AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

Anyone else have this problem?

Where their descs or writing are copied to the letter by some schmoe who can't write for themselves?

If so, is there any way to get DM help when it happens so that someone doesn't claim credit for another person's work?

Can anything actually be done when this happens?

Especially if it's by a well known player where it would be assumed it was his/her work?

Better send details to the DMs in private. We might be able to do something, in proven and blatant cases.

Nothing has happened. Just curious.

I would assume most people here have enough moral to let someone compose their own stories, characters, and plot lines, and simple sit back and go, "Wow, good idea, very enjoyable" Especially if your involved in said story/character/plot lines existence.

Has there ever been cases of plagerism here?

I sure do hope not, it really takes away from what I enjoy at least, making something distinctly mine and tossing into an area where everyone else has the same goal in mind, with a chance to impact and change each other in said way.

Last edited by Kjetta on Wed, Mar 11 2009, 18:09 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Yeah. How rude! DnD is about originality, about thinking out your own concepts without blatantly stealing ideas and concepts from other sources!!!!!! And this does happen! Actually, I think we should sue Egypt. They have clearly stolen the Mulhorandi pantheoen and used them for their own, in ancient times. It makes me so angry when people can' :evil:

Well, just look at it from this direction: it can't be worse than calling your Drow Drizzt do'Urden. And yes, I have seen those enter Amia.

atleast three drizzts been there... Conan The destroyer was the dude. i have seen Caramon lately, that though might be stupid namegenerator too... Raistlin has been with us in past.

i myself have thought of copying uces stillborn. just ripping it off!

Yea, It's obvious to me that ancient Egypt they had built a time machine using alien tech, traveled to the future, stole a copy of DnD source books containing Mulhorandi Lore, and formed their gods around it, I think Wizard should sue Egypt...

I met the Drizzt in the entrance the other day actually, I politely informed him of the name rules, and that he couldn't be Drizzt here.

He told me that he was always Drizzt, and to #$%@ off, to which I told him, no you've not always been Drizzt, unless you happen to be the creator of the books playing here on Amia, and writing a book about Drizzt's adventures in Amia.

Call me more nasty thing, and logged, oh well *shrugs*

Well, you can be named Drizzt, just not Drizzt Do'Urden or merely "Drizzt." With another last name, it should be common enough a Drow name.

But yeah, we're talking directly copying someone's stories or descriptions, and that's obviously not cool. Even using the exact same name as an established character, if it isn't from a name generator, is not cool. There can only be one bladesinger named Kalliniel Galadhron, for example, but there certainly could be an elven cleric named Kalliniel Quicksilver or whatever.

*coughs* He had the full name, and in his description, he had "The famous drow, blah blah blah"

He was a carbon copy, or else I would of let him be.

I wouldn't mind seeing a Drizzt Smith, someone who kept arguing "No, I'm not that famous guy! I'm not even drow! Leave me alone! No, I'm not giving you my autograph!"

I have a character named Haan, and its one of those jungle book stories with him. He was raised by a group of wolves in the mountains. Thus, he is extremely feral and barbaric in his hunting methods- but effective.

He's also a bounty hunter, and he was doing a hit when another character followed me, (And in an OOC method) discovered it was me. Instead, I just played along. I would have dispatched him effortlessly had he tried anything, but instead he said he wanted to join me. He witnessed the hit and was impressed, so I let him in. Haan was now a manager of a bounty hunting buisness.

But get this: I see his log in name the VERY NEXT DAY, and he has a character named Saal or something. He even used the double vowel. I read the character description and it said something like this:

"Raised by wolves in the mountains, "Saal" is now a bounty hunter."

I was kinda pissed. He took my idea. IN A DAY. I dont mind it if people take my ideas in about a year, or so. After I leave, hopefully. But a day? Really? So Haan made a personal vendetta IC to find and kill this traitor to his kin, and absolutely out-wolf him in every way possible. It was shortly after that this guy stopped playing that character.

Sharing is caring, and this is highly unrealistic.

Absolutely, sharing is caring. Thats why I dont get too uptight about ideas being shared. Just give it, out of respect, a bit longer than a day to sink in before you do so.

Mr. Hackums wrote:

Absolutely, sharing is caring. Thats why I dont get too uptight about ideas being shared. Just give it, out of respect, a bit longer than a day to sink in before you do so.

Of course, I responded to the original post. Copying like you described is just plain silly.

Ridiculing blatant copycats is also always alright of course, but I do not find anything more than that necessary.

Well, i ripp off parts of well known characters from both RL and literature shamelessly, but when I put pieces togheter they turn out quite original, usually. Stealing ideas I consider just fine, as long as you develop the ideas further yourself. I have a few characters, and I wouldnt mind one bit if someone stole the ideas beind them, and made something of their own.

If they used the ctrl+c -> ctrl +v method however, I would give them a divine beating.

The Cobbit wrote:

I wouldn't mind seeing a Drizzt Smith, someone who kept arguing "No, I'm not that famous guy! I'm not even drow! Leave me alone! No, I'm not giving you my autograph!"

get out of my mind!!!!! :lol:

I don't mean concepts. I mean word-for-word descriptions, songs, poems, and things like that. Basically copy and paste with your name on it.

Shynthraee wrote:

I don't mean concepts. I mean word-for-word descriptions, songs, poems, and things like that. Basically copy and paste with your name on it.

Ridicule. Works on everything.

Also, doubt it will ever happen.

Using other peoples concepts is fine, just don't make it a really lame rip off, like the woman who made the Harry Potter, not an original idea in there.

But insofar as plagiarism is concerned i reckon the character should be booted off. I'm a writer by trade (no one will believe that, but bite me) and to have ones ideas flagrantly stolen is actually very insulting. I think everyone that really enjoys RP has a touch of the storyteller in them and can appreciate this feeling.

A good story takes time and energy to put together and, having had one of my developed concepts stolen, i can say it's really depressing. Bash them with the Potter Stick

I have permission from my hubby to use his own peotry for my bard if I want too. I havent yet. He is a good poet!

Oh my god.

Worst feeling ever was seeing once a PC named BlackDahlya (though written Black Dhalia).

It was a really, really odd feeling, but I didn't think it would be fair to have the PC change the name.

I think my amian friends might have said something to the player, though, because I remember last hearing she was going to change the name of her PC.

EDIT: I also made Auron's background, in some aspects, inspired on Redeemer's Shadow Dragon Disciple Saris. But I told him about it and asked if it was okay. ^^;

I would take it as compliment if someone else used a story similar to my PCs, though developed it another way. But I would be pissed off if the person used it the way J.K.Howling did with the Books of Magic, or whatever is the name in english.

I must admit a login of IAmUberuceAndSoIsMyWife would make me giggle.

Last edited by Azrael on Thu, Mar 12 2009, 5:03 AM, edited 1 time in total.

Kjetta wrote:

Yeah. How rude! DnD is about originality, about thinking out your own concepts without blatantly stealing ideas and concepts from other sources!!!!!! And this does happen! Actually, I think we should sue Egypt. They have clearly stolen the Mulhorandi pantheoen and used them for their own, in ancient times. It makes me so angry when people can' :evil:

...and hobbits *cough* I mean hins. (LOTR)

...dragons are myths older than the Bible

...elves/dwarves all pre-existing lore (in old times they were linked to 'fey' trickery, stealing things and living in small hidden communities, or shining your boots when your asleep)

...seen a garden Gnome? I have...small lawn ornaments for sale at your local store. (old myth, not because of D&D at all)

...drow? Edit: Dark elves. (norse mythology)

...undead? ...not original (ever watch an old monster movie?) Seen an old vampire movie? Zombie? ..Frankenstein. Werewolf? oh please.

Orcs?Goblins? Seen LOTR?

...the old troll hidden under a bridge myth, also not original to D&D as a race. (also in LOTR)

"Mulhorandi Pantheoen"? they didn't even bother to change the names like they did with the other mythological gods *sigh* (greek and norse mythology also here in the deity system)

Sarcasm aside, D&D gets the title belt for stealing fantasy ideas and putting them in game format (while narrowly dodging lawsuits), so yes I chuckle as well, because the actual creators of these ideas died ages ago.

...if I were the department covering copy writes, anything with D&D stamped on it deserves a second look if not 'void' universal idea, can't copy write it, not even if you change the name slightly.

I'd would be hard pressed to find an originality list of things for D&D, simply put nothing comes to mind.

But I suppose there is some point to people not copy-pasting character ideas straight from the internet...but I doubt they could do worse than D&D if they tried. (for years and years)

On a positive note...

It's nice to have everything consolidated and written out, it's like a dictionary for fantasy where you can look just about anything up and read about it.

...but not origional.

Actually, if memory serves, Norse lore had Dark Elves in it... And Dwarves. A lot of stuff, really. Nothing wrong with inspiration and 'borrowing', but a little bit of a creative spin goes a long way.

Sakkran wrote:

Actually, if memory serves, Norse lore had Dark Elves in it... And Dwarves. A lot of stuff, really. Nothing wrong with inspiration and 'borrowing', but a little bit of a creative spin goes a long way.

Ah my ancient norse lore is abit rusty, perhaps there were...

"The original idea of Dark Elves comes from germanic and norse ancient myth. In it, they lived underground and are just so very different compared to what modern book writing has transformed them into.

The same goes for regular elves. Originally they were portrayed as beautiful and natural spirits or demigods of the wild, or even tiny tricksters akin to leprechauns. I think it was Tolkien who more or less turned them into what they are today."

Azrael wrote:

Sakkran wrote:

Actually, if memory serves, Norse lore had Dark Elves in it... And Dwarves. A lot of stuff, really. Nothing wrong with inspiration and 'borrowing', but a little bit of a creative spin goes a long way.

Ah my ancient norse lore is abit rusty, perhaps there were...

"The original idea of Dark Elves comes from germanic and norse ancient myth. In it, they lived underground and are just so very different compared to what modern book writing has transformed them into.

The same goes for regular elves. Originally they were portrayed as beautiful and natural spirits or demigods of the wild, or even tiny tricksters akin to leprechauns. I think it was Tolkien who more or less turned them into what they are today."

I believe Tolkien also made the spelling difference between elfs and elves, the former being the fantastic creatures, the latter being the ones in his story. Or it may have been dwarfs and dwarves.

I think that's more of a language thing- British-English versus American English, or something akin to that.

Sakkran wrote:

I think that's more of a language thing- British-English versus American English, or something akin to that.

I am quite sure that it isn't.

Edit: Found it in Wikipedia (I know, I know - not a real source)

Dr. Wiki wrote:

The plural form dwarfs has been traced to the 17th century. The alternative plural dwarves has been recorded in the early 18th century, but was not generally accepted until used by philologist J. R. R. Tolkien in his fantasy novel The Hobbit. Neither spelling represents the regular phonetic development of the Old English plural dweorgas, namely dwarrows; rather, they descend from a new plural formed in Middle English from the singular stem. Similarly, the old inherited plural dwarrows acquired a singular dwarrow.[4] Although dwarrow has passed from the language, both dwarfs and dwarves are in current use. Many grammarians prefer dwarfs; many fantasists prefer dwarves. The form dwarfs is generally used for real people affected by dwarfism; the form dwarves is used for the mythical people described by Tolkien and others.

.

The reference number is for Carpenter, Humphrey (ed.), 1981, The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, p. 23

I've used names from a book before that are from a character that was only in like 1 scene. like in the War of The Spider Queen book 1. there is a fighter named Tathlyn Go'deep or something that gets in a fight and loses. I used the name Tathlyn on a drow wizard I had made.

ILoveIceCream wrote:

I've used names from a book before that are from a character that was only in like 1 scene. like in the War of The Spider Queen book 1. there is a fighter named Tathlyn Go'deep or something that gets in a fight and loses. I used the name Tathlyn on a drow wizard I had made.

Generally for books I go with the concept of if I can find more than one book with the same character name, it is fair go. Of course, different people have different opinions.

Well, you can be named Drizzt, just not Drizzt Do'Urden or merely "Drizzt." With another last name, it should be common enough a Drow name.

But yeah, we're talking directly copying someone's stories or descriptions, and that's obviously not cool. Even using the exact same name as an established character, if it isn't from a name generator, is not cool. There can only be one bard named Yossarin, for example, but there certainly could be an elven cleric named Kalliniel Quicksilver or whatever.

The world doesn't need another Vaelmith Starshower.

Someone called their character Ly'thiel also. *Glare.*

Whoever named their character 'Yuri' is going to get strung up, one of these days...

I wouldn't mind sharing first name and/or last name with other characters, as long as they don't copy my characters' appearance and/or description as well.

Last edited by 555444333 on Thu, Mar 12 2009, 8:41 AM, edited 1 time in total.

Neus Scario wrote:

Whoever named their character 'Yuri' is going to get strung up, one of these days...

Nah - he'll just hypnotise you into being nice...

Tolkien was the one that turned 'them'(orcs, elves, dwarves, all of them) into races not area specific sprites and so forth. Thank him for all of it.

The Incognitos wrote:

Tolkien was the one that turned 'them'(orcs, elves, dwarves, all of them) into races not area specific sprites and so forth. Thank him for all of it.

He turned them into fantasy creatures rather than mythological ones ^^ Without him, we wouldn't have the 'fantasy' genre as we know it.

if it's just first names (and you each have a last name), who cares...
I once was in a class where 5 out of the 23 people were called Istvan *shrug*

A lot of my characters names are rip-offs from other locations as well.
Books, music, games,....

Just no famous names, or they have been edited (like Zack Michaelson)

I don't care if people copy my "simple average Joe" description. Amia needs less freaks and more average joes as it is.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Everyone takes good ideas from his environment and uses them. It's just human nature. When it's blatant copying, then it becomes annoying.

Galenson wrote:

Amia needs less freaks and more average joes as it is.

The average joes have become the freaks by this point, I think.

Yossarin makes a joke and nobody laughs.

That is the problem with Amia.

Thank you. I knew that you, at the very least, would notice, for obvious reasons!

With the NWN random name generator can it happen that there are several Blakes as an example, it is just a common name and no one should be accused of plagiating the name for whatever reason then.

Unique names, like Drizz't D'ourden, well, if they want to play such a character, give them a quick guide to the UD and see how they fare, hehe. I know, I am just evil there, honestly, people just shouldn't do that because it is no fun at all to play such a character because there is no change that can happen because everything about them has already been written and preplanned, by someone else than the player.
I have seen a few cases of where people played a plagiated character, but made them quite original while yet containing the spirit of the original, they were fun, but they honestly don't fit into Amia..
Seen a sort of plagiate once too, good ranger drow with scimitars. He didn't speak Drow though, as my character tested nonchalantly 'Vith dos' 'Hm?' 'Oh.. Nothing...'

Also, don't remind me of the Sasuke I've seen here before. *snicker* Not that it was wrong, I just had the pre definied image of Sasuke from naruto in my head, and prolly couldn't have got it out, so that my RP would've been biased.

Magnum Opera wrote:

I wouldn't mind sharing first name and/or last name with other characters, as long as they don't copy my characters' appearance and/or description as well.

Which this has happened. The PCs of Weston Carter and Rita Carter were never planned out as they are now. I had Wessy and then saw Rita a few times online before we realized the duplicated last-name. A bit of comparing notes and we decided it didn't need to be a thing of coincidence [as truely it was] and found our background stories actually had a nearly perfect mesh of overlap to make these unplanned name sharing folk related.

Then again, if it couldn't be done, I would never have cared anyways to share a last name.

Heck! In RL, I'm a Jeremy Burnett. Try having Jamie Burnett in the same class. Literally. Names are so much harder to claim as plagerized when they're not meant to be iconic ones

BlackDahlya wrote:

Worst feeling ever was seeing once a PC named BlackDahlya (though written Black Dhalia).

Yeah, I see Terra's everywhere, but they aint as cool as me. :wink:

All that said, I ran into a character the other day named Snake Pliskin.. had the eyepatch and all.

I can't help but wonder if he will entitle his story "Escape from Cordor"

"1980,
the crime rate in Amia rises 400 percent.

The once great city of Cordor becomes the one maximum- security prison for the entire country.

A 50 feet containment wall is erected along the Amia shoreline across the Benwick and down along the Wiltun shoreline. It completely surrounds Cordor Island.

All bridges and waterways are mined. The Cordor Guarde force, like an army, is encamped around the city.

There are no guards inside the prison - only prisoners and the world they have made. The rules are simple - once you go in - you don't come out."

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