I’ve started running Curse of Strahd and have been having a ton of fun making wacky homebrew things for my party and tweaking the module. Unbeknownst to the players so far, I have made them all a secret Dark Power trying to use them to usurp Strahd and Vampyr, and they’re just waiting to offer their dark gift.
For example, I have a druid with some fire giant ancestry who loves Produce Flame and is their front line, so he’ll be offered a slightly weaker Rage with the Path of the Storm Herald desert feature to use once per long rest. The celestial warlock would get charges to boost his Eldritch Blast damage and some secondary healing in exchange for sapping his life.
Giving my players powerful upgrades alongside typical class advancement can make some encounters harder to balance around, but as long as we’re all having fun who cares about balance??
Not strictly a DnD player (Pathfinder and World of Darkness mainly) I love the “creatively appropriating” ideas and concepts from other media, figuring out what makes different genres work and pulling everything together into an awesome narrative. I love it when my players get into their characters.
My current PF campaign is heavily Destiny inspired, so I’m pulling all kinds of ideas from the lore and the game itself and reworking them into a more strictly fantasy setting.
I always say it’s not ripping off, it’s an homage! I love pulling inspiration out of other media.