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Creative Corner => Legends of the Heroes => Topic started by: Mooncrow on November 07, 2011, 12:39:42 AM

Title: Anime and Manga/Manhwa to pillage for fun and profit
Post by: Mooncrow on November 07, 2011, 12:39:42 AM
Reposting from BG, plus some additions

Yeah, yeah, I know - weeaboo, blah, blah, blah...  I've heard it all before, usually from my gaming groups in fact.  Which is why I feel totally free to rip off NPC's and plotlines wholesale to use in the campaigns I run^^  They seem to still enjoy it, despite the source, and if they think I'm a creative genius, well what they don't know won't hurt me^^

Because really, as a DM, I find I can make the NPC's much more believable and "real" if I have a personality in mind to attach to the role.  Instead of spending time rolling up or thinking up different quirks for bartender #37, I can slap a quick name on it, and have a personality, appearance, quotes, the whole nine yards - and I can do it on the fly if need be.  Now, of course you can do this with any TV show, books, movies, etc but I find you run a much larger risk of someone recognizing the rip-off.  Nothing breaks immersion like the group being introduced to your criminal mastermind contact and a player going "oh hey, it's Nate from Leverage". 

So, I thought I would put together a list of mostly lesser known works that I've found handy to steal from.  For the ones I leave blank, you can fill in "Generic fantasy world with lots of characters that can be lifted and put into the plot with no change"

In no particular order:

Manga/Manhwa

Dark Air - Park Min-seo:  This is a fun one for a group that wants to run a more magic-lite campaign, at least to start.  Like a lot of Korean fantasy manhwa, it has a very RPG flavour to it to begin with, so it's not hard at all to fit it to D&D.  3 years before the story starts, magic completely disappears from the world (or almost completely...) leaving a huge power vacuum.  Small mercenary groups of 3-8 people act independently in the chaos, adventuring or doing missions for the nobility.  Lots of varied fighters, with bard-like "buffer" roles as the only remaining magic.  Lots of good stuff here.

ID - Kim Daewoo: Another fantasy manhwa, this one is about a dimensional traveler from a Wuxia-style world that gets stuck in a traditional Western-style fantasy world.  Hilarious, and with an interesting story to boot.

Berserk - Miura Kentaro:  The handbook for running a morally grey/black campaign and still managing to keep some semblance of heroism.  Also has (as you might guess) one of the most bad-ass Barbarian/Berserker-type characters ever.  It is fairly well known though, so steal characters with caution. 

Ubel Blatt - Shiono Etorouji:  Another really dark manga, this one is really good to pull villains and plot from.  I'm just waiting for someone to play a paladin in my group so I can launch this bad boy on him.

Paladin - Ryu Kee-Oun: 

Magician - Kim Sarae:  Lots of wizard-types

Dark Mage - Kim Jung Ryul:

Immortal Regis - Ga On-Bi

Sacred Blacksmith - Miura Isao:  Some interesting Legacy items in this one

Rave Master - Mashima Hiro: Light-hearted and comedic, good for some real "WTF?" characters when you need some silliness

Jackals - Shinya Murata, Kim Byung Jin:  Need some real psychopaths and/or some serious dark gray anti-heroes? 

Shin Angyo Onshi - Youn In-Wan:  This one is a bit slow to start, but after a few volumes, it gets into the real plot and there are a lot of "doing the wrong thing for the right reasons" type villains if that's something you want to explore.

One Piece - Echiro Oda:  I have to add this one in, even though it's not very D&D-like, but there are so many good personalities to steal - and the background storyline can be interesting to use as well.

Anime (often based on games or light novels)

Dantalion no Shouka:  I'm a huge fan of this series, ever since I picked the books up a few years back.  Lots of good ideas for "magic item is wreaking havoc" adventures

Sands of Destruction

Legend of Legendary Heroes

Tears to Tiara

Seirei no Moribito 

Baccano! Not D&D at all, but a huge amount of colorful, memorable characters - by the same writer as Durarara

Kaibutsu Oujo: For all you Necropolitan fans^^

Rental Magica a varied cast of magic users for those that like to change up the superficial appearance of magic

There are, of course, hundreds more, but I thought I would start small and add more as I go.  Hopefully someone will find this useful =)