RPG a Day 2018: 18. Art that inspires your game

RPG a Day 2018

18. Art that inspires your game.

I look at a lot, from visual art in the games, “this is cool” art threads on general and game-specific forums and social media, official art books, comics, and the like. Sometimes I’ll get an idea for a scene or character from something in a gallery as well.

But also music, as demonstrated by the various Episodes Based On Song Titles threads on RPG.net, as well as more directly narrative inspirations like books, movies, TV, video games, streaming game sessions...

For some specific examples:

I’ve swiped a bunch of Buffy monsters from the SyFy Channel makeup challenge show Face Off, as well as sites for effects and mask companies like The Scream Team whose designs have a suitably Buffyish look. Others have ended up in Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who and other games.

On the subject of Doctor Who, I once spun up an adventure about wolves made of ice after seeing an ice sculpture awards gallery, a few years before The Snowmen.

I’ve run superhero games based on grabbing character ideas from artists like Storn Cook and David Bednarski.

One of these days I’ll run a Warhammer game based on Bruegel’s The Triumph Of Death. (And I’m tempted to buy the miniatures army that a designer based on it!)

And a particularly odd one: I lifted the character from the I Am A Crisis Red Cross fundraising advert for my first V20 game. It wasn’t even about giving blood.