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I ran a game once, over about two years of weekly sessions, that had exactly one Big Bad, a historical demon I cribbed from the Dictionary of Angels. (If you don't know what "running a game" is, ask.) It so happens that the demon I chose has as one of its symbols the raven or crow. And that became a whole motif. I was able to drag in Edgar Allan Poe because of that. It fed back into the theogonic stuff I had already decided to steal from Sandman. And that was the most "literary" steal I did for that game.
(I did like the part where the Big Bad sent everybody a dream of cities in flames and people cowering and dying, while a voice intoned Only this, and nothing more.)
I ripped off stuff from... gosh... everything: Fantastic Four comics, Tim Powers novels, and plenty of Buffy stuff. I ripped off other role-playing games, but that's almost expected. Now, none of these swipes were identical to the originals. I mean, my guy who consumed the spirits of the dead for magical power wasn't a direct rip of any of Tim Powers' characters, but they are totally who I was thinking of. (And sometimes I did directly swipe,now that I think of it: I had a character called Kissail of the Second Star, and that's from one of Tara's lines in Family.)
Now, the game as it played out was a collaboration between me and my players. I take a certain amount of credit for a good overall plot, and even some thematic stuff that crept in there, but the dialogue for the protagonists and some parts of the plot were the players and not me. That is fine. And I may yet write something with the raven stuff in it, because that's in the public domain and who could stop me? :P But...
I have the mathematician's desire to avoid reinventing the wheel. If someone proves a result, you don't have to prove it again- you cite the result (and give credit) and move on. And if I have any creative ability, it is primarily synthetic. I think I can make new things by putting together pieces of old things.
But I have never managed to write a long piece of fiction, because everything I write is obvious to me as derivative of something else, and it gets embarrassing. And I lock up.
It was a really good game, though.
(I did like the part where the Big Bad sent everybody a dream of cities in flames and people cowering and dying, while a voice intoned Only this, and nothing more.)
I ripped off stuff from... gosh... everything: Fantastic Four comics, Tim Powers novels, and plenty of Buffy stuff. I ripped off other role-playing games, but that's almost expected. Now, none of these swipes were identical to the originals. I mean, my guy who consumed the spirits of the dead for magical power wasn't a direct rip of any of Tim Powers' characters, but they are totally who I was thinking of. (And sometimes I did directly swipe,now that I think of it: I had a character called Kissail of the Second Star, and that's from one of Tara's lines in Family.)
Now, the game as it played out was a collaboration between me and my players. I take a certain amount of credit for a good overall plot, and even some thematic stuff that crept in there, but the dialogue for the protagonists and some parts of the plot were the players and not me. That is fine. And I may yet write something with the raven stuff in it, because that's in the public domain and who could stop me? :P But...
I have the mathematician's desire to avoid reinventing the wheel. If someone proves a result, you don't have to prove it again- you cite the result (and give credit) and move on. And if I have any creative ability, it is primarily synthetic. I think I can make new things by putting together pieces of old things.
But I have never managed to write a long piece of fiction, because everything I write is obvious to me as derivative of something else, and it gets embarrassing. And I lock up.
It was a really good game, though.
