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<blockquote data-quote="Irda Ranger" data-source="post: 4205143" data-attributes="member: 1003">Imagine instead of a new edition of D&amp;D we were talking about a new version of Ars Magica.&nbsp; Would you say I was &quot;focusing way too much on the mechanical description of their character&quot; if I said that there was no good way to model Conan, Gimli or John Carter of Mars using the new edition rules?Some things you can hand-waive away.&nbsp; Some things are just so far off the mark that it's not worth pretending that &quot;Look at me, I've managed to model Harry Potter using Iron Heroes.&quot;&nbsp; It's absurd.&nbsp; You can surely say that &quot;certain aspects of this character were inspired by X, Y and Z&quot; (just like Capt. Jack Sparrow was inspired, in part, by Keith Richards), but that's a far cry from &quot;conversion.&quot;&nbsp; A &quot;conversion&quot;, to deserve the name, should result in something that's recognizably the same person.*I realize that this is somewhat subjective. I realize that some people consider different things to be the &quot;key conceits&quot; to a certain character or archetype (Is Harry Potter defined by his wand, his scar, his spells, his youth, etc, etc?&nbsp; How many of these variables can you lose before it's just not Harry Potter by any stretch of the imagination?).&nbsp; The answer to those questions is subjective, but the OP's original contention was that you could literally lose all of them and it would still be a &quot;conversion&quot;, and (I paraphrase) if anyone disagreed with him on that point then it was clealy our fault and there was nothing he can do to &quot;help&quot; us.&nbsp; That's not an honest difference of opinion.&nbsp; If literally none of the key conceits are represented in the character, anywhere, how can you claim that's a conversion?&nbsp; Of course, you can't and the OP ended up admitting as much later in the thread, but without ever recanting (that I saw) his original contention.&nbsp; Honestly, it was the apparent dishonesty (not necessarily intentional mind you, but in practice if not in purpose) that bothered me more than anything.(a) I don't know anything of the kind, and (b) while I was worked up before, I wasn't being hypocritical and had no intention of being condescending.&nbsp; I was disagreeing.&nbsp; If it seemed that I refused to admit that there was a reasonable difference of opinion that caused the contention, it's because that's exactly how I honestly feel.But if you still feel I was out of line you can always PM me about it.&nbsp; Calling someone out as a general ad hominem like that though rarely &quot;raises the bar&quot;, so to speak.*If you disagree that conversions don't have to be recognizable, or even squinty-recognizable, then we've found the heart of the disagreement.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Irda Ranger, post: 4205143, member: 1003"] Imagine instead of a new edition of D&D we were talking about a new version of Ars Magica. Would you say I was "focusing way too much on the mechanical description of their character" if I said that there was no good way to model Conan, Gimli or John Carter of Mars using the new edition rules? Some things you can hand-waive away. Some things are just so far off the mark that it's not worth pretending that "Look at me, I've managed to model Harry Potter using Iron Heroes." It's absurd. You can surely say that "certain aspects of this character were inspired by X, Y and Z" (just like Capt. Jack Sparrow was inspired, in part, by Keith Richards), but that's a far cry from "conversion." A "conversion", to deserve the name, should result in something that's recognizably the same person.* I realize that this is somewhat subjective. I realize that some people consider different things to be the "key conceits" to a certain character or archetype (Is Harry Potter defined by his wand, his scar, his spells, his youth, etc, etc? How many of these variables can you lose before it's just not Harry Potter by any stretch of the imagination?). The answer to those questions is subjective, but the OP's original contention was that you could literally lose all of them and it would still be a "conversion", and (I paraphrase) if anyone disagreed with him on that point then it was clealy our fault and there was nothing he can do to "help" us. That's not an honest difference of opinion. If literally none of the key conceits are represented in the character, anywhere, how can you claim that's a conversion? Of course, you can't and the OP ended up admitting as much later in the thread, but without ever recanting (that I saw) his original contention. Honestly, it was the apparent dishonesty (not necessarily intentional mind you, but in practice if not in purpose) that bothered me more than anything. (a) I don't know anything of the kind, and (b) while I was worked up before, I wasn't being hypocritical and had no intention of being condescending. I was disagreeing. If it seemed that I refused to admit that there was a reasonable difference of opinion that caused the contention, it's because that's exactly how I honestly feel. But if you still feel I was out of line you can always PM me about it. Calling someone out as a general ad hominem like that though rarely "raises the bar", so to speak. *If you disagree that conversions don't have to be recognizable, or even squinty-recognizable, then we've found the heart of the disagreement. [/QUOTE]

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