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Who or what have you paid homage to lately?

J

jchurchill

SOC-12
What stories, movies, books, or similar material have you ripped off recently [or not so recently] in your campaign/game??

A brief reflection on this brought the following:

Yojimbo [ripped off by Fistful of Dollars, Last Man Standing etc...and Y was actually a rip from Dashiell Hammet's Red Harvest]

sanjuro the sequel

The Seven Samurai

Zulu

Beau Geste

Ten Little Indians

The Libyan campaign of 1940-41 aka The Rat Patrol

Lawrence of Arabia

Alien

Sink The Bismarck

A Bridge Too Far

Batman

The Prisoner [try mustering out of the Intelligence service if it doesn't want you to...]

The African Queen

The Guns of Navarone

Ice Station Zebra [elements of...]

The Ghost and The Darkness [future scenario but more sensibly done I hope]

2001

The Great Escape

The Ipcress File

The Third Man

The Big Lebowski

etc etc etc.....

I'm sure I have left several out.
 
I've ripped off Apocalypse Now and Guns of Navarone, but I borrow bits from all over so it's difficult to think of other specific examples.

A lot of my NPCs are based on characters from fiction (usually whatever I'm watching or reading at the time - the cast of Cheers turned up recently!), but it might not be obvious to the players.
 
"I borrow bits from all over so it's difficult to think of other specific examples."

I try to do the same so that the instant reaction is "oh you stole this from...."

Of course once the source is recognized changing the storyline or characters also helps because it throws off expectations. Someone once complained that I deviated from a story and I just smiled and shrugged.
 
Just two recently (I'm not counting the dotmap from DGPs V&V that I'm using for my census of the Empire of Varroerth...)

100 Years of Solitude (the best book EVER) to get a ship name

There and Back Again (the sci-fi book by Pat Murphy, and yes it rips off THAT book...) To get another ship name...

A couple months ago I was taking from 'Herris Serrano' by Elizabeth Moon...

-MADDog
 
Let's see, there was
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  • "Starport on Kwai Asteroid"</font>
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  • The entire WWII U-Boat genre</font>
  • etc, etc, etc...</font>
Usually I steal things from the news though...
 
Lemme seee now.....

Dune (at least in terms of the nobilities' conduct and the plotting and planning)

Bravo Two Zero

Finity's End (CJ Cherryh - at least for some of the details of merchant life)

Blackcollar Series/Cobra Series (for some examples of how the Solomani might setup Phoenix....)

Anything by William Gibson (for tech flare and how corporations are likely to act....)

Aliens (Carter Burke makes an excellent patron or villain)

Sun Tzu

History from the Age of Sail, particularly from the days of Nelson, the Privateers, Cochrane, Jervis, etc.

The Borne Identity

German History (just pre WW2) - We had a player setting up 'the People's Petra' - a scandal rag to attack the local nobility based of the (sp?) Volkisherbeobachter.

Poseidon Adventure/Titanic/Starship Titanic - Welcome Aboard! (a little bit of Love Boat thrown in for a good measure)

Starship Troopers (Roughneck Chronicles cartoon) - for how to do Chamax Plague/Horde.... or equivalent high-tech versus bug swarm...

Like one of the other players, I prefer the player not to recognize the entire plot. So I tend to steal 'nuggets' and embed those in an otherwise different plot.
 
Is everybody sure that Starship Troopers didn't rip off Traveller and the Chamax Plague. The comparisons are just too good to be true!
 
A nice(dirty ) trick I have grown fond of, and like to nake the PCs paranoid of is to rip off a plot line that they know, follow it until they recognize it, then when just when they start anticipating the plot, twist it around on them.

Try "Battle Beyond the Stars"
The PCs were of course playing the defending force. They recruited a bit of help, destroyed the covering SDBs left by the invader Battle wagon, and fought off the ground attack. Anticipating an attack by the battle wagon, they outfitted a local insystem ship a a fire ship (loaded with nuke warheads) for a ramming attack from the rear. They did not anticipate a commando raid by the attackers as part of the ground attack to destroy the defense screens and deep meson gun site.
They ended up loading as many people as they could and evacuating them to another system before the bombardment began.
Nn bonus for this contract. Oh Well!!! :(
 
Don't laugh, but Monty Python works well for my games.... And stranger still, they're fairly serious games.

I think it basically comes from the fact that the universe itself is somewhat twisted?
 
NOBODY expects the SolSec Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Party.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again.
 
Originally posted by Andrew Boulton:
NOBODY expects the SolSec Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Party.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again.
Click to expand...
Quiet you.... or I may have to get the Stuffed Cushion or the Comfy Chair..... :eek: :eek:
 
A nice(dirty ) trick I have grown fond of, and like to nake the PCs paranoid of is to rip off a plot line that they know, follow it until they recognize it, then when just when they start anticipating the plot, twist it around on them.
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See my earlier post. Players complain that I deviate from the original story and then realize that they were operating on the assumption that the ending could not be different.
 
Correct, that is the point of using a recognized plot line. This is a tactic I like to use if the players are starting to use "Player Knowledge" in inappropriate places.
 
Kurasawa's _Sanjuro_ (Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven and Red Harvest/Yojimbo/Fist Full of Dollars/Last Man Standing are too obvious.

Eric Ambler Jouney Into Fear (1930s Balkans are so much fun) and "The Wreck of the Mary Dear" (breaking up an insurance scam).

Dashiell Hammett, "The Gutting of Coufignal", "The King Game" and others.

Alistair Maclain, The Golden Rendezvous. On board a hijacked cruise ship.

Murph ran a terrific game based on "Zulu" with elements from H. Beam Piper's Uller Uprising.
 
Kurasawa's _Sanjuro_ (Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven and Red Harvest/Yojimbo/Fist Full of Dollars/Last Man Standing are too obvious.
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Ah but not that many people have seen "Sanjuro."
Plus the humor inherent in the situation are an odd twist. But yes Yojimbo/Seven Samurai is an old warhorse that gets overused. But then I think that happens because they are goo solid stories.

Eric Ambler Jouney Into Fear (1930s Balkans are so much fun) and "The Wreck of the Mary Dear" (breaking up an insurance scam).
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Journey Into Fear is a great source to be sure. Most any Eric Ambler is...esp. Light of Day, State of Siege or even Passage of Arms. Eric ambler has been forgotten for the most part.

Dashiell Hammett, "The Gutting of Coufignal", "The King Game" and others.
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other good ones. Sometimes a bit of Raymond Chander can be snuck in too.

Alistair Maclain, The Golden Rendezvous. On board a hijacked cruise ship.
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McLean is always a good source too. The writing has not held up and I never found GR to be one of the best of stories like Guns of Navarone..also used and abused before.

Murph ran a terrific game based on "Zulu" with elements from H. Beam Piper's Uller Uprising.
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"Zulu" and "Seven Samurai" can have similar feel and give the players a chance for heroism but the players tend to not enjoy dying as freely as Seven Samurai seems to call for...but then sometimes the "Zulu" scenario sometimes results in a second "Isandlwana." Then the running away becomes more common.
 
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