL from Magika
Stole a supervillain's name from a track from the Godhand soundtrack.
Encouraged a bored PC to abandon playing his cleric and roll up a ghost-possessed character inspired by Zappa from Guilty gear.
Ripped off most of Castlevania to play a game set in that universe.
Planned but haven't played a character that was inspired by Kongiku and Yuzuha from Muramasa: The Demon Blade.
My very first game, I stole the surname of a character from a Diablo novel for my 2e cleric.
Stole the Ctarl empire from Outlaw Star for the background of a space catwoman I played once.


Probably more I'm forgetting.

[Dsurion]

For a Mutants and Masterminds one-shot (and our first game in the system), I blatantly ripped off Magic: the Gathering's Laquatus and Aboshan. We started with the generic opening from the book (you all meet in a bank), then suddenly there were massive tides coming in... A fun battle was fought!

Our group's other DM uses a lot of the Elder Scrolls for inspiration in his elves, basically consisting of all of the negative traits in the various races of elves rolled into one problematic race. He also used the mod "Siege at Firemoth" as a pretty straight conversion. I've run an Elder Scrolls one-shot I wish we could've expanded on, but my group fell apart after that. I've also taken Emma's mod, "The White Wolf of LoKKen Mountain", and run that almost entirely unchanged.

I'm also shamelessly stealing from Dragon Age at the moment...


Psssst, you can download and play Daggerfall 100% free and legitimate off their website. You just need to download dosbox to do it, which is ALSO free, and then "mount" the CD, a drive, and away you go. I play it on my laptop when I fly. Its fun.I was never able to get dosbox to work for me, for some reason.