When inspiration becomes plagiarisation?
By
Arctic_Princess,
Posted on: 2008-05-01 21:30 in Roleplaying
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By taking inspiration from him, I can still have the coherent, single-character plot line running but also legitimately spread across the archetypes without diluting my ideas or coming up with anything too convoluted.
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This is something I did with one of my characters (Alita Crane) as she was a tech based hero who's abilities were the result of the suit she was wearing.
This in turn led to three different versions of her being made, and used regularly IC for missions and plots or just hanging out at GG.
It can be used to add an extra twist to the character as well. After taking a pounding in a plot related mission, you could say that the suit being used at the time was badly damaged and then be forcedto use a back up which the character isn't as familiar with or is still in it's experimental state.
This is
.a difficult topic to cover.
The problem with inspiration and plagiarism is there can be a very fine line to skate. Combine that with the fact that at least 60-90% of ideas can technically be linked very closely with existing Intellectual Property (even without the creator having any prior knowledge of the IP) and you wind up with a veritable minefield.
The main thing to focus on is, rather than I want my character to be like X, you should be thinking This is my character can I make the bits I like from X work?.
You should focus on less what the suits do and more on the character using them. What are the characters motives, drives, ambitions and reasons for acting as they do. How have they got access to the suits, do they own them or merely pilot them. How public are they, how many people know what they do. Make a person with their own flaws, gimmicks, quirks and odd little habits. Tony Stark isnt Iron Man, Iron Man is Tony Stark.
Robotic suits have been around for long enough that a character using them in an online superhero game is hardly likely to be shouted down as plagiarism. If you liked the film and it made you want to make a robot-suited hero/villain then good for you. The main thing to remember, in my opinion anyway, is that a suit is just a suit, change them as much as you want but its the pilot that makes the character.
Iron Man would merely have been a hideously expensive statue had Tony Stark not been at the controls.
Friends are just enemies that haven't betrayed you yet.
"Powered suit" hero(or villain) is pretty much a stereotype by now. Even in marvel comics who own Iron Man there have been more than I can count over the decades. In the comics one of the first enemies of Iron man was soviet "Titanium man" who used, you guessed it, powered armor. Just my two cents.
Indeed. Powered armour suits have a long and noble history in comics so there's no reason to let that put you off creating one. Hell, even one of my Blasters is part Iron Man/part Positron. As long as you don't paint it up red and gold like some of the knock-offs I've seen flooding into Atlas recently, you'll be fine. As others have said, it's the character that matters the most, not the concept and that's the personality that you're roleplaying, not the armour.
When it comes to armour, you have several choices that can influence the nature of the character. I mean, how did they acquire the armour? Did they make it? Was it given to them? Did they find it? Did it belong to a previous hero? Each one of those opens up a possibility from being a total robotics genuis or a fool with a suit who doesn't know what they're doing.
There's nothing wrong with allowing existing heroes to inspire your character, hell a dozen of mine are riffs on existing ones. As long as you do something to make them unique and interesting, I'd say you're fairly safe.
@Dante EU - Union Roleplayer and Altisis Victim
The Militia: Union RP Supergroup - www.themilitia.org.uk
For me, it's Tony Stark who is interesting, not really Iron Man. At one point in Iron Man continuity Marvel gave the suit to another character (Rhodey?) and it just didn't work for me. I don't think you need have any worries about plagiarising "Iron Man" - nor, really, about plagiarising Tony Stark (flawed mega-rich genius with emotional issues turning his personal tragedies into a subjective response to threats to a fragile society...Bruce Wayne - I mean, Tony Stark was himself "inspired" by those that had gone before. As, indeed, was Bruce Wayne). The thing to avoid is making your "Iron Man" inhabited by "Tony Stark" - break the combination of that particular suit with that particular personality and you're in the same place as the other comic creators & movie makers who've given us fare as entertaining and widely different as Robocop and Ellen Ripley in her Alien-bashing loader.
I do like the differentiation between IC and Roleplayer characters - how very true. I have characters that raced through the levels because I played them all the time, until they became involved in regular RP, when suddenly they seemed to stop doing missions altogether and spend all their time at GG or PD. Meanwhile, the ones I just can't get to break in to RP either don't get played or have started streaking through the levels because they actually do missions! 
Inspired not least by ShadowGhost's "toon for every possible dark/dark AT across CoH & CoV", I too have created different variations of the same character across multiple ATs, and am having top fun with some of them.
I have a powersuited hero, and he's in red & gold too. 
But his name is totally different, Olympiad Prime. I don't RP him that often, but his history isn't THAT different to Stark either.
He's a mega-rich industrialist and researcher; but unlike the Ironman armour, which was always a weapon; the Prime armour is actually an armoured suit designed for heavy construction in extreme environments such as space or deep sea, and has just been modified a little from its original design purpose. Hence the colour scheme too. Most construction equipment tends to be yellow, with some red at times. 
All the weapons are modified construction equipment; so a plamsa welder becomes a plasma cannon, and so forth.
As for why he altered the armour to become a hero. It's to do with attempts at industrial espionage from certain dodgy corporations in game.
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Thankfully all these guys have industrial backgrounds. My idea for a genius with a background in agriculture wasn't as successful: the Plant Control might work but there's no Secondary to replicate the stomach-churning effects of spraying slurry (although Trip Mines could become anti-personnel Cow Pats, with a little imagination). And the Character Creator falls woefully short when it comes to tractor-parts. Oh well, I'll save the mighty Muckspreader for another day...
Rich people with tech based powers is a fairly common idea! I wouldn't say you'd be ripping off Ironaman at all on that rather broad view. If it was just an exact history rip off with names changed, then i'd start having issues!
I find characters quickly gain lives of thier own once you start playing them anyway, least mine seem too!
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I find characters quickly gain lives of thier own once you start playing them anyway, least mine seem too!
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Absolutely true! Crimson Archer started as a homage to Green Arrow, with very little to differentiate them. Both were idly rich swashbucklers with a talent for archery and an arsenal of trick arrows... so far, so samey. But through in-character RP play Crimson developed his own background and personality, which ended up differing wildly from the hero which inspired his original character.
Don't worry to much at this stage about whether you'll end up creating a carbon copy of your inspirational hero. Create your armoured toon, get the power sets you want and go play. Let the character develop and grow as you play them. You might even find that they go in directions you never expected!
Formerly @Crimson Archer, now @CA
The Militia - Protecting Paragon City through roleplaying since June 2006!
I think it's safe to say everyone is running around with a character that isn't so very original on the surface; what makes it original is the way it's played and progresses. A mere background story can be quite misleading, and I find actually rping with a character is the only REAL way to tell what the character is like, regardless of whether or not people feel the need to pass judgment upon the character before they've even interacted with it. When I first created Loup he was a lot darker, and I took a considerable amount of hate from people who felt the need to "inform" me a reformed streetfighter was not worth playing, let alone interacting with. I just decided to get on with it regardless, and the character evolved in a rather new direction which I haven't seen in other, similar characters (the cocky, apathetic ex-street fighter character seems a dime a dozen these days).
There's so many ways it could go, really; I've toyed sometimes with the idea of creating a super-suit which the character had absolutely NO control over (akin to the Greatest American Hero), which of course is still something lifted from another concept, but it would be the playing out and the evolution which would make it interesting.
CoV entertains me namely BECAUSE of its rather over the top cliche types like one rather finds in comics (the rich-becomes-hero, the tragic-death-and-haunting-past hero, the secret-demi-god-sexbomb hero and so forth). The difference to me is ingame, you have potential to be a lot more indepth in a character personality if you should choose. The background in the end just sets the stage...the rp itself is what defines a character and that often has quite a few surprises in it.
Give it a play, and enjoy it! There's no copyright police around that I'm aware of.
I agree with most here. As long as you are not blantantly asking to feel the wrath of any legal teams for ether breaking EULA or just getting plain sued by Marvel, DC or whoever, its fair game.
Hell, you have used Ironman/Tony Stark as an example and here I am with Iron Works who's build I have openly admitted is an homage/rip-off of Ironman. I have always said though that the original reason was because I was marking out with the movie coming out (Seeing it tomorrow night! OOOOORRRRAAAAAH!). But I made the choice to make the toon's back story totally different. There is no man in a suit, its a cyborg who wants to protect the innocent because it still feels some attachment to the human race.
And to be honest I spend most of the time playing the toon with its 3rd cossie which is nothing like Ironman anyway. But I liked having it setup like Ironman (Its an Energy/Energy baster) as I find it fun to play as a fan of the Ironman story.
So I say if you want to play a toon that is heavily influenced on something you are a fan of, again as long as you are not clearly looking for trouble, go for it.
If anything else I find sometimes it is easier on the mind to play something you don't have to think about because you are just following what the original character did. Its great that so many of us can create and play a character that is original, but surely sometimes it better to spend a evening not taxing the brain for original ideas anf just relaxing the mind and enjoy the evening.
Credit goes to FrankyT49 for animated avatar
List of toons on Union Handbook
Leon Tasker: "Dunelm Group! What is your profession?"
Dunelm Group: "OOOOORRRAAAAH!"
If I thought about it too much, I'd have to delete most of my characters on the grounds of being a little too close to the plagiarism line: Arctic Princess is, for all intents and purposes, remarkably similar to Black Widow.
Powered armour is obviously something that's in the collective psyche - think Aliens, and that giant construction doo-hickey. Iron Man. Man-At-Arms (okay not technically, but it's still a derivative of the powered armour hero / villain. Heck, Black Scorpion uses it so I wouldn't worry too much.
I can never remember the quote in its entirety, or indeed its source, but apparently there are only 7 stories 'out there'. Everything in between those 7 just uses bits and pieces of each other.
And on the point of having several different archetypes of the same person - in comics themselves, how many times have different characters been able to do wondrous things from issue to issue? Heroes and Villains should, in my opinion, be able to do pretty much most things that they can put their mind to and it doesn't just mean a different set of armour for a different task, a la Iron Man: Many of the in-game powersets compliment each other when creating different versions:
My new bod, Glitz, is a Peacebringer (NOT a Kheldian, but the power animations etc fit), an Illusion Controller and a Willpower/Energy tank - her powers are all based on manipulation of Light energy and those particular ATs/Powersets fit with that concept.
Right, sorry for the delayed response. A mixture of illness and Call of Duty 4 frustration has left me in a bad mood. I'm stuck on one level where I have to kill a bunch of enemies locked up in several homes, BUT THEY RESPAWN FASTER THAN THEY CAN BE KILLED WHILE USING PERFECT VISION TO FIGHT BACK. GRAH BLARGH YOU STINKING CHEATING SONUVA BI-...well. I'm a little testy over it, given the game has been sublime so far.
Anyway.
It's reassuring to see these kind of responses. Seems I was worrying over nothing, heh. Just really a case of sitting down and trying to hammer something definite out - I have a feeling i12 will hit the Training Room beforehand though, completely distracting me in the process.
Inspiration, I think, becomes plagiarism as soon as someone calls it such and then reasonable, unbiased people agree.
Keep it original, keep it classy. That's all you need to do.
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BUT THEY RESPAWN FASTER THAN THEY CAN BE KILLED WHILE USING PERFECT VISION TO FIGHT BACK. GRAH BLARGH YOU STINKING CHEATING SONUVA BI-...well. I'm a little testy over it, given the game has been sublime so far.
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Press Alt+F4 to use the Smart Bomb! Then go to Control Panel > Add & Remove Programs to deliver the final bullet to your problems supple skull.
You might even thank me for it. Probably not...
Go, complete the **** out of it.
It takes Chaos to move the world to Action.
I started my armored one long before the movie.. And of course I had Iron Man in the back of my mind. But him being the largest name in armored heroes .. that would bbe only obvious.
Its a russian though... and the suit is a Cryo-emmitting armor. I think I use the Mark versions from Iron Man too. But the origin is different, the powersets (he is ice/energy, Iron Man would be energy/energy).
My Uebermensch too can be seen as a rippoff of Superman... but lets be honest. There are so many superheroes already made in comics. As soon as you use the same powersets and slightly the same costume... it can be seen as a rippoff.
Unless you are reshaping the costume of said hero, use a name like W0lVer1ne, and make the bio the same... everything goes.
- The Italian Job: The Godfather Returns #1151
Beginner - Encounter a renewed age for the Mook and the Family when Emile Marcone escapes from the Zig!
- Along Came a... Bug!? #528482
Average - A new race of aliens arrives on Earth. And Vanguard has you investigate them!
- The Court of the Blood Countess: The Rise of the Blood Countess #3805
Advanced - Go back in time and witness the birth of a vampire. Follow her to key moments in her life in order to stop her! A story of intrigue, drama and horror! Blood & Violence... not recommend to solo!
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Unless you are reshaping the costume of said hero, use a name like W0lVer1ne, and make the bio the same... everything goes.
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So... you're plagiarisating Liz Bahtory rather then using an inspiration? 
@ShadowGhost & @Ghostie
The Grav Mistress, Mistress of Gravity
If you have nothing useful to say, you have two choices: Say something useless or stay quiet.
hehehe.. and the character is copyrighted... Historical character s aren't copyrighted.
And from some .. like Dracula... the copyright is not valid anymore.
Also... if you base upon a real life historic figure. You can still be creative on what happened after history is done with it.
- The Italian Job: The Godfather Returns #1151
Beginner - Encounter a renewed age for the Mook and the Family when Emile Marcone escapes from the Zig!
- Along Came a... Bug!? #528482
Average - A new race of aliens arrives on Earth. And Vanguard has you investigate them!
- The Court of the Blood Countess: The Rise of the Blood Countess #3805
Advanced - Go back in time and witness the birth of a vampire. Follow her to key moments in her life in order to stop her! A story of intrigue, drama and horror! Blood & Violence... not recommend to solo!
You don't actually need to have something be copyrighted to be plagerising it. Just copying.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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hehehe.. and the character is copyrighted... Historical character s aren't copyrighted.
And from some .. like Dracula... the copyright is not valid anymore.
Also... if you base upon a real life historic figure. You can still be creative on what happened after history is done with it.
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What do legalities like copyright have to do with plagiarising? The thread is about where the line lies between originality and outright copying. There are many many characters in game that are direct copies of fictional or historical characters. That's not a problem as such, but it IS plagiarising, unoriginal, and unimaginative.
I have a character that is the same; my aforementioned Olympiad Prime. It's blatantly clear that he's an Ironman near clone, and I make no secret of that, why should I? Like I said, it's not a problem as such, but one should admit to the lack of originality, and even embrace it. He makes a nice change sometimes from playing my original main character, Tiger White.
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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hehehe.. and the character is copyrighted... Historical character s aren't copyrighted.
And from some .. like Dracula... the copyright is not valid anymore.
Also... if you base upon a real life historic figure. You can still be creative on what happened after history is done with it.
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What do legalities like copyright have to do with plagiarising? The thread is about where the line lies between originality and outright copying. There are many many characters in game that are direct copies of fictional or historical characters. That's not a problem as such, but it IS plagiarising, unoriginal, and unimaginative.
I have a character that is the same; my aforementioned Olympiad Prime. It's blatantly clear that he's an Ironman near clone, and I make no secret of that, why should I? Like I said, it's not a problem as such, but one should admit to the lack of originality, and even embrace it. He makes a nice change sometimes from playing my original main character, Tiger White.
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Agreed... sometimes I am attacked for having a unoriginal character once too many. It results in me getting in a defensive mode.
Thruth is... I like Elizabeth. She is cool to play or role play. I like history, legend and lore. She provides that outlet. And I have proven several times now that I am able to make good worked out original characters too. She was just my first.
This game is all about feeling like a hero or a villain. To have some way to escape in a game. And we should never attack anyone on it or need to defend oneself because of that. Unless stuborness or unimaginative use of that selfsame character makes roleplay with it impossible.
Only issue here is that of breaking official copyright. Anything else should be up to the player who chooses to play what he likes. If an unoriginal character is what you like to play... and it keeps you in the game... Then go for it!
- The Italian Job: The Godfather Returns #1151
Beginner - Encounter a renewed age for the Mook and the Family when Emile Marcone escapes from the Zig!
- Along Came a... Bug!? #528482
Average - A new race of aliens arrives on Earth. And Vanguard has you investigate them!
- The Court of the Blood Countess: The Rise of the Blood Countess #3805
Advanced - Go back in time and witness the birth of a vampire. Follow her to key moments in her life in order to stop her! A story of intrigue, drama and horror! Blood & Violence... not recommend to solo!
Ok, after reading this post fully and looking at every side possible, I say: Everything is possible, and happens after all it is not up to others to tell one person want character they should make/play in tis game.
I for one have nearly all of my characters which are made sololy by my own mind, with their own backstories, history, and such on.
As far as I know There is no other Characters or people, or film characters which are:
Drade: Grand-master Hunter, and Sealer from the Hunters guild.
Sha'dower: Inventor and Millionaire of his own company, also happends to be able to control Shadows, in essence a Living Shadow.
Battle-Master: An armour suit from the future, the A.I Unit who was sent back to help solve the problem (due to plot porblem will not be said). Has the researcher Andrew Vector inside of it, can became a armband computer device.
VGX-3 Enforcer: A Robotic Armor Suit, Ranged Support unit for heroes, built by G.R.A.T.A.R.U. Really reason for it's behaviour is unknown.
They are my present main characters, I have more but thats no the point of what I am saying here, now can any of you tell me if these are seen anywhere else apart from ingame or done otherwise by other players.
I made my main with a minor reference to the Invisible Woman, mostly just the force fields as I had no idea who she was or what she could do beyond a basic understanding.
Grav Mistress was born.
Now, it seems that she has a lot in common, concept wise, with Zatanna, of who I had never head before this was linked to me.
Grav even has a costume not unlike the one Zatanna has, and that was quite by accident!
(edit: in fact, if anyone feels like altering the comic/loadsofbunnies picture so that she has blond hair, light green skin and glasses, that'd be great )
@ShadowGhost & @Ghostie
The Grav Mistress, Mistress of Gravity
If you have nothing useful to say, you have two choices: Say something useless or stay quiet.
1 Bounty hunter?
2 The Shadow
3 A mixture of Iron man and others including Iron Lad
4 Vision?
Brawling Cactus from a distant planet.
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1 Bounty hunter?
2 The Shadow
3 A mixture of Iron man and others including Iron Lad
4 Vision?
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If you say it like that all heroes or villains we create will be findable in marvel or dc. They have thousands of heroes already.
- The Italian Job: The Godfather Returns #1151
Beginner - Encounter a renewed age for the Mook and the Family when Emile Marcone escapes from the Zig!
- Along Came a... Bug!? #528482
Average - A new race of aliens arrives on Earth. And Vanguard has you investigate them!
- The Court of the Blood Countess: The Rise of the Blood Countess #3805
Advanced - Go back in time and witness the birth of a vampire. Follow her to key moments in her life in order to stop her! A story of intrigue, drama and horror! Blood & Violence... not recommend to solo!
Hey-ho Chummers.
" to "[censored] Syra, you imagination deprived ninny, come up with your own ideas 
"? That, my friends, is where I struggle!
After talking with Zortel after seeing the Iron Man film after hoovering up info about Tony Stark after reading Wikipedia after playing the Punisher after reading through an old story of mine, I had a most cunning idea that would solve a problem I've been having. Namely, I keep getting torn between making an established Hero and using powersets I liked (Zortel mentioned "IC characters" and "roleplay characters", where one is played rarely but only ever IC, and only is largely IC but played more frequently...I think so anyway, as I've forgotten the details in my sleep-deprived state). As you can imagine this leads to a lot of frustration on my end as things just won't settle.
Enter Tony Stark.
He was the perfect point of reference for someone in my situation. An interesting main character? Check. Super powered? Check. Multiple suits to deal with various situations? Check. See how this lines up? By taking inspiration from him, I can still have the coherent, single-character plot line running but also legitimately spread across the archetypes without diluting my ideas or coming up with anything too convoluted. Unfortunately, this also brings its own complication.
Namely, at which point would such an idea cross over from "oh Syra, you sly old dog, I know where you're getting your ideas
I love Stark, I love the Iron Man suits, I love the whole ambience surrounding him. Just...I struggle trying to implement those ideas into roleplay and make them my own, rather than a second-rate knock-off of someone else's. Hopefully that makes sense.
I'm gonna go sleep now, but thanks in advance to anyone who responds! I'll make a more coherent post in the morning.