God Does Not Own This World: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"...I have a territorial instinct that exhibits a kind of knee-jerk negative reaction to seeing other people controlling the destiny of my characters. (That's the main reason why ''Goliath Chronicles'' was so painful for me to watch.)"''|'''[[Greg Weisman]]''', creator of ''[[Gargoyles]]''}}

* There is a ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (film)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' [[The Remake|remake]] film under discussion, which is being planned without [[Word of God|Joss Whedon's input]]. None of the TV characters (except Buffy) will appear. Joss has actually refused to help with it. [[Alyson Hannigan]], [[Anthony Stewart Head]] and others from the show have all said that it's a bad idea and, in the case of Head, that he imagines it will be "quite like watching a car wreck."

* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' hasn't been owned by its original creators in well over thirty years, ever since Gary Gygax had control of TSR wrested from him in the mid-1980's. Strangely enough, despite being the [[Trope Codifier]] for the entire RPG concept, Gygax has had very little effect on advancing the game's canon since it was first created. He created the original [[Greyhawk]] setting, but was involved very little with it afterwards before eventually leaving the company because of massive [[Executive Meddling]]. Very few gamers would actively prefer Gygax's game mechanics to what is produced today, though there is a certain flavor in classic adventures like ''Temple of Elemental Evil'' and the ''Tomb of Horrors'' made during his tenure that make for fun throwbacks.

** Likewise, the ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' setting was originally created by Ed Greenwood and became known to public via series of articles in TSR's [[Dragon (magazine)|''Dragon'' magazine]] in the late 80's. TSR eventually bought the rights to the setting outright, publishing it in a comprehensive campaign boxed set. Since then, it had been a playground for authors like R.A. Salvatore to publish mostly original novels based in the setting's backdrop, almost turning it into an [[Expanded Universe]]. And then continuity editing decayed until it became nonexistent, while Jeff Grubb (the man who put together cohesive multiverse of AD&D1-2 era as we know it and helped to make FR a game setting) lost influence and eventually left. As for the FR, Greenwood continued to have some gradually decreasing input, or at least the right to complain, while TSR/Wizards/Hasbro ends up sitting on a ''huge'' pile of material it buried - during about two decades - behind NDA.

*** ...all the way until the release of 4th Edition, where the Spellplague and other interdimensional weirdness caused [[The End of the World as We Know It]] - [[Executive Meddling|against explicit objections]] of both Ed Greenwood ''and'' R.A. Salvatore (whose series, obviously, were one of main cash cows and promotional materials in FR). Essentially making [[In Name Only|effectively a new setting]] that tries to capitalize on the notoriety of Forgotten Realms and recycles some names from it (Ed Greenwood is good with names, which seems to be in short supply). It doesn't help that the setting itself looks like there was little effort put into it beyond tearing apart old FR: it has most distinctive features removed and introduced little material not obviously "borrowed" from elsewhere (like rebranded dragonmarks from ''[[Eberron]]'' or the whole totally-not-''[[Exalted]]''-ripoff jumble with "Primordials"). Naturally, [[Fanon Discontinuity|this wasn't received well]].

** ''[[Dragonlance]]'' is currently owned by [[Wizards of the Coast]], and not by Tracy Hickman, [[Margaret Weis]], or Jeff Grubb, all three of whom (Among many) who contributed greatly to the setting.