QUOTE (crizh @ Mar 31 2010, 04:19 PM)
![*](http://forums.dumpshock.com/style_images/greenmotiv/post_snapback.gif)
To give another example, that is more metaphor than model, it's pretty easy to condense something like War and Peace or LOTR into Readers Digest form.
The Book of Five Rings or a collection of Haiku? Not possible.
That. is a very well chosen and imaginative analogy. I am impressed.
Dr. Funkenstein: It's not about whether game mechanics are copywritable, they aren't so far as I'm aware. It's about the specific instances that are created with them. What
crizh is saying is something like the following two examples:
Rewrite a bit from Seattle 2072
Original: "Traveling to Seattle
Seattle is the largest non-contiguous part of the UCAS, so travel to
the metroplex can be more involved than visiting other parts of the
country, even for UCAS citizens. For citizens of other nations, visiting
Seattle is much like travel to the UCAS proper...
"
Re-written: "Seattle is the biggest part of UCAS that doesn't have a connection
to the rest of the country, so getting in and out of the place can get quite complicated,
even if you actually are a UCAS citizen.
For the rest it's no different to visiting the main part of UCAS..."
Took me a minute to do and the meaning's close enough.
Now try something mechanical:
Gear Package 1: Barret Sniper Rifle, APDS Ammo, Smartlink, folding stock,
Armour Jacket w. Helmet, integrated commlink (Response 4, Signal 5, System 4,
Firewall 4. - Cost: 18,000¥
Re-written:
Gear Package 1: Ares Desert Strike, APDS Ammo, Smart Link, Gas Vent II,
Armour Jacket, external commlink (Response 3, Signal 5, System 3, Firewall 3)
- Cost 16,000¥
See, to do the second job, I have to find different but similar things, do arithmetic calculate the new costs. It took longer to do the second example than it did the first and I didn't actually work anything out, I just opened Arsenal to find the name of a different sniper rifle, let alone start adding up costs. And to top it all, the result is actually something different to the original which I had to avoid just copying, whereas the fluff conveys the same information pretty much. Try doing this with cyber and bioware packages, or adept powers, etc., and skills and powers where you have to re-calculate karma and BP costs, etc. and it becomes worse.
So that's the issue. Re-doing the mechanical stuff actually is more time consuming than the fluff (though good fluff is no easier to write).
K.