Daleks vs. Rikti.

So, as a gamemaster, I can't come up with all the cool stuff in the world for my games. I need inspiration. As a nerd, I know of a ton of cool things that I can include--and since my players are mostly nerds, too, they can appreciate them.

It's the fine art of writing homage, and it works for gaming, too. And I'm convinced that the people who wrote Aliens vs. Predator know what I'm talking about.

Actually, that's a great example, since that completely original idea came out in comics first. Comic books stories are shameless, and honestly, I like some of the stuff they come up with. Vampires, magicians, space aliens and mutants all fight evil together in the pages of comics.

Appropriately enough, a few years ago I ran a super-hero game I called Heroism 101. The setting was a slightly comic-book version of the University of Illinois campus at Champaign/Urbana. The tone was a sort of Spiderman/Buffy, and included characters like the hitman from Gross Point Blank and "Secret Asian Man" who was actually called the Master Thesbian, but the joke stuck. Yes, his super power was acting. As I was playing City of Heroes at the time, the metaplot involved the impending invasion of the alien Rikti race, built to model what they could do in the MMORPG.

All this was fun as hell.

And why not? RPGs are only a few steps from playing with action figures, where Luke and Han join Snake-Eyes to fight the evil alliance of Destro and Vader. We (sometimes) try to create realistic people for our characters, with wants, and hopes--but they have to live -somewhere-, know some people, and do something. In fictional stories we tell together for the fun of it, what's the difference if their surroundings seem familiar because we've really been to that place, or because we've read about that particular Wardrobe a few times?

What's important is to keep the tone consistant in the game--things can get campy quick. Which okay for a campy game, but less so for a game of high drama. You don't want to bring in things that will actually lessen a player's (or another player's) fun. As players, be forgiving as long as the tone isn't violated.

Just don't involve Captain Kirk. It never helps.

~j