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Re: How protective are you of your game ideas?

Started by woodelf, October 13, 2004, 04:10:47 PM

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woodelf

Quote from: Matt Wilson
But that doesn't mean you won't get really irked. How much "borrowing" goes on among designers?

Well, since the vast majority of commercially-visible RPGs are all the same for the basic structure, and use, oh, maybe, 3 different mechanical models, i'd say that a lot of borrowing goes on.

Let's take an obvious example:
D&D3E has, really, not that much in common with earlier editions of [A]D&D--pulling a number out of a hat, i'd say about 20% of the mechanics come from D&D.  However, it has perhaps as much as 50% in common with Ars Magica; i'm not familiar with RMSS, but i've heard that, among other things, the whole feat sub-system is taken straight from RMSS; large chunks of it also are highly reminiscent of Talistlanta 3rd ed, GURPS, and Hero System. Now, are any of these things actually borrowed (rather than convergent evolution)? I don't actually know. But the authors are pretty well-acquainted with the RPG market, and the authors of D&D3E were designers significantly involved with Ars Magica, RMSS, and AD&D in previous editions, which is why i lend the most credence to those similarities.

Likewise, V:tM is basically the setting of NightLife (with Goth substituted for Rock as the social slant) mated to the mechanics of ShadowRun--which is, in turn, basically a tweak of the Star Wars mechanics. And, while i have no idea if NightLife is actually derived from it, i'm pretty certain it post-dates the play-the-monsters supplement for Chill, and has a fair bit of tonal similarity, IMHO.

So, i won't address the attitude towards it, in terms of acknowledgement and credit, but i will say that it happens. A lot. To the point that the commercially-visible RPG market is sufficiently incestuous to look pretty homogenous, and leads to threads on EnWorld about not having seen anything "new" in a while, and not seeing anything "new" coming up.
--
woodelf
not necessarily speaking on behalf of
The Impossible Dream

Ron Edwards

The above post was split from How protective are you toward your ideas?.

Please be careful not to post to older threads.

Best,
Ron