Is Originality important ?

[Imagicka]

Greetings...

I don't think I've ever had players say to me, "Hey! That's from..."

But then again, I never try to make it obvious where I'm stealing from... "Lucas I am your father..." (Hmm... Luke...Lucas... makes you kinda wonder.)

I usually borrow from such obscure sources, and mix-and-match everything that if I had players recognizing the fact that I'm stealing ideas from this source, or that source, I'd feel kinda proud that they are picking up on these things. "You know... the way your NPC Bard/Wizard talks, and is all interested in blades of grass and stuff... and is all poetic... seems an awful lot like Walt Whitman!"

My only suggestion is... if your going to steal from something that your players are going to recognize, make sure you change enough things so your players can't just say something like... "Oh! The ring is cursed, and kinda turns you invisible, but really puts you into a different kinda dimension... Say! Let's go drop this off at the first volcano we see? Okay!?"

 

[GQuail]

I steal stuff all the time. Everyone does it. The trick is to stealing stuff from so many sources that no one recognizes it, and combining and twisting the things you steal until they become warped beyond all recognition.

This is my principle too. Mangle things together and squash them all up so that even if they get one part of it, they can't get the whole thing.

If you do it well enough, they'll accuse you of ripping off OTHER PEOPLE. I had a session once which was a mixture of Doctor Who, Vecna and Warhammer Lizardfolk stuff all going on, and despite that there was still someone who accused me of "ripping off" something else specifically. ;-)

It certainly helps to pick things relatively obscure or unimpotant, though. A big film from the last few months isn't a good call, but an old Western is probably safe. I wouldn't reccomend taking too much form Lost, but an old episode of The Man from Uncle is probably safe enough. And while taking the plot from the latest Harry Potter book sn't a good idea, using an NPC based on a minor character probably won't ruin it for people who "work it out".

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yeah...westerns are very safe to loot- most FRPG players haven't touched them, especially the under-20 crowd. There hasn't been a good Western TV show or movie in maybe a decade.

From TV, consider Wild, Wild West, The Adventures of Briscoe County, Jr., The Lone Ranger, Kung Fu, Bonanza, and even Have Gun, Will Travel.

From movies, think about...well just about any western John Wayne, Jack Palance, Lee Marvin, or Clint Eastwood has done. Shane. Siverado.

Heck...try Westworld.

For that matter, you could even try things like the old Japanese (esp. Kurosawa) samurai films. For all their applicability to Fantasy role-play, few people have actually sat through them. Too many subtitles, not enough "wire work" martial arts.

 

[two]

So silly

Originality is impossible. There's hardly anything new in any adventure or character that was written a hundred times before.

However there is a limit... re-using famous characters in an obvious way is definitely bad.

This sort of thinking is both lazy and completely wrong.

Originality isn't impossible at all. It's simply (occasionally) difficult. Sometimes it's not even difficult. Let me give an example. Here is a level 1 villain. It's a former farmer who has ingested some hallucinagenic mold and has gone on a killing rampage using his converted wheat sythe as a weapon. He's killed his family and the PC's investigate the screams coming from his farmhouse.

Has there ever been such a villain in D&D before. Likely, no. If you think it might be possible, add some nice details - the mold also caused the farmer to get very confused regarding sensory input; most obviously, he thinks cow manure is tasty bread. That's not a pretty image. It's also 100% assured original.

Now, is that a great challenge for the PC's? No. Is it even that great a villain? No. I just spent 5 seconds on it. If you let me spend 20 I'll refine it and make it less sucky.

So, really, what ARE people talking about?

 

[twofalls]

When you steal, steal from your own table...

If you want to be praised for your amazing orginiality, for your devious plotlines, and your facinating twists, just listen to your players in play. Here is what I do... I have a module prepared, often a prepulished one off my shelf, or that I have bought. I read it once, then freeform GM until my players start to get excited and talk about it amoung themselves... then I listen...

I present a mystery that not even I have a solution to, how a villan managed to get to the magical widget before the players and what he plans to use it for... and they come up with half a dozen ideas about what is going on... so I choose the one that sounds most fun for themand roll with it.

A nemesis survived the fireball that destroyed the city... and they start discussing how it happened... same as above.

What this magical doodad does, and how it works... really anything at all, YOUR own players will tell you what its about.

Listen to them, they come up with far more clever and devious ideas and plots than I could ever dream up and they talk about them in game... sheesh speak about being served your cake and eating it too!

I've done it in many ways, traps, plots, NPC's, you name it, just listen to your players and improv your way through the game. Of course you have to work it in, you can't just say "Yeah John, you guessed it, game over!". Make a story out of it, but I promise you, your players are your best source because they will tell you what THEY want to play, not some dusty book or module on your shelf. Just use those to get the ball rolling.

 

[Dykstrav]

This sort of thinking is both lazy and completely wrong.

Originality isn't impossible at all. It's simply (occasionally) difficult. Sometimes it's not even difficult. Let me give an example. Here is a level 1 villain. It's a former farmer who has ingested some hallucinagenic mold and has gone on a killing rampage using his converted wheat sythe as a weapon. He's killed his family and the PC's investigate the screams coming from his farmhouse.

Has there ever been such a villain in D&D before. Likely, no. If you think it might be possible, add some nice details - the mold also caused the farmer to get very confused regarding sensory input; most obviously, he thinks cow manure is tasty bread. That's not a pretty image. It's also 100% assured original.

Seems very similar to the drug propaganda films the government produced in the 50's and 60's. The ones where people smoked one joint then started eating broken glass, disrespecting the local police officers and ministers, and kissing their sisters and all that (I'm sure that the content of such films would've been more graphic if they would have been allowed).

I've even done something similar to this in one of my games. A gnomish brewer mixed up his alchemicals with his botanicals in a batch of moonshine he was making, which acted as poison and also made people trip out (like a confusion spell). The problem there was that the players didn't want to stop the brewer from making this concotion.

Sorry, but I'm going to have to vote a firm no on the assurance that this is "100% original."

So, really, what ARE people talking about?

What people are talking about is the fact that our culture is so media-saturated these days that it's basically impossible to make any adventure without drawing a comparison to something else. The printed word, television, films, and the internet has made it very easy to tell a story these days, so we've all heard tons of them. The discussion is focused on how important we think it is to blatantly rip off our sources (and yes, you rip stuff off even if you don't deliberately try to) or to try to make content without ripping off too many obvious sources.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The hallucinogenic mold angle was also used in one of the Children of the Corn movies.

 

[Mark CMG]

I keep telling them, "It's a different Gandalf . . ."

 

[sniffles]

I have a GM who isn't big on originality. Everything he runs tends to be based on the plot of a movie, tv show, or comic book.

I don't object to that in principle. The only flaw I see in his method is that he often seems to expect the PCs to behave exactly like the characters in the material he's lifting from. He doesn't make enough allowances for the differences between the players' expectations and the expectations of the movie/tv/comic script.


But overall I'd agree with mythusmage's assessment. After all, there is nothing new under the sun.

 

[two]

Yes

Seems very similar to the drug propaganda films the government produced in the 50's and 60's. The ones where people smoked one joint then started eating broken glass, disrespecting the local police officers and ministers, and kissing their sisters and all that (I'm sure that the content of such films would've been more graphic if they would have been allowed).

I've even done something similar to this in one of my games. A gnomish brewer mixed up his alchemicals with his botanicals in a batch of moonshine he was making, which acted as poison and also made people trip out (like a confusion spell). The problem there was that the players didn't want to stop the brewer from making this concotion.

Sorry, but I'm going to have to vote a firm no on the assurance that this is "100% original."



What people are talking about is the fact that our culture is so media-saturated these days that it's basically impossible to make any adventure without drawing a comparison to something else. The printed word, television, films, and the internet has made it very easy to tell a story these days, so we've all heard tons of them. The discussion is focused on how important we think it is to blatantly rip off our sources (and yes, you rip stuff off even if you don't deliberately try to) or to try to make content without ripping off too many obvious sources.

Um. What? A tripping farmer with a scythe gobbling cow turds "seems" close to black-and-white drug films made in the 1950's? In what way, precisely? Yes, they both involve drugs... and...?

An apple is like a bannana - they both have skins. An elephant is like a ship - they both can be used for travel. A word spoken in Latin is like a bit of heiroglyphic parchment from Egypt - they both are used for communication.

C'mon. If you push it far enough, nothing is original - but just because you are generalizing to a ridiculous degree.

Answer me this: do you agree a tripped-out farmed munching cow turds has NEVER been seen before by a D&D party? You do. However, it's not "original" because, well, "drug use" = "drug use."

In a larger sense, being as silly as you are being, no encounter can possibly be original. "danger" = "danger" after all. "Oh, just another way for my PC to get screwed over. How unoriginal."

You also forget the fact that this silly example took FIVE seconds to construct. If you don't think it's sufficiently original (because the farmer uses a drug), that's fine. Say it's not SUFFICIENTLY original - not that it is impossible to be original. Two very different things.

Now I'll take 40 seconds to sketch a scene which is even "more" original, meaning you will have difficulty poo-pooing it in a stupid way.

Wave of enemies are attacking somewhere, there is a culture in the way which is going to be hit. This culture is death-focussed; since their priests regularly are in contact with former living humans (via spells) and these humans are in heaven, the earthly flock has a LOT of confidence in their priest's teachings. After all, if Uncle Joe is in heaven and he did XYZ, all I have to do is XYZ and I am good for eternity. Who cares about 50 years of life and possible suffering when you are talking about millions? Not me. In fact Uncle Joe just talked to me last week about it (via spells). Anyway, this culture is 100% pacifist. They will gladly be cut down because, if they don't break their pacifism vows, they go to heaven. So the blade hurts a bit. Oh well. I'm in heaven now! The PC's are faced with attempting to save/stop these people from being ruthelssly cut down by the enemy. But, is it morally correct to stop people from entering heaven (even if it is from an evil act)? Why should the PC's stop the attackers? Can they convince the priests of this religion to put up some sort of token defense? Should the PC's even meddle with it?

So you throw the PC's into the middle of a town being decimated by the enemy - the townspeople are holding hands and singing while getting slaughtered, that sort of thing. What do the PC's do? (they know enough about the history/background of the people to make it a real issue).

This is rather specific to D&D (requires spells to contact the dead) but I don't think you can easily claim the ethical problem faced by the PC's anything less than "fairly to highly" original.

Or are you going to tell me that it's just an "ethical quandry" not any different than "do you kill one innocent boy to save a city of millions?" Or something daffy?

Ok, that was more than 40 seconds. Call it 2 min. Point is, if you actually spend 5 min. thinking about something, you can get as original as you want.

Thinking that there is nothing original left in the world is just a cop out. Or worse -- simple acceptance that you don't have a shred of imagination. That's just too depressing to ponder...

As for if I think "original" = "better". Not necessarily. If it's original and really fun, it's better than derivative and really fun. But original and so-so is worse than derivative and really fun.