When is it stealing?
Gryffudd:
One thing from Apocalypse World that I thought was classy was the list, near the end of the book, of what parts of the game were inspired by ideas in other games. Something I'd like to do if I ever get mine to that stage. I think John Wick's new samurai game did something like that too.
Pat
Lance D. Allen:
Tayr,
The legal and 'moral' angles have been covered. Here's what I think you're asking about... "When does 'stealing' damage my street cred?"
Based on my own observations, it doesn't, really. If you stole the entirety of an existing games mechanics then tweaked a few things and said it was all your work, then you might have some people calling foul, but if you take a mechanic from here, and one from there, and mangle them to work for your game, then that's pretty much par for the course. Ralph Mazza of Ramshead publishing has a game, Blood Red Sands, which he deliberately cobbled together from mechanics stolen from other published games. I think I recall somewhere that it was an intentional goal that not a single mechanic used in the game should be entirely original.
For me, I look at games that do things I like, rip out the parts that make them do what I like, and then cram them into my existing rules, tweaking both my original systems and the stolen graft-on until it works together. Then I make a note of who to mention in my acknowledgments/author's notes as inspirations. Acknowledging your game's spiritual ancestors is both polite and practical.
Chris_Chinn:
Quote
What I'm wondering is, how close can I cleave before it's stealing?
If you take a look at a lot of games from the 80's and 90's, you can see a lot of... creative influence to the point of straight up lifting.
As everyone has noted, there's not any copyright protecting any given mechanics, though you might want to watch out if, say, you're copying sections directly from something like the D20 SRD. (Fun side note- look at D20, then go look up Talislanta's system...)
You're just playtesting now. Use anything and everything that you think will make for a better game, cut everything that gets in the way of it. Odds are, even a good subsystem will see changes under playtesting and may come out VERY different by the end of it. Maybe you find all kinds of flaws or things that make it a poor fit for your game and do something else. Or maybe, it fits just right.
Chris
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