Movies: They fire our imagination as storytellers and DMs. We want to help create the same level of tension, drama, hope, fear, love and hate that our favorite stories do. There’s just one problem.
Movies are not RPGs.
In our most recent episode, we discussed a listener question of how to take a favorite movie and turn it into a campaign setting – without railroading your players into playing out every scene. While we discussed the examples provided of Jurassic Park and Jumanji (and added Lord of the Rings), we thought it would be fun to delve into four of the most famous and beloved Hollywood properties and see how they might play out in your next game.
To my mind, several factors play into how, or if, you should attempt to retell these famous stories in your own game. For each of these, we’ll gauge the concept based on three factors:
- Campaign or Adventure: Is this concept built more for a one-shot, possibly multi-night, adventure or is there enough material to build out a whole campaign?
- Lore Tolerance: How much worldbuilding lore is there in the property? Enough to build a campaign? So much that it becomes a DM nightmare? Will your players metagame the whole adventure before it even begins?
- System Requirements: Does the system you’re playing provide the framework to realize your vision?
To make this easy, we’ll go with the highest-grossing series of all time courtesy of The Numbers.
1. Make Mine Marvel: The MCU
It should come as no surprise to anyone that the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is the highest-grossing franchise of all time. I mean, it doesn’t hurt that the entire franchise is 28 films long, with over 60 years of comics history! With that said, superhero roleplaying is something many DMs would like to play with, whether as a whole campaign or as a one-shot.
And, if you’ve been listening to 3WD, you know that we have a growing shared Marvel Universe campaign being helmed by three separate DMs.
Campaign or Adventure? You could do either with Marvel as your base using their idea of the multiverse. You could plan a single adventure or campaign within Earth-616 (the current comic universe), Earth-19999 (the current MCU) or an Earth of your own creation (such as 3WD’s Earth-6-1-SHIT in honor of the “Super High Intensity Team.”)
Lore Tolerance? This one can be tricky. Obviously, if you’re setting your Marvel campaign in either Earth-616 or Earth-19999, you’re going to have a mind-numbing amount of story to work into your overarching campaign. But, if you use an Earth of your own creation, you can decide which bits have made their way into your Earth. Like my Marvel game, where Hell’s Kitchen is still dangerous, many of the heroes are dealing with their problems from the ’80s run of comics and Vincent D’Onofrio is the Kingpin… just a little bit from everything.
System Requirements? You could use an existing d20 system to create a superhero campaign or adventure. If you were going to use 5e, you might want to start your players at higher levels to reflect the superheroic nature of the characters. However, there are systems like TSR’s Marvel Super Heroes and the FASERIP clones that, in my opinion, do a better job of capturing the essence of the superhero genre.
2. Star Wars: A Long Time Ago, In A Galaxy Far, Far, Away…
Coming in at number two is everybody’s favorite space opera: Star Wars. (Or it should be everybody’s favorite!) Whether you’re placing your game within the Skywalker saga era or playing around with other eras (such as Knights of the Old Republic or The Mandalorian), few properties come with so many possible stories yet to be told.
Campaign or Adventure? Much like Marvel, you could create epic one-shots or an era-spanning campaign to rival the Skywalker saga itself (no pressure!) As we’ve seen with some of the current stories, the Star Wars universe allows for all types of genres, including westerns, so the sky is the limit.
Lore Tolerance? Similar to Marvel, there exists a ludicrous amount of history and lore within the Star Wars universe. But, as DM Tony pointed out in the episode, bringing the story out of the timelines that most fans of the series know allows you to craft an adventure or campaign where the players’ meta-knowledge won’t become a burden.
System Requirements? A d20 system could work quite easily for a game set in the Star Wars universe. There are even existing science fiction editions currently available, like Paizo’s Starfinder RPG. While I am unfamiliar with the Fantasy Flight series of Star Wars RPGs, like Age of Rebellion, that’s always an option if you’re planning on running a whole campaign. Or you could go back and dig up the West End d6 Star Wars system that DM Thorin used to run.
3. Harry Potter: The Boy Who Lived … The PCs Who Won’t
If you became the first author worth over one billion dollars, it’s a sure bet that your franchise is mildly popular. The Harry Potter series of books and films are a perfect setting to set your game in. I mean, they even set you up to be able to properly illustrate the distinction between wizards and sorcerers (spoilers, Harry’s a sorcerer).
Campaign or Adventure? This setting definitely seems much more of a campaign setting, even providing a way to level up your party through schooling. However, as DM Tony showed with the School of Nekros from Dungeon magazine, it could also be a small adventure to serve as a jumping-off point for a larger campaign set in that world or one of your own creation.
Lore Tolerance? There is a good deal of lore to be had between seven core books. What I found with reading the series and seeing the movie adaptations, though, was that there’s a lot of room to craft much of the world’s lore yourself. The setting is not quite so cumbersome as Marvel or Star Wars and, outside of Hogwarts proper, leaves a lot of creative freedom.
System Requirements? This is the first franchise on our list that I feel would do perfectly within D&D 5e. Even within the leveling system, each level could be one year in Hogwarts, leaving you with fully trained wizards (or sorcerers) by 7th level. Of course, you’ve really got to make some interesting stories to keep your players interested in 7 whole levels of school!
4. James Bond: A PC’s License to Kill
The longest-running franchise in movie history on our list. 007. The super spy from MI-6. Bond… James Bond.
Who doesn’t want to play within the worlds of intrigue and shadow games between highly skilled assassins? This immediately takes me back to my childhood, playing TSR’s original release of Top Secret.
Campaign or Adventure? This setting is unique within the list as the property itself is both a campaign and singular adventures due to the episodic nature of the movies. The main character and NPCs remain the same, but everything else changes. However, while you could easily craft an intrigue, spy-type adventure within your existing campaign – to truly capture James Bond, you would do better to make it a campaign setting.
Lore Tolerance? This is an interesting one because it is the only one in our series to be set in a realistic modern-day environment. This can be helpful, but also quite daunting, depending on the level of world history that you decide to bring into the game – less for a single adventure but an enormous amount for a campaign. It’s similar to the way we discuss our current Call of Cthulhu campaign, where history trumps rules.
System Requirements? This is the only one on the list that I would absolutely not use with D&D 5e or similar systems. James Bond fits more with skill-based systems such as Call of Cthulhu, Top Secret or GURPS.
Final Thoughts
As we said in the beginning the only problem with adapting movies to RPGs is this: Movies are not RPGs.
Movies are written out completely. All the dialogue is perfectly scripted. Every costume is painstakingly crafted. Every camera angle is storyboarded, shot, and reshot. This is not the experience at the game table. Your players are not actors to be directed and you are not the director. Think of yourself more as a producer – you have the overall vision for the story and the tone you’re trying to set. It is at that point that the story can finally begin.
So, use your favorite movie properties as fodder for your imagination. Craft one-shot adventures that remind your players that they’re heroes of the same caliber as Cap and Luke. Set your games in worlds where your players can help save the world that Harry Potter and James Bond are also working diligently to protect.
Just let the stories be created at the table. Those are the ones that your players will remember. Those are the moments that they’ll envision on the silver screen.
Until next time, heroes … LIVE THE ADVENTURE!
Played in a star wars d20 game 2 years ago using the WotC edition and had a blast