Steven \"Conan\" Trustrum wrote:
"Actually I can support it as I've been told by nameless people who use to work for Hasbro that they have copies of all of our products sitting on a shelf in their production offices and that they are referred to often".Uhm, this seems to me the usual gossip (and boasting, in my eyes) lacking any substance or evidence. If we start to look at 'who copied whom and when' then we could easily discuss, for example, who had the idea of the uniersal role playing system. Perhaps GURPS copied the idea from Basic Role Playing who copied the idea from Hero system who copied the idea from articles about making the D&D system 'generic'...
Now, out of a sense of professional curiosity, how many people here look to other rpg systems or settings, or fiction for inspiration when it comes to their writing (no worries, guys and gals, this isn't a witch hunt for plagiarism, I'm merely curious ;D ). I'd start the ball rolling and say some of the things I've written have been largely inspired by Starship Troopers, the Shannara series, Torg, and various DnD 1e adventures (Expedition to the Barrier Peaks especially).I'm mainly a translator and my 'authorship' limites itself to magazine articles (market in Italy is not big enough to support full time game design, so I choose retailing instead 8-]). I stay convinced that history and human sciences are the most rich and rewarding sources of inspiration. In the field of fiction, for me nothing beats the epic of Dune - not the history itself, but the wonderful work of creating an entire universe different from our own and, in many subtle ways, rooted in it. But Frank Herbert, nonetheless, took from history more than a couple of pages.
Regards
Ciro Alessandro Sacco
