Is WoTC borrowing to much from WW?

[Mythtify]

I just wondering if anybody thinks that WoTC is getting a lot of there ideas fom WW's world of darkness.

Urban Arcana has a whole lot of Changeling in it. I dont mind this at all. I actualy liked changeling, and wish that it had gotten more support than it did.

I havent read Ghostwalk, but from what I have read on the boards, it sounds like it has a lot of Wraith ideas to it.

Anybody who has read Ghostwalk think that it compares to Wraith?

Is WoTC trying to appeal to World of Darkness fans?

 

[Vocenoctum]

Thge Wraith connection was brought up in the chat. I think Cook hadn't seen Wraith at all, and Cordell had only read a little of it many years ago. There are some similiarities, but truthfully the similarities are just using the same base material.

I think the same with the changeling elements. They're not really changeling elements, so much as material and ideas that predate Changeling.


Besides, both Changeling and Wraith are WW's dead games. If you wanted to appeal to their customers, wouldn't you rip off their successful games?

 

[Barak]

Hmm.. I don't own Changeling or Urban Arcana, so I can't comment on that. I do own both Wraith and Ghostwalk, however. The closest connection I see is that they both deal with dead people. That's not very close.

 

[Werther von G]

Besides, both Changeling and Wraith are WW's dead games. If you wanted to appeal to their customers, wouldn't you rip off their successful games?

Answer A: Of course not -- you'd get called on that sort of rip off.

Answer B: I might make a few comments and comparisons between the Epic Level Handbook and Exalted, if that's your wont.

 

[drnuncheon]

I haven't read Urban Arcana, but I suspect that both it and Changeling draw heavily on the urban fantasy of authors like Charles de Lint - so it would make sense for there to be similarities.

As for Exalted and ELH...pffft. Exalted is primarily a setting, and there's none of that replicated in the ELH - Union is nothing like the Imperial City. ELH is primarily a set of rules, and there may be a few similarities between that and Exalted, but again, only because they're drawing on the same mythical and legendary sources.

If you were going to seriously make the case for ELH ripping off Exalted, you could equally make the case for Exalted ripping off D&D - Dawn/Zenith/Twilight/Night/Eclipse bear striking similarities to Fighter/Cleric/Magic-User/Thief/Bard, after all...

Now, if D&D werewolves started developing a spiritual 'defender of nature' angle, you might have a point...

J

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

D&D had vampires and werewolves long before WW came about.

 

[Welverin]

Cordell had only read a little of it many years ago.

That would be SKR, Bruce had nothing to do with Ghostwalk.

You were right on the points about their familiarity though.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Now, if D&D werewolves started developing a spiritual 'defender of nature' angle, you might have a point...

Uh-oh... does this mean the genre nazis are coming for my campaigns?

TO be truthful, selected the more Brutish WtA tribes to fit better with D&D lycanthropes....

 

[Mythtify]

What I found to be very changeling in Urban Arcana ( which I like a lot) is the way that only a small amount of the population know that there are elfs, dwarfs, and magic in the world. Also, they explain this by way of "shadow" which cloudes the minds of most the world. People explain away anything magical in a mundane way, no matter how silly the mundane explaintion would be, kinda like in mage.

I take it ghost walk isn't bleak like wraith?

 

[CCamfield]

What I found to be very changeling in Urban Arcana ( which I like a lot) is the way that only a small amount of the population know that there are elfs, dwarfs, and magic in the world.

You need to read more urban fantasy. I don't think that's original to Changeling at all. Sometimes it's because people can't perceive the creatures of Faerie properly (in de Lint's Jack the Giant Killer, they can't see faerie creatures properly unless they've been touched by Faerie somehow, so a 'hob', sort of like a gnome, might be perceived as a short wino).

The idea that most people dismiss or forget an encounter with the magical seems kind of familiar to me too. Not all that surprising, anyhow, for the genre.

From what I understand of Ghostwalk, it's different from Wraith, in that the city in Ghostwalk is a sort of dimensional gateway between the normal world and the afterlife, so ghosts can come through... and can do a reasonable amount of interaction with the real world.