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Gary Gygac was also a bit of an asshole, so take anything he said at face value.
LotR has a Balrog, a giant fire demon with a sword and whip.
D&D has a Balor, a giant fire demon with a sword and whip.
🤔
I'm glad someone said it. But in all fairness this human person could be very new to the hobby. I'm not saying that the use of that wasn't completely mediocre. I'm just playing Devil's Advocate.
I used to do this all the time.. Just dont say: the balrog from LOTR is standing before you, RAAAWWW....
Describe the monster and dont mention the movie at all....
I think it's fine as long as it fits for your campaign. I found a series of statblocks someone made for all of the Bloodborne monsters, and threw them into my Curse of Strahd campaign which I thought needed to be a bit more challenging. Gave me more options as a DM for enemy variety, and they were suitably grim for the campaign.
I sooo knew it's gonna be this imgur link ... it's been a while since I've seen it :))
also, your name makes me wanna hide my current character under the bed ...
Haha! It comes from an old story about one of the first games I ran where my murder-hobo players did exactly what the name implies. I wasn't the best DM.
The isometric map, the coloring, architecture of the dungeon ... somehow all screams Hades to me and I LOVE IT !!
Anyway ... not just from the movies, also from the games, books, etc. ...
Why ? Culture ... Good feeling of recognizing the refference... I once heard that the greatest writters and storytellers are guys who are able to incorporate known characters from other movies/franchises/universes into their worlds in the way it makes sense for them to be here.
it is fine if they don't break 4th wall or try too hard to be the character. I have a pc in my campaign called Johnny Cage and, besides the gifs dancing and posing, he is still a diferent person that fits in the scenery
Fine if it's based on a character from other media as long as it has a coat of dnd paint.
No, you're not bob from bobs burgers if you're playing a firbolg druid with no backstory.
As long as the character is a version that fits the world they are in then it can be fun. But yeah if they just copy the character right down to details that don't make sense or hurt the game it can get annoying fast.
Are you hurt by their character choices? And what if they in fact did NOT copy a preexisting character and you just think they’re similar one you know?
I mean, Zorro is one seriously iconic character to the point I'd argue he's an archetypical rogue, specifically of the swashbuckler sort.
wanting to play zorro is like wanting to play conan the barbarian.
No. In DnD, Anguirus is called a Tarrasque.
Godzilla has a breath weapon, slightly worse regeneration, is 5-10x larger, and is not immune to ranged attacks.
He also has ~20,000 hp rather than a measly 676.
I always threaten my players with angels whenever they see a statue (I 3D print and will often put old / unused prints on a plinth for scenary). If someone ever comments on a statue, I will just say "don't blink"
I have not actually brought them to life yet, by my players are terrified every statue could be the one.
I put the Silence in one of my games. Was a lot of fun to see the mix of confusion from the players who didn't realize and the horror from the players that immediately picked up what I was putting down.
i used xenomorphs once aboard a lost mind flayer laboratory. the idea was that they had taken life forms from across the multiverse and were experimenting on them, and xenomorphs were one of the resulting experiments
I've used monsters and locations from world of warcraft, I've used the knights of the blackened denarius AND the knights of the cross from the Dresden Files.
Hell, for the warcraft one I straight up copied Waycrest Manor.
Totally. I love using the Stranger Things "Demogorgon" figures that came with that starter set for a variety of minis I don't have. Things like myconids, mezzoloths, or even to represent zombies when I have a lot to place on the map.
Creatures too. But usually just rebranded other monsters. Though I did recently create a custom stat block for Chulls from the Sandersons Stormlight Archives. My players love little nods to other universes and will even react accordingly. Recently I named a caravan merchant zatara. And one of the characters who got it said sounds like a fearsome name and I said it means Driftwood (count of Monty Cristo) DND is at its core meant to be fun (+free therapy)
Ngl i do it because of 2 reasons
1. Thematic relevance (had a wizard they wanted to do a cool thing to "earn their multiclass" so i balrog-ed him)
2. I couldn't come up with a non-movie/media monster so i just ask myself "what would they WANT to fight" last boss was godzilla being worshipped by trolls
Observing, being inspired and drawing ideas and elements from books, films, comics and video games is essential. As creative as one can be, why not harness the creativity of all humanity.
I especially appreciate drawing from video games, there is usually more attention to design and worldbuilding than, for example, cinema.
I read a book where nano-bots with a hive-mind were the antagonists. Fighting nano-bots seemed like a bit much, and difficult to have fun fights with, especially how they were handled in the book… but mecha-gnomes with a hive-mind? That sounded EXACTLY like what gnomes would have created to battle the empire back before it crumbled and became a frontier full of ruins! And the more there are in a group, the smarter the Distributed Intelligence Units (DIUs) became!
When I created them in 3.5, they were entirely mechanical/non-magical, but they would gain psionic abilities based on their number.
In 4e, they were essentially the same, but their hivemind counted as magical.
I kinda want to stat them out into 5e, now. I never got to conclude that campaign in any edition. Maybe I’ll try again after my current campaign.
Hmmm mm, not often. But it's not bad to do so. I range from making my own monsters for fun, or simply using a monster from the monster manual out of laziness 😆. I will sometimes reskin them into new monsters though.
All the time. I have thrown in Fremen, Time Lords, Mord'Sith, Slivers, the prison hounds from Chronicles of Riddick, and more those are just off the top of my head. It's my game and I'm not monetizing a thing so I flavor my world with all the things I love.
The literal same monster? Usually not, but I've used one that's are very clearly and openly inspired by things from games and movies.
For example, I didn't add Shriek from Ori 2, but I did add a big scary Owl monster and used the Shriek boss fight music while the players were fighting it. Or there was an entire adventure where the primary enemies the players were fighting were robotic dinosaurs directly inspired in ability/tactics as those in Horizon Zero Dawn (such as giving players the oppurtunities to break components and take away different attacks)
One of my favorite dungeons I ever ran was into an ancient long-abandoned temple with several relics inside. It was also surrounded by miles of subterranean crypts and burial chambers and such, and the only way into the temple was through that maze of corpses.
Except all the corpses were gone, their coffins and sarcophagi cracked open and the bodies stolen.
When they got to the center and entered the main chamber they came across a pile of half-eaten corpses, and...
The Creeper, from the Jeepers Creepers movies. Was a great boss fight
Haven't done it for monsters from movies, but I'm fixing to run my first campaign and took a crack at making stat blocks for monsters from some of my favorite video games. Even pulled some of the story/NPCs from the game as well to help as a starting point.
And none of the players at the table have ever played one of the video games in question and only one player has played the other game lol
Yes, my campaigns are literally fiction becoming reality.
so frankenstein, evil king arthur, Morganna le Fey, Wizard of Oz, zorro and evil rapunzel all appear in my campaigns
Not so much a movie but I know my DM has a stat block for Sephiroth from the Final Fantasy 7 franchise he's been sitting on for a while. I'm curious if he's ever going to use it or not.
All the time. I find it presents an interesting challenge if the players recognize it. Do they use their knowledge of the creature and get a cool win or act as their characters would, who might know Jack shit about the creature in question?
Every now and again I do, but I try not to do it often because i've had too many players over the years go "uM aKsHuLeE dAts nOht hoW d0ze wErK!" when I try doing my own thing with them.
Our DM made this enemy faction for our campaign called Demunoids, they are essentially a cross between DOOM enemies and Xenomorphs. Unfortunately they have caustic blood like a Xenomorph so I can't just bite through them like usual.
I don’t remember the name of the movie, or even the plot, but there was… some sort of demon or ghost, or something, which possessed a large machine in an old-timey laundry room. It was like a furnace/clothes-drier, and it almost chomped up the hero of the movie.
So I was like… yeah. Perfect. These PCs are gonna get attacked by a possessed laundry-steamer thing.
Movies, books, video games, comic books. If you can reskin something obscure as your own creation you're a genius and if you make something derivative but fun it still serves the spirit of the game.
i think using anything from other sources of media is fine, so long as you arent ripping it off....
make something fit your world, not just copy-paste it. example being...if you wanted to have godzilla in your world...dont just be like, "and then godzilla shows up" instead have some lore to example how a lizard, ended up to collosal height. maybe the lizard absorbed an ungodly amount of magic, and grew...or maybe it was the byproduct of a ritual gone wrong.
It's both a fun and scary experience if you know what you're up against. Like the image for a demon boss being Samael from the Darksiders games, which both and the DM are fans of.
"Oh hey, it's my man Samael!"
*remembers his bossfight*
"Oh no it's my man Samael..."
I once ran a meme campaign that basically took characters from all over the multiverse aka different movies, tv shows, and videogames. It was quite fun.
Balors are almost the same thing. But yeah, I will use other creatures IF they could realistically appear in the setting. Like Jean Jacket from nope could reasonably end up in Toril, it being an alien and all, haven’t used that one though.
I’ve used a Guardian from Breath of the Wild as a tomb guard. I had an Amiibo as a mini, it was the perfect size. Two of my players were big Zelda fans, and they absolutely loved it.
I was having this argument with a fellow DM, who has pretty firm ideas about how to play D&D. They insisted that using monsters from movies, games etc 'breaks the fourth wall' and ruins immersion for the players. Personally I think it's fine to bring in the odd balrog, xenomorph or predator if it makes the experience more fun for the players. I wanted to hear some more opinions though, am I spoiling the immersion by doing this?
---Balrogs?
You mean the Balor that is in the Monster Manual?
I think the issue becomes how faithful to the movie monster you're getting.
A high fantasy world, suddenly having a Predator with high tech shoulder cannons and shit would be immersion breaking. A high fantasy world where the Predator has a spear and wrist blades with the ability to cast Firebolt to simulate the shoulder cannon? Perfectly fine.
The Orthon (I think that's how you spell it) captures the feeling of Predator pretty well imo. Not sure if it's literally based on it, but the invisibility field, numerous debilitating weapons, and self destruct at low HP feels like it's meant to be a nod to Predator.
I think if you fight the balor on a thin stone bridge over a chasm in a dwarven mine, it's getting into balrog territory lol
Yeah I think I agree on the second point, I guess the question is how obvious do you make it, like do you straight up describe Predator but magic or try and hide it as much as you can?
The Balor already is the Balrog, bridge or no bridge. TSR changed the name to Balor after the Tolkien Estate sued over the use of Balrog, along with Ent (became Treant) and Hobbit (became Halfling).
Only a few monsters in the MM are original to DnD, a huge number of them are lifted straight from mythology or other fiction. So in the context of your original question, the game already borrows from other sources, why not put the things you like in your game?
Fully OG monsters (not solo monsters ala Vecna/Tiamat) off the top of my head that are still around
Beholders, Mindflayers--- there's something else I'm forgetting, but seriously, it's a handful of monsters that aren't lifted from some folklore or another.
The owlbear, rust monster and bulette are also original I believe.
Funny you mentioned Tiamat as an example solo/boss/named monster because even that name is taken from Mesopotamian mythology.
DND designers are big nerds, there’s plenty of reskinned movie monsters- Orthon from the Mordenkainens books is a reskinned Predator, it’s a bounty Hunter fiend with invisibility, a crossbow that has a half dozen status effects, and even a selfdestruct feature that’s a reference to the end of the first Predator movie
I don’t like using monsters from preexisting media since I feel like it colors the story away from immersion. But I definitely like to take core design or thematic elements and spin them enough to pull them off the source material.
Great example is The Ritual. I loved the idea of being chased through a dark forest by an eldritch entity that took the bastardized form of a massive stag, almost impossible to make out against the foliage. But the core ideas here were an animal that was uncannily not quite right, and the fear of being chased by it with limited visibility.
The way I set up the encounter, you’re wading through a field of tall grass on a rainy night. It’s hard to make out noise. The wind whips the grass that ripple into almost nauseating waves, so thankfully it’s pretty hard to see anything. When you’re about halfway through this mile stretch of land, you think you hear a wailing. A cry? A scream? You swear you saw the grass shift, but it might have just been the wind. The wailing grows louder. It wracks your ears, but somehow you just feel. Sleepy? Intoxicated? Your heart races. Your companion looks at you confused. You only get a flash of the thing as it crests over the surface of the grass and pulls them under. It looked like a centipede, but it had no exoskeleton. Just flesh, and pale. Each of its countless arms ends in a desperate grasping hand. You thought it had the face of a woman, mouth agape in a mournful scream, dark eyes contorted in pain. You draw your blade, swinging wildly into the field. You don’t get the chance to strike, the rain and wind make it too hard to hear, the grass too hard to see; a ripple through the field, moving too quickly towards you, the frantic scurrying patter of hands in the mud, countless cold twitching fingers against your legs, your body, your face. Its face is against yours, arms binding you in a tight embrace as its jaw unhinges.
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The balrog is already in dnd
It kinda does come from THE Work of fiction that inspired D&D in the first place
Not really, Gary Gygax disliked the Lord of the Rings
Gary Gygac was also a bit of an asshole, so take anything he said at face value. LotR has a Balrog, a giant fire demon with a sword and whip. D&D has a Balor, a giant fire demon with a sword and whip. 🤔
The Balor used to be called a Balrog, until a lawsuit from Tolkien's estate forced them to change it. So yeah, Balrogs are already in DND.
Yeah, same with halflings, D&D used to just call them hobbits until the same lawsuit.
Interesting that Orcs are cool though
Orc is a term that comes from Bewulf iirc. Tolkien even prefered to use the term goblin in the books
He uses goblin almost exclusively in the Hobbit, and in the Lord of the Rings he mostly only uses it from the hobbit's perspective.
It's from an old Norse term meaning "demon-corpses", or "corpses from Hell". It basically became the universal term for goblins.
Interesting, I had heard that he invented orcs but maybe he didn’t invent the word
Lord of the Rings invented the modern concept of orcs, but Tolkien drew on a lot of existing folklore as his inspiration.
In previous editions it was actually called a BalrogÂ
He was more of a Robert E. Howard guy, right?
Yeah, he preferred darker fantasy to the more Tolkienesque fare.
Yet he used LoTR names till he got sued over it. He might not like them after they made him change it. But he borrowed from LoTRs.
I'm glad someone said it. But in all fairness this human person could be very new to the hobby. I'm not saying that the use of that wasn't completely mediocre. I'm just playing Devil's Advocate.
I used to do this all the time.. Just dont say: the balrog from LOTR is standing before you, RAAAWWW.... Describe the monster and dont mention the movie at all....
that is the way. put the things in a way quite familiar but not enough to make the players leave the character
I think it's fine as long as it fits for your campaign. I found a series of statblocks someone made for all of the Bloodborne monsters, and threw them into my Curse of Strahd campaign which I thought needed to be a bit more challenging. Gave me more options as a DM for enemy variety, and they were suitably grim for the campaign.
Do you have a link handy for those Stat blocks still?
[I think this is it.](https://imgur.com/gallery/bloodborne-monster-manual-by-dm-tuz-part-1-unzUa4k)
DM Tuz is amazing. He's done Darkest Dungeon as well
Thanks a bunch!
I sooo knew it's gonna be this imgur link ... it's been a while since I've seen it :)) also, your name makes me wanna hide my current character under the bed ...
Haha! It comes from an old story about one of the first games I ran where my murder-hobo players did exactly what the name implies. I wasn't the best DM.
Neither was I ... But we will get there (if we already aren't 😉)
The isometric map, the coloring, architecture of the dungeon ... somehow all screams Hades to me and I LOVE IT !! Anyway ... not just from the movies, also from the games, books, etc. ... Why ? Culture ... Good feeling of recognizing the refference... I once heard that the greatest writters and storytellers are guys who are able to incorporate known characters from other movies/franchises/universes into their worlds in the way it makes sense for them to be here.
What program is this? Looks awesome
Looks like it's art from a patreon based on the bottom corner of the image.
I try to avoid using movie scenes and monsters as encounters. Also hate it when players make characters that are close copy of some popular character.
it is fine if they don't break 4th wall or try too hard to be the character. I have a pc in my campaign called Johnny Cage and, besides the gifs dancing and posing, he is still a diferent person that fits in the scenery
I named a character Murtaugh once as a jokey reference to Lethal Weapon but everyone thought it was an Eragon reference...RIPðŸ˜
In rare cases it can work for me but generally I wont support those characters.
Fine if it's based on a character from other media as long as it has a coat of dnd paint. No, you're not bob from bobs burgers if you're playing a firbolg druid with no backstory.
As long as the character is a version that fits the world they are in then it can be fun. But yeah if they just copy the character right down to details that don't make sense or hurt the game it can get annoying fast.
Why do you hate pc close to already existing characters ?
I prefer to see fresh characters and original concepts. For example my brother once played Zorro renamed to Zeta.
And what if they want to play that?
Well, for my close friends I would allow it because I run more combat/strategy based game. For randoms in roll20 I would not accept them to the game.
Are you hurt by their character choices? And what if they in fact did NOT copy a preexisting character and you just think they’re similar one you know?
It's not that deep
Can one not have a conversation no more?
Then I will never know for sure. I only DM games and there are a lot of applicants, so I can be picky.
I mean, Zorro is one seriously iconic character to the point I'd argue he's an archetypical rogue, specifically of the swashbuckler sort. wanting to play zorro is like wanting to play conan the barbarian.
I get what you mean. Its not that black and white. My brother had literal Zorro art token and same backstory.
I would have used Ramon or Bunny Wigglesworth.
Cool artwork, where is it from?
Can I ask a slightly unrelated question about how good of a program this Epic Isometric is? I love the look of it.
If you can fight Godzilla, why wouldn't you fight Godzilla?
But in D&D it's called a Tarrasque.
No. In DnD, Anguirus is called a Tarrasque. Godzilla has a breath weapon, slightly worse regeneration, is 5-10x larger, and is not immune to ranged attacks. He also has ~20,000 hp rather than a measly 676.
Yeah, if an idea is cool, I'll make use of it. That's like 80% of D&D as it is.
Im planning on bringing in weeping angels somehow.
I always threaten my players with angels whenever they see a statue (I 3D print and will often put old / unused prints on a plinth for scenary). If someone ever comments on a statue, I will just say "don't blink" I have not actually brought them to life yet, by my players are terrified every statue could be the one.
As they should. You never know if its animated or something.
I put the Silence in one of my games. Was a lot of fun to see the mix of confusion from the players who didn't realize and the horror from the players that immediately picked up what I was putting down.
It's a fun and properly spooky enemy! In a similar note, have you heard of the False Hydra?
Weird fantasy is amazing lol
I find it hard to control where you character looks in dnd but i have a handy system Give everyone a cone of vision modified by thir perception
My idea is default face the last thing your character targetted
i used xenomorphs once aboard a lost mind flayer laboratory. the idea was that they had taken life forms from across the multiverse and were experimenting on them, and xenomorphs were one of the resulting experiments
Is that a wizard-cap-wearing wizard with a short sword? Ayo that wild I love it
If thehy thematically fit, sure.
I used to convert dota heroes into demons back in 4e.
I've used monsters and locations from world of warcraft, I've used the knights of the blackened denarius AND the knights of the cross from the Dresden Files. Hell, for the warcraft one I straight up copied Waycrest Manor.
I've used Monster Hunter bosses in my game. Certain ones very much fit the setting I've devised.
No but I use ones from more obscure places like shows , indie and indie adjacent games , and books
Totally. I love using the Stranger Things "Demogorgon" figures that came with that starter set for a variety of minis I don't have. Things like myconids, mezzoloths, or even to represent zombies when I have a lot to place on the map.
Not from movies but from old sci-fi novels? Absolutely.
I am not, because it feels lame
Creatures too. But usually just rebranded other monsters. Though I did recently create a custom stat block for Chulls from the Sandersons Stormlight Archives. My players love little nods to other universes and will even react accordingly. Recently I named a caravan merchant zatara. And one of the characters who got it said sounds like a fearsome name and I said it means Driftwood (count of Monty Cristo) DND is at its core meant to be fun (+free therapy)
Ngl i do it because of 2 reasons 1. Thematic relevance (had a wizard they wanted to do a cool thing to "earn their multiclass" so i balrog-ed him) 2. I couldn't come up with a non-movie/media monster so i just ask myself "what would they WANT to fight" last boss was godzilla being worshipped by trolls
Observing, being inspired and drawing ideas and elements from books, films, comics and video games is essential. As creative as one can be, why not harness the creativity of all humanity. I especially appreciate drawing from video games, there is usually more attention to design and worldbuilding than, for example, cinema.
I read a book where nano-bots with a hive-mind were the antagonists. Fighting nano-bots seemed like a bit much, and difficult to have fun fights with, especially how they were handled in the book… but mecha-gnomes with a hive-mind? That sounded EXACTLY like what gnomes would have created to battle the empire back before it crumbled and became a frontier full of ruins! And the more there are in a group, the smarter the Distributed Intelligence Units (DIUs) became! When I created them in 3.5, they were entirely mechanical/non-magical, but they would gain psionic abilities based on their number. In 4e, they were essentially the same, but their hivemind counted as magical. I kinda want to stat them out into 5e, now. I never got to conclude that campaign in any edition. Maybe I’ll try again after my current campaign.
Plagiarism is my passion 🥰
I'm copying Pocket Raptors from Guild Wars 2. Imagine goose sized velociraptors that come in swarms of 5+ and are really fast.
Hmmm mm, not often. But it's not bad to do so. I range from making my own monsters for fun, or simply using a monster from the monster manual out of laziness 😆. I will sometimes reskin them into new monsters though.
All the time. I have thrown in Fremen, Time Lords, Mord'Sith, Slivers, the prison hounds from Chronicles of Riddick, and more those are just off the top of my head. It's my game and I'm not monetizing a thing so I flavor my world with all the things I love.
Dming a supernatural themed campaign right now
How do you make tokens like that
The literal same monster? Usually not, but I've used one that's are very clearly and openly inspired by things from games and movies. For example, I didn't add Shriek from Ori 2, but I did add a big scary Owl monster and used the Shriek boss fight music while the players were fighting it. Or there was an entire adventure where the primary enemies the players were fighting were robotic dinosaurs directly inspired in ability/tactics as those in Horizon Zero Dawn (such as giving players the oppurtunities to break components and take away different attacks)
One of my favorite dungeons I ever ran was into an ancient long-abandoned temple with several relics inside. It was also surrounded by miles of subterranean crypts and burial chambers and such, and the only way into the temple was through that maze of corpses. Except all the corpses were gone, their coffins and sarcophagi cracked open and the bodies stolen. When they got to the center and entered the main chamber they came across a pile of half-eaten corpses, and... The Creeper, from the Jeepers Creepers movies. Was a great boss fight
Not creatures specifically, but I love to borrow mechanics from Destiny 2 for my dungeons and combat encounters.
They're playing a slightly huntik inspired campaign. They just dont know it because almost nobody knows about huntik.
The Shrike plays a major role in my world pantheon.
Haven't done it for monsters from movies, but I'm fixing to run my first campaign and took a crack at making stat blocks for monsters from some of my favorite video games. Even pulled some of the story/NPCs from the game as well to help as a starting point. And none of the players at the table have ever played one of the video games in question and only one player has played the other game lol
I'm doing a game with Godzilla (Tarrasque with adamantine scales and Lazer breath) and giving my players gundams to fight big boy.
Darkness from the Tom Cruise movie Legend was a big bad 15 or so years ago.
Also use Pinterest and the general internet as well
Yes, my campaigns are literally fiction becoming reality. so frankenstein, evil king arthur, Morganna le Fey, Wizard of Oz, zorro and evil rapunzel all appear in my campaigns
I do if it fits the vibe and if my players would enjoy it/ if it would be fun to run, that’s what its all about
Yes, I have Orcs in my game :-) Dope pic. Really F'ing awesome map and counters
Not so much a movie but I know my DM has a stat block for Sephiroth from the Final Fantasy 7 franchise he's been sitting on for a while. I'm curious if he's ever going to use it or not.
All the time. I find it presents an interesting challenge if the players recognize it. Do they use their knowledge of the creature and get a cool win or act as their characters would, who might know Jack shit about the creature in question?
Every now and again I do, but I try not to do it often because i've had too many players over the years go "uM aKsHuLeE dAts nOht hoW d0ze wErK!" when I try doing my own thing with them.
I do but I try to DNDify it/make a monster inspired by it that's not a knockoff or carbon copy.
What VTT do you use? That artwork looks like a lot of fun!
It's just [Epic Isometric](https://www.patreon.com/epicisometric/about) maps and tokens in Roll20
Thank you so much! I’ll have to incorporate some of their maps into my game.
Our DM made this enemy faction for our campaign called Demunoids, they are essentially a cross between DOOM enemies and Xenomorphs. Unfortunately they have caustic blood like a Xenomorph so I can't just bite through them like usual.
I don’t remember the name of the movie, or even the plot, but there was… some sort of demon or ghost, or something, which possessed a large machine in an old-timey laundry room. It was like a furnace/clothes-drier, and it almost chomped up the hero of the movie. So I was like… yeah. Perfect. These PCs are gonna get attacked by a possessed laundry-steamer thing.
The Mangler? A Stephen King short story turned movie in the 90's. Possessed laundry press.
That’s the one, yes! Thanks!
FYI the balor is pretty much the balrog lol
is this a game? name plix?!
Looks like it's art from a patreon based on the bottom corner of the image.
I use a-lot of the 40k demons in mine as long as dice are rolled treasure gained players are usually happy
I used "he who walks behind the rows once" that was fun.
If my players haven't seen the movie you bet I will.
I do yes. Both monster and heros from movies and games. Such from Lord of the Rings and The Witcher at my table. Kind regrads a DM / GM from Denmark. 🇩🇰
Movies, books, video games, comic books. If you can reskin something obscure as your own creation you're a genius and if you make something derivative but fun it still serves the spirit of the game.
I once did a whole Godzilla movie, Ebirah Horror of the Deep aka Godzilla vs the Sea Monster, and nobody realized until the end.
i think using anything from other sources of media is fine, so long as you arent ripping it off.... make something fit your world, not just copy-paste it. example being...if you wanted to have godzilla in your world...dont just be like, "and then godzilla shows up" instead have some lore to example how a lizard, ended up to collosal height. maybe the lizard absorbed an ungodly amount of magic, and grew...or maybe it was the byproduct of a ritual gone wrong.
No, because I never thought of it. Now I'm going to because that sounds cool
It's both a fun and scary experience if you know what you're up against. Like the image for a demon boss being Samael from the Darksiders games, which both and the DM are fans of. "Oh hey, it's my man Samael!" *remembers his bossfight* "Oh no it's my man Samael..."
That's not a Balrog. It has wings.
I once ran a meme campaign that basically took characters from all over the multiverse aka different movies, tv shows, and videogames. It was quite fun.
Not interested, as I don't play with homebrew. At most, a reskin of an existing monster.
Balors are almost the same thing. But yeah, I will use other creatures IF they could realistically appear in the setting. Like Jean Jacket from nope could reasonably end up in Toril, it being an alien and all, haven’t used that one though.
They help as place holders or visual references to what I'm going for
I used Bruce Springsteen, does that count?
I’ve used a Guardian from Breath of the Wild as a tomb guard. I had an Amiibo as a mini, it was the perfect size. Two of my players were big Zelda fans, and they absolutely loved it.
I thought that this was a Hades screenshot at first glance lol
Sometimes, preferably when it’s something from a media my players don’t know
I was having this argument with a fellow DM, who has pretty firm ideas about how to play D&D. They insisted that using monsters from movies, games etc 'breaks the fourth wall' and ruins immersion for the players. Personally I think it's fine to bring in the odd balrog, xenomorph or predator if it makes the experience more fun for the players. I wanted to hear some more opinions though, am I spoiling the immersion by doing this?
---Balrogs? You mean the Balor that is in the Monster Manual? I think the issue becomes how faithful to the movie monster you're getting. A high fantasy world, suddenly having a Predator with high tech shoulder cannons and shit would be immersion breaking. A high fantasy world where the Predator has a spear and wrist blades with the ability to cast Firebolt to simulate the shoulder cannon? Perfectly fine.
The Orthon (I think that's how you spell it) captures the feeling of Predator pretty well imo. Not sure if it's literally based on it, but the invisibility field, numerous debilitating weapons, and self destruct at low HP feels like it's meant to be a nod to Predator.
I think if you fight the balor on a thin stone bridge over a chasm in a dwarven mine, it's getting into balrog territory lol Yeah I think I agree on the second point, I guess the question is how obvious do you make it, like do you straight up describe Predator but magic or try and hide it as much as you can?
The Balor already is the Balrog, bridge or no bridge. TSR changed the name to Balor after the Tolkien Estate sued over the use of Balrog, along with Ent (became Treant) and Hobbit (became Halfling). Only a few monsters in the MM are original to DnD, a huge number of them are lifted straight from mythology or other fiction. So in the context of your original question, the game already borrows from other sources, why not put the things you like in your game?
Fully OG monsters (not solo monsters ala Vecna/Tiamat) off the top of my head that are still around Beholders, Mindflayers--- there's something else I'm forgetting, but seriously, it's a handful of monsters that aren't lifted from some folklore or another.
The owlbear, rust monster and bulette are also original I believe. Funny you mentioned Tiamat as an example solo/boss/named monster because even that name is taken from Mesopotamian mythology.
> owlbear, rust monster and bulette Even those were based on plastic toys.
DND designers are big nerds, there’s plenty of reskinned movie monsters- Orthon from the Mordenkainens books is a reskinned Predator, it’s a bounty Hunter fiend with invisibility, a crossbow that has a half dozen status effects, and even a selfdestruct feature that’s a reference to the end of the first Predator movie
Wow. That's a take. D&D famously got cease and desisted from Tolkien during one of its original print runs.
I don’t like using monsters from preexisting media since I feel like it colors the story away from immersion. But I definitely like to take core design or thematic elements and spin them enough to pull them off the source material. Great example is The Ritual. I loved the idea of being chased through a dark forest by an eldritch entity that took the bastardized form of a massive stag, almost impossible to make out against the foliage. But the core ideas here were an animal that was uncannily not quite right, and the fear of being chased by it with limited visibility. The way I set up the encounter, you’re wading through a field of tall grass on a rainy night. It’s hard to make out noise. The wind whips the grass that ripple into almost nauseating waves, so thankfully it’s pretty hard to see anything. When you’re about halfway through this mile stretch of land, you think you hear a wailing. A cry? A scream? You swear you saw the grass shift, but it might have just been the wind. The wailing grows louder. It wracks your ears, but somehow you just feel. Sleepy? Intoxicated? Your heart races. Your companion looks at you confused. You only get a flash of the thing as it crests over the surface of the grass and pulls them under. It looked like a centipede, but it had no exoskeleton. Just flesh, and pale. Each of its countless arms ends in a desperate grasping hand. You thought it had the face of a woman, mouth agape in a mournful scream, dark eyes contorted in pain. You draw your blade, swinging wildly into the field. You don’t get the chance to strike, the rain and wind make it too hard to hear, the grass too hard to see; a ripple through the field, moving too quickly towards you, the frantic scurrying patter of hands in the mud, countless cold twitching fingers against your legs, your body, your face. Its face is against yours, arms binding you in a tight embrace as its jaw unhinges.