Political media and dramas! Players are good at (but don't mind it by any means, in my experience) spotting fantasy media. But key NPC relationships, secrets, and motivations coming from non-fantasy sources and then slapping a fantasy skin on it has been so rewarding in my current homebrew campaign (session 8 last Thursday and had a long fight where everyone was shocked it took 2 hours because it felt like 15 minutes from the stakes and then when getting clues to the next parts of the quest one of my players had a, "HEY, YEAH, *I* KNOW THAT GUY!!!! OMG, SO COOL!!!" moment, which was all I ever wanted from this campaign.) "That Guy" is basically a kitsmash of Tom Duffy from "Ides of March" and Conrad Brean from "Wag the Dog".
Totally agree! I don't think anyone has noticed that I particularly love borrowing from historical dramas yet because I don't think they'd ever think to look for it! 😂
It's funny to me that you called out Soylent Green in the video, because I used that in a previous campaign in this exact way. The players were in a city of free-willed (mostly good/neutral) undead, and the main food source for the population was provided from large spigots in the common areas of town, and was called "earthblood." I described it as being kinda an oatmeal/grits consistency, mostly green, but smelling and tasting a lot like meat. They ate it a few times while exploring the town and doing things, both to be courteous to their hosts, and to save rations because the area outside the city was a rough environment to find food when they continued traveling. A few sessions later, while working their way through the dungeon that was the centerpiece of that adventure, they stumbled onto a boss fight that was vaguely reminiscent of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors: a giant, carnivorous plant with a bunch of vats surrounding it. After defeating the plant, they started inspecting the room throughly. The vats were full of humanoid corpses, which were being eaten and decomposed by the plant, producing the earthblood they'd eaten over the previous days. The look of horror on their faces when they realized was delightful.
Great video! One of my favorite ways to kitbash is to load up a randomizer which will give me two movies, and then I need to try and fuse the plots of those two movies together into a TTRPG adventure.
Great advice Stephanie! -Monsters I love using the Monster Overhaul to shake up ordinary monsters. -Dungeons / dressing, I use Knave 2. -Worldbuilding I break out Worlds Beyond Number! There's so many great resources out there to "borrow" from.
I 100% transposed the Vallian language/culture from the Pillars of Eternity videogames into my current game, for a deep faction of merchant-centric government. Thanks to the outputs of a few UA-camrs I cobbled together enough monsters, locations and NPCs to leave me with a manageable amount of layout needed for my South Carolina-sized island setting. I owe a good amount of vibes for my campaign to some choice pieces of music as well.
You made a video that describes how I make game worlds. Good to see some more confirmation that my friends and I are not the only ones, to which I don't see in the UA-cam space very often.
Yep, absolutely. When you have not that much time to create a world and campaign like me better 'kitbash' (great new word I learned). I am DMing for over 40 years and it took me a long time to learn that. I use the World of Greyhawk, some old modules and write a story around it, using Lovecraftian ideas and NPCs from films, later adapting it to my players on the run. Great video, Stephanie.
Great advice! You're cooking, Stephanie! This kind of kitbashing is how a lot of Hollywood pitch meetings go down: "Star Wars but Han Solo is the main character" for Guardians of the Galaxy, or as many know it: "It's BLANK meets BLANK!" bam, a new(ish) idea to present to your players. And when you present it through the lens of your own creativity and your own sensibilities, you're doing something original! Oh and I lift entire casts all the time, it's such a quick way to create verisimilitude especially for side-characters. The players will feel like these (stolen) characters have an entirely unique dynamic between themselves and like they're real people with their own stories and drama!
Fantastic video, and this is a super helpful tip you provided! Damnation City was a supplement for one of White Wolf's Vampire editions that I thought brought a great level of grittiness and practicality to the game, but the second half basically functions as a conceptually simple city generator that builds neighborhoods, locations, and NPC, each of which have their own plot hooks. I used this to fill out a random city in the Forgotten Realms that became a D&D game...that used the Fate Core rules instead of the D&D rules. The players made some fantastic stories, such as the barbarian that decided to kamikaze an enemy in a social encounter at a fancy party by drinking some salt water to induce vomiting.
I've done this for years and still do. However I've also discovered the joy of making completely scratch built worlds for whatever campaign I'm running. The key, as you stated, is in not overdoing it. Great video!
Excellent video! I used to do this when we played as kids in the 80s. All my NPCs were from obscure fantasy novels which made their names easy to remember but not many other people knew who they were. Like Frodo and Gandalf.
@ Oh did you haha xD I feel that! It was the one of you in the centre (full body), blue background, white text around you and then lots of little bits of things around the boarder
Funny, I just based my homebrew that had just finished a 100 year war, and there's five different factions that fought in it. And the PCs are basically the 'rising heroes' after everyone died in the war etc. Its Eberron x Magic the Gathering x Avatar the Last Airbender x Game of Thrones for one of the 'undead' nightwatch faction etc. Looks unique because of all of the parts combined. Even had a race recently based off Dandadan Turbo Granny scene. And have an anti gravity trap at the end of the "Wicked" tunnel. Its pretty hilarious to me what you can do just pulling random references like this or re-using things for theme. Small sidenote. The author of Dandadan had writers block and his buddy told him to read 100 romance novels instead of 'putting himself out there' to create his current teen school x alien x shonen manga... its hilarious to me.
Ooooh I love this! And I didn't know that about Dandadan! 😂 That makes so much more sense, he definitely nailed the whole crush will-they-wont-they thing!
This video is great and I adore ideas like this! I'd love to see you DO this in a future video - build us a unique campaign and walk us through how you did it, which sources you used to build it (yes, I know you did this already in this video, but I'd be thrilled to have a slew of examples). Love your videos!!!
@@StephaniePlaysGames Absolutely. I'm saying so specifically for the UA-cam algorithm to know how much I like your videos so maybe it helps your channel a little bit (Thanks for the reminder, Professor DM!). I mean it though - you're doing it right and your content rules. Keep up the great work!
I love the idea of kit-bashing different things together into my own campaign setting. My main inspirations come from Greek, Norse, and Celtic mythology and Folklore. I also use things from D&D and Pathfinder source books. I had not thought of using other TTRPGS. Changeling the Lost sounds like a fun one.
My new D&D setting is basically this. I can't do maps so I took Ansalon, the Dragonlance continent, flipped it upside down and left to right. It's recognisable if you knew it but otherwise it looks unique. Also, I've been influenced by Arcane and subsequently League of Legends lore. I've taken some of that and tweaked it. I've taken ideas from StarGate, Middle Earth, Lovecraft, Jurassic Park and so much more. The other thing I have done is only focus on those areas that the first campaign is taking part it. I'll flesh out the rest of the world as and when I run a campaign in that area or we come up with something cool during play that I can add in.
Love the video!! I am working on a fairytale world (because me and all my players love disney movies haha). So i'm actually kitbashing disney movies with Grimm's tellings and dreamworks etc.
The show that has singlehandedly inspired the most things in my campaign is the Magicians based on the book series by Lev Grossman. Not necessarily stolen directly (except one of the professors because he's a cool NPC to have), but it's just got this vibe I like that really inspired some creativity. Other than that, the Malazan book of the Fallen series, it's really long and FULL of worldbuilding and cool NPCs and villains. Arcane is also a good source, though that's so popular you can't really directly steal, the character work in the show can really teach you some things about deep characterization! I read a lot of fantasy, so not everything is from these three things, but if you just merged them you'd get something really close to what I run.
Oh man, a Magicians inspired campaign would be a dream to play in! I'm definitely a big fan of Arcane, but I'm unfamiliar with the Fallen, I'll have to check that series out! 👀
Great video. When I started my campaign, I straight told my players I used core ideas from A and B settings and swiped flavor ideas from XY and Z settings. They were all like,'Cool ideas, let's go.'
Yeah! I definitely do this too, I think letting them know some of your inspirations can really help them make more interesting characters for the campaign!
I’m currently adapting a Conan story for the next session I’m running with my players, and I’m borrowing the map from the old Constantinople palace. I’m borrowing a city map of Mdina, Malta for another game I’m prepping. Comics can be good, too. I’d borrowed the premise of the comic Earthbound by Narwhal for a one-shot a couple years back, and it was great. I took inspiration from the Fire Emblem coliseum for a game a ran a couple times recently, big success. I love the examples and explanations you give here and am a big fan of “kit bashing” my RPGs !
absolutely loved this video!!! will be using this myself as i've just started a campaign and really needed some advice like this for my worldbuilding as i myself was approaching the burn out referenced at the start and now feel like i've dodged a bullet haha
I don't see why more DMs don't do this, but just tell your players your inspirations! If they know what pieces of media you are drawing upon before they sign up for your game, they can look up those things and get a sense for if they think they'll be interested in the game and be able to make a character that seems like it'll fit into a setting like that. I do recommend checking Common Sense Media and including the age ratings if you make a document with this on it like I have. If you are a player, please ask your DM about their inspirations, you might just get told about some cool new piece of media! And if not, your game will be better because you can fit your character to the tone they want
Oh I definitely do this! I should probably make a video on it, but I usually do a Sly Flourish style one page and include a mood board of images and an inspiration list so that they can really be dialed in to what I'm looking to run. These are great tips! 😊
I often lift things and reference other stories when building stuff. The thing I’ve found works really well for people who complain about ideas being lifted is to simply asked them if they would be interested in running the game instead. 🤷♂️
Danggg I can't imagine having PLAYERS be weird about it! I only have internet trolls that are weird about things 😂 That is absolutely the right response, because I can't imagine they have that much DMing experience if they think there's a problem with it!
For me, the purpose of worldbuilding is so that I feel comfortable improvising in it. Most people wouldn't need to do as much as I do, particularly newer DMs. The tropes of medieval Europe based fantasy are so well known, that one could generally wing it with no downside. I'm aiming for something different though, which includes a large number of widely variant cultures thrown together. And if I want each one to feel distinct, I need to do my homework. Plus worldbuilding is fun.
I agree with your suggestion of borrowing from other sources. For those interested in non-fiction, I'd recommend _Montaillou: Promised Land of Error_ by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, which is one of the few books about relationships in a small medieval village drawn from frist hand sources, in this case the records of interviews by the Albigensian Inquisition. I'm currently reading _Weapons of the Weak_ by James C Scott about class relations in a rural peasant village in Malasia.
Not sure if this counts as kit-bashing but I'm working on something for a Shadowdark campaign - still some way off, thanks to our Greyhawk campaign. The basis is the old RuneQuest supplement "Eldarad - the Lost City". I'd be the first to admit it's not great but I like the maps and the NPCs are fairly good. I've added the Citadel of Surlt from Griffon Island to pad it out a little. Some of the history of the region is lifted from the nuggets in the Shadowdark rule-book. Then it was placing the locations and other features from "The Gloaming" campaign from Cursed Scroll #1. I may include the Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur. Some NPCs from the AD&D 1e Rogues Gallery might find a home in Eldarad, too. The map of Eldarad has been re-drawn somewhat. The Sphinx Quarter is called that thanks to a mysterious statue. That is inspired by HG Wells' "The Time Machine". Will there be Morlocks underneath it? I don't know at this stage and it won't matter unless the PCs decide to find out. Lovecraft, Vance, and Leiber have long been my influences.
Ez sub. I don't know if you have any interest in alchemy systems/ingredients/just running alchemy in games but I would love to see a video on that. Keep it up!
As an old Evil DM I approuve of your video, it's nice to see younglings' finding out strategies for TTRPGs 😊😊 inspiration for me is everything my 5 senses can reach! keep on your videos! even if UA-cam is AI is the worst this side of the galaxy, they will have to update it to a more OpenAI like reasoners' base more on merits and less to politics bias. So, hang in there's 🧙♂🧙♂😉😉
I plan on doing this with my Cthulhu campaign; a 1925 street map of Worcester, MA (it's next door to me), some actual mythology (Leshy, Ruskala) along with some mythos from Lovecraft. then I just have to create some NPCs
A couple of weeks ago i watched a bunch of documentaries on history from dirrernt eras andcwas suddenly overcome by the desire to write an outline for a one shot based in a 1935 prewar like fantasy period. Inspiration cwn be anywhere.
We've always done this let us all remember that geographic ally Greyhawk is the Great Lakes. I do something similar as Hex Geographic seems too weird for me. For my last game I used a topography map of North Wales and changed the names of the settlements ( and used Cities & Settlements to do the lifting to start). Then my culture stuff was textbook pre Roman Celtic and Celtic and Norse Gods. So baby kit bashing
I stole the description of the fetch from Changeling the Lost! The tone/weirdness of The Wizard of Oz novel, fairy road descriptions from a Charles Stross Laundry Files novel, a mishmash of misremembered Wikipedia entries on fairies and Irish deities for NPCs, and Dolmenwood zines also went together to make a fairy adventure. That campaign was mostly Dolmenwood material as a base, but I threw all kinds of nonsense in to fill in gaps or for NPCs or adventures. Most of a 5e adventure league adventure went in, with changes informed by Dungeoncraft and Slyflourish videos, and some stuff from Into the Weird and Wild. I used a few other published adventures with as-needed changes. The four main chaos gods from Warhammer had new name tags put over the trademarks. I included an NPC from a Frost Maiden actual play. And I'd recently watched some Fate/Stay anime so I stole a few ideas from that world after watching Welsh Viking and Monarchs Factory videos on Arthurian legends. I was part way through Last Kingdom at some point in the campaign so succession politics started to come up in the background. I reused Dolmenwood with another group and dropped in stuff from the Blackoath game Sacrifice, and other Berserk inspired ideas. If a perfect kitbash fit doesn't pop out of my memory, whatever I'm reading, watching, or listening to becomes material for the current game 😂
As for the "what if my players recognise it?" issue: well, if they say that they're not immersed then just ask them if they've tried immersing themselves harder and tell them it's a skill issue. No but joking aside, there is definitely a place for obvious references reframed in a new context. Bash together characters from history, fantasy and folklore and send them on crazy adventures together! A band of plucky upstarts led by Robin Hood and Joan of Arc try to steal Excalibur but the Sheriff of Nottingham rats them out to Dark Timeline Evil King Arthur, pissing him off in the process! But wait! The sword has already been stolen by the dastardly Sir Francis Drake, who flees on his galleon airship! What do our heroes do? The Knights of the Round Table are loyal to Arthur but seek to return him to the side of good: maybe they would deign to help? Alfred the Great could be a powerful ally but is currently hiding in a swamp from a marauding army of Danes! Perhaps the party could seek other powerful magic items: there is a rumour that Drake can not be defeated, but is helpless when he hears the beat of Drake's Drum! Whatever happens, you *know* it's all coming down to a final confrontation with Drake in El Dorado! Thanks for another killer vid, cheers Steph!
Are you sure you're not spying in on my campaign, Stephanie? All your videos seem to be appropriately timed for me lamenting my current struggle to my players haha. I'm actually so wrapped up in world building cause I feel like NPC dialogue is falling short and there aren't well enough established threads to tie all my ever growing story-lines together into one overarching story.
The UA-cam Channel Kirby Ferguson has a great video (multiple actually, since he did it first as series, and then combined them and re-edited them later again) called Everything is a Remix. Cannot recommend it highly enough, it basically tells us that every creative person is kit bashing.
I laughed when you mentioned borrowing the goblin market from Hellboy, cuz del Toro borrowed the goblin market from...Goblin Market poem by Christina Rossetti I love this and feel silly for forgetting this term despite having grown up around model trains and Star Wars both early kitbashers. An example from my world is the realm of Karrnovia, built from Eberron's Karrnath and Ravenloft's Barovia mashed together.
Hahaha right? I feel like I might've heard that fun fact before, its such a good poem but its even better with a Guillermo del Toro/Mike Mignola twist! 😂
@StephaniePlaysGames another fun one I forgot to mention was Vaesen, Free League was inspired to create the rpg from an art book strangely enough titled Vaesen by Johan Egerkrans who they employed to do the art for the rpg. Same with Tales from the Loop, and others by Simon Stalenhag. 😁
There are very good reasons for not trying to be too original. The unique and original is very difficult to convey. The players have to be immersed in your world, their characters are denizens of the world, and you need them to understand that world. Yes, you can create interesting new PC species, but just how does the average Jo/Joe play a 300 year old, hyper-inteligent creature with magic powers? No, the world must be relatable. The second reason is miniatures. I can think up the Grand Army of the Great Wazoo, but where do I get the right figures? I borrow from history. My Kanti are enough like Celts/Cimmerians that players can get the gist and I can buy figures. Same with my Nacori, who are loosely Akkadian or Babylonian. However, you do need to make huge allowances for magic and strange creatures. What does Bless Crops do to population numbers? Same with cure disease. Suddenly the average life expectancy jumps from 25 to 45/ that's a very different society. That still leaves a tonne of work, but it's a mistake to think you need to write a campaign book. Who will read it? You created it, so you already know it. Sketchy notes are enough. I know the basic structure and hierarchy of the Nacori religion, for example. That's good enough unless someone wants to play a priest or initiate an adventure involving The Church.
I don't usually worldbuild my geography from fantasy maps. I steal from real maps. They have more detail, and frankly, more weirdness. Need geography for a pirate campaign? I snitch a map of the Mediterranean.
World Building, when done right, is done with the purpose of creating a system in which adventures can create themselves within a episodic sandboxy campaign. Not a lot of GMs today really understand it ( or ever did ) and it's not great for new or even intermediate GM's to undertake. If you want to understand the Why's and How's of World Building in this manner, Kobold Press as a little supplement ( Free I think ) called Book of Hexcraw Part I. For serial campaigns, you only need the parts you need ( or think you'll need ).
While I agree that the main purpose of world building is usually to create a structure to help facilitate adventures, I don't think that it's necessarily the only reason it should be done. Some GMs like to do it because it helps them feel more immersed in their games and more able to confidently improv things more often, and I'm sure there's a slew of other benefits to it that would resonate with others beyond those who run more sandbox-oriented campaigns 🤷♀️
@@StephaniePlaysGames No argument there. I was just providing my insights without qualifiers for the readers to take or discard as their insights and experience councils.
My players don't have enough time to read books these days so I get away with kitbashing a lot of what I read. Also Warhammer books are a treasure trove for NPC names.
What are some of your FAVORITE sources for D&D/TTRPG inspiration? ✨
I'd have to say that my favorite source is the things I love, shows, anime, books, movie, comics. Any media I consume.
Political media and dramas! Players are good at (but don't mind it by any means, in my experience) spotting fantasy media. But key NPC relationships, secrets, and motivations coming from non-fantasy sources and then slapping a fantasy skin on it has been so rewarding in my current homebrew campaign (session 8 last Thursday and had a long fight where everyone was shocked it took 2 hours because it felt like 15 minutes from the stakes and then when getting clues to the next parts of the quest one of my players had a, "HEY, YEAH, *I* KNOW THAT GUY!!!! OMG, SO COOL!!!" moment, which was all I ever wanted from this campaign.) "That Guy" is basically a kitsmash of Tom Duffy from "Ides of March" and Conrad Brean from "Wag the Dog".
Totally agree! I don't think anyone has noticed that I particularly love borrowing from historical dramas yet because I don't think they'd ever think to look for it! 😂
It's funny to me that you called out Soylent Green in the video, because I used that in a previous campaign in this exact way. The players were in a city of free-willed (mostly good/neutral) undead, and the main food source for the population was provided from large spigots in the common areas of town, and was called "earthblood." I described it as being kinda an oatmeal/grits consistency, mostly green, but smelling and tasting a lot like meat. They ate it a few times while exploring the town and doing things, both to be courteous to their hosts, and to save rations because the area outside the city was a rough environment to find food when they continued traveling. A few sessions later, while working their way through the dungeon that was the centerpiece of that adventure, they stumbled onto a boss fight that was vaguely reminiscent of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors: a giant, carnivorous plant with a bunch of vats surrounding it. After defeating the plant, they started inspecting the room throughly. The vats were full of humanoid corpses, which were being eaten and decomposed by the plant, producing the earthblood they'd eaten over the previous days. The look of horror on their faces when they realized was delightful.
OMG! 😂 That is BRILLIANT! Also I love Little Shop of Horrors, this campaign sounds like such a blast!!
Great video! One of my favorite ways to kitbash is to load up a randomizer which will give me two movies, and then I need to try and fuse the plots of those two movies together into a TTRPG adventure.
Yessss I love this idea! I'll code a randomizer that is just Ratatouille + other movies 😂
That could easily devolve into railroading.
Well said, Anto 😊
Great advice Stephanie!
-Monsters I love using the Monster Overhaul to shake up ordinary monsters.
-Dungeons / dressing, I use Knave 2.
-Worldbuilding I break out Worlds Beyond Number!
There's so many great resources out there to "borrow" from.
Totally agree, I love Knave and Worlds Beyond Number! I'm unfamiliar with The Monster Overhaul so I'm excited to add it to my reading list! 🤓
Knave is not just for potions and spells, the NPC tables allowed me to build a Thieves Guild FAST, because it has Faction Tables & Great NPC tables!
Monster Overhaul is such a great book!
Stephanie, you did such a solid job with this video. And your positive and upbeat presentation made it all the better. ❤
I 100% transposed the Vallian language/culture from the Pillars of Eternity videogames into my current game, for a deep faction of merchant-centric government. Thanks to the outputs of a few UA-camrs I cobbled together enough monsters, locations and NPCs to leave me with a manageable amount of layout needed for my South Carolina-sized island setting. I owe a good amount of vibes for my campaign to some choice pieces of music as well.
Oh my gosh, that sounds intense! And I completely agree, it's amazing how much great music can elevate a game! 😊
You made a video that describes how I make game worlds. Good to see some more confirmation that my friends and I are not the only ones, to which I don't see in the UA-cam space very often.
Yep, absolutely. When you have not that much time to create a world and campaign like me better 'kitbash' (great new word I learned). I am DMing for over 40 years and it took me a long time to learn that. I use the World of Greyhawk, some old modules and write a story around it, using Lovecraftian ideas and NPCs from films, later adapting it to my players on the run. Great video, Stephanie.
Thanks for the kind words! 😊
As soon as you mentioned C:tL I thought "Oh god, she used the Hedge!" That sounds so fun!
😂 I feel like the moment I read about it, it got immediately filed into "the very important things" brain folder!
Great advice! You're cooking, Stephanie! This kind of kitbashing is how a lot of Hollywood pitch meetings go down: "Star Wars but Han Solo is the main character" for Guardians of the Galaxy, or as many know it: "It's BLANK meets BLANK!" bam, a new(ish) idea to present to your players. And when you present it through the lens of your own creativity and your own sensibilities, you're doing something original!
Oh and I lift entire casts all the time, it's such a quick way to create verisimilitude especially for side-characters. The players will feel like these (stolen) characters have an entirely unique dynamic between themselves and like they're real people with their own stories and drama!
BTW. Thank you for the shout out to Anto of Icarus Games. He’s a wonderful creator and great person. 😊
Fantastic video, and this is a super helpful tip you provided!
Damnation City was a supplement for one of White Wolf's Vampire editions that I thought brought a great level of grittiness and practicality to the game, but the second half basically functions as a conceptually simple city generator that builds neighborhoods, locations, and NPC, each of which have their own plot hooks. I used this to fill out a random city in the Forgotten Realms that became a D&D game...that used the Fate Core rules instead of the D&D rules. The players made some fantastic stories, such as the barbarian that decided to kamikaze an enemy in a social encounter at a fancy party by drinking some salt water to induce vomiting.
I've done this for years and still do. However I've also discovered the joy of making completely scratch built worlds for whatever campaign I'm running. The key, as you stated, is in not overdoing it. Great video!
Thanks for the kind words! 😊
Excellent video! I used to do this when we played as kids in the 80s. All my NPCs were from obscure fantasy novels which made their names easy to remember but not many other people knew who they were. Like Frodo and Gandalf.
Banger thumbnail ;D
Awesome idea >:3
Great video!
Golden >:3
Don’t think I know anyone who has covered this approach! So so cool :D
Thank you so much! 🥹 Also I'm dying to know which thumbnail YT showed you! I ended up A/B testing two!
@ Oh did you haha xD I feel that! It was the one of you in the centre (full body), blue background, white text around you and then lots of little bits of things around the boarder
You are a legend. Love it.
Awwww thanks Miles! 💕
Funny, I just based my homebrew that had just finished a 100 year war, and there's five different factions that fought in it. And the PCs are basically the 'rising heroes' after everyone died in the war etc.
Its Eberron x Magic the Gathering x Avatar the Last Airbender x Game of Thrones for one of the 'undead' nightwatch faction etc. Looks unique because of all of the parts combined. Even had a race recently based off Dandadan Turbo Granny scene. And have an anti gravity trap at the end of the "Wicked" tunnel. Its pretty hilarious to me what you can do just pulling random references like this or re-using things for theme.
Small sidenote. The author of Dandadan had writers block and his buddy told him to read 100 romance novels instead of 'putting himself out there' to create his current teen school x alien x shonen manga... its hilarious to me.
Ooooh I love this! And I didn't know that about Dandadan! 😂 That makes so much more sense, he definitely nailed the whole crush will-they-wont-they thing!
This video is great and I adore ideas like this! I'd love to see you DO this in a future video - build us a unique campaign and walk us through how you did it, which sources you used to build it (yes, I know you did this already in this video, but I'd be thrilled to have a slew of examples). Love your videos!!!
Awww, thanks for the kind words! 😊 I'm planning to schedule some live streams in the near future doing some campaign prep so I can definitely do this!
@@StephaniePlaysGames Absolutely. I'm saying so specifically for the UA-cam algorithm to know how much I like your videos so maybe it helps your channel a little bit (Thanks for the reminder, Professor DM!). I mean it though - you're doing it right and your content rules. Keep up the great work!
🥹 That is soso kind of you! I really appreciate the support!
I love the idea of kit-bashing different things together into my own campaign setting.
My main inspirations come from Greek, Norse, and Celtic mythology and Folklore.
I also use things from D&D and Pathfinder source books. I had not thought of using other TTRPGS. Changeling the Lost sounds like a fun one.
My new D&D setting is basically this. I can't do maps so I took Ansalon, the Dragonlance continent, flipped it upside down and left to right. It's recognisable if you knew it but otherwise it looks unique. Also, I've been influenced by Arcane and subsequently League of Legends lore. I've taken some of that and tweaked it. I've taken ideas from StarGate, Middle Earth, Lovecraft, Jurassic Park and so much more.
The other thing I have done is only focus on those areas that the first campaign is taking part it. I'll flesh out the rest of the world as and when I run a campaign in that area or we come up with something cool during play that I can add in.
Love the video!! I am working on a fairytale world (because me and all my players love disney movies haha). So i'm actually kitbashing disney movies with Grimm's tellings and dreamworks etc.
The show that has singlehandedly inspired the most things in my campaign is the Magicians based on the book series by Lev Grossman. Not necessarily stolen directly (except one of the professors because he's a cool NPC to have), but it's just got this vibe I like that really inspired some creativity. Other than that, the Malazan book of the Fallen series, it's really long and FULL of worldbuilding and cool NPCs and villains. Arcane is also a good source, though that's so popular you can't really directly steal, the character work in the show can really teach you some things about deep characterization!
I read a lot of fantasy, so not everything is from these three things, but if you just merged them you'd get something really close to what I run.
Oh man, a Magicians inspired campaign would be a dream to play in! I'm definitely a big fan of Arcane, but I'm unfamiliar with the Fallen, I'll have to check that series out! 👀
Great video.
When I started my campaign, I straight told my players I used core ideas from A and B settings and swiped flavor ideas from XY and Z settings. They were all like,'Cool ideas, let's go.'
Yeah! I definitely do this too, I think letting them know some of your inspirations can really help them make more interesting characters for the campaign!
Any resemblance my campaign world may SEEM to have with Thundarr the Barbarian or John Carter of Mars is purely coincidental.
Pure speculation! They can't prove anything! 😂
I’m currently adapting a Conan story for the next session I’m running with my players, and I’m borrowing the map from the old Constantinople palace. I’m borrowing a city map of Mdina, Malta for another game I’m prepping. Comics can be good, too. I’d borrowed the premise of the comic Earthbound by Narwhal for a one-shot a couple years back, and it was great. I took inspiration from the Fire Emblem coliseum for a game a ran a couple times recently, big success.
I love the examples and explanations you give here and am a big fan of “kit bashing” my RPGs !
absolutely loved this video!!! will be using this myself as i've just started a campaign and really needed some advice like this for my worldbuilding as i myself was approaching the burn out referenced at the start and now feel like i've dodged a bullet haha
Awww thanks for the kind words! 😊 I'm glad I was able to help avoid burnout, it's such a rough feeling!
Fun video! Thank you for your creativity.
I don't see why more DMs don't do this, but just tell your players your inspirations!
If they know what pieces of media you are drawing upon before they sign up for your game, they can look up those things and get a sense for if they think they'll be interested in the game and be able to make a character that seems like it'll fit into a setting like that. I do recommend checking Common Sense Media and including the age ratings if you make a document with this on it like I have.
If you are a player, please ask your DM about their inspirations, you might just get told about some cool new piece of media! And if not, your game will be better because you can fit your character to the tone they want
Oh I definitely do this! I should probably make a video on it, but I usually do a Sly Flourish style one page and include a mood board of images and an inspiration list so that they can really be dialed in to what I'm looking to run. These are great tips! 😊
I often lift things and reference other stories when building stuff. The thing I’ve found works really well for people who complain about ideas being lifted is to simply asked them if they would be interested in running the game instead. 🤷♂️
Danggg I can't imagine having PLAYERS be weird about it! I only have internet trolls that are weird about things 😂 That is absolutely the right response, because I can't imagine they have that much DMing experience if they think there's a problem with it!
Turns out I was Kitbashing before I knew Kitbashing was a term!
For me, the purpose of worldbuilding is so that I feel comfortable improvising in it.
Most people wouldn't need to do as much as I do, particularly newer DMs. The tropes of medieval Europe based fantasy are so well known, that one could generally wing it with no downside.
I'm aiming for something different though, which includes a large number of widely variant cultures thrown together. And if I want each one to feel distinct, I need to do my homework.
Plus worldbuilding is fun.
I agree with your suggestion of borrowing from other sources. For those interested in non-fiction, I'd recommend _Montaillou: Promised Land of Error_ by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, which is one of the few books about relationships in a small medieval village drawn from frist hand sources, in this case the records of interviews by the Albigensian Inquisition.
I'm currently reading _Weapons of the Weak_ by James C Scott about class relations in a rural peasant village in Malasia.
Not sure if this counts as kit-bashing but I'm working on something for a Shadowdark campaign - still some way off, thanks to our Greyhawk campaign. The basis is the old RuneQuest supplement "Eldarad - the Lost City". I'd be the first to admit it's not great but I like the maps and the NPCs are fairly good.
I've added the Citadel of Surlt from Griffon Island to pad it out a little. Some of the history of the region is lifted from the nuggets in the Shadowdark rule-book. Then it was placing the locations and other features from "The Gloaming" campaign from Cursed Scroll #1. I may include the Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur. Some NPCs from the AD&D 1e Rogues Gallery might find a home in Eldarad, too.
The map of Eldarad has been re-drawn somewhat. The Sphinx Quarter is called that thanks to a mysterious statue. That is inspired by HG Wells' "The Time Machine". Will there be Morlocks underneath it? I don't know at this stage and it won't matter unless the PCs decide to find out.
Lovecraft, Vance, and Leiber have long been my influences.
I think that definitely counts! That sounds like such a blast, also I really love The Time Machine, that's a great influence to pull from! 😊
@@StephaniePlaysGames Thanks.
If I ever add Necrons to a D&D game, it'll probably be via the Dr Who episode "Tomb of the Cybermen".
Ez sub. I don't know if you have any interest in alchemy systems/ingredients/just running alchemy in games but I would love to see a video on that. Keep it up!
As an old Evil DM I approuve of your video, it's nice to see younglings' finding out strategies for TTRPGs 😊😊 inspiration for me is everything my 5 senses can reach! keep on your videos! even if UA-cam is AI is the worst this side of the galaxy, they will have to update it to a more OpenAI like reasoners' base more on merits and less to politics bias. So, hang in there's 🧙♂🧙♂😉😉
Related to the fairy/isolated woods feel, I recommend Into the Wyrd and Wild by Feral Indie Studio.
Ahhhh its so good! I'm a big fan of it! 😍
Hello, by any chance do you have any actual plays demonstrating practical examples of the theories that you have espoused on your channel?
I plan on doing this with my Cthulhu campaign; a 1925 street map of Worcester, MA (it's next door to me), some actual mythology (Leshy, Ruskala) along with some mythos from Lovecraft. then I just have to create some NPCs
Oooooh this sounds like a ton of fun! I love Cthulhu games! 😊
A couple of weeks ago i watched a bunch of documentaries on history from dirrernt eras andcwas suddenly overcome by the desire to write an outline for a one shot based in a 1935 prewar like fantasy period. Inspiration cwn be anywhere.
Yesss! I love reading about different historical events and reimagining them in the context of TTRPGs!
I've shamelessly 'borrowed' elements from both Supernatural and Fringe in an old Scion campaign, and it worked fine.
Oh man! Scion's one of those systems I've always wanted to be a player in before running, that sounds like so much fun! 😊
We've always done this let us all remember that geographic ally Greyhawk is the Great Lakes. I do something similar as Hex Geographic seems too weird for me.
For my last game I used a topography map of North Wales and changed the names of the settlements ( and used Cities & Settlements to do the lifting to start). Then my culture stuff was textbook pre Roman Celtic and Celtic and Norse Gods. So baby kit bashing
cool video !!
Thank youuu! 😊
I stole the description of the fetch from Changeling the Lost!
The tone/weirdness of The Wizard of Oz novel, fairy road descriptions from a Charles Stross Laundry Files novel, a mishmash of misremembered Wikipedia entries on fairies and Irish deities for NPCs, and Dolmenwood zines also went together to make a fairy adventure.
That campaign was mostly Dolmenwood material as a base, but I threw all kinds of nonsense in to fill in gaps or for NPCs or adventures.
Most of a 5e adventure league adventure went in, with changes informed by Dungeoncraft and Slyflourish videos, and some stuff from Into the Weird and Wild. I used a few other published adventures with as-needed changes.
The four main chaos gods from Warhammer had new name tags put over the trademarks. I included an NPC from a Frost Maiden actual play. And I'd recently watched some Fate/Stay anime so I stole a few ideas from that world after watching Welsh Viking and Monarchs Factory videos on Arthurian legends. I was part way through Last Kingdom at some point in the campaign so succession politics started to come up in the background.
I reused Dolmenwood with another group and dropped in stuff from the Blackoath game Sacrifice, and other Berserk inspired ideas.
If a perfect kitbash fit doesn't pop out of my memory, whatever I'm reading, watching, or listening to becomes material for the current game 😂
As for the "what if my players recognise it?" issue: well, if they say that they're not immersed then just ask them if they've tried immersing themselves harder and tell them it's a skill issue.
No but joking aside, there is definitely a place for obvious references reframed in a new context. Bash together characters from history, fantasy and folklore and send them on crazy adventures together! A band of plucky upstarts led by Robin Hood and Joan of Arc try to steal Excalibur but the Sheriff of Nottingham rats them out to Dark Timeline Evil King Arthur, pissing him off in the process! But wait! The sword has already been stolen by the dastardly Sir Francis Drake, who flees on his galleon airship! What do our heroes do? The Knights of the Round Table are loyal to Arthur but seek to return him to the side of good: maybe they would deign to help? Alfred the Great could be a powerful ally but is currently hiding in a swamp from a marauding army of Danes! Perhaps the party could seek other powerful magic items: there is a rumour that Drake can not be defeated, but is helpless when he hears the beat of Drake's Drum!
Whatever happens, you *know* it's all coming down to a final confrontation with Drake in El Dorado!
Thanks for another killer vid, cheers Steph!
That is the only natural conclusion to those events! 😂 Thanks for the kind words!
Are you sure you're not spying in on my campaign, Stephanie? All your videos seem to be appropriately timed for me lamenting my current struggle to my players haha. I'm actually so wrapped up in world building cause I feel like NPC dialogue is falling short and there aren't well enough established threads to tie all my ever growing story-lines together into one overarching story.
… Why would you ask me that? 👀 You can't prove anything! Don't mind me over here outlining a script on NPC dialogue 😂
The UA-cam Channel Kirby Ferguson has a great video (multiple actually, since he did it first as series, and then combined them and re-edited them later again) called Everything is a Remix. Cannot recommend it highly enough, it basically tells us that every creative person is kit bashing.
Ooooh I'll have to give that a watch, thanks for the recommendation! 😊
I tried writing a setting, but it was boring, so I wrote a novel instead. Tolkien was an exception, not a rule.
I laughed when you mentioned borrowing the goblin market from Hellboy, cuz del Toro borrowed the goblin market from...Goblin Market poem by Christina Rossetti
I love this and feel silly for forgetting this term despite having grown up around model trains and Star Wars both early kitbashers.
An example from my world is the realm of Karrnovia, built from Eberron's Karrnath and Ravenloft's Barovia mashed together.
Hahaha right? I feel like I might've heard that fun fact before, its such a good poem but its even better with a Guillermo del Toro/Mike Mignola twist! 😂
@StephaniePlaysGames another fun one I forgot to mention was Vaesen, Free League was inspired to create the rpg from an art book strangely enough titled Vaesen by Johan Egerkrans who they employed to do the art for the rpg. Same with Tales from the Loop, and others by Simon Stalenhag. 😁
TL;DW: Have a BBEG named Kit that the PCs bash every session.
Definitely the main takeaway, spot on! 😂
There are very good reasons for not trying to be too original. The unique and original is very difficult to convey. The players have to be immersed in your world, their characters are denizens of the world, and you need them to understand that world. Yes, you can create interesting new PC species, but just how does the average Jo/Joe play a 300 year old, hyper-inteligent creature with magic powers? No, the world must be relatable. The second reason is miniatures. I can think up the Grand Army of the Great Wazoo, but where do I get the right figures?
I borrow from history. My Kanti are enough like Celts/Cimmerians that players can get the gist and I can buy figures. Same with my Nacori, who are loosely Akkadian or Babylonian.
However, you do need to make huge allowances for magic and strange creatures. What does Bless Crops do to population numbers? Same with cure disease. Suddenly the average life expectancy jumps from 25 to 45/ that's a very different society.
That still leaves a tonne of work, but it's a mistake to think you need to write a campaign book. Who will read it? You created it, so you already know it. Sketchy notes are enough. I know the basic structure and hierarchy of the Nacori religion, for example. That's good enough unless someone wants to play a priest or initiate an adventure involving The Church.
I don't usually worldbuild my geography from fantasy maps. I steal from real maps. They have more detail, and frankly, more weirdness. Need geography for a pirate campaign? I snitch a map of the Mediterranean.
Yes, I definitely agree! I love the geography of the Mediterranean!
World Building, when done right, is done with the purpose of creating a system in which adventures can create themselves within a episodic sandboxy campaign. Not a lot of GMs today really understand it ( or ever did ) and it's not great for new or even intermediate GM's to undertake. If you want to understand the Why's and How's of World Building in this manner, Kobold Press as a little supplement ( Free I think ) called Book of Hexcraw Part I.
For serial campaigns, you only need the parts you need ( or think you'll need ).
While I agree that the main purpose of world building is usually to create a structure to help facilitate adventures, I don't think that it's necessarily the only reason it should be done. Some GMs like to do it because it helps them feel more immersed in their games and more able to confidently improv things more often, and I'm sure there's a slew of other benefits to it that would resonate with others beyond those who run more sandbox-oriented campaigns 🤷♀️
@@StephaniePlaysGames No argument there. I was just providing my insights without qualifiers for the readers to take or discard as their insights and experience councils.
My players don't have enough time to read books these days so I get away with kitbashing a lot of what I read. Also Warhammer books are a treasure trove for NPC names.
Ooooh good to know, I've never read any of the Warhammer books but I have the hardest time naming things so I'm intrigued! 👀
@StephaniePlaysGames if you need any recommendations on where to start let me know