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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GreyLord" data-source="post: 6229714" data-attributes="member: 4348">That's an interesting thought.Who decides what is what.Let's take Star Wars.  If George Lucas decided that something was NOT Star Wars...would it still be Star Wars?With him selling the company to Disney...if Disney's new movies came out and George Lucas said it definitely was not Star Wars...I think it would create a rift of people that would agree or not agree with him.Let's take something else.If JRR Tolkien was alive, and he saw half the items bearing Lord of the Rings Logos on them, and stated they were NOT LotR...and in fact...only his novels were official canon for LotR...what does that mean for the other items in regards to LotR canon.  Does that mean the movie trilogy is no longer LotR canon...and only the novels are really LotR.  (Actually, this is already an existent argument).Here's one more pertinent perhaps.  If the publishers of Harry Potter decided to start their own HP series and JK Rowling (I think that's the author's name) stated these new novels were in no way really H.P., despite having the same characters and such...is it officially H.P. or simply the company trying to rebrand it under their own name for profits.Heres an even better one.  A Spanish company decides to remake a game.  They own the trademark to the name in Spain, but nowhere else, and have not received permission from the original creator or the original game makers to create the game.  However they do have the trademark to heroquest...and are calling their creation Heroquest 25th anniversary.  It has different rules, different items, and different quests.  Is it actually Heroquest or something else.Why is this pertinent.Gygax was credited in 3e.  However, after that, other than the acknowledgement, he was ostracized in ways from WotC.  He did not truly aknowledge 3e as D&D overall except in deference to his being acknowledged by WotC...and in fact can be found to even state it was NOT D&D.  His ideas were that it was not the same rules or same spirit.  He was grateful for WotC aknowledgements from what I can tell, but at the same time would have desired D&D (what he defined it as) to have remained and continued instead.  (And if he had problems considering 3e/3.5 D&D...I'm almost positive he would not have considered 4e D&D either).So...if the original creator does NOT consider the creation what they created (aka, Rowling and HP, Tolkien and LotR, Heroquest, and Gygax), is it actually the same thing, or something different that the NEW rights owners have tried to make money off of by slapping a well known name on top of their own creation?I'm not really taking a side in this post, but I think the analysis of what is or isn't something should take a deeper analysis rather than simply saying, because someone has the rights or trademark, it automatically is whatever they want it to be.In some instances perhaps, in others, perhaps not...but I don't think it's absolute or as clear cut that one can say instantly yes, or no.PS: I should ALSO add...Arneson, as opposed to Gygax, seemed to accept 3e/3.5 completely and with open arms.  The way he was going, he also accepted/would have accepted 4e with totally and completely open arms.  For him both probably would qualify as D&D...Just to give a devils advocate to my own post.PPS:  You should also know, as Gygax heavily influenced me in my youth, though I was more of the wargamer camp back then as opposed the the new RPG camp he was creating...I DO lean more in favor of Gygax's realms of thoughts and his influences.</blockquote>

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