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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Eldritch Donut on March 16, 2011, 10:51:37 PM

Title: Sources of Inspiration
Post by: Eldritch Donut on March 16, 2011, 10:51:37 PM
What do you use when you're looking for an angle on a character or a monster to build?

I try to use Wikipedia and look up folklore for monster ideas.

I also recently came across this site...
http://www.monstropedia.org/monster/Main_Page (http://www.monstropedia.org/monster/Main_Page) - Monsterpedia! And it looks like it has some good information.
Title: Re: Sources of Inspiration
Post by: Sanctaphrax on March 16, 2011, 11:11:58 PM
I ask the forum for suggestions and requests when I'm just looking for general inspiration.

I use wikipedia, monstropedia, and other RPGs when there's something specific I want to build.
Title: Re: Sources of Inspiration
Post by: Mal_Luck on March 16, 2011, 11:41:45 PM
I'm a TVTropes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage)addict and use it regularly.
Title: Re: Sources of Inspiration
Post by: bibliophile20 on March 17, 2011, 02:29:15 AM
I'm a TVTropes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage)addict and use it regularly.
Seconded.  "Hi, I'm Joe and it's been six hours since..."
Title: Re: Sources of Inspiration
Post by: admiralducksauce on March 17, 2011, 11:25:21 AM
I shamelessly rip off characters from other sources.  It lends an easy roleplaying hook if I know an NPC villain is played by Vinnie Jones, for example.  For monsters, I have two books of local ghost stories, the Supernatural book that was like John Winchester's journal, any number of horror movies, Our World, and the internet.  Most of the time I come at it thinking of what kind of challenge I want to throw at the PCs and THEN figure out a monster that can do that. 
Title: Re: Sources of Inspiration
Post by: DFJunkie on March 17, 2011, 12:49:05 PM
Buffy.
Title: Re: Sources of Inspiration
Post by: ryanshowseason2 on March 17, 2011, 02:44:50 PM
Buffy.
Shame.

I find I like very non conventional monsters stuff that really catches players off guard with it's oddity. Anime coming from a culture not close to my own tends to have some off the wall creatures and concepts that I sometimes shamelessly use or adapt.

The magic system of "Darker Than Black" is an interesting take on sponsored magic, where the sponsor only requires that the recipient perform a very strange and specific "remuneration" to be able to use their equally strange and specific power. I recall one char that had to break his own fingers in order to make things ignore gravity to achieve a levitation like effect. Another had to drink the blood of children to create instant space like vacuums. There were lighter tone ones like eating cheeseburgers for super speed or dog earing all the pages in a book for wind like magic. But the dark ones caught my eye, especially since they don't make any sense and the chars who have them are just as clueless as to why as anyone else, this and moreover they were just kind of stuck with these powers randomly without asking.

So yeah Japan and the weird stuff it churns out is great material.

Also native american folklore has some truly terrifying ideas sometimes, a lot of them are generic but some are just... scary especially the ones that seem to have a foothold in reality. Case in point Wendigo. Both considered a monster and an affliction. Apparently the monster would call to you in a mind control kind of way and make you crave human flesh, you were then a Wendigo yourself. When Wendigo ate humans they gain their size and become bigger, thus increasing their appetite. This effect made it so that a Wendigo would starve even as it gorged itself endlessly, an uncontrollable hunger making it constantly hunt for humans.

Now the scary part, there are many a documented case of native americans inexplicably cannibalizing their fellows and claiming that they were Wendigo. Often times they would ask to be killed to stop themselves, which tells me they really did believe it and weren't just trying to get away with crime. One case involved a man who ate his family wife and 2 kids even when he could have gotten food reasonably easily. This strange Wendigo phenomena seems to have disappeared nowadays but... s*** man that is creepy.

So yeah monsters rooted in reality make for good nightmare fuel. I like to show my players the real world stuff too, that really changes the atmosphere of a session.
Title: Re: Sources of Inspiration
Post by: Remy Sinclair on March 17, 2011, 04:41:46 PM
I have books on Superstitions and Legends.

No matter what City you are running your game there are always many books about the Macbre to Monsters to Ghosts in the area.

You can find various places on the internet that cover it. I know a few professional writers on their own blogs thanking the Wikipedias for ideas.

Other RPGs work as well. White Wolf especially the Begone Beastry, D&D no matter what version, Legend of the Five Rings, the Supernatural RPG, Buffy RPG etc.

Also movies and books. Some people have some great ideas for the Dresdenverse that are not Jim Butcher.

It all depends on what you want.
Title: Re: Sources of Inspiration
Post by: Eldritch Donut on March 17, 2011, 11:10:01 PM
Great sites and info. Always fun to know what others are drawing from.
Title: Re: Sources of Inspiration
Post by: Cyberchihuahua on March 18, 2011, 02:26:41 AM
Lots of odd monster art here.

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=81 (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=81)
Title: Re: Sources of Inspiration
Post by: Sanctaphrax on March 18, 2011, 08:44:52 PM
Wow. Thank you, Cyberchihuahua.

I think I might just start using that site for inspiration myself.
Title: Re: Sources of Inspiration
Post by: rpmarsh on March 18, 2011, 08:48:15 PM
I grab monsters from other games like Esoterrorist and the Book of Unremitting Horror. Then I take settings and organizations from In Dark Alleys and a Fate Worst than Death. Finally rename them, change enough to make it mine, and send them against my players.