ok so i am currently working on a scenario inspired by the game/movie silent hill

has anyone else created a scenario inspired by a movie/game?????

My version of Sinophia, and more specifically a city called Thebes, was heavily inspiered by Repo: The Genetic Opera. Another time, I did a retelling of Apocalyps Now in the wilds of Scintilla. The Time Tombs from the Hyperion books will be making a modified entrance into my RT campaign and The Exorcist helped form the groups former Inquisitor. Other then that, I tend to barrow and steel inspiration from a verity of sources continuously mixing them in with bits and pieces of one anouther making it really hard to name a specific instance. Piles of Lovecraft creep in everywhere with judicious use of BPRD as an idea springboard (which in turn was inspiered by Lovecraft, so, double LP there), and countless movies, books, comics, and you name it. Ideas come from all places.

I'm currently running an epic campaign (as in, the party have received about a third of their total career's XP during this campaign that is still going since midway last year with very little sign of slowing) based on The Fifth Element, if it helps.

I don't like to steal movie plots because chances are my players have seen it and the story will be too recognizable. I do, however, steal npcs from movies, games and books - changing the names and a few details, of course, but keeping the best parts for myself. And if players do recognize the sources they tend to be more amused and impressed than put off, so it has worked so far.

I didn't steal any plots, nor did I intend to, but I did very strongly cast my NPCs and give them hints of the characters the actors I had cast as 'playing' them had played before.

Here's the description I did for Captain Caleb Martel, an NPC I made up as the leader of the Ordo Hereticus's contingent of Stormtroopers: "The Captain is a square-jawed man with dark brown hair and hard eyes with just a hint of mischief in them, seemingly in his late thirties, with an oddly-designed autopistol and a power sword, both well-worn and well-maintained."

For those who haven't already gotten it from the description and guessing based on the name, I cast Captain Martel as being played by Nathan Fillion. One of the things that made naming my NPCs a bit easier (something I've always had problems with) was finding the actor I'd cast as them on IMDB and combining the first name of one character they'd played and the last name of another, and sometimes modifying them. For instance, Caleb is the name of the character Fillion played in Buffy, and Martel is French for Hammer (as in Captain Hammer).

Of course, I very much decided to throw a bit of Ciaphas Cain style lightness into the GRIMDARK! RAAAR! of the setting.

The trick with movie plots is to take them as a starting point. Sure players may recognize the plot, but if you have a few twists they will be kept guessing.

Dalnor Surloc said:

Indeed, and this is especially true with the 40k universe. Anything that is imported has to be converted over, 40ked. Theirs a wonderful kind of joy that comes in seeing what the end product is like after you've pumped everything in the source material up to absurd levels and coated it in a thick mix of spikes, skulls, and a psychotic disregard for human life and common sense. The end product often times ends up being something very different from the source in interestingly absurd ways and that's before deliberate tampering on the GMs part. They become more bizarre re-imaginings as opposed to simple retelling.

I wrote a murder mystery on a small shrine world heavily inspired by the movie (er... and BOOK) "The Name of the Rose", by Umberto Eco. Heresy, end of the world scenerios, forbidden love (and LORES, hidden in a secret library).

Pretty good movie for that sort of thing.

Lyinar said:

Fillion would make a great Cain.

Midnight Meat Train would also be an interesting idea for a sinister mutant or daemonic cult. In fact a lot of Clive Barker could be great ideas. Cabal (Night breed is a poor adaptation) for example.

Take out the hippie-dippy bits in the original Wicker Man.

Rashid ad Din Sinan said:

I watched Midnight Meat Train yesterday actualy, one of the first things which come to my mind after seeing it was quite intresting variation on Murder Room

1. Apocalypse Now seems to be a favourite movie to imagine transplanted to 40K. I've toyed with the idea of the Acolytes being sent Ganf Magna to deal with a heretic general who's vanished into the forests with a now unified warband of insane humans and Orks. If only to have an Ork (after the Acolytes have confronted said heretic general), say "Mistah Kurtz, he dead".

2. The very first adventure I've DMed was an adaptation of a graphic novel "The Chuckling Whatsit" by Richard Sala, spliced with DotDG's Murder Room. It worked surprisingly well.