A long struggle, I thought I'd moan about it a bit

[Kinslayer]

One of the reasons I created Midian was that I only found the ultra-lite generics and barely-started unfinished works available on the 'net. Since I was making good use of free resources, I wanted to give something back for free. I knew I had the talent to pull it off, and the fortitude to stick with it. Had my google-fu been better at the time, I probably would have contributed to an existing game that was already further along. I thought about finishing one of the quarter-done ones, but I either couldn't get ahold of the creator, or would have had to do most of the work anyway (and would have preferred to scrap what little was there).

There's nothing inherently wrong with taking existing memetic space and making it your own. D&D replaced Tolkien well enough. And consider Along the Watchtower. Is it the original Dylan version you hear in your head, or is it Hendrix instead?

[Thought]

I am curious, Rob, did you've ever happen to read Ron Edward's article about heart breaker's? It used to be over The Forge (indie-rpgs.com), but unfortunately it looks like they've taken all the articles down. If not, I will attempt to sum it up. Ron went through a lot of not-free rpgs that were produced back around AD&D and noted similar problems. The games tended to be rehashes of other games, often with a generic setting. He called them heartbreakers because it was obvious that a lot of love had been poured into them but they failed (often being a large financial hit for the makers, who had dreams of being the next TSR). Often, however, these games also had one or two moments of inspiration that really set them apart. The creators were trying to do something new, but it wasn't enough.

One might well even term these sorts of games as "D&D and..." because they often start with the basic assumptions of Dungeons and Dragons and primarily add to them, rather than attempting to change/challenge them. Legendary Quest (http://legendaryquest.netfirms.com/) stands out in my mind as one of those sorts of games. It started out literally as dungeons and dragons, but play-tweaks were made, accumulated, and took on a life of their own.

As the ineffable Chainsaw Aardvark pointed out, few people start out with the intent of creating something new. They want to improve on something old. Thus, the games out there will more often than not represent what they know. For better or worse this means they are usually going to be D&D-esq. The problem is, often people don't realize that improving can be more than just adding. Personally, it took me probably around a year before I realized I could cut rules away from what was then largely a D&D clone, and even that was just because I had been visiting RPG design forums and I realized just how common a lot of the stuff was. If you've never had beef, then a hamburger might seem like a rare dish. One just needs to gain proper perspective, and the interwebs is great for that.

Just a heart-breaking,

Thought