D&D: Hungry For Inspiration? Five Shows To Steal From For Your Next Session
Good DMs borrow, great DMs steal. And here are five amazing shows from recent years you can pilfer form for your next session/adventure/campaign.
Inspiration isn’t just for adventurers in need of Advantage on their next roll. It’s the very beating heart that helps fuel the game. It’s the spark that can light a fire for a campaign. Or the seed that becomes an adventure. Perhaps the early bird that gets the worm of your next session.
And as the old misattributed adage says, good DMs borrow, great DMs steal. Which is to say, you don’t have to stress about the thing you’re thinking of having been done before. Take what excites you, make it your own, and then see if your friends have fun with it.
It’s a time-honored tradition in D&D. Whether you’re running through a dungeon inspired by the Beast’s castle from Beauty and the Beast, or escorting a polymorphed emperor back to his palace where a witch who is scary beyond all reason awaits, the excitement and inspiration you get from ideas is infectious. So here are some sources of inspiration – in this case, recent series, that you can mine for your next session/campaign/adventure.
Arcane
Arcane is for more than just lesbians, polycules, and nonbinary folks who, if they’re reading this, should probably drink some water. It’s also a great source of inspiration for a D&D campaign. Whether you like the magitech aesthetic of the whole Piltover domain, or the character drama that unfolds – there’s a ton to mine for inspiration here.
You’ve got the themes of haves and have nots explored in Piltover and the Undercity. There’s love and loss and what it can do to a person – how far you’d go in the name of vengeance or spite. Plus you probably haven’t cried enough this year, so it’s definitely worth a rewatch to see if you pick up any inspiration for your adventures.
Or mine its character archetypes for NPCs. Any or all of them are amazing personalities who you can borrow bits and pieces from to give some specificity to your next NPC interactions.
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End
The whole reason I pitched this article was to remind everyone that Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is on Netflix right now, and if you haven’t watched it, you should probably go watch it right now. And if you have watched it, you should go rewatch it right now.
But it’s a great dive into what a fantasy setting can feel like. Specifically, of a world informed by fantasy mechanics – because in Frieren, Warriors fight to protect their Mages, who in turn are healed by Priests. There are even Monks who show up in the midst of all the monster fighting. And while that’s not exactly the point of the show, it’s a wonderful dynamic to think about for your own world. Adventurer’s guilds, magic schools, etc. are all just ripe for mining.
To say nothing of what a masterclass any episode of Frieren is in what parties can do in their downtime/town episodes/shopping trips. I can’t recommend this series enough for D&D inspiration, or just so you can live a rich life full of some small amount of joy.
Severance
Okay hear me out on this one. Yeah, it’s a Sci-Fi series. But what is Sci-Fi but Fantasy where the magic is technology? Imagine: you wake up in a dungeon, you only know the terror and brutal world of the crawl as you go room by room, fighting monsters, disarming traps, discovering treasure – only to remove it and become a whole other person, your Outie, as it were, once you’re out of the dungeon and back in town.
But even if you don’t lift that concept for a campaign, which again, could be amazing, there’s still plenty of weird worldbuilding that shows what you can do with a slowburn reveal. The first season is a great example of how to immerse players in a world full of complicated and confusing lore while still allowing for them to make discoveries.
And if none of that sounds appealing, just imagine a Mind Flayer has Severed people in town, and the Players have to try and figure out what’s happened and how to save the day.
Daredevil: Born Again
Not only is this show incredible, it’s a great example of how, if you have a villain that players can’t just beat in a fight, you can derive some excellent drama and inspiration. The Kingpin’s rise to become Mayor leads to some of the best storytelling I’ve seen in a Marvel show in a long while. And I could easily see stealing something like a rival or even not-world-ending villain – the kind who only wants power, like a high ranking member of the Zhentarim or a Red Wizard who isn’t a lich and hates Szass Tam but also wants to have their own little empire – carve out their territory as they’re leagues above the PCs in level, and watch the fallout that comes from it.
Not overtly villainous, but villainous enough to the PCs that it becomes this driving tension in a campaign. At least for a while. Plus, it’s a really good show and you should watch it.
Andor
This is quite literally one of the best TV shows I’ve ever seen. And I am convinced there’s nothing it can’t do. You could mine an episode, or the whole series for inspiration about fighting an evil empire, starting a revolution, doing spy stuff, doing heist stuff, or just realizing what it means to actually fight.
Not that you’d actually like play through the story of Andor, just that you’d pick it apart for themes and inspiration that you could use in any RPG. You’ll never recreate the feeling of whatever media you steal from exactly, but that’s not the point. We’re watching this stuff to see what strikes a chord with you, and to then take that chord and strike it in your own way, in your own games.
What are some of your big sources of inspiration right now?
