Quote from: J ArcaneWhoosh.  Right over your head.

Well, at least you have your intellectual superiority to fall back on. Sadly i got it just fine- it appears I'm not the only one with the wind rushing over my little head.

I use other peoples ideas as jumping off points for me to create something.  You can pluck some really clever ideas and adapt them to your tastes.

Quote from: J ArcaneIf you have an issue with my post, I recommend you take it up with the moderators.

Okay, I think I disagree with J Arcane in this thread and once again I suspect him of being a dickwad, but that was funny.

Quote from: jrientsOkay, I think I disagree with J Arcane in this thread and once again I suspect him of being a dickwad, but that was funny.

At least someone understands my humor.  

Quote from: AosYou have to believe that you have a limitless supply of cool stuff in your head, otherwise you wont have a limitless supply of cool stuff in your head. How's that for making no sense?

I endorse this sentiment, though I don't put it into practice nearly often enough.

Put another way (or maybe echoing someone else): I think the dudes who learn guitar or piano by playing the old standards are the ones who eventually instinctively learn enough about music and their own tastes to produce great original stuff.

Or another way: Somebody once said, "The secret of greatness is trying to conform--and failing!"

My advice in borrowing is to forget the "greats." Star Wars has something like two and a half iterations in D6 and two and a half iterations in D20 variants, two trilogies, countless videogames, and the books... And that cartoon thing I can't recall the name of.

At some point, Star Wars has been done exactly and perfectly right.

I could point to long-standing franchises like DnD or Traveller and make a similar point.

Pick something up that has been done and could be awesome, but that you feel has flaws. The changes you'll need to make will be obvious right off the bat. Evangellion? Not done in an RPG and hard to do with most generic stuff. Nix the bull (Shinji, Pen-Pen, the last 2 eps of the TV series, etc.) and maybe change other stuff to cover your tracks (for example... the whole conspiratorial angle could be explored in greater depth)... and you'll have something good.

Maybe I'm coming out of left field.

Don't you people have Live Journals? And Blogs? And My Space? And Face Book?

Quote from: Serious PaulDon't you people have Live Journals? And Blogs? And My Space? And Face Book?

I'm sure you're making a perfectly obvious point, but I'm too dim to see it.

Look I like Sett, but this is a blog post, not a topic in the RPG section here. Or an off topic post.

That's all I got.

My .02Cr:

I'm frustrated as hell by my inability to follow through on ideas, because I keep thinking "this has been done before". Really, it is/was one of the big excuses that would cause me to lose interest in something half-way into a project - "Someone's done this before!"

Then I realised I should embrace the derivativeness. Its ALL going to have elements that seem familiar, so instead of obsessing on it, USE it. Keep orcs, just maybe change 'em a BIT so they're different but still orcs. Have one truly evil Bad Guy that opposes the Forces of Good - just twist him a bit so he's uniquely YOUR Bad Guy. And tinker with the Forces of Good a bit too - but don't think you should ditch them just because yo uthink the Good/Evil dichotomy is too much like Tolkein. Stuff like that. Don't get crazy just for the sake of crazy, unless you LIKE to do that - its not required to be Creative.

And my recent experience with my Old School Dungeon (coming soon to this space) is that writing your OWN stuff (even for use in your gaming group and nowhere else) is better because you know the world/module/whatever intimately. There's no fumbling through a book to find a description, no confusion on your part about a particular encounter or town - you're not trying to absorb someone else's vision, so it makes it easier for ME to a) GM well and b) be INTERESTED in GMing. If that makes sense.

Quote from: WerekoalaIf that makes sense.

It does to me. I've never created a homebrew setting from whole cloth, but I've never GMed a published module as-is either.

I'll steal and borrow all I can. I am forever in this places debt for the great stuff that I WILL use if and when I can.

But I do find it hard to stick with what has been written. Even if I never plan to vary or change from the written material, it'll be the gamers in my group that will take the tangent, and then were off the map. It never seems to fail.

Edit: That sounded like I was sucking up.

So I guess I don't really understand, but I do sympathize.

Quote from: Serious PaulDon't you people have Live Journals? And Blogs? And My Space? And Face Book?

No - too old, dude.

-clash

You have too much free time, Sett.  When you start losing that, your ego diminishes in the face of need.  If it'll save you an hour's work to use someone else's ideas, and you really don't have that hour anyways, other people's ideas start looking pretty usable.

Quote from: flyingmiceNo - too old, dude.

-clash

I always thought age was a state of mind thing. My snark aside I feel for you Sett. We've all been there.