Role-playing Adapted Worlds

[Cemendur]

I would deny that it is inherently revision.  It is rather commentary, or dialogue.  Someone who role-plays in Middle Earth can still be aware of Tolkien's works as distinct from their role-playing game.  He is creating his own work which has its own distinct expression.  This can and will be different than Tolkien's vision.  This is the same with any other adaptation or extension.  i.e. The film version of The Wizard of Oz was distinct from the book, but it was an interesting artistic work in its own right.  

Anyhow, this is a bit moot unless someone actually agrees that role-playing in a literary world is bad.

It is an interesting coincidence that you used the Wizard of Oz as an example. I almost commented on Oz in one of the other threads. I'll do so now.

It should be noted that as a youth I was an Oz fanatic, I read all of Baum's works plus all of the works of the next two authors that continued the series plus a few of the other books. I can remember not much of the detail of these books as its been over 16 years since I have read them. Obviously as a nine and ten year old boy, I had no trouble enjoying these derivative work. I no longer take delight in this type of stuff, but am illustrating my enjoyment as a youth.

I just read, "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of West". "Wicked" is different than these other books - its written for adults and it is "Oz revisionist".

The specific question is: is it acceptable to role-play in a setting created by a literary work?  M. John Harrison seems pretty clear that he believes that people should not role-play in his worlds or, for that matter, in other literary worlds.  He considers it a negative cultural expression.  First of all, does anyone agree with him on this specific point?

This is the essence of the debate around rap music and hip-hop culture. I have a "folk perspective" on this.

First, the legality of the issue does not determine the merit of its cultural expression. This is the question of "intellectual property". Personally, I do not subscribe to notions of "property rights", esp. the legal concept of "intellectual property". Still, this does not answer the original question.

Most fantasy books are derivative. We know the cliches', the rehashes of Tolkien, of Leiber, etc. I have grown bored with these books. If you read a few hundred of these books, you've read 'em all. Are these "negative cultural expressions"? Perhaps so, perhaps not, but they certainly aren't exceptional in either way. They aren't LOTR, my idea of a positive cultural expression, nor are they Nazi propaganda, my idea of an exceptionally negative cultural expression.

"Wicked" is the best fantasy book I have read in years. Yes, it is derivative, but in a different way. It places itself in "Oz", but it is not Baum's Oz, not the Oz through the eyes of Dorothy, but Oz through the eye's of "the Wicked Witch of the West". I love this cultural expression. Its the story of an idealistic revolutionary youth who becomes a bitter old maid who's seen as a "wicked witch".

In the movie, the story is quite different.  Dorothy deep down wants to go away from home and has to be taught a lesson to stay there (via her dream).  Throughout the movie, changes are made to reinforce authority.  Glinda watches over her from the beginning, and saves her from the poppies.  Glinda could have sent her back at any time, but held off because Dorothy had to learn her lesson.  The film constantly undercuts the populist sentiments of the original.  For example, the munchkins are rewritten from being simple farmers into, well, freaks.

Absolutely.

"Wicked" is in my opinion a much more respectful and more true to Baum Oz than the Wizard of Oz movie.

Other examples of this style of derivative artwork include:

"Gallow's Pole" by Led Zeppelin (derived from Leadbelly's "Gallis Pole")

"Gallis Pole" by Leadbelly (a traditional folk song)

Johnny Cash (most of his songs are covers)

.  . .just to get everyone thinking on this.

Artwork, esp. music, is almost always derivative, it modifies earlier work.
In my mind, is is a negative cultural expression when it is merely an immitation, with little modification of the source material.

What is the point in re-writting an immitation of a LOTR novel? Now, when you transfer the LOTR to another medium such as film or role-playing game, it becomes a derivative that could approach the masterwork status of the original.

Terry Gilliam's Brazil is an excellent example of a derivitive film, in this case derivative from two novels (1984 and Brave New World).

You can never role-play in Tolkien's Middle Earth. Its just not possible. He never wrote a game for it. We could role-play in an RPG immitation of Middle Earth or in an RPG derivitive of Middle Earth. The market is glutted with them to the point, where we have several versions of the RPG Middle Earth equivalent of "Wicked"- a take on Middle Earth from the orcs perspective.

I am not concerned with Tolkien-esque or other derivative works as being negative cultural expressions. Personally, I am more concerned with media conglomeration and central political authority. Then again, its a concern with mass-produced, glossed over, air-brushed, sterile, derivative works, instead of innovativations of prior works.

P.S.

While I enjoy the LOTR movies as its own thing, the character that I enjoyed the most fom the books, Tom Bombadil, was left out.

[Chris Goodwin]

When we roleplay, we all roleplay in a world of some kind (barring any weird hypothetical games in which there isn't a world).  Whether we created the world ourselves or someone else created it for us, it's there.  And, if someone else created it, what does it matter what medium it was originally created in?  Greyhawk and the World of Darkness were created for roleplaying games, Middle Earth and Harry Potter were literary, and The Matrix and Star Wars were films.  And people game in all of those, whether they have a legal license and/or official rules for doing so or not.  

There are certainly moral and legal considerations for publishing games based in someone else's world, but I really don't see what the difference is where actual play is concerned.

[clehrich]

For example, I think the LotR movies are a terrific cinematic adaptation of the books.

No, actually so do I.  But I think they're not a particularly good example in the sense that I'm sort of looking for something a good deal more obviously different from the texts.  Jackson did some things I didn't like, but overall the LOTR films are wonderful.  Agreed.  They're also extremely close to the texts in a literal sense, which is a valid approach but would I think get us rather deeper into technical matters than I think is really necessary here.

My wife and I discussed it (she teaches Japanese literature and film) and we thought of a number of examples, though.  I'll get back to that in a sec.

Your "win" condition for a good film adaptation would probably be miles from mine -- if only because you'd weight the win closer to the book, and I'd be thinking, "Given the material, how do we shape it into the best movie movie we can make."

No, that's exactly the "win" condition I'm talking about.  Exactly.  Here's a bad example: the first Harry Potter film was, deliberately, relentlessly literal, i.e. it made The Text the scripture.  This was an excellent choice for the desired audience, who would not have wanted their favorite book changed.  But it's not much as a film, for exactly that reason.

The agenda of lit (langauage based, thoughtful, delighted in minutia), has ltitle to do with cinema (extroverted, image based, moving, always, onto the next beat with little time for reflection).  The forms themselves reveal a different temperament toward life itself.  To move one series of narrative events into a completely different form -- an alien form -- and be successful in the new form is to translate the meaning of the tale.  By definition.

Yes, it is.  And I'm saying that's a perfectly valid thing to do.  John doesn't think so.  He thinks that you should not make such translations.  I disagree.

How could someone who loves both literature and movies will be able to help here?  Such a person would have to throw up his hands here (with a laugh) and say "The forms are so different, the needs for success are so different, there's no way a good movie is going to come from an honest adaptation of the book."

Do you really believe that?  That there is no such animal as a really good film adaptation (or translation)?  I don't.  I'm surprised that you do.

Here are some possible examples:

Blade Runner
A Clockwork Orange
Black Rain (the Japanese film, not the Michael Douglas thing)
The Big Sleep (been a long time since I've seen it, though)

On a very weird note, Yojimbo (adaptation of Red Harvest)

[Christopher Kubasik]

How could someone who loves both literature and movies will be able to help here?  Such a person would have to throw up his hands here (with a laugh) and say "The forms are so different, the needs for success are so different, there's no way a good movie is going to come from an honest adaptation of the book."

Do you really believe that?  That there is no such animal as a really good film adaptation (or translation)?  I don't.  I'm surprised that you do.

My bad.

I was using "honest translation" to mean "literal translation" -- as in that horrid Chris Columbus Harry Potter Thing you mentioned.  For some (not you and I), the only way to "honestly" translate something is to get the book "right" in the film version.

You and I don't see things this way, and so are on the same page.

Here are some possible examples:

Blade Runner
A Clockwork Orange
Black Rain (the Japanese film, not the Michael Douglas thing)
The Big Sleep (been a long time since I've seen it, though)

See?  And it begins already....

I don't know The Big Sleep.  I don't know Black Rain.  (The book versions.)

But...

Blade Runner?  The movie's fine.  But an elegant adaptation of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"  Please, don't get me started.

And "A Clockwork Orange"?  Um, no.  (Not a big fan of that movie -- I know, I know...) Compared against the novel, the moral scope of the movie is the equivalent of a the sixth grader who knows he's figured it all out becaue he's noted that all adults are liars.  Puhleeease.

It's not that I don't think there aren't good film adaptations.  I've offerd up LotR.  And a host of others. I'm saying post a title on this board and someone is bound to arrive and say, "What are you talking about? That movie completely missed the point of the book!"

You and John might be able to negotiate such a film/book to discuss, but you'll have to keep the conversation closed.  My gut tells me eventially somebody is going to cry foul.  (As I already have on two of your suggestions.)

Good luck on your list though!

Best,

Christopher

[clehrich]

Okay, well Christopher has made a fair point here, even though I don't like it.  Which is that there's probably no single film/novel combination that everyone can more or less agree on where the film is an elegant adaptation of the novel.

So let me put my argument differently.

Even if we disagree about particular examples, can we at least agree that such a transposition is, in principle, possible?  And that it would be worth doing?  Because I see John's argument as saying that while it might be possible it would not be worth doing.

John?

P.S. I'm holding out on Black Rain, though.

[John Kim]

How could someone who loves both literature and movies will be able to help here?  Such a person would have to throw up his hands here (with a laugh) and say "The forms are so different, the needs for success are so different, there's no way a good movie is going to come from an honest adaptation of the book."

Do you really believe that?  That there is no such animal as a really good film adaptation (or translation)?  I don't.  I'm surprised that you do.

Here are some possible examples:

Blade Runner
A Clockwork Orange
Black Rain (the Japanese film, not the Michael Douglas thing)
The Big Sleep (been a long time since I've seen it, though)

On a very weird note, Yojimbo (adaptation of Red Harvest)

First of all, I would say that even if such a translation is hypothetically possible, it serves little or no artistic purpose.  If you're not trying to say anything new, why produce something which aspires to only say what the original said?  It would be a technical exercise rather than an artistic one.  

I would point out that there is a judgement process which goes on here.  Two people read the same book, but they walk away with different interpretations of what the book meant.  So when a film comes around, some things are different and some things are the same.  The same two people will also disagree on exactly what the film meant by itself -- and they'll naturally also disagree on how the film differed from the book.  They will each have a separate projection about what the "spirit" of the book is, and may judge the film to be acceptable if it keeps that "spirit".  But that impression of spirit is nearly arbitrary, based on how they feel about the book.  

As for your examples, I disagree about Blade Runner and Yojimbo, which are the only two on your list where I'm familiar with both text and film.  I think they're good films.  But I agree with Christopher Kubasik -- Blade Runner really is not very much Philip K. Dick, particularly not in its hard-boiled-ness and action.  In Yojimbo, I think that it shifts the plot to a radically different social context along with numerous plot changes, which changes greatly the message of the movie.  

The closest example I can think of for what you are talking about is John Huston's 1941 version of The Maltese Falcon.  However, this one is pretty literal.  It is almost scene for scene the same as the novel by Dashiell Hammett.  The notable place where the film departs is in the portrait of Sam Spade.  Humphrey Bogart is quite different from the tall "blonde Satan" that Hammett describes in many ways, and I think it is quite significant.  It is Bogart's portrayal of Spade that is the real product of the film, moreso than anything in the plot.

[clehrich]

First of all, I would say that even if such a translation is hypothetically possible, it serves little or no artistic purpose.  If you're not trying to say anything new, why produce something which aspires to only say what the original said?  It would be a technical exercise rather than an artistic one.

If you feel that way, John, we're certainly going to have to agree to disagree.

To my mind, once such a transposition has occurred, the two artistic products are different, and should be judged on their own terms.  At the same time, the one that claims to be an adaptation also invites examination in terms of the work it adapts.  But the two works are, or can be, legitimate artistic products in their own right.

Out of interest, what do you think of translation, I mean from language to language?  There's no question that one cannot express in one language the same things as in another language by the same means.  So one has to choose other means, means available in the language of translation.  By your logic, doesn't that mean that a translation can only be successful in technical terms, and cannot be an artistic product?

[Cemendur]

(addressed to Christopher Kubasik) Do you really believe that?  That there is no such animal as a really good film adaptation (or translation)?  I don't.  I'm surprised that you do.

Here are some possible examples:

Blade Runner
A Clockwork Orange
Black Rain (the Japanese film, not the Michael Douglas thing)
The Big Sleep (been a long time since I've seen it, though)

On a very weird note, Yojimbo (adaptation of Red Harvest)

Interesting, I was thinking of this thread while working and I too thought of Blade Runner.

Your response does not explain why you think these movies are great adaptations.

Blade Runner is almost completely different than the PKD book, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". The only resemblence is a stripped-down version of the plot, the color and the world. The story changes from an introspective detective story to an action-thriller.  Although it is a sci-fi setting, its a different genre. I would be interested to see an RPG adaptation of DADofES.

One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest is another example of a great "adaptation" that is really different than the source. It changes the point of view from Chief's to third person following Randle McMurphy's story. This is a drastic change that can not be fully understood without having read the original "surreal"* text. Much of the plot is the same, but the color and everything else is completely different. I have a hard time picturing a OFOtCN RPG adaptation that would keep me entertained. However, something more along the lines of an adaptation of The Prisoner has worked.

I certainly believe that these adaptations have artistic merit.

[Cemendur]

On another note, I read the the Princess Bride having loved the movie. Reading the book was like sitting in a waiting room, watching a silenced  movie while people file by in front of you. The movie is interesting, but where is the sound? The people are kinda' interesting, but you're watching a movie.

Admitting, I loved the movie, but even when I was young and watching the movie, I did not like the story of the child and his story-teller father.  When I was reading the book and the story was in it too, I kept hoping perhaps it was Fred Savage's portrayal that I did not like, or just the movie script. No, it was the story and in the book it wrestled for control of center stage.

As for the fantasy story, it was much more entertaining on screen. This was the only book I have read where I like the movie better. (Actually, I have tried reading Les Misérables, but I have yet to learn the pleasure of extensive tangents, yet I love the movie and like the musical. Then again I don't know French and it could be partly the translations.)

Princess Bride is an odd example as the author of the book is the author of the screenplay and if I remember correctly the author had every intention of writing a book and a screenplay. I could see a fun RPG based upon the movie.

What I do not understand about objections to RPG adaptations is, is not every RPG session itself an adaptation?

[Caldis]

Surely that devils advocate only works if I care about keeping the authors meaning intact. If I'm interested in keeping the meaning I got from it, there's no problem.

The question then is why use all his trappings, the tools he used to create his sermon, for your own means?   He's given them specific meanings to create the story he was after, if you are trying to tell a different story why hold on to his names and places if you are using them for different meanings?

Someone mentioned the movie Brazil as being a work derivative of 1984 and that it may be but it never claims to be the same world as that of 1984.  It takes inspiration from the source material and uses it to create it's own message without needing to tag on to the bootlaces of the original to give it credibility.

If I'm creating a game exploring poverty and the underworld of a fantasy medieval city, why would I choose to name the city Gondor?

[John Kim]

To my mind, once such a transposition has occurred, the two artistic products are different, and should be judged on their own terms.  At the same time, the one that claims to be an adaptation also invites examination in terms of the work it adapts.  But the two works are, or can be, legitimate artistic products in their own right.

Out of interest, what do you think of translation, I mean from language to language?  There's no question that one cannot express in one language the same things as in another language by the same means.  So one has to choose other means, means available in the language of translation.  By your logic, doesn't that mean that a translation can only be successful in technical terms, and cannot be an artistic product?

No, I would say that just like a film adaptation, a language translation is a derivative work which has new expression by the translator.  My wife Liz has a project which is an interesting study in this: it is a series of small books entitled "Composite".  Each is a single poem which has been translated by many authors (8 to 10).  Each translation is different, and each reflects the character and thoughts of the translator.  Only reading, say, Lord of the Rings in Korean is very much similar to only seeing the Lord of the Rings film.  The translator inevitably distorts the original.  A good translator will make those artistic distortions -- i.e. will try to express something herself.  

For example, one translator might Korean-ize it.  i.e. Instead of being about mythic England, it becomes more about mythic Korea -- and the translator might lovingly craft the Korean names to have depth of meaning similar to Tolkien's names.  But that's new expression.  Two translators will do this in completely different ways.  Another translator might keep it about England and transliterate the names -- but that too changes the meaning.  It becomes a tale about the journey of exotic aliens ("happitas"), not homely hobbits.  A good translator will play to this exoticness rather than ignoring it.  

The question then is why use all his trappings, the tools he used to create his sermon, for your own means?   He's given them specific meanings to create the story he was after, if you are trying to tell a different story why hold on to his names and places if you are using them for different meanings?

Someone mentioned the movie Brazil as being a work derivative of 1984 and that it may be but it never claims to be the same world as that of 1984.  It takes inspiration from the source material and uses it to create it's own message without needing to tag on to the bootlaces of the original to give it credibility.

If I'm creating a game exploring poverty and the underworld of a fantasy medieval city, why would I choose to name the city Gondor?

OK, I find this strange.  Do you mean that if you use someone else's ideas, it's better to change the names and rip it off -- rather than keep the names and credit the original?  As for respectability, it seems to me that the opposite is true.  i.e. Something gains respectability if it claims to be original and hides how it rips off others' work.  i.e. Generically Tolkienesque fantasy is more respectable than fiction set in Middle Earth.  

But as for why to do this, I'd cite my Star Trek campaigns that I referred to a while back.  By setting them in the same universe as the original series, I was making a commentary on the original.  By keeping the setting intact, I am raising awareness of the original and making a more distinct line between my expression and my inspiration.  Now, I think that Trek-derived sci-fi is valid as well.

[M. J. Young]

First of all, I would say that even if such a translation is hypothetically possible, it serves little or no artistic purpose.  If you're not trying to say anything new, why produce something which aspires to only say what the original said?  It would be a technical exercise rather than an artistic one.

This got me thinking about my own approach to music.

As a rule, I perform my own compositions, or those of friends with whom I have played. I do make exceptions. I really brook only two bases for those exceptions.

The first is that I will do a song that is not mine if I can do something uniquely interesting with it, something that I think brings out the meaning of the song better than the original version, or something that refocuses what the song is saying in a new direction, or something that is just so well done that it will be memorable. That's a matter of attempting to translate the original into a better form, something that communicates better than the original, in my opinion. I think that's valid, generally.

The second is that I will do a song that is not mine if I think it a truly wonderful song that is not well known and is going to be forgotten in the mists of time if someone doesn't revive it. That's about reaching a larger audience with something good.

I mention this because I think that making movies of good books falls into that second category: there are people who will never read Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter, or Blade Runner, or Wizard of Oz, or any of the wealth of other good books out there, who will watch a movie. Movies then become something like the Cliff Notes to the books, the quick and easy way to "get" whatever it is that other people get from reading books. Obviously they don't get that; but they get some piece of it, and that makes the movie format valuable. It may well be that aspiring to say only what the original said is more a technical exercise than an artistic one; but it may well be that expressing the original message in the new format will enable it to reach a much wider audience. Movies are, in effect, to books what wire services are to newspapers: they get the stories to the people.

On the question of films that adapt books, I agree that this is a particularly difficult question. It has always impressed me that The Wiz told essentially the same story as The Wizard of Oz, but turned the moral completely on its head--and in comparison with the book it is yet a third moral from the same story. The book perhaps wanted to teach us that it was noble and good to be dedicated to make home a better place. Oz came to the conclusion that there was nothing in the world that you could possibly want that you couldn't find right at home. Wiz came to the conclusion that you're never going to find anything or do anything unless you start by leaving home.

I am forced to complain about the recent retelling of The Time Machine. Despite the involvement of Wells' descendants in developing the film, it has completely rewritten the entire story in every meaningful particular. I ranted about that http://www.mjyoung.net/time/machine.html">elsewhere, though, so I'll set it aside.

It's my understanding that Clarke was very much involved in the production of 2001: A Space Odessey. I don't know how much difference that made. If you've seen the web site with the very funny sixty second summaries of fantasy and sci-fi books, they say that in the end of the book a lot of strange things happen but they make sense, and after you've read it you think you understand the movie. I never met anyone who understood the end of the movie, although having seen it as part of a high school field trip I did hear teachers talking about whether the movie conveyed what happened in the book. Thinking back to the film, though, it seems to me that the "real" story in the movie begins with the Jupiter mission and is about HAL, and all that stuff about the monoliths and such is backstory to frame that story. If the ending in the book "makes sense", then that suggests that the book really is about the monoliths and such, and the entire story with HAL somehow fits into that. (I have not read the book; the film 2010 is clearly written as sequel to the earlier film, and does nothing in relation to the monoliths or the missing astronaut, that I recall.)

There are precious few faithful adaptations of books in any sense, that I have encountered. It seems almost that the reason for adapting a book to film is because someone wants to say something different from the book and thinks that the framework of the book will provide an opportunity to say it, or perhaps an audience to listen.

--M. J. Young

[clehrich]

Well, I confess I'm stumped.  It seems to me completely obvious that translation from one medium or language to another can be evaluated according to a couple of different criteria.  

First, how well it remains faithful to the artistic vision of the original piece, however that might be interpreted or understood by the person doing the translation.

Second, how well it uses the new medium or language to render that vision.

The end-result should be a legitimate and valuable work of art in its own right, but at the same time it is entirely valid as a translation.

By this logic, one can argue that a poem, which is in some sense about its own medium (language), is only translatable in an extremely non-literal sense; the new poem produced is likely quite radically different in most surface senses from the original.  Conversely, a piece of instrumental music is extremely translatable to another instrumentation; it's a matter of working out the technical qualities and nature of the new instrumentation with respect to the original.  Thus Mahler's adaptation of Death and the Maiden as an orchestral work is fully successful and very obviously cognate with Schubert's original string quartet.

I am really very startled to hear that most people here think that translation is not a valid goal in itself.  I give up.  I can't imagine where you're coming from, so I'm going to drop it.  The point, for me, was to make a point about transpositions of media, to and from RPGs with respect to literary works, but it seems we don't have enough common ground to discuss the matter.

Odd.  Well, I'll continue following with interest, albeit largely as an anthropologist studying the Other.  :-)

[greedo1379]

The question then is why use all his trappings, the tools he used to create his sermon, for your own means?   He's given them specific meanings to create the story he was after, if you are trying to tell a different story why hold on to his names and places if you are using them for different meanings?

...

If I'm creating a game exploring poverty and the underworld of a fantasy medieval city, why would I choose to name the city Gondor?

I think there are two things here:

1) Because I like Gondor.  I read the books and I think its a cool place and I want to have my own adventures there.

2) Because Gondor is a nice "literary shorthand".  I say "Gondor" and everyone nods their head.  They know the basics of where Gondor is, who's in charge, and so on.  I could go around creating a new world and everything every time I wanted to play an RPG but its easier to just say Gondor and run with it.

I'm still trying to figure out why anyone would really care if someone set a game in their world.  If it were me I think I'd be honored.

[contracycle]

Well this has all become quite sprawling.

I also thought of BladeRunner, and I am in the camp that sees a  distinct relationship between Do Androids Dream and the film.  But then again I've always thought the action elements of BR were rather beside the point, and that implicit questions about what constitutes humanity, even biology, were much more at issue.  These questions are not as rare in SF as they are in film.  Witness the controversy, external to the film, about whether Deckard was a replicant.  In that regard I feel that the movie was a completely different story, which nevertheless captured much of the essence, of the written short story.

Another I'd like to propose, which I know people also disagree about, is Starship Troopers.  There were necessary differences caused by the medium, but there were also unnecessary changes, but (IMO) rather more as expression of this creative artists interpretation, vision.  IMO it weas a valid interpretation and captured the original perfectly.

It is definitely the case in my experience that simply translating a statement into different languages can significantly change its implications, even if the raw text reads in a similar way.  This is very significant in poetry, I think, which is a medium totally defined by the words it employs.  There are jokes, too, that simply don't make sense when translated to other languages.  I think taking a haiku, say, and rendering it from Japanese to English is a truly awsome artistic practice, because it requires technical and idiomatic proficiency in two languages, an the sheer insight to grasp the implied in the original and construct similar implication into the translation.

An example I have been familiar with since age eight is the different versions of the old south african national anthem, Dies Stem, or, The Voice:

In Afrikaans:
Uit die blou van onse hemel,
Uit die diepte van ons see,
Oor ons ewige gebergtes,
Waar die kranse antwoord gee

In English:
Ringing out from our blue heavens
From our deep seas breaking round
Over everlasting mountains
Where the echoing crags resound

Lines 2 and 4 have been significantly changed in order to make them rhyme; the strict translation of line 2 in English should read "from the depths of our seas" and line 4 should read "where the crags give answer" or perhaps "give voice".  Both have been altered in terms of their actual content to convey the correct idiom and achieve proper rhyme.

I do think that a good translation can be a desirable goal in its own right, not purely a derivative work, nor necessarily a new expression by the translator.  The whole point of trying to capture the original idiom is to avoid exactly that, for otherwise it would cease to be valid as a translation.

But that does not IMO detract from the case that, for example, a cover version can be an excellent piece of work even if its not strictly original.  Simply re-performing the original is not the same as a different artist taking the piece and expressing their own interpretation, and it is this degree of personal investment and talent that can make it almost a new work in its own right.

--

Now back to RPG's and their relationship with worlds created by others.  I fully agree that in most fiction, the entirety of the setting is constructed with a view toward the books premise, or similar.  And furthermore, I have myself frequenctly criticised this aspect of FRPG in that the underlying metaphysics of most worlds are studiously ignored.  Middle Earth is not just geography, after all.  In most fiction, a world is designed for a specific effect, and further stories set in persistent worlds are the exception rather than the rule.  In this regard viriconium might be seen as something of a super-set in which one ontologically dubious setting can be used for multiple stories byt tweaking the setting detauils available in this story.  although I speak from a position of ignorance reagarding this world.

I do think that the mere adoption of worlds designed for literary purpose is full of dangers for the RPG conversion, and perhaps rather more like MJH's position than I expected, I agree that using Gondor just to do dungeon crawls is pretty pointless.  Why bother calling the setting Gondor or Middle Earth if nothing that is special or specific to these constructs is present in the game?  And, can a dungeon-crawl type game possibly aspire to incorporating these elements at all?  I doubt it.

But that said I don't think this is a blanket proscription, in that in the lines of the Underbelly concept already discussed in regards existing works of canonical fiction, there are IMO ways to do something that is in accord with  Tolkien's Gondor.  I would be interested to see what MJH's view on gaming in Viriconium might be if he we exposed to such conceptual games as My Life With Master.  Thats a serious suggestion, Steve GB, if you are still reading.  Something like MLWM might be be very, um, sympathetic to the kind of things that MJH seems to want to do with his world, in that it is not just the concretisation of geography and local physics.

I don't think it is Wrong to simply desire to Explore these attractive, romantic worlds just for its own sake, but I do kinda see MJH's point that this defeats the initial purpose for which they were created.  I just don't care about that very much - AFAIAC he can put it down to being a victim of his own success in creating a world that is inherently 'grabby' all by itself.