BrokenClock
As an English major, I am a pretentious twat. It simply comes with the field.
I enjoy using literary allusions and abstract metaphors in my adventures. I like to throw in obscure book and movie references that I'm sure nobody will ever get, simply because it is not to be expected. I also like making allegories that provide a sort of commentary on current events within our world, that is to say, the 'real world'. But, I'm obviously careful when doing this. You don't want your players rolling their eyes when they have to defeat the evil mage who lives in the east and who may or may not have a giant spell that could wipe out half of the population of the realm. Subtly is the prefered course of action.
Right now I'm working on a mini adventure that should mimic the Odyssey slightly. However, my approach is currently the hammer and not the scalpel. I want the effect to be obvious, for high amounts of hilarity as my intention is subverstion and not homage.
I was wondering if anyone does the same. If you do, I would love to hear it. As a person who does it myself, I know it's nice to share when nobody in the party got the joke or reference.
Pretentious? absolutely!
Comments
Of course, I use as many pop-culture references as I do literary, like the drow sheriff named "Ba'art":http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071230/ in a human frontier town with his deputies, James Kidd and Mon'go.
Sometimes the investigators pick up on it, sometimes they don't. Either way, it's a nice way to immerse the players into the action even more.
It's very fun to mix Tim Dorsey with William Gibson and Dragonlance and have a smattering of Piers Anthony in the plot here and there. Also, Poul Anderson and H.G. Wells are mixing oddly in my head at the moment.
All of these references sound very clever.
I feel taking characters from books or movies and giving them different names works amazing when generating a random NPC. It helps me to roleplay as that character. All I have to do is write by the NPCs name the character I was imitating. It makes for great continuity. The only thing you have to watch out for is doing too good an imitation. Players might not take a Captain Kirk inspired gnomish fighter too well.
My Orcs are the same way. If they are not eating your face, they are having sex with it. (don't visualize that for it will haunt your dreams)
@gnunn: I love you in a hetero way for making a Blazing Saddles reference in your campaign.
I'm envious of those of you who can draw on things you've seen or read. I simply don't do it that often. The most prominent character I've ever used is the blind swordsman, Zatoichi; but the character was the base for a class for D&D, and not so much an NPC the PC's met. I sometimes make allusions to an NPC being "like" or "akin" to a famous fictional character, but that's usually as far as it goes.
And sigh. I made a typo while posting this, and now I'll have to tell my Transformers-loving friend about a potential campaign titled "The Last Unicron".
The Last Unicron sounds like Battletech+GURPS maybe?
It's like they say - imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Books, movies, songs, video games - all are great jumping points for the imagination. Think of it this way - there probably wouldn't be a Hobbit or Lord of the Rings without Beowulf. Even the all-time greats borrow from time to time.
Guys like R. Flagg and Robert Gray have popped up in my World of Darkness game for instance.
Let's see, how to fit in the BP oil spill into my campaign . . . Dwarves over-mining and causing an avalanch that kills an entire town?
They're also interacting with my elves now, and I've gone back to the old Irish/Celtic mythologies for the eladrin (who I generally just call "high elves" or "fey elves"). The fey elves are beautiful, elves are magical, but they aren't _nice_. They're a people full of laughter, especially when they're stealing babies out of cribs, which they think is just hilarious. It's not that they're mean spirited, they just don't have any empathy for the moral races. When the group saved the life of one, her version of being grateful was that it was so nice to meet mortals that knew their place and were willing to put their own lives in jeopardy for hers, since her life was so much more important.