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.
I have found great inspiration from wikipedia and other encyclopedias . Just reading about an animal, historical event, or person and taking the key parts of those things - then cranking their uniqueness up to 11 has helped me making some great content. Our real world is also fantastically diverse and weird if we take some time to learn about it.
When I clicked on this video I had no idea what kitbashing was, but apparently I’ve been doing it the whole time. For me it’s always been a combination of writing my own setting from scratch and kitbashing when it comes to unimportant NPCs or encounters.
I'm very similar! The big important stuff are the things I usually enjoy setting up, but after that I'm not as particular so I tend to kitbash the rest.
“Good artists copy, great artists steal.” Plus, not only is it a blast as a player to recognize a trope or idea from a piece of media you love, but the actions of the PCs inevitably end up transforming whatever was copied into its own original end product
You spend your life asking people if they have seen that one show you grew up with but they never know what you're talking about. Mysterious Cities of Gold for example. I've made a few stories inspired by them and even totally ripped off entire characters. Kitbashing! Never heard of it. Just to hear it put into words is helpful and inspiring :D Thanks heaps!
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.
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!
Thanks Daði! 🥹 And I can't believe I've never thought about doing whole casts! In retrospect it's so obvious and just such solid advice! It's good to know you've also had good experiences with it!
Dang! Let me just say that your videos are absolutely fun to watch! Your feedback is easy to follow and you make intimidating GM’ing constructs and considerations like there is no need to sweat it at all! I stumbled upon your video/channel and I’m glad that I did. Refreshing content. I’m now subscribed! Looking forward to more! Thanks and happy gaming!
Just the thumbnail/title got me to quickly kitbash a dullahan mini by beheading a sasquatch and gluing it to a horse, but the actual video‘s message is even better! Winwin
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!
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.
Good video! The goal of a player based game is the players. No matter how simple or complicated the world is, it's just background to the players. Good advice to make a nice setting for your players ri have fun. Keep up the good work
I wasn’t familiar with the term Kitbash. I like it. That’s basically what I do. Good to know it’s a thing. Just subscribed. You’re becoming one of my fav dndtubers.
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 TH-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.
I dropped the Librarian from Discworld into a lost library my players were exploring. I did this mostly for my own enjoyment, and also because this lost library had no other living occupants except for the holographic guide which I believe I may have pinched from Dr Who! kit bashing your world is great fun and allows you to effectively write fan fiction for characters you love from books/TV/Movies you have enjoyed!
Such a great video! I had never thought of applying the word "kitbashing" to what we all do! I borrow from Mike Shea, a LOT. His adventures, ideas…the bunch. Luckily, it was his idea in the first place: he says that your players LOVE tropes, and he's right. I turned Barovia's Ezmerelda d'Avenir into Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with Van Richten as an incredibly grumpy Giles. Fun for all! I also "steal" from Kelsey Dionne (Arcane Library) because her adventures are just top freakin' notch. So, so many amazing books, shows, historical events out there to draw from, rename, fit into your world. And when the muse speaks, you have to follow…I built an entire world after watching Arcane for the first time.
The real-world history of the King of Minos; cannibal emperor of the first bronze-age society of the Mediterranean. On one Isle was his 5 great cities, each full of long, sprawling warehouse of centralized wealth, each covered in bull motifs (also echoed in the latest DUNE films) One day a state rebelled. As punishment he demanded an annual tribute of sacrificial youths. Which he ate. While sitting on a carved seat at the tip of his island that looked upon the traitor state. Hacked human bones still litter the sea floor there. Different societies around the Mediterranean had their own tales of a cannibal-bull related to a bad King. Like a common Atlantis myth. Until we found it in 1900~ on the Isle of Crete. Showing evidence that they'd rebuilt over centuries after a massive earthquake. Proving their empire spanned over 1,000 years.
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.
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.
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 love this, what a great mashup! Also I *love* the Fate ruleset, I wish more people in my group enjoyed running Fate-based games because I really want to play in more! 😂
Stephanie, what a great video-I love it! You have some great advice here for game masters and deliver it with enthusiasm and professionalism. Keep up the great work. I'm looking forward to more videos from you! Thanks.
This is great advice. I got into world building recently and I have this entire idea of what I wanted the world to be and I wanted to present it to a few players. However, I was not a writer and all of the things I was thinking of made the whole process so overwhelming! After watching a few of these videos particularly the one on emergent storytelling, I figured. For a game that is happening on a bi-weekly basis, it is not important for me to have everything fleshed out. Let the players tell me a lot of the things that may be going on as well. I will now incorporate this advice to help me enrich the world with other inspirations that I have from other sources. As well as using things that already exist to help fill in those areas that I do not know how to put together myself due to lack of experience. I love musicals so one thing that I may do is build an adventure with a bard BBEG that will have puzzles of based on some of my favorite musical scenes, songs, and characters. Thanks again for the video!
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 TH-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!
@ 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
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.
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 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. 😁
My favorite thing to kitbash is PCs personally. I see a trait in a character I'm enjoying and have to lift it but it's a million things into one cohesive character. I took storybeats from The Whipping Boy and applied it to a rogue. Then I added a Nimona/Jinx from Arcane spin on the personality from a character that has major Leverage and Assassins Creed/Dishonored undertone to get a rogue that does bad things for good reasons because it's more challenging to steal from bad people that don't fight fair. And then I added Danny Phantom ghostery just for the fun of it. Because a thief that can phase through walls is a difficult one to stop
Totally agree! I can't remember if I talked about this in my Roleplay like a Nerd video but I have a very similar process for when I get to play, it's nice to know I'm not the only one! 😊
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
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 TH-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 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.
I'd recommend getting the players involved! Play something like The Quiet Year and everyone gets to contribute. Then as DM you can refine it. I just did a series on it and my players love it!
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! 😊
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 take! I'm one of those suckers who actually likes making 40+ page world documents, but even so, this is still a crazy useful thing I do a lot of! There are no truly new ideas. Everything is already an amalgamation of what came before it, so why not lean into that a bit? Loved this video.
@@StephaniePlaysGames Absolutely! I think we put way too much pressure on ourselves to make something "new" and "original" when we should really lean much further into the weird melding pot of ideas that inspired us to start playing and writing and telling stories in the first place!
Two of the biggest IPs I've taken from to kitbash my worlds are League of Legends and Magic: The Gathering. Something about the way these games are created makes them perfect for kick starting my creativity. Both of these are, at their forefront, competitive games. Story is very much a secondary thing in mind when you're playing them, but not so much when they're being designed. There's a ton of storytelling, regardless of the games not really having a plot. The storytelling lies in the aesthetics, lines of flavor text, animations, character dialogue, card art, and even gameplay mechanics. There is a hint of story everywhere, and therefor, it's ripe for picking some inspiration.
I didn't know the name of Kittbashing, but I did it with my first Lost Mine of Pandelver 😂 I used the lore as a base to create my own version. Even monsters were all kittbashed, I knew I wanted a arcno centaur, so I took a bugbear and reskined it and added some skills to flavour it and climbing speed
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 TH-cam space very often.
I'm too old to have enjoyed the D&D cartoon as a kid, but I think it might be entertaining to try to make some of those episodes into viable adventures. Love your channel and your videos. Hope you stick around a while.
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 !
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.
Ooooh those are all such good things to borrow ideas from! And I _completely_ agree - I usually have a general overarching idea of where I think a campaign could theoretically go, but I love the chance to mess with things and pivot on the fly as characters interact with the world so I only flesh out each bit as we go! 😊
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!
I once stole the entire plot premise of Teen Wolf season 4, made a bunch of NPCs based of the adventuring band Saga from the Kings of the Wyld novel, set in a world that was a mix of Raymond E. Feist's Riftworld and Scott Lynch's Camorr, with the Iron Wind from Numenera, and the PCs' main quest givers and shopkeepers etc were the characters from Friends and Will & Grace. With that many diverse influences, none of my friends caught all the references, and it worked out great!
The world I'm building is inspired by Mass Effect and Dishonored. I had been repaying Mass Effect and realized it was already fairly fantasy in space, plus with the cosmic horror aspect of it could lead to some interesting things. The party will eventually be given the opportunity to have a Normandy like ship to be their base in a very island-y world. The technology will be influenced by Dishonored with things like the audiographs, some of the power battery stuff, not tech but also just yoinking the rat plague from the games putting that in a region and seeing how that throws a wrench in things. it's been fun just thinking what else I can find other influences, some Fire Emblem or easy to find some Star Wars stuff. The art book point is a great idea! It's where you see artists just going wild and having fun coming up with weird and awesome stuff
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.
You raise a lot of very good points and thank you for making this video it helped me realize the way in which I do things a little bit better might not be the way I try to do things historically. Speaking of Pinterest is is there any good way to filter out artificial generated content?
Ugh I wish! I tend to add "illustrated" or other keywords to searches a lot now and there seems to be less "hand drawn" stylized art, but if you prefer more digital or photorealistic art I feel like they're currently purposefully neglecting it 😩 I usually use the Pinterest google extension and go to a site like ArtStation where I can filter it out and then Pin it that way, or go to the web version of Instagram and look at artists there that I find and do the same.
This is how I've been doing it for as long as I can remember. My current Shadowdark campaign is set in The Duchy of Ashlar from Raging Swan Press with heavy modifications from Into the Wyrd & Wild, and my own dark mind. The rest of the "known world" is lifted from Palladium Fantasy rpg. I drop adventure locations in wherever I need them to be. It's all a glorious mess.
Favorite plots to steal for mini campaigns: 13th warrior: chosen group saves isolated village. the hobbit: group adventures for treasure and glory and home ghost and the darkness: project in the frontiers is halted by mysterious monsters tears of the sun: elite group across enemy lines to rescue vip and escort innocents to safety. All of them have a simple core goal. And enough of a simple structure that just swapping your players for the main characters makes them come alive.
These are definitely great plots to borrow from! And I definitely think people underestimate just how much having players instead of just written characters can really just wildly change everything! 😊
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!
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 😂
Oh my gosh, I love this, I feel like we're very much inspired by similar things 😂 I've never read any Cherles Stross books so I'll have to check them out!
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!
Awww thank you! 😊 I'll definitely think on it! I have some artificers in one of my games that might be interested in running some alchemy system experiments! 🧪
I'm a big lover of worldbuilding by mood rather than detail so I tend to use music to guide what's important. Not really kitbashing but you'll have very different worlds listening to Of Monster and Men than listening to Rob Zombie.
Ohhhh I totally get this! One of the first things I do when I build a campaign is make myself a little moodboard and a playlist before I get started so I know what you mean!
Another banger video. Even the great worldbuilding writers kitbashed, culturally. Tolkien did not create Middle-earth out of whole cloth. Nor did GRRM make up Westeros out of thin air. Shakespeare was the greatest cultural kitbasher of mythology and antiquity lit to ever live I have so often seen new GMs think, "to make original, I must make up something totally new," when creativity in tabletop is synergizing familiar inputs into completely idiosyncratic outputs at the table with the players.
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 had a 5 year long pathfinder campaign that stole everything from everywhere, Stargate Atlantis city shields, WW1/2 airships and flying creatures doing bombing runs and dogfights. a TARDIS-ish time travel device, the Library from the Magicians, futuristic seprentfolk invading from another dimension, not sure where I stole that from, maybe Super Mario Brothers, so many books that none of my friends have read. for a Halloween one shot, I based it on a dungeon in a video game that no longer exists, and only I had played in my group. my underworld is based on an Escher-esque dreamworld from a bad sci-fi movie. good times.
Mentioning Old Bonegrinder in the same minute as Soylent Green is almost a spoiler! I really love stealing from other fiction. Funny you should mention Stephen King. My present campaign is in Mid World, where time itself can slip, and the characters have to deal with "low men" and other such nebulous agents/groups. I plan to add in the many faces of Randal Flagg as one of the prime antagonists, a.k.a. the walking dude. But there is a lot of other world hopping they have yet to do between Krynn, Arda, Toril, and others, all to find the beam guardians and figure out how to stop the Crimson King! Last year I did a Fallout campaign where the Vault the PCs started in was run by Captain Kirk and Sulu. So that was fun to act out. They ran into a merc group that I took right from J Squad out of Edge of Tomorrow, with Rita Vratasky as the lead in her power armor and using a sword to cut down mutants in the wasteland. I think they also met Bruce Campbell in that campaign, with him boomstick. Anyhow ... steal it all! The players love the references.
Re: taking whole casts. This works so well, and is sometimes the core of my entire adventure development. If Stars Hollow for the Gilmore Girls was a weird town on the edge of a big empire, and the only thing "important" to oursiders nearby is the school, make it a military academy for training the future officers and geberals if the empire. Are they defending the borders from terrible threats? or are they a brutally colonial force? What do the people who send their kids to the school believe? What do the quirky folks of Heaven Holler believe? La'Relia, daughter of a General, left that life upon falling in love with the enemy and bearing a half-(orc?elf?dragon? whatever) child. She took over the tavern and inn and raised her daughter Ra'Rhee in the welcoming town. Or is the fancy school a magic school, and did Ra-Rhee suddenly display dangerous natural magic?
I have used Twin Peaks as the basis for my casts and setting twice, and my players haven't noticed. In a Changeling the Lost game, the Orchid Man was the King of Winter, and Laura and Audrey the two Queens of Night and Day court, respectively.
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!
But to do that, I have to read all the junk out there to find stuff to bash together. You also have to alter stuff from those sources to make them fit. When you make the setting yourself, you end up with a setting you know over having to learn all the stuff you're reading, and if you build as you go, it is not that much work.
Changling!!! I never played this one, but I’ve always loved VTM and interested in WTA. I wanna integrate the clan systems from each into D&D 5e, by chance have you done such magic yet?
I have not but I feel like I know how I would! I think I'd do something similar to how Mythic Odyssey of Theros does the Piety system and kind of riff on it from there. But allowing them access to certain spells I thought were aligned with a clan, maybe access to certain areas, etc. as level - that sort of thing!
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.
@@StephaniePlaysGames PLEASE! Feel like I could rant forever about that challenge hahaha and if you're gonna creep on my table, feel free to pull up a chair and take notes to critique me later. 😂 Plenty of room here in city of brotherly love for another seat
"Zelda ... Link below" LOL I have read so much that I'm often not sure where my brain steals the ideas from. Discworld, Wheel of Time and Raymond Feist's Midkemia are great sources for inspiration. NPC creation is as simple as "Lord Melchiot, spymaster, Siuan/Q". That is enough for a potential first (social) encounter. Fleshing out can be done on the fly and when needed. Me creating a monster: "Google images, vampire stats". Then mixing and matching feats and abilities and making it fit the desired challenge rating.
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
The magical flavor and background from Mage: The Ascension; The cosmology of Werewolf: The Apocalypse; The Changeling species, basically, from Changeling: The Dreaming, especially coupled with Tony DiTerlizzi's from the first edition of it. I've also currently been drinking in the art and worldbuilding from Turnip28, which, if you don't know, is a wargame built for kitbashers. It's set in a post-apocalyptic world revolving around turnips. It's art and themes are full of grimdark whimsy.
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.
I wish I was better read or had a greater exposure to movies and shows that could be easily mined for RPG content, but alas I am not. Kit bashing is my preferred method of creating a world as it’s just so hard to be inspired to be creative when you’re staring at a blank slate. My problem is getting that initial idea to build a picture in my mind of what a place is like, but once I do, the creative ideas start flowing. For instance, my players are going to be visiting a mining town that has a Wild West theme, but I’m still struggling to decide how to make that come alive and not just be bleh or cliche.
Unfortunately I don't watch a ton of AP so I'm not the best resource for something like this 😕 Off the top of my head the one that stands out to me is D20's A Court of Fey and Flowers - there's a ton of regency drama tropes and archetypes they incorporated into it.
@StephaniePlaysGames I'm referring to you, specifically. Do you have any actual plays where you showcase practical execution of the various ideas you've advocated?
Oh gosh no! I'm _just_ getting better at cameras/audio/editing, actual play production is wayyyy out of my current league 😂 I will be doing some videos soon that definitely involves how I'd set up certain campaigns using these elements and I'll be doing some livestream where I'll be creating a new campaign I'm going to be running in the spring though!
How can one human being be as beautiful, intelligent and creative as you in a single person? This feels like cheat to me. I have ADHD, so I can nearly remember every book and every film that I ever consumed, so I always borrow from cool characters and use quotes from these books and films. At the moment, I have a malkavian NPC which is a merge from Sheldon (big bang theory) and a Forest Gump as a young boy. There is also a NPC which is a bit of Marilyn Manson and Roseanne.
Awwww thank you! 😊 As a member of the ADHD club I feel the same! And I love that, that's such a good mashup for a malk! And I also love a good unexpected mashup 😂
I take a bunch of npc's from Pro Wrestling because my players don't watch it; it gives me a bunch of npc's with already known speech patterns, attitudes, and phrases to use. Need a quick bartender. Steve Austin who loves shotgunning beers with the patrons. Run into a chicken shit bandit. The Miz tries to talk a big game against his overwhelming odds. Must speak with an nobel ambassador. Charlotte Flair will look down her nose at them. It really is a treasure trove of NPC.
The TH-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.
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.
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.
My problem going from in my head/notes to at a table has always been twofold..1. Too many cool ideas,and 2. My virgo brain wanting not only more details but to fill in the plot holes...why are the pcs there, why are the monsters there, how did both get there? What was it like before the incident i.e what may it return to. What happens next, what happens after? Why was that magic item there, who created the item, why, why wasnt it claim, where was it before...argh!
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!!
I have found great inspiration from wikipedia and other encyclopedias .
Just reading about an animal, historical event, or person and taking the key parts of those things - then cranking their uniqueness up to 11 has helped me making some great content.
Our real world is also fantastically diverse and weird if we take some time to learn about it.
When I clicked on this video I had no idea what kitbashing was, but apparently I’ve been doing it the whole time. For me it’s always been a combination of writing my own setting from scratch and kitbashing when it comes to unimportant NPCs or encounters.
I'm very similar! The big important stuff are the things I usually enjoy setting up, but after that I'm not as particular so I tend to kitbash the rest.
“Good artists copy, great artists steal.” Plus, not only is it a blast as a player to recognize a trope or idea from a piece of media you love, but the actions of the PCs inevitably end up transforming whatever was copied into its own original end product
Right! You couldn't end up in the exact same spot/ending if you _tried_! 😂
You spend your life asking people if they have seen that one show you grew up with but they never know what you're talking about. Mysterious Cities of Gold for example. I've made a few stories inspired by them and even totally ripped off entire characters. Kitbashing! Never heard of it. Just to hear it put into words is helpful and inspiring :D Thanks heaps!
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 😊
@ No more so than taking any published adventure and running it?
@IcarusGames If you were addressing me, then I agree, which is why I don't use published modules.
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!
Hey! I don't know why the algorithm stopped showing me your videos, but now I have a backlog to catch up on. Glad you're still at it and doing well.
Great to see a D&D TH-camr giving advice about using different systems to enhance their campaigns.
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!
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! 😂
Now that sounds like an amazing game.
Long ago I was running a Gamma World campaign and I had my characters encounter Thundarr and his friends. Fortunately it was a friendly encounter....
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!
Thanks Daði! 🥹 And I can't believe I've never thought about doing whole casts! In retrospect it's so obvious and just such solid advice! It's good to know you've also had good experiences with it!
Turns out I was Kitbashing before I knew Kitbashing was a term!
Dang! Let me just say that your videos are absolutely fun to watch! Your feedback is easy to follow and you make intimidating GM’ing constructs and considerations like there is no need to sweat it at all! I stumbled upon your video/channel and I’m glad that I did. Refreshing content. I’m now subscribed! Looking forward to more! Thanks and happy gaming!
Just the thumbnail/title got me to quickly kitbash a dullahan mini by beheading a sasquatch and gluing it to a horse, but the actual video‘s message is even better! Winwin
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! 😊
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! 😊
Good video! The goal of a player based game is the players. No matter how simple or complicated the world is, it's just background to the players. Good advice to make a nice setting for your players ri have fun. Keep up the good work
Thanks!
Thank youuu! I'm glad TH-cam stopped hiding my videos from you! 😂
I wasn’t familiar with the term Kitbash. I like it. That’s basically what I do. Good to know it’s a thing. Just subscribed. You’re becoming one of my fav dndtubers.
This is seriously some of the best DM advice ever! Thank you!!
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 TH-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! 😊
I dropped the Librarian from Discworld into a lost library my players were exploring. I did this mostly for my own enjoyment, and also because this lost library had no other living occupants except for the holographic guide which I believe I may have pinched from Dr Who! kit bashing your world is great fun and allows you to effectively write fan fiction for characters you love from books/TV/Movies you have enjoyed!
Stephanie, you did such a solid job with this video. And your positive and upbeat presentation made it all the better. ❤
Awwww thank you so much, I always appreciate your kind words! 😊
Such a great video! I had never thought of applying the word "kitbashing" to what we all do! I borrow from Mike Shea, a LOT. His adventures, ideas…the bunch. Luckily, it was his idea in the first place: he says that your players LOVE tropes, and he's right. I turned Barovia's Ezmerelda d'Avenir into Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with Van Richten as an incredibly grumpy Giles. Fun for all! I also "steal" from Kelsey Dionne (Arcane Library) because her adventures are just top freakin' notch. So, so many amazing books, shows, historical events out there to draw from, rename, fit into your world. And when the muse speaks, you have to follow…I built an entire world after watching Arcane for the first time.
The real-world history of the King of Minos; cannibal emperor of the first bronze-age society of the Mediterranean.
On one Isle was his 5 great cities, each full of long, sprawling warehouse of centralized wealth, each covered in bull motifs (also echoed in the latest DUNE films)
One day a state rebelled. As punishment he demanded an annual tribute of sacrificial youths.
Which he ate. While sitting on a carved seat at the tip of his island that looked upon the traitor state.
Hacked human bones still litter the sea floor there.
Different societies around the Mediterranean had their own tales of a cannibal-bull related to a bad King. Like a common Atlantis myth.
Until we found it in 1900~ on the Isle of Crete. Showing evidence that they'd rebuilt over centuries after a massive earthquake. Proving their empire spanned over 1,000 years.
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.
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.
Okay but for real, who doesn't love Disney movies? Only liars say they don't! 😂 I love that, it's such a great natural pairing!
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 love this, what a great mashup! Also I *love* the Fate ruleset, I wish more people in my group enjoyed running Fate-based games because I really want to play in more! 😂
Stephanie, what a great video-I love it! You have some great advice here for game masters and deliver it with enthusiasm and professionalism. Keep up the great work. I'm looking forward to more videos from you! Thanks.
Thank you so much for the kind words! 😊
This is great advice. I got into world building recently and I have this entire idea of what I wanted the world to be and I wanted to present it to a few players. However, I was not a writer and all of the things I was thinking of made the whole process so overwhelming!
After watching a few of these videos particularly the one on emergent storytelling, I figured. For a game that is happening on a bi-weekly basis, it is not important for me to have everything fleshed out. Let the players tell me a lot of the things that may be going on as well. I will now incorporate this advice to help me enrich the world with other inspirations that I have from other sources. As well as using things that already exist to help fill in those areas that I do not know how to put together myself due to lack of experience.
I love musicals so one thing that I may do is build an adventure with a bard BBEG that will have puzzles of based on some of my favorite musical scenes, songs, and characters.
Thanks again for the video!
Ahh that would be so fun! If you don't already watch WallyDM, he has great puzzles and I wonder if he's ever done anything like that! 🤔
@@StephaniePlaysGames I have not seen WallyDM, I will take a gander thank you so much!
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 TH-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!
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
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.
😂 I love it!
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!
Hearing the Midwest accent say Kitbash is joyful 😄
Crafsman mentioned !!!
Love this crossover of interests, great video !
Thanks for the kind words! 😊
Fun video! Thank you for your creativity.
Thanks for the kind words! 😊
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. 😁
Yesss Vaesen is my favorite Free League system! Johan's art is amazing!
My favorite thing to kitbash is PCs personally. I see a trait in a character I'm enjoying and have to lift it but it's a million things into one cohesive character. I took storybeats from The Whipping Boy and applied it to a rogue. Then I added a Nimona/Jinx from Arcane spin on the personality from a character that has major Leverage and Assassins Creed/Dishonored undertone to get a rogue that does bad things for good reasons because it's more challenging to steal from bad people that don't fight fair. And then I added Danny Phantom ghostery just for the fun of it. Because a thief that can phase through walls is a difficult one to stop
Totally agree! I can't remember if I talked about this in my Roleplay like a Nerd video but I have a very similar process for when I get to play, it's nice to know I'm not the only one! 😊
@StephaniePlaysGames gotta check that video out next but I'd love to hear how you build PCs sometimes. Fun idea for a future video even maybe
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!
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 TH-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 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.
Definitely check it out! It's honestly my 'white whale' game that I'd love to be a *player* in someday! 😂
I'd recommend getting the players involved! Play something like The Quiet Year and everyone gets to contribute. Then as DM you can refine it. I just did a series on it and my players love it!
I definitely love doing things like that! 😊
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 was not expecting to learn there is a Discworld game coming out from this! Just started reading Wyrd Sisters
Heck yea Keep on Steady Craftin
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!
Great take! I'm one of those suckers who actually likes making 40+ page world documents, but even so, this is still a crazy useful thing I do a lot of! There are no truly new ideas. Everything is already an amalgamation of what came before it, so why not lean into that a bit? Loved this video.
There's nothing wrong with that, especially for the people who _actually_ enjoy doing it! Thanks for the kind words 😊
@@StephaniePlaysGames Absolutely! I think we put way too much pressure on ourselves to make something "new" and "original" when we should really lean much further into the weird melding pot of ideas that inspired us to start playing and writing and telling stories in the first place!
Two of the biggest IPs I've taken from to kitbash my worlds are League of Legends and Magic: The Gathering. Something about the way these games are created makes them perfect for kick starting my creativity.
Both of these are, at their forefront, competitive games. Story is very much a secondary thing in mind when you're playing them, but not so much when they're being designed. There's a ton of storytelling, regardless of the games not really having a plot. The storytelling lies in the aesthetics, lines of flavor text, animations, character dialogue, card art, and even gameplay mechanics. There is a hint of story everywhere, and therefor, it's ripe for picking some inspiration.
I didn't know the name of Kittbashing, but I did it with my first Lost Mine of Pandelver 😂 I used the lore as a base to create my own version. Even monsters were all kittbashed, I knew I wanted a arcno centaur, so I took a bugbear and reskined it and added some skills to flavour it and climbing speed
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 TH-cam space very often.
It's always good to know we're not alone! 😂 Thanks for the kind words!
I'm too old to have enjoyed the D&D cartoon as a kid, but I think it might be entertaining to try to make some of those episodes into viable adventures.
Love your channel and your videos. Hope you stick around a while.
Thanks for the kind words! 😊
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 !
Ooooh comics are definitely a great source! Thanks for the kind words! 😊
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.
Ooooh those are all such good things to borrow ideas from! And I _completely_ agree - I usually have a general overarching idea of where I think a campaign could theoretically go, but I love the chance to mess with things and pivot on the fly as characters interact with the world so I only flesh out each bit as we go! 😊
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! 😍
You are a legend. Love it.
Awwww thanks Miles! 💕
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!
I once stole the entire plot premise of Teen Wolf season 4, made a bunch of NPCs based of the adventuring band Saga from the Kings of the Wyld novel, set in a world that was a mix of Raymond E. Feist's Riftworld and Scott Lynch's Camorr, with the Iron Wind from Numenera, and the PCs' main quest givers and shopkeepers etc were the characters from Friends and Will & Grace. With that many diverse influences, none of my friends caught all the references, and it worked out great!
BTW. Thank you for the shout out to Anto of Icarus Games. He’s a wonderful creator and great person. 😊
RIGHT! Anto is the best, he's so sweet and helpful and puts out such great content!
The world I'm building is inspired by Mass Effect and Dishonored. I had been repaying Mass Effect and realized it was already fairly fantasy in space, plus with the cosmic horror aspect of it could lead to some interesting things. The party will eventually be given the opportunity to have a Normandy like ship to be their base in a very island-y world. The technology will be influenced by Dishonored with things like the audiographs, some of the power battery stuff, not tech but also just yoinking the rat plague from the games putting that in a region and seeing how that throws a wrench in things. it's been fun just thinking what else I can find other influences, some Fire Emblem or easy to find some Star Wars stuff.
The art book point is a great idea! It's where you see artists just going wild and having fun coming up with weird and awesome stuff
Ooooh that's a really great mashup, I bet it'll be a blast at the table! 😍
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".
Another Crafsman fan, nice!
His stuff is just soooo good and his voice is so soothing 😂
You raise a lot of very good points and thank you for making this video it helped me realize the way in which I do things a little bit better might not be the way I try to do things historically.
Speaking of Pinterest is is there any good way to filter out artificial generated content?
Ugh I wish! I tend to add "illustrated" or other keywords to searches a lot now and there seems to be less "hand drawn" stylized art, but if you prefer more digital or photorealistic art I feel like they're currently purposefully neglecting it 😩 I usually use the Pinterest google extension and go to a site like ArtStation where I can filter it out and then Pin it that way, or go to the web version of Instagram and look at artists there that I find and do the same.
This is how I've been doing it for as long as I can remember. My current Shadowdark campaign is set in The Duchy of Ashlar from Raging Swan Press with heavy modifications from Into the Wyrd & Wild, and my own dark mind. The rest of the "known world" is lifted from Palladium Fantasy rpg. I drop adventure locations in wherever I need them to be. It's all a glorious mess.
Favorite plots to steal for mini campaigns:
13th warrior: chosen group saves isolated village.
the hobbit: group adventures for treasure and glory and home
ghost and the darkness: project in the frontiers is halted by mysterious monsters
tears of the sun: elite group across enemy lines to rescue vip and escort innocents to safety.
All of them have a simple core goal. And enough of a simple structure that just swapping your players for the main characters makes them come alive.
These are definitely great plots to borrow from! And I definitely think people underestimate just how much having players instead of just written characters can really just wildly change everything! 😊
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!
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 😂
Oh my gosh, I love this, I feel like we're very much inspired by similar things 😂 I've never read any Cherles Stross books so I'll have to check them out!
cool video !!
Thank youuu! 😊
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!
Awww thank you! 😊 I'll definitely think on it! I have some artificers in one of my games that might be interested in running some alchemy system experiments! 🧪
Good vid, subscribed.
Thank you! 😊
I'm a big lover of worldbuilding by mood rather than detail so I tend to use music to guide what's important. Not really kitbashing but you'll have very different worlds listening to Of Monster and Men than listening to Rob Zombie.
Ohhhh I totally get this! One of the first things I do when I build a campaign is make myself a little moodboard and a playlist before I get started so I know what you mean!
Another banger video. Even the great worldbuilding writers kitbashed, culturally. Tolkien did not create Middle-earth out of whole cloth. Nor did GRRM make up Westeros out of thin air. Shakespeare was the greatest cultural kitbasher of mythology and antiquity lit to ever live I have so often seen new GMs think, "to make original, I must make up something totally new," when creativity in tabletop is synergizing familiar inputs into completely idiosyncratic outputs at the table with the players.
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 had a 5 year long pathfinder campaign that stole everything from everywhere, Stargate Atlantis city shields, WW1/2 airships and flying creatures doing bombing runs and dogfights. a TARDIS-ish time travel device, the Library from the Magicians, futuristic seprentfolk invading from another dimension, not sure where I stole that from, maybe Super Mario Brothers, so many books that none of my friends have read. for a Halloween one shot, I based it on a dungeon in a video game that no longer exists, and only I had played in my group.
my underworld is based on an Escher-esque dreamworld from a bad sci-fi movie. good times.
Oooooh all of these are such fun things to take ideas from! 😍
Mentioning Old Bonegrinder in the same minute as Soylent Green is almost a spoiler!
I really love stealing from other fiction. Funny you should mention Stephen King. My present campaign is in Mid World, where time itself can slip, and the characters have to deal with "low men" and other such nebulous agents/groups. I plan to add in the many faces of Randal Flagg as one of the prime antagonists, a.k.a. the walking dude. But there is a lot of other world hopping they have yet to do between Krynn, Arda, Toril, and others, all to find the beam guardians and figure out how to stop the Crimson King!
Last year I did a Fallout campaign where the Vault the PCs started in was run by Captain Kirk and Sulu. So that was fun to act out. They ran into a merc group that I took right from J Squad out of Edge of Tomorrow, with Rita Vratasky as the lead in her power armor and using a sword to cut down mutants in the wasteland. I think they also met Bruce Campbell in that campaign, with him boomstick.
Anyhow ... steal it all! The players love the references.
Oh man, I'd love it if those two were running a vault! 😂 That sounds like so much fun! And Randall Flagg is a top tier antagonist to borrow from!
Re: taking whole casts.
This works so well, and is sometimes the core of my entire adventure development.
If Stars Hollow for the Gilmore Girls was a weird town on the edge of a big empire, and the only thing "important" to oursiders nearby is the school, make it a military academy for training the future officers and geberals if the empire. Are they defending the borders from terrible threats? or are they a brutally colonial force?
What do the people who send their kids to the school believe? What do the quirky folks of Heaven Holler believe?
La'Relia, daughter of a General, left that life upon falling in love with the enemy and bearing a half-(orc?elf?dragon? whatever) child. She took over the tavern and inn and raised her daughter Ra'Rhee in the welcoming town.
Or is the fancy school a magic school, and did Ra-Rhee suddenly display dangerous natural magic?
I have used Twin Peaks as the basis for my casts and setting twice, and my players haven't noticed. In a Changeling the Lost game, the Orchid Man was the King of Winter, and Laura and Audrey the two Queens of Night and Day court, respectively.
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!
But to do that, I have to read all the junk out there to find stuff to bash together. You also have to alter stuff from those sources to make them fit. When you make the setting yourself, you end up with a setting you know over having to learn all the stuff you're reading, and if you build as you go, it is not that much work.
Changling!!! I never played this one, but I’ve always loved VTM and interested in WTA. I wanna integrate the clan systems from each into D&D 5e, by chance have you done such magic yet?
I have not but I feel like I know how I would! I think I'd do something similar to how Mythic Odyssey of Theros does the Piety system and kind of riff on it from there. But allowing them access to certain spells I thought were aligned with a clan, maybe access to certain areas, etc. as level - that sort of thing!
@ oh hey, oddly enough one of the few extra books I have. I’ll give that a look too ^_^
Thanks for commenting back!
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 😂
@@StephaniePlaysGames PLEASE! Feel like I could rant forever about that challenge
hahaha and if you're gonna creep on my table, feel free to pull up a chair and take notes to critique me later. 😂 Plenty of room here in city of brotherly love for another seat
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! 😊
"Zelda ... Link below" LOL
I have read so much that I'm often not sure where my brain steals the ideas from.
Discworld, Wheel of Time and Raymond Feist's Midkemia are great sources for inspiration.
NPC creation is as simple as "Lord Melchiot, spymaster, Siuan/Q". That is enough for a potential first (social) encounter. Fleshing out can be done on the fly and when needed.
Me creating a monster: "Google images, vampire stats". Then mixing and matching feats and abilities and making it fit the desired challenge rating.
Wheel of Time is definitely an all time favorite for me! 😊
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! 😊
The magical flavor and background from Mage: The Ascension; The cosmology of Werewolf: The Apocalypse; The Changeling species, basically, from Changeling: The Dreaming, especially coupled with Tony DiTerlizzi's from the first edition of it. I've also currently been drinking in the art and worldbuilding from Turnip28, which, if you don't know, is a wargame built for kitbashers. It's set in a post-apocalyptic world revolving around turnips. It's art and themes are full of grimdark whimsy.
Oooh, I'm unfamiliar with Turnip28, I'll have to check it out! Thanks for the rec! 😊
@@StephaniePlaysGames 👍🧟♀️ Turnips!
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 wish I was better read or had a greater exposure to movies and shows that could be easily mined for RPG content, but alas I am not. Kit bashing is my preferred method of creating a world as it’s just so hard to be inspired to be creative when you’re staring at a blank slate. My problem is getting that initial idea to build a picture in my mind of what a place is like, but once I do, the creative ideas start flowing. For instance, my players are going to be visiting a mining town that has a Wild West theme, but I’m still struggling to decide how to make that come alive and not just be bleh or cliche.
This sounds a lot like the way Map Crow lays out campaign creation in Agnostic.
Hello, by any chance do you have any actual plays demonstrating practical examples of the theories that you have espoused on your channel?
Unfortunately I don't watch a ton of AP so I'm not the best resource for something like this 😕 Off the top of my head the one that stands out to me is D20's A Court of Fey and Flowers - there's a ton of regency drama tropes and archetypes they incorporated into it.
@StephaniePlaysGames I'm referring to you, specifically. Do you have any actual plays where you showcase practical execution of the various ideas you've advocated?
Oh gosh no! I'm _just_ getting better at cameras/audio/editing, actual play production is wayyyy out of my current league 😂 I will be doing some videos soon that definitely involves how I'd set up certain campaigns using these elements and I'll be doing some livestream where I'll be creating a new campaign I'm going to be running in the spring though!
@StephaniePlaysGames no offense, but how is setting up a camera in the corner of the room and simply recording your games "out of your league"?
A *good* AP is definitely a lot more work than that unfortunately! 😅 They look deceptively simple to make though for sure!
I like the video. Your head moves a lot.
How can one human being be as beautiful, intelligent and creative as you in a single person? This feels like cheat to me.
I have ADHD, so I can nearly remember every book and every film that I ever consumed, so I always borrow from cool characters and use quotes from these books and films.
At the moment, I have a malkavian NPC which is a merge from Sheldon (big bang theory) and a Forest Gump as a young boy. There is also a NPC which is a bit of Marilyn Manson and Roseanne.
Awwww thank you! 😊 As a member of the ADHD club I feel the same! And I love that, that's such a good mashup for a malk! And I also love a good unexpected mashup 😂
i took all my NPCs from actors, that way i can do impressions of them easy and know their mannerisms
I take a bunch of npc's from Pro Wrestling because my players don't watch it; it gives me a
bunch of npc's with already known speech patterns, attitudes, and phrases to use.
Need a quick bartender. Steve Austin who loves shotgunning beers with the patrons.
Run into a chicken shit bandit. The Miz tries to talk a big game against his overwhelming odds.
Must speak with an nobel ambassador. Charlotte Flair will look down her nose at them.
It really is a treasure trove of NPC.
Oh my gosh I love this!!! 😂 I grew up watching wrestling with my family, this is suuuuch a good idea!
C:tD? You’re not going to Akadia and are, in fact, going to Arcadia. Just stay on the Silver Path, and don’t let the Firchlis carry you away.
The TH-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! 😊
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.
I tried writing a setting, but it was boring, so I wrote a novel instead. Tolkien was an exception, not a rule.
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.
Exactly! These are all such great examples! 😊
My problem going from in my head/notes to at a table has always been twofold..1. Too many cool ideas,and 2. My virgo brain wanting not only more details but to fill in the plot holes...why are the pcs there, why are the monsters there, how did both get there? What was it like before the incident i.e what may it return to. What happens next, what happens after? Why was that magic item there, who created the item, why, why wasnt it claim, where was it before...argh!
I definitely feel you on the too many cool ideas feeling, it can be hard to choose which direction to take things sometimes!