T w e n t y S i d e d

Think Geek always has great shirts, but Wil Wheaton points to one which is particularly funny.

Which reminds me:

In talking about shows and movies which are ripe for the DM of the Rings treatment, I think the richest target out there is Star Trek: TNG. It has all the ingredients that make DMotR work:

1. Like LOTR, the material is popular, widely recognized, and filled with familiar tropes. Even people who didn’t watch the show are likely familiar with the idea of Holodeck Mishaps and Expendable Extras.
2. It has a huge supply of material to work with, even larger than LOTR. (The show ran for seven years and 178 episodes. Chances are if you need a shot of character X talking to Y with expression Z, it will be in there somewhere without the need for lots of tedious photoshopping.) The sets and costumes didn’t change much from one episode to the next, which means the screenshots would be nicely interchangeable. The only things you’d have to watch for are Wil Wheaton growing up and Jonathan Frakes growing the beard.
3. Like LOTR, the show takes itself pretty seriously, which makes the jokes and dialog easier.
4. Like LOTR, the show borrows from other works of fiction, and in turn is used as a source for later works. Thus an ST:TNG parody would have a reach well beyond the show itself. (This would be less true for something like Firefly, for example.)

I don’t know how good it would be as a source for roleplaying jokes. I’m betting there’s a Trek RPG out there somewhere, but if there is it isn’t nearly as popular as D20 Star Wars. I think using it to parody sci-fi in general would work much better.

Picture Picard as a touchy-feely pacifist politically correct diplomat, Riker as an intergalactic manwhore, and Wesley as a sarcastic potty-mouth teen. The jokes pretty much write themselves. You could do ten pages with just those three characters. It’s a goldmine.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.