The DM's Percentage

[Winterthorn]

Hmmmm... As others have asked, what is originality?

OOH: all ideas are inspired by experiences that we've witnessed, things we've learned, and facts we know. That means 0% to me.

OTOH: everything I do in my game are my own tweaks, my own changes, my own assimilations, my own adjustments, my own warps, my own recompilations of bits and pieces, all into a game to entertain myself and my players. That means 100% to me.

Thus I can only, fairly, answer in the middle: 50%

-W.

 

[Jevhad]

Almost all of what my group plays is homebrewed (90%), ocasionally we use dungeon magazine modules, but mostly it is all from scratch.

I find it easier and more flexible to have just some notes, monster statistics and map sketches that a whole "script" from some one else that should be carefully studied (to be fair to the players as to the writer).

 

[Mark]

I'll bet this poll and thread could benefit from current insights.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I don't use any published scenarios or characters, but all my ideas are copied from old Marvel comics, so what percentage is that? I could see it being either 100& or 0%.

 

[fusangite]

I find the question bizarre and unanswerable. I do not use any published settings and I have read a total of 4 fantasy novels in the past 10 years. Nevertheless, less than 5% of the ideas in my games cannot be traced to one or more ideas from history, mythology or something else that I have read or discussed with someone. But at what point does recombining other people's ideas into new patterns become original thought?

 

[Mark]

I don't use any published scenarios or characters, but all my ideas are copied from old Marvel comics, so what percentage is that? I could see it being either 100& or 0%.

If you have gotten the baseline ideas from the comics, it is more than 0% and if they didn't come ready to use in a game format (such as d20, with stats for everything) then it is less than 100% (since you would have to handle that yourself). Only you can guess/estimate how much work was saved by gleaning the ideas from the comics and how much more work you did to make those ideas playable for your game.

 

[Mark]

I find the question bizarre and unanswerable. I do not use any published settings and I have read a total of 4 fantasy novels in the past 10 years. Nevertheless, less than 5% of the ideas in my games cannot be traced to one or more ideas from history, mythology or something else that I have read or discussed with someone. But at what point does recombining other people's ideas into new patterns become original thought?

It's completely up to you to determine how important other people's ideas were in the evolution of your own ideas. It's a very open-ended question, purposefully designed to leave the parameters completely up to the person answering the question. It easier to answer if you focus less on the question and more on your own games (as a DM) and how you'd like to answer as the only person with that perspective. If you feel that "less than 5%" stills works as you answer, there's nothing wrong with what you've already said.

 

[exile]

This is an interesting poll and one that is difficult to answer, both owing to its open-endedness. I've not done a whole lot of game/dungeonmastering, but here's a breakdown of teh last few campaigns that I have run.

Most recent: Setting taken pretty much straight from the FRCS and Silver Marches sourcebook; broad plot idea stolen from another DM whose game I played in years ago with the details being largely my own; maps stolen from unremembered internet sources; NPCs inspired by old PCs (my own), a guy running for jailer in my hometown; encounters/NPC mechanics taken heavily from MM and DMG, but tweaked and personalized; subplots largely original, but really cultivated via conversation with my players prior to the start of the game.

Second most recent: Plots and subplots taken directly from Night Below. Setting pretty much a combination of that presented in Night Below and The Yeomanry from Greyhawk. I orchestarted a lot of character ties prior to teh game.

Third most recent: A short-lived game with a premise taken from the Mordheim miniatures game by Games Workshop. Setting was not really well-developed, but was again probably Greyhawk (at least in terms of cosmology).

I answered 50%. In retrospect, far less is actually original, but I like to think that I do a good job of masquerading my sources...at least when I try. Corrected answer, about 20-30% is my own historically, with the number creeping upward with each new campaign.

 

[The Grackle]

I sort of don't believe in originality, so I'm voting 10%.
However, I never use pre-written adventures.

 

[The Grackle]

I don't use any published scenarios or characters, but all my ideas are copied from old Marvel comics...

Hey, you could write for Buffy.