General Who's created characters based on stories or even songs?

[Spinward Scout]

In Classic Traveller's 1001 Characters the end of the book had Traveller characters modelled on characters from Science Fiction. I think there was a second list in another book.

Many sci-fi stories had characters that could be Traveller characters. And even several songs had characters that would fit in Traveller.

Ziggy Stardust played guitar and would be an Entertainer, I'm sure. From the David Bowie song by the same name.

Shenan Dora and his dog were at the Edge of the Universe, who was in a song by the Bee Gees, would be a Pilot, I think.

Starrider could be a character's nickname. From a song by Foreigner.

I'm showing my age here.

But you get the idea.

Have you made any characters based on stories or even songs?

 

[Grav_Moped]

I've done a starship design (thread) based on a song: Sine [sic] of the Gypsy Queen (youtube) -- and I call dibs on "Arctangent of the Gypsy Queen" as a scenario title...

Note that the function sin(gypsy queen) = grab your things and leave

 

[Grav_Moped]

I'm also working up a female Vargr that I'll probably just use to introduce a language glitch in Gvegh*, but off-stage will be involved in an inter-species romance.**

The two songs in question, by an artist that the YT algorithm tossed my way:
Baby I'm the Wolf -- Ha Vay
The Huntress -- Ha Vay

--------------------------------
* Gvegh, as with almost all Vargr languages, is intrinsically about one-updog-manship¤ That is, mere conversation is a constant challenge for status. The glitch is when a pair of people stop contesting status between each other and just talk... like young lovers or an old married couple. Awkward!

** It's not furry pron! Seriously, this is gonna be all romantic and stuff. The hard parts: what do Vargr think love is, anyway; and, what kind of human would fall in love with a Vargr (and vice versa)? Then you get into issues like associative mating (compatible levels of SOC and CHA), and so on -- and that's just the social side of it. It's complicated, ok?

¤ What's updog? To ask that aloud is to answer the question...

 

[Spinward Scout]

What's updog?

What's up with you, Dog?

 

[Grav_Moped]

What's up with you, Dog?

Doing ok but hit writer's block -- it'll pass eventually.

Also, from my PbP campaign, the gunnery officer Annie Oakley (Lt, Imperial Navy) drew a bit from "Annie, Get Your Gun" by Squeeze, but mostly as inspiration rather than a literal transposition. (YT) The other gunner (Roland Thompson) got only his name from the Warren Zevon song, "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" (YT)

 

[coliver988]

wrote a short scenario once based on Rock The Casbah though it was only in my head. Basically a mad dash top get back to the port before getting killed in an uprising.
Songmeanings description here: https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/5843/

 

[Spinward Scout]

Doing ok but hit writer's block -- it'll pass eventually.

I had an idea about writer's block.

What if you wrote what you DON'T want to happen?

 

[Grav_Moped]

I had an idea about writer's block.

What if you wrote what you DON'T want to happen?

It's the stuff I don't want to happen that's stopping me!

...at least in the "signup" narrative. In the Vargr meet-cute -> language glitch it's a character-construction problem.

 

[kilemall]

I had an idea about writer's block.

What if you wrote what you DON'T want to happen?

Oh you mean like the ref story line meets player interaction?

 

[coliver988]

I had an NPC based on the hurricane that hit here (I live near the Asheville area). Does that count? Helene "Hurricane" Turlton

she may have died in the Space Gits game - have not really sure what I want to do yet with the off-screen violence that happened in that session. Depends on if/when we pick it back up (though 1 player did add a new alien race and a cool station so hoping, as he also has the rules, he'll pick it up & I can play one of the NPCs that did survive with the group)

 

[Black Vulmea]

Characters, not that I can recall.

Song titles and snippets of lyrics as starship names, ALL THE TIME.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Oh you mean like the ref story line meets player interaction?

Not really. Just writing some things out to try to break his writer's block.

 

[Quint]

There's a reoccuring NPC in my Traveller games named Captain Dinty Moore (after the soup manufacturer) who captains an Aslan Free Trader "Dangerous Toes" he won a controlling interest in during a card game - he's married to the primary female Aslan owner whose name I can't remember off the top of my head and they also have a Droyne Sport for an Engineer who goes by the name of Thirteen and an albino Vargr gunner/shuttle pilot/security (aka former corsair) called Howler who is some kind of devil worshipper (aka a White Howler of the Black Spiral Dancers from Werewolf) who claims to see ghosts and spirits. It was joke for a very, very old game but they've stuck around and made several appearances over the years.

D.

 

[atpollard]

I save SONGS for inspiration for Adventures ... "Year 2034: Me and Julio"

 

[Badenov]

So I played an Aslan based on Miaowara Shiro from the Samurai Cat novels by Mark Rogers, if that counts as a character based on a story. In the novels, Shiro was a young kitten following his uncle, the title character. In our Traveller game, Shiro was an Imperial Marine who'd mustered out after the Fifth Frontier War, so obviously aged-up, but had the same wild and violent inclinations as Shiro in the book.

 

[aramis]

In Classic Traveller's 1001 Characters the end of the book had Traveller characters modelled on characters from Science Fiction. I think there was a second list in another book.

Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium. Technically, it has both lists... Sup 1 doesn't tell you who is whom; those answers are in Supplement 4.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium. Technically, it has both lists... Sup 1 doesn't tell you who is whom; those answers are in Supplement 4.

Cool. I'll look it up.