Plagiarism vs. Inspiration

[1QD]

The teacher of a creative writing class I took addressed this by saying "the river of creativity does not stop flowing". If you're creative enough to be creating things, you're creative enough to keep creating things. New ideas will come. Don't be too precious about your ideas.



[EDIT: removed redundant mention of what can and can't be copyrighted] Thank you

I agree with this sentiment and I have 3 finished expansions and 2 more on the way to prove your point, lol

 

[ART!]

I agree with this sentiment and I have 3 finished expansions and 2 more on the way to prove your point, lol

A piece of general advice - from the same teacher - for a trap creatives often fall into:

"You don't have to run down the street yelling 'Stinky fish! Stinky fish!'; if the fish stinks, people will know".

Meaning, don't begin conversations about your work with apologies or conditional, self-deprecating comment about your work*. The teacher said this to students who would say something critical about their own work before reading an excerpt or passing around copies of their work.

*(I'm not saying you were, just that this is a thing to avoid)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Game mechanics are ideas tho.. I have already stated I know you can not copyright ideas. Plagiarism is technically legal when it comes to game mechanics. But where is the moral ground for copying someone else's ideas?

Everything created by humans starts with an idea. If you can’t expound on anyone else’s idea ever, you get stagnation.

So the starting point- for me, at least- is attribution. Acknowledgment of where the idea originated is the moral baseline.

The second stage would be compensation, if legally required. It’s also nice if you do so when you don’t have to, but I don’t know that there’s any moral weight to that. There is definitely a reputational positive to it, though.

There is also a general reputational positive to acquiescing to an originator’s requests that have no legal force behind them. For example, one of the reasons why Weird Al Yankovic is so highly regarded is that he won’t parody songs if the original performers don’t want him to.

In the context of AI training, none of this is happening. AIs are trained on copyrighted materials as if they were in the public domain- without compensation. AI programmers don’t acknowledge the conceptual origins of their programs’ abilities, even when it’s painfully obvious. Etc.

 

[Morrus]

The person in question quoted a rules specific system's rule and then said they were going to use it in their own creation. Personal use, I can understand, even encourage, but professional? No.

That is the area I am having issue with, but not in the way people think. When I went off to write my own work I sealed myself away, and didn't look at other RPG's. I used books, anime, video games and movies for inspiration.

So you stole their ideas? In the same way you’re convinced we are all desperate to steelmtourbiseas?

I came up with my own mechanics and steered clear of other peoples RPG works.

So, no dice? No attack rolls or damage rolls? No depleting health measure (such has hit points, health, etc)? No D&D-esque spells or classes? No experience tables or level system? Monica’s, goblins, dragons, wizards? It’s all completely your own original work and don’t use anybody else’s ideas?

Your paranoia over why nobody can see your game is why you still don’t have a published game after having apparently been working on it for years. You did the easy part. You can’t do the hard part—producing the game.

Just publish the damn game. Then, and only then, will if have any value; and you can measure that value via a very easily quantifiable metric: do people like it enough to buy it and play it?

 

[Desdichado]

This is completely a fake issue. If you won't publish your game because you're convinced that as soon as you do, someone will "steal" it, then you might as well never bothered making it in the first place.

Honestly, I'm convinced that the AI issue you talk about is a perception bias issue too. Online, and among people of average talent and ability in general, there's a lot of paranoia about AI, but most people "out in the field" in my experience are just quietly using it here and there to generate character portraits, worldbuilding details, campaign or session outline drafts, or whatever, and consider it pretty routine. Honestly, once you do do a little bit of that, it takes a lot of the mystique and fear out of AI anyway; while it's a nice place to start, what AI gives you is rarely so good that you actually want to use it without heavily modifying and editing it, or ignoring what it gives you and thinking of your own better ideas anyway.

 

[1QD]

In the context of AI training, none of this is happening. AIs are trained on copyrighted materials as if they were in the public domain- without compensation. AI programmers don’t acknowledge the conceptual origins of their programs’ abilities, even when it’s painfully obvious. Etc.

Not quite yet, no. But I think the demand for ethical AI will be strong depending on if that can be achieved and if people do not first see their job being taken by it.

 

[1QD]

So you stole their ideas? In the same way you’re convinced we are all desperate to steelmtourbiseas?

So, no dice? No attack rolls or damage rolls? No depleting health measure (such has hit points, health, etc)? No D&D-esque spells or classes? No experience tables or level system? Monica’s, goblins, dragons, wizards? It’s all completely your own original work and don’t use anybody else’s ideas?

Your paranoia over why nobody can see your game is why you still don’t have a published game after having apparently been working on it for years. You did the easy part. You can’t do the hard part—producing the game.

Just publish the damn game. Then, and only then, will if have any value; and you can measure that value via a very easily quantifiable metric: do people like it enough to buy it and play it?

Morrus, I am curious why you seemed absolutely hellbent on misinterpreting everything I say? I am curious why the constant sarcasm and jabs? Have I offended you in some way?

So to answer your question, in good faith, I was not that extreme in my games design in regards to what I would and would not allow, so yes I roll dice, yes I have HP, and yes I have dragons. What I was trying to express is that I did not want to be further influenced by the mechanisms of other people's games and systems. I wanted to develop my own expression of what an RPG should be.

As far as , Just publish the damn game, I am sure I do not have to Ted Talk anyone here how that takes time. Kickstarters require community support, community takes time, and finding the right one even more so. I would expect that if you are telling me to publish the game, then you yourself have a gaming system and know what is involved, otherwise your comment would come off as rather...choice.

I am seeking alternate points of view. The people who have managed to respond civilly, I commend you. I am now looking for points of view different than my own to get an understanding of the community and the types of people I will be dealing with in the future.

 

[Morrus]

, then you yourself have a gaming system and know what is involved, otherwise your comment would come off as rather...choice.

You’re posting on my forum. It’s not hard to find out what I have or have not done.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Ideas are easy. Work is hard. For example, it’s easy to talk about a game; it’s hard to actually produce it.

And even harder to sell enough copies to have an impact on the hobby.

 

[sevenbastard]

Just publish the damn game, I am sure I do not have to Ted Talk anyone here how that takes time.

It takes very little time to upload a game onto Drivethrurpg or Lulu and post it for sale. Publishing has never been easier.

Kickstarters require community support, community takes time, and finding the right one even more so.

What you are talking about is marketing. And to market your game and build community you are going to need to share mechanics amd take feedback.

If it matters I have published my own RPG. I did so because I homebrewed the rules for my friends and thought why the heck not put it out in the wild. Its built to be compatible with old school D&D but it uses a unique set of building blocks to build your class. I think the cleric magic system i designed for spell points is very slick. If someone got inspired by it and used it great.