Hey, you made it! I’ve got the popcorn and the drinks, everything ready for the movie and video game night. I've checked the sofa …it was a mimic …was. Anyway, I've got some interesting stuff for us to watch and play and now should be able to see where I’m coming from in my campaign.Today's blogs going to be a little different from previous installments, in previous dungeon masters workshops I've talked in long rambling pro’s about a particular topic. However today we’ll be talking about three of my favorite but maybe unusual influences for Dungeons and dragons, or any RPG system. While Wizards of the Coast do publish a great reading list for dungeon masters and player alike to read, I'm hoping my three choices will give you something a little extra to add to your game that maybe you hadn’t thought of previously, so with any more rambling here we go.
A Knight’s Tale
The 2001 film from director Brian Helgeland, starring the late great Heath Ledger, is in my mind a masterful representation of what a DnD game could be. Three low level characters who serve a minor lord a flung into the situation of there master dying of distantly just before the last bout of a jousting tournament which he has all but won and decide to impersonate him by donning his armor and by the skin of their teeth managing to fool the aristocracy that is hosting the event and receive enough money to train the main fighter to become a good enough jouster to compete at a competent level . Along the way they pick the services of a gambling-addicted bard who manages to forge papers to say that the fighter is of minor aristocracy so that he may continue competing, which of course leads to hilarious situations with debt collectors , add in the addiction of fearsome young female blacksmith who wants to make her way in the world with a rivalry with a high born villain and a sweeping romance all times to 70’s and 80’s rock music and you have the premise of the film. It’s a great source of influence to me because it’s a constant stream of the characters having to combat a stream of combat, social and skill based encounters that while they may not always succeed they certainly deal with the consequences in creative ways that reminds me so much of a typical DnD party , the soundtrack to me shows how you can incorporate modern music in to the most commonly found medieval Europe typesetting in a flawless way that makes it feel epic for the characters . If nothing else the film is certainly worth a watch and I recommend both DM’s and players alike to watch it.
The Borderland games
Borderlands and Borderlands 2 is an open-world action role-playing first-person shooter video game that was developed by Gearbox Software for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows. The cartoon art style while being sharp and colorful in the first game is taken into overdrive in the second with vivid bright colors that fill the screen and give your eyes delight. However, the greatest thing about this game is the immersive, crazy, bombastic, delightfully psychotic world of Pandora that the game is based on. playing as a Vault hunter looking for a previous long thought to be dead civilizations cache’s of hyper-technology , you have to fight through not only the screwed up ecosystem of creatures that are continuously trying to kill your with increasing levels of deadliness and sadist mechanics , but the also various different weapons companies that inhabit this universe all racing against each other and the various different bands of clinically insane “native” psyhcos and different vault hunter bands. Mix this with perfect evil genius monologs, beautiful landscapes that hide how life-shortening they are, the Borderlands games are a great influence for DM’s to help flesh out their worlds with wastes lands and interesting NPC’s with great motives and interesting personalities.
Cluedo/Clue
First brought to our tables by the UK company Waddington and now owned and published by Hasbro, Cluedo/Clue is a master class in guesswork and deduction to find the murderer in a lordly manner from a select number of guests that are staying in the manner with you. Players must work their way around the board discovering clues to the room in which the murder took place, the implement that did it and the murderer in question, culminating in one player trying to guess who committed the murder. If you were looking for some inspiration for a mystery based adventure for your players at low levels, Cluedo is a good starting point. Many different suspects, combined with a large sprawling manner and a combination of varying murder weapons lead to a hundred of different possibilities for who did it, with what and where. Mixed with a healthy dose of social , exploration and maybe even a combat encounter at the end of the he investigation to comprehend the bad guy. Id recommend coming up with a good reason for why each suspect could have done the murder so that no one is totally innocent, reading Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, and Hercule Poirot novels can give you some sound ideas for suspects motives. The miss Marple novel “Murder in the Library” has many different TV versions, I personally recommend the 2004 version starring Geraldine McEwan in the title role, she is Miss Marple to me.
Thanks for reading guys I hope this has given you some more sources to take inspiration for your game from, and until next time guys.
Bye!
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