Ideas that Fail to Transfer - GMs

Character concepts can be difficult to transfer, as we previously went over. The problem exists for GMs as well. You may come across an idea in a game or movie and want to recreate or integrate it in a game.

Plots from movies/books/games seem like the easiest thing to lift and use. However, the creators of those stories probably didn't have to deal with people co-creating the experience with them. If you want to create a railroad experience for your players, then you can do use plots whole-cloth; otherwise, your players will have input into what goes on during your game. Mystery plots that you intend to drag on may be resolved in a instant. Players may not want to listen to plot exposition from the villain and may outright murder them; possibly leading to dead ends.

The way around this, and to all player interaction in your world, is to be flexible and adapt to what they do. Also, be sure to adapt the plot to your groups playstyle. If your players hate mystery, don't try and force it on them.

Sometimes you may want to adapt plot devices as mechanics. For instance, in every zombie movie; their bites are incredible lethal, since they transmit the disease and turn the bitten into fellow zombies. This could be a powerful motivation within the game, since undead must now be purged completely and preferably at range. You can work various drama in, with friends or loved ones being bitten and then having to be dealt with. It could make for an awesome game.

Except that spells like remove disease exist. A failed fort save marks a PC for death, in the absence of clerics or paladins. At low levels this is far more common, but even at high levels there's always a 5% chance to fail, even if you set the save ridiculously low. A solution is to use it as a plot device, so that it happens when you intend it to and at no other times. This allows you to work it in as needed, but also removes the threat from PC, but they may not need to know that.

Adapting plots and mechanics can be tricky, but can be rewarding since some of the difficult planning has been done for you. It just requires the ability to tweak the lifted information on the fly or to change the "rules" of how a lifted mechanic works.