I was surprised to learn just how many things the game designers had borrowed. Most of the things were things only a real hardcore GH fan would know, but lately I've been noticing some really obvious ones in Throne of Bhaal, the last game in the series.
The last straw, IMO, was having Demogorgon being imprisoned in FR for the last several hundred years, basically saying he never existed in GH... grrr...
There are dozens of other instances but the only other one I can remember right now is that Fragarach also makes an appearance. Sigh. Is FR so damn absent of depth that they have to filch everything from GH?
And as a side note, they chose a really lame picture of Demogorgon to represent him. There's a concept one that's much better, oh well.
http://www.interplay.com/bg2throne/demogorgon.html
Well, they did at least give me a chance to kill Drizzt in the first game.
Halber
I took great satisfaction in looting his still warm carcass
Must... kill... Drizzit...
Originally posted by Mach2.5
Just wish you could have attempted to take on Elminstario in BG1 (never played BG2). Even if he would have toasted the party, it still would have been nice to get in a slap or two.
As soon as the old git wandered up to me in BG1 I went gung-ho on the attack but it wouldn't let me. Bugger.
It can't be doesn't FR have some of the best fantasy writers of our time. Doesn't FR create an imagnitive feel that defers from all other settings. Their is no way a campaign seemed with such historic knowledge would revert itself to pillaging another settings ideals for it's own advancement. Never I say Never!
Yeah right!
Is anybody really surprised? I for one am not. I think FR's pillaging of the GH setting only proves what GH fans have stated for years. GH is a much better historically developed setting with room for each individuals ideals to easily translate into the game.
You see those so-call fantasy writer's of the FR campaign setting (namely Ed Greenwood). Are so devoided of any sense of originality that the only way for the setting to grow is to pillage other writer's ideas and incorporate them into an overpopulated campaign setting with little to none original campaign ideals.
Anybody notice that the Derro are a character race in FR. Please stop this already. If FR is truly a more advanced setting then GH then why is almost half of GH specifics incorporated into the FR campaign. How far away are we from a Pholtus lead group of adventurers from Waterdeep? How far are we away from the major religion of Mulmaster converting to Hextor? How far away are we away from puking about the desecration of the GH setting?
Raaaaaaaaalllllpphhhhh!
Sorry I guess it's to late!
I don't intend this to be an FR bashing. But IMHO if you can't create something original then what do you really have? I don't mind the Egyptian like people of FR nor do I care that some of the gods there were taken from other real world mythologies. What does irk me about FR is the fact that they try and pass stuff off as FR specific when in fact they were pillaged from another setting.
Dark Sun was original, Dragonlance was original, Greyhawk was original. Sadly Ravenloft was not original it pulled alot of it's resources from other settings. Forgotten Realms is even more guilty of the above stated and yet people want to play in that campaign world. While spell jammer did the same it explained how such settings would cross over. I still didn't like Spell Jammer though. Although the Neogi were a very unique race to the setting.
The last straw will be when they take the Greyhawk name off of the The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer and replace the Greyhawk name with Forgotten Realms. Nothing else in the entire book will change though. Why will they doe this you ask. Because they can't find anything else in the FR setting to detail and will need no longer published campaign info to support the continued sales of the FR line.
I ask you all how sad it this true reality?
Originally posted by StevieS
As soon as the old git wandered up to me in BG1 I went gung-ho on the attack but it wouldn't let me. Bugger.
Lol, after I got bored with the game I played around with some cheats and upped the difficulty to maximum. My character was a GOD who smote about her with reckless abandon.
Aside from being impossible to play once I got to Baldur's Gate (you are accosted at literally every turn if your Rep is 0), I tried taking on Elmunchkin... the game crashed!
I tried several times after that and it crashed every single time. I figured that was the ultimate tip of the hat to the old bastard :D
More like "How far are we from investing way too much emotion in a simple game?" Too late on that as well, apparently.
"Desecration?" It's just a game, people, not some holy scripture!
Who cares whether they lift some ideas from one setting to the other? They own them both! Every setting out there has borrowed from other sources to a greater or lesser degree, and Greyhawk is no exception. Deal and move on, I say.More like "How far are we from investing way too much emotion in a simple game?" Too late on that as well, apparently.
"Desecration?" It's just a game, people, not some holy scripture!
Who cares whether they lift some ideas from one setting to the other? They own them both! Every setting out there has borrowed from other sources to a greater or lesser degree, and Greyhawk is no exception. Deal and move on, I say. [/b]This is the only guy who makes sense...I'm with him. I honestly don't care as long as the video game is fun. Now, if they screwed me over by selling me a game that blew, I'd be emotional, the emotion being angry. But otherwise, its just a feeling of "hey I know where that guys from!" Sort of the feeling you get when a celebrity guest stars on your favorite show.
Did you know that many years ago Arunson developed a spell that made all of the Bigbe's Hand type spells useless.
The Simbul and Elminster have visited GH personally and the Simbol gave a spell to one of GH leading a mages, a very rare and powerful spell, just to shut his whining up over the stuff that the FR world has.
Did you know that many of the so-called GH original spells are actually now ancient FR Netherese spells that GH mages gave their names too.
DON'T GET MAD, GET EVEN. "feel free to steal ideas from the FR world anytime you like, and I'm sure the FR fans won't whine about it, they will be very happy you like the stuff"
Here's a homebrewed Template for the dragon Inferno, seems the new FR staff want's to write him out of FR history anyway, feel free to steal it...
The following stats over-ride any conflicting stats for a dragon of his species.
Advanced Dragon.
Red/Gold Crossbreed Species.
Chaotic Nuetral Alignment, with good tendencies toward other draconics.
Bonus +1 to Intelligence for every 4 age categories.
Bonus +1 to Wisdom for every 4 age categories.
Bonus +1 to all saves for every 4 age categories.
Regenerates 1 point damage per age category, per round.
Natural Keen Senses.
Natural Ambidexterous.
Infravision at normal sight range.
Ultravision at normal sight range.
X-Ray vision at 1 foot per age category.
Mage-sight at 5 feet per age category.
Immune to all Radiant Energy effects, including divine ones.
Cast all Radiant Energy type effects at +1 level for every 4 age categories.
Bonus spells of 2 wizard and 2 priest Radiant Energy type spells, for every new spell level achieved, these spells are innate and he may choose the spell at the time of casting.
Full access to the Sun, Fire, Magic, and Healing domains.
Bonus class levels as Elemental Savant (Fire), Inferno gains one free level in this class for every 2 age categorys gained, any required prerequists are not needed.
No Fear Aura "although common sense has led to many powerful opponents fleeing at the mere sight of him".
Unaffected by the "Flight of Dragons" rage that effects the chromatic species.
Unique Breath Attack: Inferno's breath attack is a dark crimson beam of pure radiant energy heat, all resistances, protections, and immunities to this powerfull attack are only half as effective "e.t., -2 per die damage reduction would be lowered to -1 per die damage reduction, and immunity would be lowered to half damage automatically" and a DC bonus of +1 for every 4 age categories gained. The following Breath Attack stats are per age category, damage 4d4+4, area of effect 12 feet lenght, 4 feet width.
Maximum Hit Points per Hit Die.
Inferno dislikes all undead and shadowy type creatures, especially Draco-Liches, and has a hatred of the draconic diety Tiamat. He seems to genuinly care about, and would like to help all the chromatics species overcome what he percieves is the species shortcomings, especially it's inbreeding and uncontrollable rages, which he believes will be the doom of the species, if these bad traits are not corrected soon. Inferno also has a dry sense of humor, and a sharp wit, and loves playing the "battle of the wits" game with a good opponent, and has been known to award any who can best him with a reward, "sometimes he rewards with a unique magical item or a rare spell, but mostly he just gives good advice and/or the needed information his opponent seeks".
2 bonus skill points at every age category gained, these points are distributed evenly among the following fields of knowledge (Draconic-Biology/ Chemistry/ Physics) and 2 bonus skill points at every age category gained distrubuted to the (Radiant Energy) field of study specifically.
Inferno has a natural love for alchemy, and has an almost mad scientist type disregard for his own safety when working in a lab, this has led to many hugh explosive and spell-storm like disasters, and has gotten him barred from all but one of his fellow alchemist labs. Only Amelior Amantis of Secomber still welcomes Inferno into his lab, and this eccentic mage experiments are considered even more dangerous than Inferno's.
Inferno appears to have the upper facial, spine, wings, and tail of a red dragon, and the body of a gold dragon, his scales are a dark fiery crimson that slowly morph to a golden blaze near the edges. He has the bite, and claws of a gold dragon, and the wings and tail attack damage of a red dragon.
Halber
Agreed. Greyhawk has enough of its own as it is. ;)
What my gripe is taking something from another game world which uses the same basis (Tolkien, Mythology) and passing it off as an originally inspired piece of work. Then trying to rationalize raping ideas from other writer's or sources.
If somone took a written work of yours and passed it off as their own you wouldn't be happy with it. But because you may be a computer game fan or a fan of the FR setting in this case, you think it's ok to rationalize it.
That's like working 50+ hours a week and giving your check to a total stranger which will take credit for your hard work. Even though WoTC has the rights to both settings. I still don't believe this is a justification for taking creations from one setting to create another. IMO if the ideas from Greyhawk are so interesting or such an integral part of divising a new campaign setting. Then why create the new setting at all. Why not just keep what you have and build from their.
Despite the fact that you even quoted it, you seem to be missing a critical point here: WotC owns both setting. To follow your example, that "total stranger which will take credit for your hard work" is you -- i.e., the entity that owns both settings.
Definitely not U.S. copyright law, but interesting, no?
I'm not sure if coherence is the right word. Have any better?
With all due respect, Tizoc, I feel people tend to throw the word "right" around way too liberally these days, and it's application towards trivial matters tends to detract from the truly important rights out there.
One could make a reasonable case that WotC was lazy, sloppy, unimaginative or whatever if they decided to use elements from one of thier campaign settings and import them directly into another one. But you can't make an argument that a setting has some sort of obligation or responsibility to be pure and interrnally coherent, nor can someone reasonably argue that WotC is 'robbing' from one system for another when they and they alone own them, control them, and decide their fate.
That said, yeah, it's a bit of sloppy work, whoever was responsible.
Originally posted by Surcus
I thought the Fragarach was an artifact from Dragonlance, rumored to have created the tinker gnome, gully dwarf and kender races?
Naw, that was the Greystone of... err... Gargath? Something like that. The dwarven god created it out of pure chaos when forging the universe or something like that, and a curious bunch of dwarves stole it or let it free or something.
Fragarach, on the other hand, is a sword. Also known as 'the answerer'.
setting ideas.Yes this is true in a sense but it takes the ideas and wraps them into twisted evil versions.One thing i can think of kender vampiers in Sithicus.They took the kender,the race of child like innocence,and gave them vampiric bloodlust and the will to kill.I've never played FR(in pen and paper anyway,dont really want to after reading these posts)but apperantly if FR took the kender they'ed act like they thought of it out of the blue.And yes i know Paladine=Bahamut & Takhisis=Tiamat but dragons play big part in the setting as a whole.I dont see why people like FR so much.It just seems like a hombrew idea gone crazy.I'll never understand why my friend likes it,guess the novels are good at least.
Oh, you were serious.
Get over it guys! The reason FR contains many things that are supposedly GH specific is that GH was the ONLY campaign setting supported by TSR for a long period. Thus virtually anything created for D&D became GH by default. Given TSR's vendetta against any 3rd party using any part of D&D it was the only official campaign setting so where else was anything supposed to be set?
But that does not mean that the writers created things with the intention of them being used solely in GH settings, just that this was the only option available to them. Are you seriously suggesting that any so-called 'GH-specific' item, monster, character etc cannot be used in your own games unless they are set in GH? Get real!!
Besides which, I'm sure that anyone, well almost anyone, who created something for D&D is delighted when that creation is deemed popular enough to transfer across to other settings. It shows that they did a good job.
On another note, I don't recall anything that has been "stolen" from GH and used in FR ever being claimed as the creation of an FR designer. Did Ed Greenwood ever claim to have created the Axe of the Dwarven Lords? No. Do FR games have the right to include such an item? Of course they do!
By the way, there is a similar thread over on the FR boards as to GH stealing some of their dragons. Same comments apply to them.
Originally posted by Will Brandiman
By the way, there is a similar thread over on the FR boards as to GH stealing some of their dragons. Same comments apply to them.
Make that: there was a similar thread over on the FR board. It got shut down.
First, thanks for the respect. It's great to read posts that someone took time and used care to write.
While I did use the term "right" in its legal sense (under the U.S. Constitution), I didn't mean to trivialize the fundamental interests and rights that are expressed in that famous document or are implied in its clauses and amendments (as held by the Supreme Court).
My intent was only to respond to Argon's post, which suggested to me a non-legal conceptualization of intellectual property.
By posting I wondered if I might engage anyone else in a lil intellectual play.
The internet is utopia, after all. Sometimes I enjoy engaging ideas with no reality in a "place" that doesn't exist. ;)
Paz y luz.
Don't buy cheesy knock-offs kids! Go for the original flavor of GH.
Why do I still feel like I post in vain...
Understood. I just wanted to make sure we were on the same footing as far as perspective is concerned.
"My intent was only to respond to Argon's post, which suggested to me a non-legal conceptualization of intellectual property. [...] By posting I wondered if I might engage anyone else in a lil intellectual play."
Fair enough, and I'm always up for a little online sparring. That said, I don't see how one could define an idea of "a creative work having a right to coherence," since that sort of attribute can't be applied to a concept, only a person. By stating that an Intellectual Property -- an abstract concept -- has a right to coherence, you're anthropomorphizing the concept. The owner of the IP -- in this case WotC -- is the only one that can say what happens to that IP.
A similar situation came up when Lucas created the most recent couple of Star Wars films. Many fans cried out, calling foul and complaining that Lucas had ignored everything that he had previously sanctioned by others regarding this history of the universe he had created.
That may be true, but ultimately beside the point. As the one who created the universe and the one who owns the IP, Lucas was the one calling the shots, and if he wanted to, he could have said that Darth Vader was built out of spare vacumm cleaner parts, and it would have been his call, not anyone elses.
Now, that said, I think it's a bad idea for the owner of an IP to make such dramatic and strong changes to an IP, especially when there has already been a general understanding of what is unofficial 'history' for it among the fan base. The reason on this isn't because of any sort of need for theoretical purity, but rather a simple marketing concept -- don't cheese of your customers.
Or, in the case of WotC, your fanbase, since they are your strongest supporters and potential customer pool. While the diehard fan (like most we see here) are very vocal, I feel they are still in the minority as far as the bottom line is concerned. I suspect the people on this and other fan sites make up a mere fraction of the company's targeted customer base, and as such are largely irrelevant from WotC's marketing viewpoint. So, WotC will be marketing and customizing it's IP to the largest customer base that it sees -- in this case, the casual player, I suspect, for whom GH is simply a convenient 'default' world. They can pick and choose elements from it to use in a myriad of places, since as a 'default' world, it is assumed to be picked apart and used piecemeal by new DMs. It remains largely a box of 'spare parts' for WotC to use elsewhere as a result.
Personally, I don't have a problem with that approach, as they can do with it what they want. I do, however, feel that it shows a distinct trend towards laziness and unprofesionalism that they found it easier and quicker to simply pull ideas from pre-existing sources to drop into a new product than it would have been to create new ideas for the new product from whole cloth. Whether that was WotC's call or the call of the people that created the game, I don't know.
Originally posted by Steve_MND
Or, in the case of WotC, your fanbase, since they are your strongest supporters and potential customer pool. While the diehard fan (like most we see here) are very vocal, I feel they are still in the minority as far as the bottom line is concerned. I suspect the people on this and other fan sites make up a mere fraction of the company's targeted customer base, and as such are largely irrelevant from WotC's marketing viewpoint. So, WotC will be marketing and customizing it's IP to the largest customer base that it sees -- in this case, the casual player, I suspect, for whom GH is simply a convenient 'default' world.
If only that were true. WotC pays a little TOO much attention to the vocal minorities, on this board and 'other' boards. They unfortunately simply have a deaf ear to all things Greyhawk.
There may be an isolated case here and there, but if you can show where they've made a habit of listening and responding substantively to the urges of the vocal minority at the expense of the majority that will actually purchase their products, I'd be glad to revise my statement.