Favorite idea you ever stole.


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


Originality is overrated, I say. Stand atop the shoulders of greats and take the ideas of others even farther!

My favorite idea that I've stolen is from a post in another thread I started where someone explained a great way to run sandbox campaigns. Establish the existence of time and have 3 or 4 plotlines occurring simultaneously. Have each plot advance whether the PCs interact with it or not. An individual plotline could reach a critical point where the PCs have even more compelling reasons to resolve it. Or it could be resolved by other heroes who got there before you. Or whatever. Just seemed like a great way to maintain that openness of a sandbox, where players can go and do what they'd like, but add some urgency and verisimilitude that this is an actual world that moves without you.

What's your favorite idea that you've taken, perhaps reworked a little and added to your game? As a player or game master.


Fairly simple, but I was always a fan of the Dragoon from the Final Fantasy games. Homebrewed a class based on that, tried to keep really true to the games. Turned out pretty well I think. Though recently my friend showed me the 3pp Zephyrus and they did it way better, so...ya know...


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

That would have to be Goldar, from Power Rangers, for Star Wars Saga. I was SO pleased with how well the mechanics matched his abilities from the show.


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I once stole that ridiculous cornucopia-looking giant monster from the old 1960's Star Trek. The one that almost devoured the Enterprise. I enlarged it and made it eat the game world. My players and I had done all we wanted to do with that world - they had conquered it and ruled it as co-emperors and their characters were demigods with no challenges left, so they retired and we all agreed to retire the planet forever.


I use pop culture as references, deliberately to be corny, or sometimes I see a trope invoked and I can't help but poke it even harder.

Example: It paid off when I incorporated Candyland from Django Unchained to being "Sandyland" in Sandpoint to elaborate on the Deverin Estate when my players were investigating leads. Double points analoging the Halflings "working" on the plantation and that one of my players was African-American himself, and to the reaction dawning on his face as I described Kendra Deverin's "Halflingo" wrestling operation in the background. Glass bottles hurt, btw, but worth it.

I see a lot of builds online that are really powerful and I use them as inspirations. A lot of what they do isn't my playstyle but a lot of the combos/synergies they employ I adopt if I haven't seen 'em for how good they were before. Being honest, a lot of them went over my head ^_^.

Case in point abusing Wayang Spellhunter + Magical Lineage + Merciful Spell on Spiritual Weapon caused my DM fits to the point where he contacted Paizo about it, showed me the conversation, and I graciously demurred and employed a different strategy, but boy was he getting irritated at Level 6 when I had 7 of those bad boys whirring about me. Come to think about it, he never questioned or ruled that each hammer had a separate move action for me to employ. Usually I just assigned one to a new target and used the Move action to command the rest of the arsenal to pummel my primary foe.

If I never bothered to do online research, I never would have found that Errata-Nerfed bit of cheese.


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Played a character based on Bryon Orpheus from the Venture Bros. he had the voice and the list of titles and called the female party rogue 'Pumpkin' much to her chagrin. He was also a good necromancer.

Curse of the Crimson Throne Spoiler:
If I remember correctly he pulled the Throne out of Deck of Many things and became the new King of Varissia!

God I loved that character.


I incorporate too many ideas from culture, media, and elsewhere for me to pick just one to talk about, so here's a selection:

Most shameful: in one campaign world, I had tried the cartographic approach, that is to say drawing a map and deciding the rest based on it. On an Italy like peninsula, I had the city of Seacrest. I paused to watch The Soup and when I went back to the map, I decided that the mayor of Seacrest would be gnome named Ryan.

Media I've based game settings on (not counting officially licensed game versions): Final Fantasy, Fallout, Indiana Jones, Code Geass, Castlevania, Silent Hill, Dynasty Warriors, and Greek Myth (ala Xena or 300).

Media I've recreated ideas from into game elements: Final Fantasy, Elfin Lied, Gen 13, Bayonetta, mahou shoujo anime in general, Saga games, Venture Brothers, Soul Calibur, Alice in Wonderland, Touhou, Nausicaa, Shadow Hearts, and Wolf's Rain.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

I ran a campaign where the big treasure in the treasure chest ended up being a sleeping girl, just like in Firefly. She was an aasimar healer.

I think I used my actual Star Wars name for my PC in a d6 Star Wars game.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
The Sword wrote:

Played a character based on Bryon Orpheus from the Venture Bros.

...

God I loved that character.

Haha, me too!

I also did Brock Samson.


Lol, I've never been able to make a character who did Brock Samson justice. Then again we start at level 1 generally and it just didn't seem right.

Edit: 263 hp and DR 5 - yep that sounds about right! Lol

Silver Crusade

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I incorporated the Fae Courts as written in the Dresden Files, going so far as to straight up crib lines because they are too awesome not to. "What value has life when it is so easily kept?"

Other stuff too, but not time to write more on my dying phone.


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The shape of my world's continents is lifted directly from Dragon Quest 8.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

I "borrowed" the Holy Family idea from The Paladin of Chalion and God's Brother from The Night's Dawn Trilogy. I often use morality based on Terre D'Ange, but fade to black when it's appropriate...


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I often "borrow" from Michael Moorcock - the whole Eternal Champion mythos.

And then there's Monty Python. I once ran a campaign where the players wound up on this island nation and were insulted by some French soldiers, could only travel by knocking two halves of coconuts together, and had to face the terrifying Vorpal Bunny!


Usually I don't take full on cultural concepts, but instead have incorporated tips and little moments from things like Counter Monkey and Critical Role. The way that Matt Mercer immerses and helps his players create characters, and also in Counter Monkey in regards to dragons and making sure to make encounters special, even if they may in the end be way lower then a party would think. I got an entire party to become exceptionally paranoid and take 1 hour and 10 minutes to kill 3 bugbears, all because I just made them sound menacing, and they did stealth and used darkness like Bugbears are supposed to in the book. Took forever for the party to want to enter the room they were in, though once inside the barbarian took care of them with little effort.

In terms of settings I sometimes take things from Lovecraft in regards to intrigue and giving away information, or take from older editions of DND and fantasy novels to emphasize tiny moments to the party.


This was.

Sovereign Court

I read on a board somewhere (back in 3.5) the tip that you have the players pick the direction they want to go (in the campaign - not physical) at the END of a session - not the beginning. This gives you time to actually plan out the next session based upon the player choices.


When I write adventures, I usually take one fantasy idea and one non-fantasy idea (usually mystery/crime/espionage) and ram them together. The end product is often unrecognizable. For example:

  • The Skinsaw Murders (from Rise of the Runelords) + Lee Child's Jack Reacher thriller The Enemy (don't ask!)
  • Manley Wade Wellman's The Old Gods Waken + John D. MacDonald's Darker Than Amber and Pale Gray for Guilt.
  • Jack Vance's The Face + James Clavell's Tai-Pan.
  • (etc.)

    Aside from those already listed, Alistair MacLean's novels and various James Bond movies are always good for inspiration.

  • RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

    Wasn't face important in Tai-Pan? That was the 19th century Hong Kong novel, right? Noble House was the 20th century one, right?


    SmiloDan wrote:
    Wasn't face important in Tai-Pan? That was the 19th century Hong Kong novel, right? Noble House was the 20th century one, right?

    Yup. But The Face isn't about that kind of face.

    Likewise, the mash-up I did between the movies American Werewolf in Paris and The World is Not Enough wasn't what you'd think.

    Dark Archive

    Internet.

    RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

    Kirth Gersen wrote:
    SmiloDan wrote:
    Wasn't face important in Tai-Pan? That was the 19th century Hong Kong novel, right? Noble House was the 20th century one, right?

    Yup. But The Face isn't about that kind of face.

    Likewise, the mash-up I did between the movies American Werewolf in Paris and The World is Not Enough wasn't what you'd think.

    That's good. My Gobots/Transformers mashup was NOT a success.... ;-)


    I borrowed the basic concept of Eberron, but more alchemically focused and with Sixties social strife and cultural revolution in place of Forties noir.

    RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

    That's actually 1920-1930's noir;)

    ==Aelryinth


    Point taken.


    Several, but I want to double down on the mish mash idea but add an eco-friendly angle:

    Jerimond's Orb with Zombies, Mummy 2 midget zombies, killer chihuahuas and mutants. On different runnings of course.

    You Only Live Twice (Bond) with Elves eventually saving the day. Then retreaded into a western heavily troped by Gunga Din and Sergeants Three. Shamefully using the same cheat sheets!

    Sunken Citadel map and premise for Troglodites in 3.5 and Cthulhu wannabees in a Stalking the Night Fantastic game, actually run concurrently. Both segwayed into Kershen's Garden (lots of sp).

    RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

    Had a DM use a Dweller's of the Forbidden City map for a Warhammer game. Did well with it.

    ==Aelryinth


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    I've borrowed lots from real life history. Remember all that racist crap about slavery being good for black people because they are so tribalistic and lazy that they'd be primitive savages without it? Well, the standard fantasy stereotype of Dwarves is the exact same concept in my world. Mining with pre-industrial technology is dirty, dangerous, miserable, exhausting, and terrifying work, and Dwarves didn't actually like it more than any other race. They were slaves, however, so they didn't really have a choice in the matter, and other races went around extolling how much Dwarves love being miners, doing hard work all the time, and living underground in an attempt to justify the evils of slavery to themselves. Mix this with "Dwarves are a bunch of lewd, boisterous, violent alcoholic ruffians with no work ethic or social intelligence, and any Dwarven society will fall into squalor and clannish barbarism if nobody better is there to direct them in life", and people get around to thinking Dwarves are happier in slavery, what with people to keep their negative impulses in check and direct them to meaningful work in life. Of course, this is a bunch of extremely bigoted crap, just like the whole "The Negro is happier in slavery and it is their natural condition" thing was a load of extremely bigoted crap. The era of slavery is over in my setting, but just like the real world, the after effects run deep, and Dwarves are certainly not equal in society. We don't have a Jim Crow analog, but there is a ton of institutional racism. And something like Diggy Diggy Hole would be seen as a racist caricature on the level of a blackface minstrel show.

    I also borrowed from the Mamluks for my Orcs. Essentially, Orcs were slaves at the same time as Dwarves, but were significantly higher ranking, and correspondingly better treated. Orcs were warrior slaves, just like the Mamluks, and despite being slaves, their social status and standard of living was higher than that of most free people. They would view themselves accordingly, and therefore tended to be fairly loyal as long as they received the relatively high standard of living they expected. As warriors, they formed a highly trained heavy cavalry and infantry elite, broadly similar in armament and training to a knight, excepting the lack of land or tenants of their own. The stereotype of Orcs as being stupid or savage isn't much of a thing unless you are talking to a Dwarf. They are stereotyped as violent, given their militaristic roots, but they tended to be well educated on manners relating to warfare, and could be quite effective strategists. Slave overseers were typically Orcs, but that isn't a warrior's job, and you wouldn't pay the very high price of an Orcish warrior for that duty. Nowhere near economical. Orcish slave overseers were the Orcs who just weren't good enough to train as warriors. Naturally, they were much cheaper. And all the other Orcs hated them. Cowards, morons, and weaklings. Of course, taking someone constantly pushed around and called useless and putting them in charge of the only people worth less than them is a recipe for constant abuse of power. Beatings were extremely common, punishment was an excessive as it was petty, and a lot of the violence of mine life was a means of asserting control over an incredibly depressing existence. Slave overseers and pillaging captured cities are the origins of the whole "Half-Orcs children of rape" thing (Another very offensive stereotype in the modern day. The slave overseer part has a lot more truth than the pillaging part, though. Orcish warriors were expected to be highly trained professionals, while wild looting would be seen as the province of the common soldiers. That's not to say that Orcish warriors weren't raping people after a settlement was taken, it just wasn't near as widespread as the stereotype suggests. A lot of Orcish slave overseers were raping slaves left and right, however, so that part is much more accurate.), and modern Dwarven bloodlines do usually contain at least some Orcish blood. There are still Dwarves who hold this against Orcs, even with all the slave overseers long dead of old age. The "Orcs are barbaric monsters" stereotype is a direct result of the behavior of slave overseers, and is seen by other races as a rather Dwarven thing to believe. That kind of cultural memory runs deep.

    Shadow Lodge

    RL bullying and witch burning in a pfs game. Kids were playing "Crusaders and Pathfinders" (In Mendev, and Pathfinders are "known" to consort with Demons). The tiefling girl always gets to be the Pathfinder. When they capture her, they burn her at the stake because the other kids think its awesome that she doesn't burn (fire resistance).

    Her response, "at least they include me."

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