Plagiarism vs. Inspiration

[1QD]

As some of you may know I have been wary of sharing too many ideas for fear of them being copied. Now before you jump up to make a statement like, ideas can't be copyrighted, yes...I know. However after spending many years in isolation in regards to my system, I have come to the community to find that the back and forth passing around of mechanics, commonplace. Not always ethical, but common place.

With that in mind, having the subject being discussed elsewhere, I was asked, "Well what is the difference?" I was raised with the idea that copying someone else's idea was wrong, poor of character and morally devoid of creativity. So with that in mind I answered as follows.

I think when you hear an idea and you think to yourself, I need a way to express that in my game system, then you create your own mechanic, that is inspiration. When you hear an idea like, critical hits are determined by rolling 3d6 and any roll above 12 is a crit.... and that becomes your rule for critical hits, then you are plagiarising. There is no move to express the critical in a way that is unique to you or your system. Derivative work is like rolling 3d6 and taking any roll above 14. There is an attempt to make it unique but only minimal effort of which you can't really call it unique.

Oddly enough this pairs quite ironically with AI. From what I can see, AI is a pariah in the TTRPG scene and no creator will touch it with a 10 ft pole. This however what I find curious. Is that while the scene stands on the moral high ground with AI, that the theft of ideas is wrong, it rather hypocritically and with open arms does the exact same thing with other peoples mechanics. Since neither are copyrightable, where is the moral high ground, or even the difference for that matter? Please, spare me the environmental concerns, as I am only looking at the moral descrepency here. Environmental concerns are not what I am debating here. I think those will be dealt with in the future.

I am curious how people merge the two without sending themselves into a data loop.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think when you hear an idea and you think to yourself, I need a way to express that in my game system, then you create your own mechanic, that is inspiration. When you hear an idea like, critical hits are determined by rolling 3d6 and any roll above 12 is a crit.... and that becomes your rule for critical hits, then you are plagiarising.

I am curious how people merge the two without sending themselves into a data loop.

Well, while you’re correct that you can’t copyright ideas in general, you’ve missed the fact that you also can’t copyright game mechanics in particular. So one (partial) answer is that the law doesn’t recognize copying a game mechanic as plagiarism.

 

[Morrus]

As some of you may know I have been wary of sharing too many ideas for fear of them being copied.

Ideas are easy. Work is hard. For example, it’s easy to talk about a game; it’s hard to actually produce it.

 

[sevenbastard]

When you hear an idea like, critical hits are determined by rolling 3d6 and any roll above 12 is a crit.... and that becomes your rule for critical hits, then you are plagiarising. There is no move to express the critical in a way that is unique to you or your system.

I see no problem with games having similar mechanics.

Are you suggesting only one board game should have a rule where you rolled dice and moved your pawn that number of spaces and all others should have a unique mechanic?

Or that only one TTRPG should have a rule that you roll dice and tried to get a number above a target number?

 

[Morrus]

Or that only one TTRPG should have a rule that you roll dice and tried to get a number above a target number?

Or, indeed, roll a dice at all. Are we all just plagiarising knucklebones?

 

[Breaking Star Games]

This hobby (and game design in general - look at how many video games are "inspired" by Arkham Asylum combat) is full of this. I think it's just how humanity works - we are all standing on the shoulders of giants (all the effort that came before). I think in general, the community is pretty open to this iterative process to a pretty significant extent, especially those who proudly display their inspiration as we recently saw with Daggerheart and its inspiration from Genesys/FFG Star Wars (which it's inspiration from Warhammer FRP). As long as the intention isn't to basically steal a game's sales by copying it whole cloth with some wording changes, it's usually accepted as an inspiration. And usually, those kinds of intentions are quite obvious like having the exact same tables, but the copy is just put through a thesaurus.

The big issue is of course intentions are the hardest to judge, but I think these plagiarists are a lot more obvious than they are hoping to be because they are lazy, so their hiding of the plagiarism is also lazy.

I got over the idea that sharing my ideas would mean someone will "steal" my game. Honestly, if someone wants to make my game for me, I will give them all I currently have (good luck organizing my documents!) and gladly be a playtester and producer because it's so much hard work to actually make a good final product. So, 100% agree with Morrus - it's the effort that actually matters.

 

[Andvari]

I steal something and pretend I invented it = inspiration.
Someone is inspired by something I did and puts its own twist on it, even crediting me for the inspiration = theft.

 

[aiouh]

When you hear an idea like, critical hits are determined by rolling 3d6 and any roll above 12 is a crit.... and that becomes your rule for critical hits, then you are plagiarising. There is no move to express the critical in a way that is unique to you or your system. Derivative work is like rolling 3d6 and taking any roll above 14. There is an attempt to make it unique but only minimal effort of which you can't really call it unique.

I can guarantee you nobody is buying games on the basis of how to resolve "Roll for Target Number" or any kind of mathematical mechanic that doesn't further in how we interact with the game on a fundamental basis. Or any kind of finagling around with modifiers and probabilities on top of a PbtA or D&D esque shell, unless you add some meaningful twist to it. Those don't make a game fun.

A game is a sum of its parts, writing, art, procedures and a bunch of intangibles. And you can only steal that if you copy the whole game verbatim.

I refuse to engage further with your AI argument because if you asked the same question to AI it would answer your question in a balanced good faith manner, which I find even more ironic.

 

[cranberry]

The best way to avoid all of this is to just come up with your own ideas.

I have no interest in negotiating the legal landscape, or any nuance or exception that has been weaved into the copyright laws.

All I know is that copying another person's idea is wrong.

 

[GMMichael]

I think when you hear an idea and you think to yourself, I need a way to express that in my game system, then you create your own mechanic, that is inspiration.

Um, I think D&D has a copyright on Inspiration.

When you hear an idea like, critical hits are determined by rolling 3d6 and any roll above 12 is a crit.... and that becomes your rule for critical hits, then you are plagiarising.

Look into the legal uses of the term "de minimis." It is the axe that cut plagiarism down to something beneath judicial notice.

AI is a pariah in the TTRPG scene and no creator will touch it with a 10 ft pole. This however what I find curious. Is that while the scene stands on the moral high ground with AI, that the theft of ideas is wrong, it rather hypocritically and with open arms does the exact same thing with other peoples mechanics.

Is it the "theft of ideas" that's wrong, or the problem of AI putting fellow creators out of work? By the way, I don't steal ideas - I just "time shift" them. with my vcr . . .