No Harry Potter RPG?

[Dinkeldog]

I recommend trying to be less grumpy.

 

[painandgreed]

They'd have to be very similar to qualify as plagiarism. The fantasy genre is such a well-worn shoe that it's impossible to create something which bears no resemblance to someone else's work.

I agree and was only offering up what I could remember to somebody else who was too busy to do their own 10 minute Google search. There are similarities between the characters that I noticed when I read the HP books, but if Neil has no objection, I can't see how I ever could. While at very worst it is something like the Superman knock offs that one sees in comics, at least everybody knows they're knock offs of Superman. However, I have no great knowledge of British children's literature or culture and can only suppose that such characters would have common traits even if developed independantly.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I guess when you realize that Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny are not real, you leave your childhood naivete in the farthest back of your mind.

Naaaaaaaah, kids are just dumb and trusting is all.

Kamikaze "Razors in the Halloween Candy" Midget

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I agree and was only offering up what I could remember to somebody else who was too busy to do their own 10 minute Google search. There are similarities between the characters that I noticed when I read the HP books, but if Neil has no objection, I can't see how I ever could.

Rowling has claimed that when she thinks of comic books, she thinks of Beano, so if you believe her, it's not likely that she ever read Gaiman's work.

 

[Ranger REG]

Shouldn't you spoiler-tag that? This is supposed to be a kid-friendly site!

You want to know the truth, kids! Because you can't handle the truth!!!

Here's the rutting truth, kids! There is no San-, what? Hey! What's going on!

*forced to wear straitjacket and muzzle, he's thrown into a white van by a group of men in white lab coats*

 

[PatrickLawinger]

I agree and was only offering up what I could remember to somebody else who was too busy to do their own 10 minute Google search. There are similarities between the characters that I noticed when I read the HP books, but if Neil has no objection, I can't see how I ever could. While at very worst it is something like the Superman knock offs that one sees in comics, at least everybody knows they're knock offs of Superman. However, I have no great knowledge of British children's literature or culture and can only suppose that such characters would have common traits even if developed independantly.

You can find spectacled, dark haired, pale, "don't quite fit in" boys in a wide variety of English stories. I mean, a REALLY wide variety of stories; modern, historical, horror, fantasy (big surprise), future sci-fi, etc. Harry's appearance certainly can't be used to accuse anyone of "plagarism."

I bet if someone really wanted they could find short stories with dark-hair English boys that wear glasses and feel like they don't fit in with story lines strikingly similar to both Gaiman's and Rowlings characters that predate any of their books. Might have to go back to children's magazines and books from the 50's and 60's but I am sure you can do it.

 

[Nuclear Platypus]

Yeah, well, if you can crack that mystery, maybe you can tell me what's so charming about a purple dinosaur named Barney.

Maybe I forgot what's it like to be a kid, but when I saw Kikaida in my adult's eye, I say to myself, "Wow. It must have been cool to me way back when, 'cause now it looks so corny and cheesy." I guess when you realize that Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny are not real, you leave your childhood naivete in the farthest back of your mind.

Oh that's easy. The older you get, the better things used to be.

BTW, its plagarism if its from 1 source. Multiple sources becomes research.

 

[drothgery]

The trouble as I see it is this: In the books, channelers have a fairly high percentage of there strength from the start, and only grow in strength a little until they reach their maximum. Also, that maximum is highly variable, ranging from useless to worldshaking.

Umm... no. In the books, "normal" channelers (i.e. people not named Rand al'Thor) have almost none of their strength at the start. It takes months for even the extradorinarily powerful Elayne and Egwene to master juggling around harmless balls of light; the extremely powerful Moiraine and Siuan spent six years in training and weren't close to their full strength when they were raised to the shawl, and more typically Aes Sedai spend 15-20 years before being raised. People who aren't pushing their limits with One Power routinely (i.e. facing a lot of extreme-CR challenges) do, in fact, gain strength slowly (though men gain strength erraticly, which is just about impossible to do in a game).

 

[Ripzerai]

The main character in the movie Troll was named Harry Potter.

Harry's relationship with the Dursleys is pretty much straight from Roald Dahl's Matilda.

But, as someone said earlier in this thread, multiple sources is research, not plagiarism. And subsequent books in the series (and, for that matter, the second half of the first book) are a lot less derivative than the first one. Once Harry gets to Hogwarts, the story no longer resembles a bizarre mash-up of Roald Dahl, Books of Magic, Stouffer, the first Star Wars movie (innocent young rube living with his aunt and uncle is recruited and trained by a mysterious wizard who knew his parents into a confrontation with the ultimate evil that killed his father), and that Troll movie. It becomes something new.

 

[seankreynolds]

For the record, I'm not suggesting JKR plagiarized anything.