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Knight_Of_Twilight
2007-04-17, 10:23 PM
Odd question, but I had an interesting thought. My friend and I have been taking our groups most recent campaigns, combining them into one world, which made me laugh a bit. You see, we ususally play 1-20, so we had a heck of a lot of Level 20 people running around, something you wouldn't see in a normal fantasy world.

As a Result, I joked that our games were much more like something you would see in Shonen Jump then Lord of the Rings; Powerful, highly quirky characters running around in a very colorful and diverse world. When these characters clash, the resulting battles are epic.

Because of this, I tend to see our games "drawn" in a style like anime. Also, in my head, the characters have japanese voice actors. My favorite character, Richter Bravesteel, sounds like Nobuyuki Hayama ( The voice actor for Gai in GaoGaiGar, or Balmung in Dot Hack).

This isn't to say that they all look like this- we played Shadowrun, which to me looked like an Indy comic, and our Super Hero games tend to look like Bruce Timm cartoons.

So what do your games look like and sound like in your head?

Ranis
2007-04-17, 10:38 PM
To me, my game looks grainy and well-defined, much like the recent movie 300.

I also slow down combat for really cool things to make the PCs feel like they're doing something awesome, even if they're still only level 7.

Like the time the cleric one-shotted a Briarvex. Good times.

Dhavaer
2007-04-17, 10:46 PM
Like a comic book. At the moment it's more Watchmen; the PCs are clearly superior to ordinary people, but they're still mortal and there are plenty of opponents who can give them a run for their money, or who can just crush them like bugs.

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-04-17, 10:57 PM
Pure, unadulterated insanity. Things happen in my games that would make no sense anywhere else. It is, at once, serious and thought provoking, bizarre and otherworldly, and comically silly. There can be poop jokes one minute, a vicious unholy murder the next, and then a philisophical discussion to end the hour.

Partially because I ad lib a lot, partially because my players will very often ignore the plot and instead pursue whacky hijinks, and partially because we have fun that way.

Everyone tells me that my games play nothing like anyone else, ever.

MethodicalMeat
2007-04-17, 11:17 PM
My games look psuedo-realistic with a splash of animted-ness.

Lemur
2007-04-17, 11:22 PM
I suppose sort of like Tintin or Bone, if you've ever read those.

Mostly adventure, but humor is inevitable. Someone always has to make some kind of media reference, and if I'm in the group, horribly stupid one-liners are inevitable.

Matthew
2007-04-18, 12:11 AM
In my head, they look like the Art of (A)D&D 2.x or else Conan the Barbarian / Lord of the Rings type offerings.

Foeofthelance
2007-04-18, 12:17 AM
I would think they look like the regular world, around the medival to rennaisance periods. Only there is a trail of destruction that starts where ever we were when we hit third level (Flaming Sphere and Scorching Ray. If you can't shoot it, steam roll it!) and ends where ever we do.

Fhaolan
2007-04-18, 12:22 AM
How I try to deceive myself into thinking they look like, or how they would actually look like if I stopped lying to myself? :smallbiggrin:

To tell you the real truth, they don't look like anything. Because my games wouldn't make sense as a TV show or movie. There's too much yakity-yak and exposition. They'd make better books. I'm just weird that way, I guess.

We're going to be switching to a new game soon, though. Based on the 'Primetime Adventures' ruleset. Not entirely sure how it will go as we've never used that ruleset before. The group hasn't sat down and gone through in detail what we are going to do, but I'm already seeing a Sci-Fi adventure, in that Batman/Superman/Justice League animation style that's gotten popular. At least, I can see opening credits for it. I'm having trouble with theme music though. I'll have to work on that bit.

GoufCustom
2007-04-18, 12:34 AM
Well, we're currently playing BESM d20, and with the crazy mixture of characters we have, it's like something you'd get in the greater Outlaw Star universe, drawn like this (http://evion.deviantart.com/) (as this is the DA of our friend who draws, and gave us all character portraits for Christmas).

When we do play D&D... mmm... I guess kinda like Slayers with more death. We can't keep things serious for the life of us.

Which is primarily my fault. ^_^

Krimm_Blackleaf
2007-04-18, 12:38 AM
Probably like a video game, sadly. Mostly hack 'n slash, a few stupid lines slung here and there, and virtually no talking while fighting and basically no synergy. It saddens me to realise this.:smallfrown:

ExHunterEmerald
2007-04-18, 12:44 AM
Fire Emblem-ish anime.
Alternatively, mecha anime. God, I love my DM.

The_Werebear
2007-04-18, 12:55 AM
The one I DM (a campaign about a War) looks like LoTR lite

The one I play in looks like a Pratchett novel.

Ravyn
2007-04-18, 01:27 AM
Most of the ones I play in look animated, though there's one that makes me think of watercolors, and the one I run bears resemblence to... a modernized version of an illuminated text. Most everything ends up being in some way vivid--if it isn't Players Doing Epic, it's GM Doing Descriptions. (We do, however, switch actions every now and then. Keeps things interesting.)

Starsinger
2007-04-18, 01:32 AM
When we're out of combat, I picture our game looking something like an anime, particularly, like something out of Lunar Silver Star Story Complete.

In combat? Shining force.

Saph
2007-04-18, 06:39 AM
Our main campaign? Order of the Stick. Half the time it's in-jokes and comedy, the other half it's character drama and battle tactics.

- Saph

Threeshades
2007-04-18, 06:43 AM
i imagine our games in real-movie qualities but i tend to have black spots in the landscape, if it wasnt described detailed enough.

My party however tends to imagine everything in my comic style, because i drew some of our adventures. And since they cannot help but imagine my comic characters.

Darkxarth
2007-04-18, 07:02 AM
My games, like most of my creative thoughts, come through in high-quality non-anime style cartoons. Some things shine through, usually weapon details or clothing style, but faces are often overly simplistic or simply aren't included. Occasionally I can see it in live-action, but not very often.

Folie
2007-04-18, 07:26 AM
In my mind, the campaign I'm currently in looks something like Pirates of the Caribbean meets A Song of Ice and Fire, but that is probably because the DM is a pretty big fanboy of both. Oh yeah, and there's an undead cult thrown into the mix.:smallbiggrin:

Sulecrist
2007-04-18, 09:39 AM
I always see my campaigns in rich but deep color, with a pretty modern style of video-game animation--think LoZ: Twilight Princess, or God of War, or to a lesser extent WarCraft III. There's a sense of the exotic everywhere, the heroes are slightly larger-than-life but still extremely vulnerable, and the locales alternate between warmly domestic and staggeringly sublime. There's plenty of roleplay, but it's more about speeches and cut-scene style exchanges than "how much for this pot?" "Twenty gold." "I will give you eighteen."

Kultrum
2007-04-18, 09:44 AM
like if you some how mixed JTHM and Peanuts into one comic. Well defined characters with sketchy backgrounds and NPC that say wa wa wan wa. About half the time its light hearted and the other half its dark and morbid... good times

Telonius
2007-04-18, 10:00 AM
Live action, mainly. Or if I had to pin it down to a drawing style, Sandman. (We're playing Age of Worms in Eberron).

RandomNPC
2007-04-18, 06:27 PM
what do i think it looks like......

if i ever make a novel out of it ill find a way to post some cover art ideas....

im gonna go with the anime thing, thats the style of the person most likely to draw it for me.

Knight_Of_Twilight
2007-04-18, 06:27 PM
Its funny- as a kid, I still saw my games in anime style, but it was grainy and pixalated- like I was playing it on an old game console. If someone has every played the first Ninja Gaiden or the original Ys games, they know what I mean...

Stormcrow
2007-04-18, 06:32 PM
I imagine my games to be somewhere between Frank Miller's 300 and the King Arthur they did recently with Clive Owen. With a splash of Neil Gaiman.

MellowMelon
2007-04-18, 06:49 PM
My games look like something cinematographically (actual word?) impressive. I imagine that it looks something like a blend between Pirates of the Carribean and some Tarantino film. (not that the game plays like these movies)

I just think that it may look like them.

my_evil_twin
2007-04-18, 07:06 PM
My last campaign looked a lot like anime, probably. I pictured the combat playing out looking something like Escaflowne or X.

Diggorian
2007-04-18, 07:07 PM
In the D&D I play in I'd definately say live action with Frank Miller's style movie translated with the gory details we get. Had our dwarven rogue brain-sucked by a Mindflayer recently. The words "... like a puckered rotten pumpkin covered in blood-soaked hair." were used. It's a very gritty dramatic game where we joke in character to stave off suicide pacts. :smallamused:

Our Mutants&Masterminds game I picture as Jim Lee's X-Men (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fa/Xmenjimlee.jpg) in the '90's.

I'm about to start a first century AD style D&D game soon, which I envision like HBO's Rome (http://www.hbo.com/rome/) series. I pride myself on description so it helps to have a reference in mind.

My flavor text goes on for a while, even adding more while the PC's decide what to do. All action resolutions are described cinematically, like in a PbP but without misspellings.

BTW, great topic. :smallbiggrin:

Ivius
2007-04-18, 07:32 PM
I play with a pretty wacky group. I picture an 80's sitcom-style when out of combat, and later Final Fantasy style graphics in combat. LotR would just feel out of place with all the forest fires we set :smallbiggrin:.

BardicDuelist
2007-04-18, 07:57 PM
When I play in our "normal" world, it reminds me very much of Lloyd Alexander novels (The Black Cauldron, etc). In MY campaign setting (a later time period inspired by Alexander Dumas and Victorian fiction, creating a time period between the two, mixing several elements) things look very much like how I see the scenes in the books (makes sense, right?).

Vyker
2007-04-18, 07:58 PM
Raw badass.

PnP Fan
2007-04-18, 09:31 PM
Gosh, my visualizations mostly depend on the particular story and the setting.

My last Werewolf campaign tended to have the feel of a disaster movie (I ran the apocalypse, duh) with a touch of X-Files (supernatural mystery stuff).

Most of my Eberron campaigns have a mix of Angel (tv series), and a touch of film noir, with the stories organized in television seasons, like Buffy or Angel (series of connected short stories that build to the meta plot for the season). A lot of my fellow GMs have adopted this style.

My upcoming Eberron campaign (set in Q'Barra) is going to feel like a series of westerns in the jungle (I keyed in on the word "frontier" in the Q'barra description). Probably with a touch of Pulp Heroism, since there are so many temples in the jungle. So, visually, a mix of Indiana Jones meets Spagetti Western.

Talyn
2007-04-18, 10:19 PM
My current campaign is very "World of Warcraft," or even that old "Black Cauldron" movie - though suitably darkened for adult audiences. It's not too gritty or realistic. Colors are brighter, buildings are big and blocky and everything is very Big.

My characters are invariably larger-than-life personalities, and now that we've reached fairly high level our fight scenes are starting to look like stuff out of mid-quality action movies - big, dangerous, flashy moves (I have an orc who can literally rip trees out of the ground and an elf scout who can more or less run along walls). If we ever make it to Epic level, it will look less and less like a Western-style action movie and more and more like Anime fight sequences, as individual power levels approach the obscene.

Knight_Of_Twilight
2007-04-19, 10:54 AM
Heh, this has been great to read so far! :) If I may expand, what do your campaigns sound like? What sort of Music do you have? Who voices your characters? I stated that for me, it depends. Sometimes mine have anime/video game type voices, other times, voice actors from animated stuff over here. For example, Marcus Ranum, my current Paladin- well, he sounds just like George Newbourne in my head. As for soundtrack, that varies, but I always seem to have some boss music from some video game in my head whenever we fight something big...

Gungnir
2007-04-19, 06:25 PM
Hopefully my campaign is going to look half as Epic as this:
Haloid (http://www.gametrailers.com/umwatcher.php?id=57998)

As for sound, I'm actually using the Halo soundtrack, plus some other things, to play in the background during fights and other suspenseful scenes.

Annarrkkii
2007-04-19, 06:42 PM
I imagine my games with extremely realistic CGI. Kinda like the cinematics for Starcraft, perhaps, to use a common example, only even better, and set in the medieval era.

Genome
2007-04-19, 07:23 PM
Ocean's Eleven (And occasionally Twelve when the botches happen) in Waterdeep.

Stevenson
2007-04-19, 08:21 PM
Usually? Some kind of weird hybrid of Goblins and Dungeon Crawlers, Inc.

Though in the larger-scale battles I see colorful illustrations, kinda WWII painting style, if WWII paintings were painted by the people who illustrated for WotC.

And the sound? Usually uproarious laughter (caused by me), followed by gunshots and explosions (caused by the twisted, War-obsessed powergamer in the group.)

Also, I usually here Damon Gant's theme in my head when we meet a big villain....during regular encounters I usually just think of some crazy music that's upbeat...the tetris theme, most notably.

BardicDuelist
2007-04-19, 08:58 PM
I typically play a bard PC or have a bard NPC as the "backup" character, so I quite often make the music by playing my bass or bongos.
My DM likes to play Pink Floyd while we play.
We do voices for characters.

Epiphanis
2007-04-19, 09:28 PM
Would you believe a Bollywood movie, minus singing and dancing (well, not entirely -- one PC is a bard)

My current game uses Green Ronin Freeport material shoehorned into Greyhawk by way of the Sasserine source fluff from the start of the Savage Tide. You would think that I picture it in the style of the Pirates of the Carribean movie, but I don't. Instead, I think of a Bollywood historical Indian costume-drama, with colorful silk clothing and ornate jewelry on both sexes.

Mostly its the influence of the tropical jungle, I think.

Knight_Of_Twilight
2007-04-20, 12:28 AM
I typically play a bard PC or have a bard NPC as the "backup" character, so I quite often make the music by playing my bass or bongos.
My DM likes to play Pink Floyd while we play.
We do voices for characters.

Embaressingly enough, I do "voices" for my NPC's. My players have been known to look for as many people as possible to see if I run out.

Tharivol123
2007-04-20, 12:33 AM
Ivius' campaign sounds pretty similar to my campaigns from back home.
The ones from down here I see them as being visually similar to a Stanley Kubrik movie.

My DM back home does voices for his NPCs too, but every accent ends up sounding like a Scottish accent. Regardless of the setting. Nothing beats hearing a dragon with that accent.

CockroachTeaParty
2007-04-20, 12:44 AM
In combat? Shining force.

If only real life was like Shining force... *sigh*

My games look rather cartoonish, but realistic. Not bug-eyed anime or wiggly Max Fleischer, though... Something like a more detailed Jhonen Vasquez look, and more organic... Gah, this is hard to explain.

SHINING FORCE!!!

Matthew
2007-04-20, 01:15 PM
Heh, this has been great to read so far! :) If I may expand, what do your campaigns sound like? What sort of Music do you have? Who voices your characters? I stated that for me, it depends. Sometimes mine have anime/video game type voices, other times, voice actors from animated stuff over here. For example, Marcus Ranum, my current Paladin- well, he sounds just like George Newbourne in my head. As for soundtrack, that varies, but I always seem to have some boss music from some video game in my head whenever we fight something big...
I tend to do different voices for different NPCs and some PCs do the same, but it can be soething of a strain on the voice box, so you have to pick carefully if the character is going to be required to speak a lot. I don't usually have any music in mind during play, maybe because there is usually music playing in the background.

BardicDuelist
2007-04-20, 07:14 PM
Has anyone seen Baron Munchausen? I just played a higer level gcampaign which was very much like that in visual and tone.

Also, kudos to whoever said that their campaigns are structured like episodes. I had never thought of that and am stealing it. (sorry, I'd quote it, but I really don't want to go back through the thread to find it)

Matthew
2007-04-20, 09:05 PM
I have indeed seen it and found it very entertaining. I can well imagine a campaign of that type...

BardicDuelist
2007-04-20, 10:37 PM
The fact that many of the accomplisments that the good baron makes are possible in D&D is what sparked the idea when an NPC didn't beleive something I said.

bosssmiley
2007-04-21, 11:17 AM
My games? Look like Errol Flynn does "Raiders of the Lost Ark" with Weta Workshop quality monster effects. Also everything has the potential to explode sooner or later (including any love interests introduced during play - romance + explosions = win!).

The soundtrack is a combination of "Raiders", "Conan", "Captain Blood (http://www.reelclassics.com/Audio_Video/Music7q/clips/korngold_captblood_overture_clip.mp3)" (or any other Korngold (http://www.reelclassics.com/Musicians/Korngold/korngold.htm) soundtrack), "The Adventures of Don Juan (http://www.reelclassics.com/Audio_Video/Music7q/clips/steiner_advdonjuan_maintitle_clip.mp3)", "LOTR" and "Last Samurai".

My games are teh awesoem considering the effects budget is about £10!


Has anyone seen Baron Munchausen? I just played a higer level gcampaign which was very much like that in visual and tone.

This man is god-like in mine eyes. People should buy him booze and stuff.

Knight_Of_Twilight
2007-04-21, 06:54 PM
Has anyone seen Baron Munchausen? I just played a higer level gcampaign which was very much like that in visual and tone.

Vas you dere, Charlie?

Archpaladin Zousha
2007-04-21, 10:35 PM
I'd have to say that thus far, they seem like they escaped from Wrath of the Dragon God, at least during the fights. Although in some NPC interactions, it seems cartoonish (especially when our Kender gets excited about something, like a dog with a poofy tail:annoyed: ).

Edo
2007-04-22, 01:50 AM
8-Bit Theater.

And I'm the Red Mage.

Khoran
2007-04-22, 03:22 AM
Well, it all depends on what game we are playing and who is GMing.

For 7th Sea, we think of it like Pirates of The Caribbean-esq production. Corny lines, over the top cinimatics and vivid desciriptions of both the good and the bad. We always try to keep it light hearted most of the time, though we do know when in the plot to be serious. We crack jokes, have silly house rules like the explosion sound, and ocassionally a few of us will be having a drink while playing. Very light hearted, as I said, Pirates of the Caribbean feel to it.

For D&D, it really depends on who is GMing and what world we are using. In one of them it's very light hearted in the begining, though it's starting to turn a bit more dark, but so far it's still light hearted; sort of reminds me of Harry Potter almost. In another, it feels like a serious drama with very strong character; most of which are odds with each other, but realize that they are all working towards the same goals, and must work together. Can't think of what it reminds me of, but it feels like a novel or a trilogy of movies. And in the campaign I hopefully I will be running, I am trying to reach a middle ground, I'm trying to do Heroic Fantasy in a sort of grim setting. So, with D&D, it's all about the DM and the setting. Whenever I think of it, I think of it like a 300-style comic book.

It goes on with a lot of other systems we use, but those are the two we use most, so I decided to list them.