Episode 141: Heiresses Who Are Not What They Seem

Role-playing games Improvised Radio Theatre with Dice
1

This month, Mike and Roger consider how to steal material for RPGs, and work out an example.

We mentioned:

TEETH at the Bundle of Holding (until 11 November), Unknown Armies 3rd edition (you’ve already missed it but we thought it worth mentioning anyway), Ars Magica 5e (until 15 November), Monster of the Week (until 15 November), Trail of Cthulhu 2nd Edition (until 8 November). The Lunar Society, Erasmus Darwin, and The Dracula Dossier (until 13 November).

We also talked about GURPS: Adaptations, TV Tropes, Starship Troopers, Halloween, The War of the Worlds, The Forever War, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Firefly, An Adventure in Space and Time, Vorkosigan Saga, Stargate SG-1, Doc Savage, Doctor Who, (Mike was trying to remember the Paternoster Gang), CSI, Prime Time Adventures. GURPS Mysteries, Ribbon pf Memes (the relevant episode won’t be up until mid-month), John Oldcastle, Sir John Falstaff, and The Gunpowder Plot.

Here’s our tip jar. (Please email or leave a comment as well; they don’t always tell me when money’s gone in.)

4 Likes
2

A very timely episode - I’m just finishing up a series which isn’t life-changing, but has some nice occult bits that I was already thinking of stealing (or at least encouraging Roger to steal).

On LOTR, this reminds me that friend-of-the-me Arthur was in a LARP whose premise was being non-adventuring hobbits having feasts and doing very small-scale things. It sounded like they had a lot of fun with it.

1 Like
3

Series now finished; I cannot recommend it, the last book in particular having apparently dispensed with an editor and possibly been written by two or three different people with entirely different authorial voices, but I may be being unkind. Still, the religious occult magic was stealably sinister.

1 Like
4

My wife recalls a book with five credited authors for which the informal critical consensus was that they’d probably written a word each in rotation.

2 Likes
5

I find I can’t get much gaming use out of a good novel (which would be potentially spoilery anyway) as much of the value is in the interiority, characterization and theme. Those are all things we expect the players to bring to the table. On the other hand, trashy plot-driven stories which are lacking in depth and literary value are absolutely perfect for adapting as scenarios because the plot (which is usually a MacGuffin for the player-characters to react against imo) is all you need.

5 Likes
6

The settings I’ve always wanted to run as an RPG campaign but never quite got around to are:
(1) The BBC science fiction TV series Star Cops.
(2) The BBC science fiction TV series Outcasts.
(3) The BBC science fiction TV series Blake’s 7.

Er… I can see a theme developing there…

I’ve toyed with doing a Dragonriders of Pern game too. But I’m not sure that would work unless the players had read at least the first two trilogies and ‘get’ how Pern’s weird Hall/Hold/Weyr societal divisions work.

2 Likes
7

I would definitely be up for Star Cops. I think my favourite space settings are the “just barely” ones, where going somewhere is a major undertaking and anything you can’t fix on your own ship has a fair chance of killing you, never mind what the oposition may get up to.

2 Likes
8

I realised that Arthur’s blog talked about the LARP I mentioned: We Don’t Want Any Adventures Here, Thank You! – Refereeing and Reflection

1 Like