Post #2814947

@randomwizard@social.vivaldi.net I think gaming rules are an interesting point of view here. If I remember correctly, the big legal issue here is where you're drawing the lines between "just rules" (which can't be copyrighted) and their artistic expression. There once was a trial about some version of Tetris, and it was quite interesting for which details the distinction was made (certainly not intuitive to a non-lawyer). As a side note, it's quite likely that the LotR wouldn't be so popular without some serious breaches in copyright anyway ;) I would say that if we're going by similar rules for the DL background/novels, I think most of the more blatant ripoffs aren't on the shoulders of Weis/Hickman, but Gygax/Arneson. I mean, D&D probably was the ground zero for "EDO fantasy", simply by being popular and then this snowballing into "everyone is doing it" justifications for fantasy authors, never mind a few of them probably playing the game. But for the DL novels, not doing that never was an option. As for their own Tolkien-adjacency, I'd rate that a lot less than some of the "challengers". The party setup is different (they're all adventuring veterans, so neither the upper crust of hero-dom or bumbling everymen as in LotR), the quest structure, too. Sure, you got some balls (erm…) and a bumbling wizard, but neither are exactly Tolkien's most pure innovations. And the cosmology/ideology have both common items and some major differences, just like the Catholicism and Mormonism that influenced them do. And that's why I wouldn't call Weis/Hickman to be the most egregious copycats. But neither are they ones who did more interesting things with the subject matter, even back then (that "award" probably goes to the Thomas Covenant series). Their crimes against module-writing are much worse ;)