Ever use a real-life celebrity in a campaign?

[Jeivar]

Ever throw a real-life celebrity into a silly campaign, just for the fun of it?

My friends and I have done it on occasion, and my favorite example has to be an old Shadowrun game, when we were infiltrating an undersea lab and encountered the evil mastermind behind it: A cyborg David Hasselhoff, preserved by all the machinery in his body. After a massive cluster****y firefight we were forced to flee back to shore in a speedboat and he chased after us with the "I'llllll be ready!" Baywatch song accompanying him wherever he went, and sounding ominously in the background when he passed by our hiding place.


Personally, I was once running a short post-apocalypse campaign when the players ran afoul of savage raiders led by a middle-aged Jim Carrey; Living in a trailer filled with his posters and old DVDs.

[comicshorse]

In a Sabbat Vampire game our pack killed Nicholas Witchell but he only counts if your British

[Gensh]

He hasn't made an appearance yet, but in my current Exalted game, I've got Charlie Sheen set up as a rogue Green Sun Prince working for a raksha noble on an epic quest to gather enough madmen to save the world. As things stand, he'll probably be something of a tourguide for the party, but since it's Exalted's version of hell we're talking about, nothing he says will be crazy because it will all be true.

[navar100]

During 2E I did play a cleric of Justice/Revenge named Judge Reinhold.

[Velaryon]

I played in a game once where we ran into Terry Tate. We ended up training him as a Jedi, and one of the players even homebrewed a ridiculously overpowered Jedi Linebacker prestige class just for him. He had his own personal starship called the Pain Train and everything.

In that same game, Robert Loggia was on the Jedi Council. We had just been watching this, so of course Jedi Master Robert Loggia was always piping up to mention how somebody (usually one of the PCs) was right, and he would occasionally ramble on about something having as much calcium as milk.

Those are the only two I can think of.

[prufock]

In a Mutants and Masterminds game, one of the villains was Xenu. Yes, Xenu. Tom Cruise made an appearance. He was killed.

[Geddoe]

The Tao in my Anima game had a match against Hulk Hogan last Sunday.

[El Dorado]

Years ago, Avery Brooks (Commander Sisko on Star Trek: DS9) did a commercial for IBM. He wanted to know why we didn't have flying cars in the year 2000. A buddy ran a Mage game and threw him in (since there were no flying cars he decided to build one himself).

[Iceforge]

Ever throw a real-life celebrity into a silly campaign, just for the fun of it?

I wanted to, but so far, Jessica Alba has not responded to any of my letters

[tahu88810]

I once played in a campaign where, at the end, we found out the Orc-things we had been fighting the entire time were led by Ray Liotta, who was actually a wizard.

Wait no, that was In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Seige Tale

[Tengu_temp]

Morgan Freeman as a president of a post-apocalyptic country.

[Dr.Epic]

The Awesome League of Awesome Adventurers made up of...

-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
-Robert Louis Stephenson
-Henry David Thoreau
-Bram Stoker

And a certain Roman emperor I won't say too much about but Malcolm McDowell played him.

[Nachtritter]

Not yet, but I am waiting for the day that I have an excuse to throw Christopher Walken at the party. Maybe as the leader of a tribe in a post-apocalyptic wasteland...

"I see. You ... DECIDED... to come here... and steal our WATER. I don't... understand... how you think you'd succeed, you tiny. Little monkeys."

[Rasman]

one of my buddies is a DM and he does it all the time

the last one was a Nymph that looked like Megan Fox

in another game, one of our PCs, a Bard, his mentor is Frank Sinatra, but all scrambled up...we also have Judge Dujy coming up...made me lul

[Nachtritter]

the last one was a Nymph that looked like Megan Fox

I feel so sorry for your party. Were there any survivors?

[Cisturn]

I like to base my PCs off of celebrities. My last PC was based off of Sean Connery and then after his death, I based another off of Frank Sinatra. If anything happens to Frankie, my next PC will either be Harrison Ford or Clint Eastwood.

[sokbeest]

I had a campaign (set in the 1990's) in which Prince was an NPC with supernatural powers. The schtick was that he had made a pact with Dark Powers™ (as in demons, not the record industry...) and he changed his name to that symbol thing, a name which cannot be spoken, in order to avoid upholding his end of the contract.

[Knightofvictory]

I usually steal characters from fiction... but one time I couldn't resist making the leader of the thieve's guild a fast talking, fat, balding, nasty halfling named 'Dan' and did my best Danny DeVito impression while running him. The party got the reference immediately, and actually enjoyed interacting with him, despite the fact he did nothing but insult and order them around.

[neoseph7]

In a game I play on these forums currently, I have a gnome sorceror that conjured a ball of glowing lights meant to look and sound (ghost sound) like a cat. I named it Mr. Hasselhoff.

In a game many years ago, I had a halforc whose father was named Shrod. In orcish, dinger means 'son of', in this campaign. So this half olf front line-kick the door in- scream bloody heck- meat shield was named Schrodinger. (so as to not give it away in the setup, I had to place the emphasis on the first sylable of 'dinger and lightly mispronounce Shrod).

[DoctorGlock]

I've used Arnold Schwarzenegger as a barbarian in D&D, complete with barbarian yodels. I used him in D20 modern on the campaign trail which is where my sig comes from.

Charlie Sheen showed up in an arena fight, Warlock 6/Cleric 4/Assassin 2 or something like that with the madness domains and fell flight, screaming something about being an F15

Do the effects of real life celebrities count or just the celebrities themselves, because my D20 modern also included the party having karaoke night at applebees to a variety of rather bad songs.

[Gettles]

Had a campaign where as a re-occurring joke the party kept running into Nicholas Cage.

[The Glyphstone]

He hasn't made an appearance yet, but in my current Exalted game, I've got Charlie Sheen set up as a rogue Green Sun Prince working for a raksha noble on an epic quest to gather enough madmen to save the world. As things stand, he'll probably be something of a tourguide for the party, but since it's Exalted's version of hell we're talking about, nothing he says will be crazy because it will all be true.

So he's Devil-Tiger Blooded then?

[Eldan]

Well, it wasn't entirely intentional, but in a d20 modern game, my players once decided that the best plan was to crash the oscar ceremony.

[Gensh]

So he's Devil-Tiger Blooded then?

Of course. You know how he's always talking about having Adonis DNA? Guess the GSP's name.

I can't believe that I forgot to mention this, but in the last 3.5 game I ran, the party ended up looting a minor villain's horse and kept it with them for several sessions. Later, they ended up in a red dragon's lair but couldn't find the dragon itself anywhere. When the horse revealed itself to be the dragon, I accidentally slurred his introduction, convincing everyone that it was actually Sean Connery and that his acting skills were the reason he was so believable as a horse.

[Dimers]

I wanted to, but so far, Jessica Alba has not responded to any of my letters

Heh.

I used Charlie Daniels near the start of one campaign, as a 'country boy' sort of survivalist whose separation from urban life had allowed him to survive widespread devastation.

[Tetsubo 57]

I ran a 3rd Edition Gamma World campaign that had Robert Adams the author in it. Though the players never knew his real name. He was an Horseclan style Immortal.

[Shyftir]

In our games the DM will sometimes hand a character a "fate die" to roll when all is going bad. Thing is if your roll a one, a powerful outsider appears and screws with you. We don't know this outsiders name but he is always described as "Evil Antonio Banderas."

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I don't know if this counts, but I deliberately gave my longest-running character Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice when I found that he'd have grown up in our campaign's Austria equivalent (it was a post-apocalyptic Europe that had returned to medieval levels of technology, while nanobots made prior to the Apocalypse were the source of magic). He was a paladin, so I thought it'd be fun to deliver pronouncements of justice and have gentle moments of mercy with that ridiculous accent. And I managed to pull it off well enough that my fellow players said he was the best paladin they'd ever seen played.

And he reinvented the Molotov Cocktail too!

[Shpadoinkle]

No real-life celebrities, only imaginary ones. I drew up stats for this guy (take a look at the spoiler below for his stats and see if you can guess who it is first) but I haven't had a chance to use him yet.

Spoiler

Show

Human (Medium)
Warlock 4
4d6+8 (24 HP avg.)
Init: +2
Speed: 30', swim 30'
Base Attack/Grapple: +3/+6
AC: 17 (+2 (DEX,) +5 (Studded Leather +2)) (Touch 12, FF 15)
Attacks: Unarmed Strike +6, 1d6+3 *2
Full Attack: Unarmed Strike +6, 1d6+3 *2
Space/Reach: 5'/5'
Special Attacks: Eldtrich Blast +6, 60' ranged touch, 2d6+1
Special Attacks: Brimstone Blast +6, 60' ranged touch, 2d6+1 fire damage, REF save DC 15 or catch fire for 1 round (2d6 additional damage)
Special Qualities: DR 1/cold iron, Detect Magic at will, Deceive Item
Abilities: 16 STR, 14 DEX, 14 CON, 12 INT, 12 WIS, 14 CHA
Skills: Athletics +10 (+16 for jump and climb, +18 for swim), Tumble +9 (+15), Search (cc) +5, Diplomacy +9, Spellcraft +8
Saving Throws: Fort +3, Ref +3, Will +5
Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike, Superior Unarmed Strike, Point Blank Shot
CR: 4
Swimming the Styx (Complete Mage, swim speed = to land speed, +8 to swim checks, can breathe underwater), Brimstone Blast (ComArc, EB becomes fire-elemental and ignites target) Leaps and Bounds (ComArc, +6 to Athletics and Tumble checks)

[Mono Vertigo]

I am very, very tempted to incorporate Nikola Tesla into a future campaign, just trying to figure out how exactly.
Every campaign needs a Tesla.