Maybe we just use shorthand of media people are familiar with to gain their attention and simplify things? Because let me tell you how fucking hard pitching some of my games is.

Like, we do this with all media. Movies inspired by reality. Video games inspired by sports. Etc and so on.

To my knowledge it has always been this way (bc early D&D is like, baby’s first Lord of the Rings RPG) but we don’t always name the media because of copyright and so on. We are inspired by other media, and many people want to give credit while also benefitting from it.

How it’s included, how it’s phrased, and how it genuinely relates to the game seriously matters though.