I've had numerous poor farming famiies/refugees who've all shared the last name "Joad." This one I still use.
One of my favorite PCs was a 2nd edition Ranger vampire hunter named Redrick Batsbane, modeled after a long line of whip-weilding vampire hunters.
In 8th grade, I had a "Joker" NPC, modeled after Burton's Batman, complete with acid squirting flower, 6' barrel revolver, shocking grasp joy buzzer, feather javelins, and crazy clown clothing with very low AC.
Sometime in high school, I made a poison-stingered Mechanical Hound based on Bradbury's 451. He was a TPK.
And Godzilla.
Taht's all I can remember right now.
*edit* Oh yeah, I also ran a long term campaign using Kurt Vonnegut's "Sirens of Titan" as the inspiration, using a time-fluxed teifling ranger complete with dog companion to serve as teh party's "dungeon master."
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I have used Thoth-Amon, Wizard/Cleric and the follower to the Snake God Set, in Robert E. Howards Conan novels as well as both the godless Necromancer and the assassin found in the novel, "Conan & the Grim Grey God," written by Sean A. Moore. By the way Sean(if you're reading this), the idea of how the Necromancer became immortal was genius. Well done! I am currently running an extremely high level campaign and plan to encorporate that idea. My 2 cents.
Thoth-Amon the Altantian Mindflayerian
All of the characters in my campaign are fictional.
I Love the computer version of Halo: Combat Evolded so I use Capten keys and others plus the ships named The Piller of Autom that the PC's were on and the Truth and Reconsiliation as the pirit ship they were hunting in the Ebberon campain.
What haven't we used? Let see, We have dozens of characters based on comic book characters (Spawn, The Darkness, Witchblade,almost everthing X-men and Deadpool. Tiger Lilly even used the CrossGen Comic the First as a basis for a Pantheon), I've used Elric as an NPC, The Cenobites from the Hellraiser series as Lords of The Abyss (Including the idea of the Abyss being and endless maze). Predators and Aliens, Mortal Kombat characters... god I can't even remember all of them over the years. I had one player that did up a Sith Lord. Pretty much anything that We could come up with we would convert it into stats and run with it. Though we tried to stick to more serious stuff, not so much comedy. Not to mention characters converting characters from the Forgotten Realms books like Drizz't Do'Urden, Artemis Enterie, Elaith Craulnober, Arilyn Moonblade and Danilo Thann, and Minsc and Boo (Ranger and his miniature Giant Space Hamster from the Baldur's Gate PC Video Game). We've pretty much let our players runamuck. It has created some really interesting stories, and it has been interesting to see the characters evolve away from their original story and context. Also using outside sources like this has helped to not only keep new fresh ideas flowing into the game, but has helped me to develope villains that can keep up with the high level campaigns that I run.
PCs I have:
Liriel Baenre(Starlight and Shadows book series: Elaine Cunningham)
Thorn and Sharlarra (Starlight and Shadows, Book III)
Arilyn Moonblade (Elaine Cunningham)
Suture: Curse of the Spawn (Comic- Image)
Caprice: sub-character (changed spelling of her name) in vol 1 of Darkness (Comic- Top Cow)
Feena of Archwood (Werewolf from the new "Priests" book series. Don't remember the author, and we loaned it to somebody... we're also running with the "New Moon Pact" thing as a story line)
Azariah Craulnober: Elaine Cunningham (pretty much in name and family only... drastically changed her personality)
Red Lotus: video game- Deathtrap Dungeon (PS1)
Now here's a twist: For people familiar with Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series (the real story... not that tripe SciFi put on)... I did a character who was a dragon, polymorphed into human shape by a wizard as a hatchling and raised as a human via strong spell enchantments, who doesn't realize she's a dragon until she's an adult. As part of her background, I had that she tried studying magic on Roke Island, but was rebuffed due to her gender. Yet, one of the masters takes her in and trains her. When he dies, she's booted out and her adventuring life (as well as her learning what she really is) begins. Her name was Arian. That was about 10 years ago.
A few years ago, I see a collection of new Earthsea short stories, so I grab it up and start reading. There's a female character, named Irian, who is human but also dragon (she doesn't learn that part until the end of the story), that goes to Roke Island to learn but is rebuffed by the masters due to her gender, and then taken in by one of the masters acting without the consent of the others.
When I know a fantasy world so well that I start thinking along the same lines as the creator in terms of storyline, I'll consider it a compliment! :)
Baralie-FF x-2
Malganis-Warcraft 3
thats it, oh wait! Bigby and all those mages
Xena and Gabby once did a cameo. No subtext, but Xena did let her chakram fly. Exotic Weapon Proficiency, indeed.
The pro wrestler The Undertaker often appears in a friend's game as a bodyguard. Whether a pro wrestler counts as a "fictional" character is open to interpretation, I suppose.
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What fictional characters have you thrown at players or encountered as a player?
Actually, Lumberg, I've used you as an officious beaurocrat to stymie character's progress in Dyvers ("Mmmmm-kay. Yeah, that's great. But I'm afraid you're going to have to submit a TPC parchment with that request. I'll have a scribe get you a copy of that parchment.")....almost had a player punch me.
Other fictional characters...
Wupatki the Grim... a half-orc ranger based on Clint Eastwood's High Plains Drifter.
A crusty pair of rangers modeled after Gus McCray and Woodrow Call from Lonesome Dove.
Several covert or overt lifts of characters from HP Lovecraft, August Dereleth, and Ramsey Campbell.
A Thri-Kreen who could not have been more Tars Tarkas if you sicked a calot on him.
The Phantom of the Opera.
A wizard-huxter phrenologist based on the Music Man.
Real Life characters I've used
Daladoga... a half-orc former bandit turned gladiator champion, turned rebel leader a la Sparticus.
In my DeadLands campaign (western horror), I used several real life characters in cameos including Nicola Tesla, Felicie Arnauld (a French Opera diva from the latter 1800s), Alexander Culberson (the cheif trader of the American Fur Company) and his wife Natawista, William Henry Jackson (an pioneering photographer of the wild American West), naturalist John Gould, and several of the founding fathers of Wichita, Kansas.
All of the characters in my campaign are fictional.
Funny - I have found the same is true of my campaign as well.
My old Top Secret campaign that I ran in the '80's was the pinnacle of parachute-pant cheesiness:
Tubbs and Crockett from Miami Vice were recurring NPCs.
"You hear the throaty growl of a Ferrari in the distance..."
There were chameo appearances by:
The A-Team "I pity the fool who runs this lame-ass game"
McGyver "If this was d20, I would have been my own prestige class"
Freddy & Jason (they were actually kind of scary, unlike the movies)
and wait for it....
Bond, James Bond "I can shoot the nuts off a fly at 100 yards with this PPK"
---Pass me the Jan Hammer CD please, I gotta put on same campaign theme music---
Well aside from the comic book superhero games I've run (set in the DC universe but with lots things "borrowed" from the Marvel Universe (i.e. the Marauders) and from Doctor Who) and the stuff I steal from Dungeon like five chapters of the previous Adventure Path. I've had the following other characters show up from time to time.
In a Mage technocracy/Bond-style pick-up game we occasionally play (and that I've run at GenCon) I've used slightly augmented versions of the guy with the monofiliment thumb garrot from "Johnny Nmemonic", and the assassin who left dove pins behind on his victims in "For Your Eyes Only". And yes we did play it with both my instrumental and theme CDs playing in the background, and there was a ski chase with guys (formori) in orange jumpsuits with machineguns, and I did "borrow" the openning from "Living Daylights".
In my D&D campign we had a retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear involving the return of Shub-Niggurath.
There's lots more, those are just the ones that stand out right now. I don't think a DM (or as some of you "Party of the Poopers" might want me to refer to them: the Party of the First Part) can avoid stea- "borrowing" from his or her favorite works of fiction contrived by someone other than the Party of the First Part themself. Orf wif e's ead!
Hmm. I'm typing this in my legal briefs.
GGG
Oh yeah, and "real-life" Allen Funt, the Road Runner and Wiley Coyote showed up in a game I had set in Hell. Much scarier than any old cenobyte!
I think I may have killed Pauly Shore in a few games and various other shreiking geek "comedians/actors". Also included: Most of Adam Sandler, and Ben Stiller as well as early Jim Carrey. "Just not my sort of humor." so sayth my butt.
The Home Shopping Network/CVC was an evil alien front, but I really don't see how that deviates from the truth.
The staff at the Gen Con White Wolf booth (back in the 90's) proved to be among the only non-supernatuals at the Con when the Technocracy agents made a sweep of the place to find their quarry.
Artist Tim Bradstreet can see ghosts and people with obfuscate up. He shows up to occasionally out hidden people.
GGG
Waldo, from wheres waldo. No, we weren't looking for him. That was an abberant campaign.
Pikel and his brother from the Salvatore books. Came across them around Mithril Hall. If I ever get around to D20 modern I'm going to do a Dark Tower campaign, featuring Roland Deschain of Gilead.
One of the players in my campaign ran a homemade Gunslinger based off the Dark Tower series, he made him Roland's long lost brother. I've thrown in appearances of Elminster, Drizzt, Jarlaxle (spelling?), and Cadderly from the FR books. Ran a drow once with ties to House Baenre in Menzoberranzan. I've been trying to put together a Seeker of Truth from prestige class from Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth novels.
A bit from my Hoarde
Lets see... Not much, seeing as my PCs tradionally go crazy if they see or hear about something in-game that was in a movie or another novel. But, besides that fact, I do recalling putting in a shifter who was somewhat like Birch from Marked for Death. (or maybe I just considered it. Who knows.)
WaterdhavianFlapjack
A long time ago during my first Edition daze, our group had a surprise visit from Elric & Jhery (or however Moorcock spells it). They showed up when we were in a tight spot, swallowed some souls and hit the road. It was a mistake on the DM's part (not me BTW) as all the players asked about for the next year or so was how they could get thier hands on a rune sword (fools). He finally aquiessed and doled out Stormbriger's twin (can't remember the sword's name - too long ago). That was pretty much the end of the party as issues of possession and bloodthirst eventually whiddled us away (nasty cursed swords).
Cheers,
C.
I tend to use already existing characters from movies and TV shows so I can remember how each and every one of them can react. Often though, my players are unaware that I'm doing this, either because I somewhat change the names or looks of the character. Examples :
I had two young NPC elves named Billington S. Preston Esquire and Theodore Logan (Bill & Ted).
There was an entire village peppered with the entire cast of Gilligan's Island. I used the actors real first names (Bob, Alan, Dawn, Tina...), but they acted like the characters from the show. My players NEVER found out.
On a Thyatian Navy Seaship, I had the entire marine team from Aliens as the crew (Hudson as a sniveling halfling, Apone as the gritty first officer, Vasquez as a female half-orc, Burke as an evil scribe... I even had a Golem named Bishop!). Of course, they were adapted with swords and crossbows.
Once, my players were on the Isle of Dread and found a village. Sure enough, the village mistress was non other that Ung-Fu-Fu (from Eddie Murphie's Raw). All of my players then were french, so they've never seen Eddie Murphie's stad-up routines. One of them saw the show about eight years later and laughed his head off when he heard the name Ung-Fu-Fu.
The real trick is using subtility. If the players don't notice you're using the cast of Gilligan's Island, than it doesn't look too corny, and you don't have to remember the thousands of quirks of your NPCs.
Ultradan
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Oops, remembered another one...
I used President Johny Cyclops from Whoops Apocolypse! in a darkly humorous Call of Cthulhu campaign. He was secretly ushering in a Mi-Go invasion screened by his campaign for re-election. His re-election slogan..."Cyclops: One Vision!"
"If the Lord had meant us not to panic, He wouldn't have given us clean underwear!"
Oh, and I also had Mr. Creozote from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life appear in one of my games...
(By the way, why has this thread moved to the archives?)
Ultradan