They Stole My Idea! (Accidental Plagiarism)

[MGibster]

While playing Baldur's Gate 3, my character came across a book that discussed the Cult of the Dragon. So I checked it out on the Forgotten Realms Wiki when I was suddenly inspired to start planning my next D&D campaign. I thought it'd be great for the PCs to stop the cult from summoning a powerful dragon and I settled on Tiamat. If this sounds familiar to anyone, it's because it's the basic plot of The Rise of Tiamat.

Have you ever started working on a scenario or campaign idea and and suddenly realized you were accidentally mirroring something that already existed?

 

[Retreater]

No, but I once accidentally plagiarized Elton John and Bernie Taupin.
Storytime...
When I was in high school, I bought an old vinyl copy of Elton John's Greatest Hits. Inside was a handwritten sheet of lyrics for a song called "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding." I had never heard that opus before - my exposure to John's music had been just the hits on the radio. But being an aspiring musician, I was moved by the lyrics I had discovered (thinking they had been written by the previous owner of the record). So I decided to set it to music.
All I can say is that Elton John's version was vastly superior to mine.

 

[Jolly Ruby]

Spoilers BG3 act 1:
I have an ongoing campaign where my players are trying to retrieve a sacred weapon from the ruins of Lathendarian monastery on the banks of Chionthar river, but the monastery is being used as a military outpost by an orc militia. While playing Baldur's Gate 3 some weeks later I find myself looking for a sacred weapon inside the ruins of a Lathendarian monastery on the banks of Chionthar river, but the monastery is being used as a military outpost by a githyanki crèche. (both have a scroll of revival as loot on the top room too)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Have you ever started working on a scenario or campaign idea and and suddenly realized you were accidentally mirroring something that already existed?

Not in any gaming or literary sense, but I had a weird one pop up in music.

A few years ago, I was working on a new composition, and had a really good opening to a song going. And then on day I got into the car and started it up just in time to hear the premiere of a new song by Joe Satriani. I was dumbfounded: the first 6 measures or so were a VERY similar progress to what I had been hammering out.

To be 100% clear, there’s NO possibility Joe plagiarized ME. The time required to compose, record, and release an album 100% precludes this possibility- his album would have been finished and being manufactured long before I even had the idea.

Likewise, I’ve never met the man, don’t live anywhere near him, and absolutely don’t travel in the same social circles. It‘s so unlikely I could have heard it pre-release as to be functionally a zero probability.

And yet, if I had recorded and released my composition, I’d have been accused of plagiarism.

 

[aramis erak]

While playing Baldur's Gate 3, my character came across a book that discussed the Cult of the Dragon. So I checked it out on the Forgotten Realms Wiki when I was suddenly inspired to start planning my next D&D campaign. I thought it'd be great for the PCs to stop the cult from summoning a powerful dragon and I settled on Tiamat. If this sounds familiar to anyone, it's because it's the basic plot of The Rise of Tiamat.

Have you ever started working on a scenario or campaign idea and and suddenly realized you were accidentally mirroring something that already existed?

Nope. But I have had a professor take an idea and turn it into a book. (https://www.amazon.com/Alaska-American-Colony-Haycox/dp/0295986298 ) It came about in a discussion over a beer at the Phi Alpha Theta end-of-year party. He has since apologized for not noting the discussion. It's a good book, too. (It's not like I wanted to work in Alaska history... but in no small irony, I worked at the Alaska branch office of the National Archives right after graduation. The records there covering Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, the occupations of the Solomons and Marianas islands, and the Japanese Occupation Forces. I still get angry every time I recall the Records of the Mount Edgecome Residential High School. Every abuse preserved in detail.)

 

[Laurefindel]

Happens with RPG rules (and houserules) all the time. Sometimes i see something in a (published) RPG and think to myself; "wait, I had the same idea almost words for words years ago!" Sometimes its "wait, I had the same idea almost words for words years ago! Never mind, they had it first..."

 

[John R Davis]

Pretty sure the RPG industry has pillaged my brain/notebooks many times as I often think " hey I scribbled all this down years ago and now it's in this new game".

 

[ninjayeti]

Just the opposite: during 3E I had a campaign where Players started out as Drow slaves deep in the underdark and had to escape to the surface. I thought it was a a really original take on the idea of delving into the underdark depicted in published adventures like D1-3 and Night Below. Then OotA came out in 5E and now if I ever mention that campaign it just sounds like I was ripping off WotC's idea.

 

[mamba]

At a high level Shattered Obelisk has a similar theme to my current campaign, the details differ for sure, but then so does Stephen King's Tommyknockers (at a somewhat higher level than Obelisk and the campaign)

 

[The Shadow]

I more or less invented the quasi-elemental planes several years before TSR published anything about them. My version wasn't exactly the same, but it was so close that they could believably have iterated from my notes. Made me want to start wearing a tinfoil hat!