D&D 5E Homebrew campaigns based off of media?

[Sacrosanct]

How many of you have created and played homebrew campaigns that were pulled from another source, like a book, movie, etc?

I broke out my old comics, and I'm really thinking about running a campaign based off the the Aircel comic: The Adventurers from the 80s. Anyone else do something like this?

 

[MiraMels]

I'm working on a 5th edition conversion of Shaftal, from Laurie Marks' Elemental Logic series, but its in the early stages of development. It's a fantastic setting for a game though: compelling premise, and simple enough to grasp even if you aren't familiar with the source material.

 

[Jubles]

I definitely take inspiration from other sources, often fiction. The Dresden Files books by Jim Butcher are a goldmine for DMs. My party was venturing into a large story arc taking place in the Faewild and there just aren't many sources out there for 'Truelands' content. The fourth Dresden book was a lifesaver. I didn't copy much but it gave me enough of a complete picture to help me bring my version of fairy land to life. All of the books are good though. He gives a lot of unique perspectives on magic, spellcasting, magical creatures, villains, etc. Great entertaining books that double as a DM imagination workshop.


The same campaign but back in the material plane is a draconic apocalypse thanks to a derailed Rise of Tiamat campaign. I use a lot of themes from the book 1984 to help bring the setting to life.


I haven't considered dedicating an entire campaign to an existing story. Frankly we started that with HotDQ and Rise of Tiamat and I (as DM) couldn't endure the restraints of a module.

 

[Shipyard Locked]

Hey Sacrosanct, long time no see.

I'm currently putting together a D&D setting that closely resembles the Fire Emblem series of games (specifically the 4th, Genealogy of the Holy War) without actually being Fire Emblem or losing too many D&Disms. I'm always mindful of having a relatively pure experience for the many new players who tend to end up at my table.

Fire Emblem emphasizes military skirmishes over dungeoneering, so I'm hoping for once that mounted combat will play a major role. The plots also tend to be old-school political intrigues but with a way more upbeat tone that modern fare like Game of Thrones.

The key obstacle was keeping the world relatively human-centric without outright banning D&D standard races because Fire Emblem is generally human only + dragons and/or animal-shifter people. My current solution is to say up front that the setting is initially designed to be human only, but if any player wants to roll up a nonhuman (and I'll allow almost any race for this purpose), I will include that race and ONLY that race in the makeup of the setting. And I'll do it thoroughly too, I'll seriously integrate them as a small but significant minority with a solid cultural write up that makes sense for the existing material. I figure this is a good way of getting that special unique feel the rare laguz/taguel* characters have in the games.

* the previously mentioned shapeshifter races.

 

[Afrodyte]

Certainly. I think these would be the only kind of D&D campaigns I'd play. If someone started up a Discworld game (or joined one I GMed), I'd be down.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

Dresden Files is amazing for D&D content! I pull inspiration and steal ideas from those books all the time! I especially like the way that magic usage is described, because it provides ideas for how magic can be used beyond the purely mechanical aspects. I find it works especially well for Eberron-type campaign settings.

 

[Ath'kethin]

I have based a couple of campaigns, some more loosely than others, on Glen Cook's Garrett, P.I. books. I pull elements from China Mielville and Raymond Feist fairly often too.

 

[Gradine]

Not my own, but I once played in a 3.5 game where the setting was basically the setting for first three Thief computer games. Took place in a variant of The City, we all had to be humans and basically non-magical, with a few key exceptions. We weren't an "adventuring party" per se (at least not until the crap hit the fan) so much as we all worked in the city and ended up getting involved in mysterious happenings all the time.

I was an Archivist and member of the Keepers (Garrett and Artemus were my mentors), and my task was to basically keep an eye on the other PCs. I mostly helped from the background, and everyone else started to realize that when I actually stepped out of the shadows to help was when crap was about to get real. We had a Barbarian we eventually learned was an Unseelie changeling, a shell-shocked Fighter who was basically given the Sight (as in, he could actually see all the ghosts and spirits and background magical everything around and it was slowly quickly driving him mad), a Paladin dedicated to the Master Builder (played an actual Lutheran Vicar at his most Fire-and-Brimstone).

Eventually I wound up on the wrong side of a civil war within the Keepers that I had no idea was even happenng, Artemus got killed (right in front of me) and Garrett told me to take my charges out of the city as quickly as possible. So when I tried to gather everyone together to get them to go they were super freaked out; they were used to my character being the calm, detached guy who always knew the score and could tell them how to kill the inconceivable horrors they usually found themselves facing, so when I showed up panicked and blubbering about needing to get out of the city they didn't even know what to think.

That was still one of our favorite campaigns ever.

 

[jimmytheccomic]

I ran a campaign that went for five years, based on the "Dark Tower" series by Stephen King. We couldn't have had more fun, still an all timer!

 

[steeldragons]

Oh jeez. BITD what didn't I borrow to all out steal from other media to use in my D&D campaigns.

He-Man/Superfriends/GI Joe/pretty much any cartoons, "the Barbarians" (Conan and Thundarr, respectively) , comic books (mostly X-Men), world mythologies, movies (particular scenes, character concepts, and/or plot devices from Flash Gordon, Time Bandits, and Legend immediately come to mind), ancient-to-romantic-to-modern literature,... you name it, I could glean anything from general (or specific) inspirations to all out full content plagiarism (with names and places changed to protect the innocent, i.e. me).

In other words, "Ch'yeah. Of course!"