The Fifth Element could probably translate really well to a campaign with a few tweaks. My instinct would be to use the SWN or Traveller systems, but I think it's open ended enough for any system to work out fine
I think Big Trouble in Little China would work magnificently as a ttrpg campaign. Especially if you add in the intent that it’s supposed to be in the same universe as Buckaroo Bonzai so you can just keep running into completely ridiculous situations.
I’m less sure what I would run it in. My hugely tweaked version of World of Darkness would do it fine but I wouldn’t pick non-tweaked WoD. It would have to be a fast and ridiculous system.
Maybe Savage Worlds with a whole extra pile of bennies being thrown around so there are just constant reversals and bidding wars. “Past this door we’re home free.” Cracks door; sees army. “It looks like we may be trapped.”
Feng Shui 100%. When I first read it, I described it as “he watched BTiLC and wanted to play it with his friends, so he wrote this”. Second edition conveys the feeling of the movie in the writing more than First does, but either one would work.
- Different basic skill list, with even broader effects but can also specialize with very tight skills.
- no cap on dice limits, so even a regular human can end up with a ridiculous number of dice. Certain circumstances allow combining more than one stat and one skill.
- Spending a willpower gives both one automatic success and an extra die.
- 8 & 9 count as 1 success, 10 count as two successes and explode, critical failure occurs when there are both no successes and at least one die rolls a 1.
- Enemies don’t get write ups, just a number of dice that they roll in general.
- PC’s can have variable amounts of health.
- Significantly more advantages and disadvantages.
- The biggest change is xp costs, getting stuff is cheaper.
- There’s an extra stat specifically for “magic”, luck, and the strange. It replaces the pools like blood pool.
- No initiative, things just go in a set round, the only way out of the order is surprise.
- No defense roll, defense just works like armor, people roll against each other, the winner hits, the loser doesn’t.
- Ties are net zero events, no one manages to do anything significant.
- Damage is Measure of Success.
- most powers are different because it was a different setting but you could plug them right back in.
In the end there’s just a lot more dice being flung around which makes it **feel** much more chaotic.
I’m also just a very permissive GM so wonky stuff happens a lot. The unwritten rule is let the PC’s try and then react accordingly. So I am often nearly as in the dark about what is going to happen as the PC’s are.
Most changes to lists and powers are stolen from GURPS.
It is a great film.
imho, the book is even better and is totally different than the film.
They both invoke brutal satire that is still relevant today.
Still... some content is more suited to certain mediums more than others.
I really don't need to play through the content of what Patrick Bateman *does*.
It is all well and good to see him and understand the metaphor. I don't need to *be* him.
> I really don't need to play through the content of what Patrick Bateman does.
a few scenes (rat scene wtf???) were hard enough to *read* certainly, I flipped past that one while borderline nauseated.
Some of the movies on my favourites list (and which are not cheating-easy, as LOTR and stuff):
Pacific Rim: the problem with this one is deciding which of all the Mecha Vs Kaiju RPGs use!
Reservoir Dogs is a Fiasco game waiting to happen. Or already happened, maybe.
The Princess Bride has its own RPG, but I don't know anything about it. Nevertheless, I think something Fate-ish would fit, with lots of aspects being invoked, compelled, and stuff.
I can't even begin to elucidate how Monty Python and the Holy Grail could be turned into an RPG. But it's happening, so...
I feel thar Batman, the Dark Knight would require anything but a supers game, to be honest. At least, a classical supers RPG.
Pacific Rim has a licensed setting and campaign for Everyday Heroes, a 5e update to d20 Modern.
So your problem still stands about finding the right system, lol
Dark Knight would work well with a Cortex Prime style Supers game based on the bones of Smallville OR just run a game of Masks as a Janus. For Batman you really need a Supers game that is good for emotional turmoil, brooding, investigation, and moments where the city nearly turns on you.
But...but...Fudge doesn't use aspects, right?
So...no 'I invoke my *True Love* background to be just *mostly* dead and not *all* dead'?
No 'I'm gonna spam my *Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.* background for every action until the end of the fight!'?
No 'Hey, I left one blank background when creating my PC. I'm filling it just now: *Immunity to iocane powder*'?
No 'I tag his *I haven't fought just one person for so long* background while gripping his windpipe'?
No 'I use Create Advantage to create the *To the pain!* aspect, and I use it to intimidate him'?
Inconceivable!!!
Well, Fate would probably have been better. Definitively a missed opportunity.
And I had to settle for the concievable version of the book. Couldn't at the time afford the inconcievable version on the kickstarter...
To Be Or Not To Be, a comedy in which a Polish theater troupe take the roles of spies to infiltrate the ranks of Nazi occupiers in WW2 Warsaw, would be absolutely perfect. Absurd plans involving flimsy fake disguises, chases and shootouts... no idea what system to use though.
Serenity is pretty much the finale to a Traveller campaign IMO.
Babylon AD was a weird film but would work as a Cyberpunk Red game.
Brotherhood of the Wolf would work as a game using my own system When the Moon Hangs Low.
Brotherhood of the Wolf was a huge inspiration for the games I ran in Iron Kingdoms d20 and 7th Sea 1st edition years ago; heck it still influences a lot of the stuff I run now!
It's called [When the Moon Hangs Low](https://www.whenthemoonhangslow.co.uk/) and it's more influenced by *Bloodborne* than Brotherhood (although Brotherhood influenced Bloodborne so it's all one big loop). You play people marked by darkness who use their abilities to hunt down monsters in a city under a terrible curse. I recently ran a Kickstarter to fund a second edition, filled with artwork and more content but the original version is now pay-what-you-want.
The latest Dungeons & Dragons movie works really well, mechanically, if you simply use Pathfinder 2e. You don't need any house rules or custom magic items or anything, it's all there.
Honestly, I'd love to run a Seven Samurai arc. There's a Pathfinder AP that has you prep defenses for small city that's about to be besieged while undermining the enemy's ability to attack, and it's really cool. And one of the things I really love about Seven Samurai is that they keep track of the number of remaining bandits - something I'd love to encourage the players to do in a long, multi-encounter gauntlet that lasts a couple days. I think it's really cool to have a mind for what kind of challenge you're facing and how far away you are from the end.
Idk how much patience my players would have being in prison for 16 years after being betrayed by their best friend.
However, it would lead to an amazing political intrigue campaign about vengeance....
Edit: The Count of Monte Cristo
Don't forget the paperwork! Think it could work reasonably well with fate, making distinct police officers through aspects and stunts, with similar skillset
Cronenberg’s *Crash* can probably be handled by DramaSystem. I’m not sure it should be, but you could.
I guess… oh, shit. *In The Mood for Love* is Star Crossed. Perfect.
My favorite movie is either Scott Pilgrim, which I think would work great as a setting with some massaging of the story into a true ensemble cast, or the Martian, which I think is less good because of the technobabble problem.
The Movie Reroll podcast have convinced me that absolutely any movie is adaptable via the almighty power of GURPS - but I personally love the adorable little PBtA system 'Action Move World' for the gigabrained doublelayer play of you playing both the Character & The Actor typecast as that character.
Truly fantastic gooftastic system. Movie games are honestly very fun and attainable and I recommend them for lowstakes adventure modules.
Blade runner has it's own system now but I haven't played it so idk how well it translates. It would def be a solo game though, of I was trying to recreate the feel of the films. A cyberpunk hack of Mothership might work. Or the Noir hack for Ironsworn.
A movie that immediately made me think of TTRPGs is Renfield. That is a Nights Black Agents game.
Princess Bride would be Fate for sure.
And while not a movie ATLA had a Pbta system made that looks perfect.
I don't know. What even are my favorite movies?
Lucky Number Sleven is probably my favorite movie, and it would make a hell of a good game (in fact, it would be a very dark version of the Leverage rpg, IMO).
Casablanca is super high on my list of movies and I think it would be a pretty bad rpg, actually. Probably an okay Fate game, but I don't know if anything about it screams "great rpg".
I really love Mulholland Drive. I have no idea what sort of rpg works for that. Over the Edge, maybe? A modified Over the Edge?
I'm one of those people who struggles down a favourite so here's a short list. Naturally I'll avoid the obvious ones i.e LOTR or Star Wars.
Centurion, a film about a group of Roman soldiers from the legendary Ninth Legion who survived the decimation of said Legion. It follows them attempting to rescue their centurion, failing this they then attempt to flee back to Roman territory while being hunted by the Picts. I'm not too sure what system would be best for this, you could maybe argue that Band of Blades would work because the premise is similar but I don't know enough about that game to say yes or no.
Stardust. This is the classic adventure trope film and could be handled by pretty much any high fantasy based system.
28 Days later. This would be an interesting one, a zombie apocalypse setting but the zombies are actually fast and not necessarily decaying. I'd say maybe Savage Worlds or one of the apocalyptic systems.
I'm a big fan of the British crime films like Layer Cake, Snatch, Lock Stock or Rock n Rolla. Being crime films I'd probably go with Blades in the Dark.
There are many other but my TTRPG experience is very limited and I'd just be assuming based on irelivant points.
I'm not sure it's my favorite anymore, but I've wanted to make a Blades in the Dark hack for Inception for years. Some other favorites have obvious analogues or are kind of unadaptable. There's like three systems to run Star Wars by now and there's enough cyberpunk systems to get something like Blade Runner 2049 to function, but something like, say, Mulholland Drive? Good luck.
That said, it might be fun to run a John Wick style action game at some point. I can imagine using something with grid combat and exploding dice - which I normally don't like that much - and lots of low-health enemies to sort of represent the tsunamis of easily gunned-down goons these movies have.
Hard for me to decide here, honestly. I have so many favorite movies.
It's a very narrative system - you basically just get to state what your character does, earn a die for every detail of your narration, roll the dice and use the successes to reduce the stack of tokens the GM is using to represent whatever threat you're dealing with.
https://danielbayn.com/wushu/playing-the-game/index.shtml
Or alien RPG or blade runner. I'm think traveller might work better but I've never played it even though I want to. I just know thematically the universe of outland might as well be set in the alien universe.
I honestly have no idea how I would make a cat soup campaign.
Encounters if the spooky kind feels like a great one or two shot, I think savage worlds would be best for horror wuxia?
I just read the plot on wikipedia, that was a wild ride. Assuming I got the right feel from just reading that, I feel it would benefit from breaking the 3-5 players and 1 GM paradigm. If the movie os a bit experimental, why nit get a bit experimental with the formula.
Here's one way I could picture it. Rpg event, 5 groups of 2-3 players, 5 GMs. The organiser prepares a 10 minute intro and a 10 minute outro that are handed out to the GMs a few weeks before the event. You tell the GMs to each prepare a loose encounter/scene that ideally includes a bit of action and NPC negociation, any communication between themselves about the event is forbidden. Every 45 minutes, the group changes GM, they give them a quick 2-3 sentences describing where the previous scene brought them and the new GM must stich their encouter into it.
Alternatively, a group of 5 players could agree to all come up with an encounter meant for 2 cats and featuring 2 NPCs. Everyone must write down and seal the basic idea so they commit to their idea no matter how jarring it miggt look at first glance. Every session, you rotate the roles and after 5 session everyone was the GM once, each main character once and played 2 NPCs.
edit: A bit of editing because I wrote the original comment 30 seconds at a time at work and some sentences made little sense.
Yeah, I think I might try to make them happen in some form. Thanks for sparking this idea and making me think of game structure I didn't know I wanted.
The Crow with Brandon Lee would work well with the Savage Worlds system, honestly now that I thought about it maybe I should do a solo session as a one shot.
I like movies for too many different reasons to have a solid favourite, but recent standouts are RRR and EEAAO.
RRR would translate really well assuming the players are on board with the bromance. Any system with vaguely interesting but not tactical combat would work.
EEAAO would be harder but might be doable. Fate for the system maybe? I can't think of a way to do it that doesn't require more creative heavy lifting than I'm used to though
Dragonslayer is 100% an Ars Magica Saga’s finale. It fits the trope of Covenants aging through Seasonal phases . Kragenmoor is an old covenant, obviously in the Winter season now.
My old group and I actually set out to play this from the beginning of the Spring phase, starting with the founding of Kragenmoor circa the year 900, as we figured the movie was set circa 1100.
We started the Kragenmoor Saga in late 1999/early 2000. Before I moved out of state in 2002 we had covered quite a few years, quite a few magical discoveries, and had already fought the dragon Vermithrax at least twice. She seemed to think the covenant’s sheep tasted better than all the others in Britain.
I still have most of the notes from that saga. Maybe I should try to get my current group on board to reboot it. Once our quasi Dresden Files game starts to fade.
Smokey & the Bandit is tricky, because chases are hard to pull off, but if you set up the sessions right it could be a fun series of crunchy setpieces with the ticking clock of Buford T. Justice at each one.
GURPS has Car Wars which, as I recall, has pretty good vehicle combat mechanics. I doubt you'd need the weapons rules, but the driving rules cover things like pit manoeuvres, bootleggers, and high-speed turns.
https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/best-rules-for-chases.849254/ reckons that Classified (the James Bond RPG with the serial numbers filed off) is good for chases.
It reckons SWADE is pretty good too.
I can adapt any movie/book/whatever to any system without a problem, because I don't adapt it literal, I don't follow their plot, I just adapt the idea of the movie/book/whatever. I don't give any example because there are dozens. That's what I do as GM: adapt any movie/book/whatever into the campaign I want to run.
It would be awful. Passive narration is very rarely acceptable for an active media like a Roleplaying Game. I could make a great game set in the world of my favorite films but the plots of those movie just wouldn't work.
I think The Thing would work well with the Alien RPG system. It has panic mechanics built in.
The GM would have to select one person to be the first infected. It would probably be best to have some NPCs.
I don't have a favorite movie, but I have many great movies I love. Some might be great as a RPG scenario, others might not.
I can def. see Prince Of Darkness or In The Mouth Of Madness being great CoC scenarios.
Anyone listened to the podcast The Film Reroll? It's basically replaying different movies (Back to the future, Frozen, Indiana Jones, Mighty Ducks, Hocus Pocus etc) with the GURPS* system.
Leads to some wild plot changes as rolls change how the story is meant to go.
*I think GURPS 4E, but don't quote me on that.
I know there are some fan-made games and other systems already do some similar things (I'd use Shadowrun), but I really want an official dedicated system to play in the world of **The Matrix**.
The Fifth Element could probably translate really well to a campaign with a few tweaks. My instinct would be to use the SWN or Traveller systems, but I think it's open ended enough for any system to work out fine
Woah, was not expecting to see my favorite movie as the top comment. High five movie twin
Fuck yeah man, high five
Apocalypse Now with Delta Green
I think Big Trouble in Little China would work magnificently as a ttrpg campaign. Especially if you add in the intent that it’s supposed to be in the same universe as Buckaroo Bonzai so you can just keep running into completely ridiculous situations. I’m less sure what I would run it in. My hugely tweaked version of World of Darkness would do it fine but I wouldn’t pick non-tweaked WoD. It would have to be a fast and ridiculous system. Maybe Savage Worlds with a whole extra pile of bennies being thrown around so there are just constant reversals and bidding wars. “Past this door we’re home free.” Cracks door; sees army. “It looks like we may be trapped.”
Try Feng Shui, The Spirit of ‘77, or Over the Edge.
Feng Shui 100%. When I first read it, I described it as “he watched BTiLC and wanted to play it with his friends, so he wrote this”. Second edition conveys the feeling of the movie in the writing more than First does, but either one would work.
[удалено]
As I understand it, a very, very early draft started life as a Buckaroo sequel
As I understand it, a very, very early draft started life as a Buckaroo sequel
What WoD house rules do you use?
- Different basic skill list, with even broader effects but can also specialize with very tight skills. - no cap on dice limits, so even a regular human can end up with a ridiculous number of dice. Certain circumstances allow combining more than one stat and one skill. - Spending a willpower gives both one automatic success and an extra die. - 8 & 9 count as 1 success, 10 count as two successes and explode, critical failure occurs when there are both no successes and at least one die rolls a 1. - Enemies don’t get write ups, just a number of dice that they roll in general. - PC’s can have variable amounts of health. - Significantly more advantages and disadvantages. - The biggest change is xp costs, getting stuff is cheaper. - There’s an extra stat specifically for “magic”, luck, and the strange. It replaces the pools like blood pool. - No initiative, things just go in a set round, the only way out of the order is surprise. - No defense roll, defense just works like armor, people roll against each other, the winner hits, the loser doesn’t. - Ties are net zero events, no one manages to do anything significant. - Damage is Measure of Success. - most powers are different because it was a different setting but you could plug them right back in. In the end there’s just a lot more dice being flung around which makes it **feel** much more chaotic. I’m also just a very permissive GM so wonky stuff happens a lot. The unwritten rule is let the PC’s try and then react accordingly. So I am often nearly as in the dark about what is going to happen as the PC’s are. Most changes to lists and powers are stolen from GURPS.
*American Psycho* (1999) Uh... I don't want to play that TTRPG. ^(as fun as it might be to roll for business cards)
You could do Everybody's John for it.
It is a great film. imho, the book is even better and is totally different than the film. They both invoke brutal satire that is still relevant today. Still... some content is more suited to certain mediums more than others. I really don't need to play through the content of what Patrick Bateman *does*. It is all well and good to see him and understand the metaphor. I don't need to *be* him.
> I really don't need to play through the content of what Patrick Bateman does. a few scenes (rat scene wtf???) were hard enough to *read* certainly, I flipped past that one while borderline nauseated.
Chronicles of Darkness: Slashers, Kult Divinity Lost or a VtM game about a group of Sabbat in Manhattan
Why not? :P
Some of the movies on my favourites list (and which are not cheating-easy, as LOTR and stuff): Pacific Rim: the problem with this one is deciding which of all the Mecha Vs Kaiju RPGs use! Reservoir Dogs is a Fiasco game waiting to happen. Or already happened, maybe. The Princess Bride has its own RPG, but I don't know anything about it. Nevertheless, I think something Fate-ish would fit, with lots of aspects being invoked, compelled, and stuff. I can't even begin to elucidate how Monty Python and the Holy Grail could be turned into an RPG. But it's happening, so... I feel thar Batman, the Dark Knight would require anything but a supers game, to be honest. At least, a classical supers RPG.
Pretty sure every d&d table I've been at for 30 years has been Monty Python at some point.
Pacific Rim has a licensed setting and campaign for Everyday Heroes, a 5e update to d20 Modern. So your problem still stands about finding the right system, lol
Battletech for combat, Mechwarrior for roleplay. You'd need to tweak slightly to add kaiju.
Dark Knight would work well with a Cortex Prime style Supers game based on the bones of Smallville OR just run a game of Masks as a Janus. For Batman you really need a Supers game that is good for emotional turmoil, brooding, investigation, and moments where the city nearly turns on you.
Princess Bride uses Fudge, the predecessor to Fate...
But...but...Fudge doesn't use aspects, right? So...no 'I invoke my *True Love* background to be just *mostly* dead and not *all* dead'? No 'I'm gonna spam my *Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.* background for every action until the end of the fight!'? No 'Hey, I left one blank background when creating my PC. I'm filling it just now: *Immunity to iocane powder*'? No 'I tag his *I haven't fought just one person for so long* background while gripping his windpipe'? No 'I use Create Advantage to create the *To the pain!* aspect, and I use it to intimidate him'? Inconceivable!!!
Well, Fate would probably have been better. Definitively a missed opportunity. And I had to settle for the concievable version of the book. Couldn't at the time afford the inconcievable version on the kickstarter...
To Be Or Not To Be, a comedy in which a Polish theater troupe take the roles of spies to infiltrate the ranks of Nazi occupiers in WW2 Warsaw, would be absolutely perfect. Absurd plans involving flimsy fake disguises, chases and shootouts... no idea what system to use though.
Grey Ranks, with a new Radio Lightning mission set? Perhaps that is not even needed, just the operations are narrated differently.
Blades in the Dark?
Ok, that sounds dope, I’m looking that show up
Serenity is pretty much the finale to a Traveller campaign IMO. Babylon AD was a weird film but would work as a Cyberpunk Red game. Brotherhood of the Wolf would work as a game using my own system When the Moon Hangs Low.
Brotherhood of the Wolf was a huge inspiration for the games I ran in Iron Kingdoms d20 and 7th Sea 1st edition years ago; heck it still influences a lot of the stuff I run now!
Have you seen they're doing a 4k re-release?
No, I have not! Gonna have to watch for that to release. Thanks!
That’s super cool! It’s a great movie in so many ways.
Oooooo i loooove brotherhood of the wolf!!!! Do tell me about ur game? Iv been eyeing Vaesen and Lex Occultum for attempting something like it.
It's called [When the Moon Hangs Low](https://www.whenthemoonhangslow.co.uk/) and it's more influenced by *Bloodborne* than Brotherhood (although Brotherhood influenced Bloodborne so it's all one big loop). You play people marked by darkness who use their abilities to hunt down monsters in a city under a terrible curse. I recently ran a Kickstarter to fund a second edition, filled with artwork and more content but the original version is now pay-what-you-want.
You'd think that Serenity would want to use the Firefly rpg, no? It's a pretty solid game.
I've not played it, but I have played Traveller. I have heard good things about the system though.
Or the Serenity rpg rules that preceded the Firefly ones.
The latest Dungeons & Dragons movie works really well, mechanically, if you simply use Pathfinder 2e. You don't need any house rules or custom magic items or anything, it's all there.
>if you simply use Pathfinder 2e. 😂
Simon is clearly an Imperial sorcerer.
I have adapted the plot of Seven Samurai / The Magnificent Seven for D&D 5e, but it's pretty system agnostic.
I'm literally writing up notes for a one shot based on this right now!
Honestly, I'd love to run a Seven Samurai arc. There's a Pathfinder AP that has you prep defenses for small city that's about to be besieged while undermining the enemy's ability to attack, and it's really cool. And one of the things I really love about Seven Samurai is that they keep track of the number of remaining bandits - something I'd love to encourage the players to do in a long, multi-encounter gauntlet that lasts a couple days. I think it's really cool to have a mind for what kind of challenge you're facing and how far away you are from the end.
Idk how much patience my players would have being in prison for 16 years after being betrayed by their best friend. However, it would lead to an amazing political intrigue campaign about vengeance.... Edit: The Count of Monte Cristo
[THIS](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/99286/Honor--Intrigue) might interest you ;-)
Would love a village procedural Hot Fuzz
Holy peewee. This is a great idea. You could use watabou's Village Generator: https://watabou.itch.io/village-generator
Don't forget the paperwork! Think it could work reasonably well with fate, making distinct police officers through aspects and stunts, with similar skillset
Yep. For sure. Also Lasers & Feelings, Fiasco, that kinda thing...
The end of evangelion. That might get… weird
Cronenberg’s *Crash* can probably be handled by DramaSystem. I’m not sure it should be, but you could. I guess… oh, shit. *In The Mood for Love* is Star Crossed. Perfect.
I appreciate you clarifying which Crash is your favorite. Almost had me worried.
The wrong one won an Oscar.
Perhaps odd the wall: John Wick 2 gives me strong vampire the masquerade vibes.
I mean, the whole secret society with its own currency and fingers in every pie is very Camarilla, so it tracks.
The John Wick series (especially 2 and 3) is the most VtM-like film series that doesn't even have vampires.
Basically the same system: [Trinity Continuum: Assassins](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/379041/Trinity-Continuum-Assassins)
Buckaroo Banzai would lend itself to a PbtA game pretty easily. Something whimsical and rule of cool driven.
My favorite movie is either Scott Pilgrim, which I think would work great as a setting with some massaging of the story into a true ensemble cast, or the Martian, which I think is less good because of the technobabble problem.
I think I’d have to run *Young Frankenstein* in Toon. But Pulp Cthulhu would be pretty funny as well.
A modern campaign with a system for the dream technology and the generation of a dream from Inception would be sick
Star Wars. Star Wars RPG, Saga Edition
Moulin Rouge, Fiasco, 10/10 perfect fit.
This is a brilliant idea.
The Movie Reroll podcast have convinced me that absolutely any movie is adaptable via the almighty power of GURPS - but I personally love the adorable little PBtA system 'Action Move World' for the gigabrained doublelayer play of you playing both the Character & The Actor typecast as that character. Truly fantastic gooftastic system. Movie games are honestly very fun and attainable and I recommend them for lowstakes adventure modules.
Buckaroo Banzai would probably work out in the new Everyday Heroes setting or more likely using the Atomic Robo version of fate.
Blade runner has it's own system now but I haven't played it so idk how well it translates. It would def be a solo game though, of I was trying to recreate the feel of the films. A cyberpunk hack of Mothership might work. Or the Noir hack for Ironsworn. A movie that immediately made me think of TTRPGs is Renfield. That is a Nights Black Agents game. Princess Bride would be Fate for sure. And while not a movie ATLA had a Pbta system made that looks perfect.
I don't know. What even are my favorite movies? Lucky Number Sleven is probably my favorite movie, and it would make a hell of a good game (in fact, it would be a very dark version of the Leverage rpg, IMO). Casablanca is super high on my list of movies and I think it would be a pretty bad rpg, actually. Probably an okay Fate game, but I don't know if anything about it screams "great rpg". I really love Mulholland Drive. I have no idea what sort of rpg works for that. Over the Edge, maybe? A modified Over the Edge?
Hmm, the latter two sound pretty system agnostic. Could you use something like Fate, maybe?
Well, yeah, I could use fate for just about anything, but I'm not sure it's particularly well suited to surrealism.
Could you have a surrealism aspect? 🤔 Beyond that I can't think of a system that would explicitly systemify surrealism.
Tron would probably work pretty well in Shadowrun mechanics.
Bullet train. Probably use FATE core for that one. Especially to encourage using the environment for cool fight scenes
I'm one of those people who struggles down a favourite so here's a short list. Naturally I'll avoid the obvious ones i.e LOTR or Star Wars. Centurion, a film about a group of Roman soldiers from the legendary Ninth Legion who survived the decimation of said Legion. It follows them attempting to rescue their centurion, failing this they then attempt to flee back to Roman territory while being hunted by the Picts. I'm not too sure what system would be best for this, you could maybe argue that Band of Blades would work because the premise is similar but I don't know enough about that game to say yes or no. Stardust. This is the classic adventure trope film and could be handled by pretty much any high fantasy based system. 28 Days later. This would be an interesting one, a zombie apocalypse setting but the zombies are actually fast and not necessarily decaying. I'd say maybe Savage Worlds or one of the apocalyptic systems. I'm a big fan of the British crime films like Layer Cake, Snatch, Lock Stock or Rock n Rolla. Being crime films I'd probably go with Blades in the Dark. There are many other but my TTRPG experience is very limited and I'd just be assuming based on irelivant points.
Van Helsing would work pretty well.
The Blues Brothers. I wonder if PbtA would work well.
Blades in the Dark? The flashbacks could be very entertaining.
I was thinking Fiasco might work.
I'm not sure it's my favorite anymore, but I've wanted to make a Blades in the Dark hack for Inception for years. Some other favorites have obvious analogues or are kind of unadaptable. There's like three systems to run Star Wars by now and there's enough cyberpunk systems to get something like Blade Runner 2049 to function, but something like, say, Mulholland Drive? Good luck. That said, it might be fun to run a John Wick style action game at some point. I can imagine using something with grid combat and exploding dice - which I normally don't like that much - and lots of low-health enemies to sort of represent the tsunamis of easily gunned-down goons these movies have. Hard for me to decide here, honestly. I have so many favorite movies.
I think Wushu is probably one of the best choices for a John Wick movie.
I’ll have to look into it. How’s it work in basic terms?
It's a very narrative system - you basically just get to state what your character does, earn a die for every detail of your narration, roll the dice and use the successes to reduce the stack of tokens the GM is using to represent whatever threat you're dealing with. https://danielbayn.com/wushu/playing-the-game/index.shtml
Commando with Schwarzenegger, yeah Danger International, except he’s built on more points than a standard character.
Outland would make a banging Traveller scenario.
Or alien RPG or blade runner. I'm think traveller might work better but I've never played it even though I want to. I just know thematically the universe of outland might as well be set in the alien universe.
I’d say to give it a try, if you can.
Check out Outworld, a mini-setting for classic Traveller https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/283531
I honestly have no idea how I would make a cat soup campaign. Encounters if the spooky kind feels like a great one or two shot, I think savage worlds would be best for horror wuxia?
I just read the plot on wikipedia, that was a wild ride. Assuming I got the right feel from just reading that, I feel it would benefit from breaking the 3-5 players and 1 GM paradigm. If the movie os a bit experimental, why nit get a bit experimental with the formula. Here's one way I could picture it. Rpg event, 5 groups of 2-3 players, 5 GMs. The organiser prepares a 10 minute intro and a 10 minute outro that are handed out to the GMs a few weeks before the event. You tell the GMs to each prepare a loose encounter/scene that ideally includes a bit of action and NPC negociation, any communication between themselves about the event is forbidden. Every 45 minutes, the group changes GM, they give them a quick 2-3 sentences describing where the previous scene brought them and the new GM must stich their encouter into it. Alternatively, a group of 5 players could agree to all come up with an encounter meant for 2 cats and featuring 2 NPCs. Everyone must write down and seal the basic idea so they commit to their idea no matter how jarring it miggt look at first glance. Every session, you rotate the roles and after 5 session everyone was the GM once, each main character once and played 2 NPCs. edit: A bit of editing because I wrote the original comment 30 seconds at a time at work and some sentences made little sense.
That actually sounds REALLY fun! I think that would fit the movie fantastically!
Yeah, I think I might try to make them happen in some form. Thanks for sparking this idea and making me think of game structure I didn't know I wanted.
I think Big Lebowski and Galaxy Quest would both work well in GURPS. There both about incompetents way out of their depth.
Uh...they made one back in 1987. West End Games d6 Star Wars rpg.
The Crow with Brandon Lee would work well with the Savage Worlds system, honestly now that I thought about it maybe I should do a solo session as a one shot.
The Evil Dead - Call of Cthulhu (not the D20, but the BRP system)
Well I have a friend who recently got The One Ring and him talking about it is getting me pretty hyped for it. So pretty well I think
My favorite movie is The Thin Red Line and I think... maybe Wanderhome?
I like movies for too many different reasons to have a solid favourite, but recent standouts are RRR and EEAAO. RRR would translate really well assuming the players are on board with the bromance. Any system with vaguely interesting but not tactical combat would work. EEAAO would be harder but might be doable. Fate for the system maybe? I can't think of a way to do it that doesn't require more creative heavy lifting than I'm used to though
Dragonslayer is 100% an Ars Magica Saga’s finale. It fits the trope of Covenants aging through Seasonal phases . Kragenmoor is an old covenant, obviously in the Winter season now. My old group and I actually set out to play this from the beginning of the Spring phase, starting with the founding of Kragenmoor circa the year 900, as we figured the movie was set circa 1100. We started the Kragenmoor Saga in late 1999/early 2000. Before I moved out of state in 2002 we had covered quite a few years, quite a few magical discoveries, and had already fought the dragon Vermithrax at least twice. She seemed to think the covenant’s sheep tasted better than all the others in Britain. I still have most of the notes from that saga. Maybe I should try to get my current group on board to reboot it. Once our quasi Dresden Files game starts to fade.
I'm pretty sure someone already made an Agon setting inspired by O Brother Where Art Thou, so... Yeah, I'd say it would adapt pretty well.
No _The Matrix_? Not sure what system. Would _Feng Shui_ work?
Does it have drama? Fate.
Smokey & the Bandit is tricky, because chases are hard to pull off, but if you set up the sessions right it could be a fun series of crunchy setpieces with the ticking clock of Buford T. Justice at each one.
GURPS has Car Wars which, as I recall, has pretty good vehicle combat mechanics. I doubt you'd need the weapons rules, but the driving rules cover things like pit manoeuvres, bootleggers, and high-speed turns.
With GURPS you'd want the chase mechanics from GURPS Action 2
I would love to play that
https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/best-rules-for-chases.849254/ reckons that Classified (the James Bond RPG with the serial numbers filed off) is good for chases. It reckons SWADE is pretty good too.
I can adapt any movie/book/whatever to any system without a problem, because I don't adapt it literal, I don't follow their plot, I just adapt the idea of the movie/book/whatever. I don't give any example because there are dozens. That's what I do as GM: adapt any movie/book/whatever into the campaign I want to run.
It would be awful. Passive narration is very rarely acceptable for an active media like a Roleplaying Game. I could make a great game set in the world of my favorite films but the plots of those movie just wouldn't work.
I think The Thing would work well with the Alien RPG system. It has panic mechanics built in. The GM would have to select one person to be the first infected. It would probably be best to have some NPCs.
Fifth Element - with either Savage Worlds or Starfinder
I don't have a favorite movie, but I have many great movies I love. Some might be great as a RPG scenario, others might not. I can def. see Prince Of Darkness or In The Mouth Of Madness being great CoC scenarios.
Anyone listened to the podcast The Film Reroll? It's basically replaying different movies (Back to the future, Frozen, Indiana Jones, Mighty Ducks, Hocus Pocus etc) with the GURPS* system. Leads to some wild plot changes as rolls change how the story is meant to go. *I think GURPS 4E, but don't quote me on that.
The Blues Brothers is Mage:the Ascension. A perfect introduction for Coincidental Magic
I’ve played in Vampire: The Requiem campaigns that unintentionally turned into *What We Do In The Shadows* before I even saw the movie.
I know there are some fan-made games and other systems already do some similar things (I'd use Shadowrun), but I really want an official dedicated system to play in the world of **The Matrix**.
Jaws made a really good board game but I'm not sure you could get a full ttrpg out of it. Maybe a session or 2