D&D General WotC is at it again

[Mistwell]

Apparently they never learn that people really hate this sort of thing. One would think after the last disaster they'd not want to put their hands in the fire again, but apparently it really is too much to ask. Anyway, if you have content there, you might want to remove it or, at least, give them an earful.

I mean, people hate it so much it became the standard for almost everything and almost nobody complains about it or even notices it anymore. After countless years of it's use, I've never seen them once rip anyone's intellectual property off. It's there for the opposite - to prevent people from suing them over their intellectual property that they independently develop because you think some rando post you once made is vaguely similar.

We had a raging discussion about this long ago during the setting submission contest (that Eberron won) with people thinking if you submitted their setting WOTC would steal it. Here we are 22 years later and they never swiped anything from anyone's submissions.

[Edit - I see I am late to the discussion and everything I said has already been said by others, likely better. So nobody feel the need to respond unless you really want to. I'll leave it up.]

 

[Azzy]

There's even a song:

There's another song, "Vision Thing" by The Sisters of Mercy. I'm not linking to it because it contains language that Eric's grandmother would not approve of.

 

[Umbran]

I'm just curious about how they came up with the term 'Points of Light', because I used it as a main idea in my proposal.

There's a famous speech by George H.W. Bush that popularized the phrase "thousand point of light", referring to scattered positive elements of culture - in fact, Bush used the phrase in two speeches, and even had a "Points of Light Foundation".

The phrase was used by Arthur C. Clarke, William S. Burroughs, and C.S. Lewis before Bush...

And the phrase even shows up in the song "Not Enough Gold In the World", from the 1998 Eddie From Ohio album, "The Portable EFO Show"

Spoiler: It's a nice tune, really...

All those are before the Setting Search in 2002....

Which seems enough precedent to suggest that both you and WotC were inspired by prior sources, if unconsciously.

 

[The Soloist]

There's a famous speech by George H.W. Bush that popularized the phrase "thousand point of light", referring to scattered positive elements of culture - in fact, Bush used the phrase in two speeches, and even had a "Points of Light Foundation".

The phrase was used by Arthur C. Clarke, William S. Burroughs, and C.S. Lewis before Bush...

And the phrase even shows up in the song "Not Enough Gold In the World", from the 1998 Eddie From Ohio album, "The Portable EFO Show"

Spoiler: It's a nice tune, really...

All those are before the Setting Search in 2002....

Which seems enough precedent to suggest that both you and WotC were inspired by prior sources, if unconsciously.

Fair. Not sure how to phrase it but I’m from french Quebec, so I’m not 100% connected to the Anglo-Saxon cultural sphere. I may or may have not heard about these at the time. But it’s likely.