OK, as a general RPG discussion I'd like to bring up the topic of simply porting established things over to a home made universe you're creating.

A young relative of mine was watching "farscape" once and after seeing Dargo doing his thing he asked me if he was "this series' klingon."

Well, yes, Dargo was basically a klingon with head tentacles. Essentially a klingon with a new makeup job but still mostly a klingon.

It set up a thought in me that I still have: When making a game universe that's not a straight version of some published universe do you have any problem with simply taking a race, technology, weapon, etc. from an established universe and porting it over?

I mean, Daleks are cool and almost a cultural reference to england, and a lot of american SF fans. So if you want thim in your game but do not want to run a dr. who game do you make up daleks with a different name and appearance KOFF mechanoids KOFF or do you just say "You see a dalek."

If/when the players ask "What? Are we playing dr. who now?!" you simply say that a lot of SF universes have humans, well, this one isn't dr. who but daleks were created in it nonetheless, and they're a lot like they ones from the show.

Really, you can do a paintjob on a dalek, rename it and file the serial numbers off, but your players are going to know what you're using, so since you won't get sued by the BBC for the game you're running at home why not just use daleks?

Anyone else just skip the process of renaming something and using it like the original, and having your players know it, and just use the original name and look? I know a lot of GMs don't, I'm wondering how many do.

If I'm having "Klingons" in my Star Wars game, I certainly will not be calling them Klingons, unless I were going for some sort of a cross-universe experience. I believe certain established races, technologies or whatever will associate too heavily with the original source.

However, if I change the name of the race and a bit of how they look, but otherwise keep the essentials the same, their similarity to Klingons is an obvious advantage.

Well, certanly greater minds than us made a lot of monsters/races, so no shame in using their creatures. Hell, almost every fantasy uses orcs and it's okay. But I wouldnt ruin the feeling of a good universe with saying that "A Predator just popped out of nowhere and starts hitting you".

And you have to change a few things if we are speaking of monsters. In my fantasy campaign the party killed a vampire, and took one tooth as a trophie. Made silver socket for it, thinking it will keep her from resurrection... fools

The most I've ever done is to import the occasional character or critter with the serial numbers filed off. I don't do it often, because it doesn't feel like it really fits. My players haven't minded (the few times they've noticed), but I know and it feels like a bit of a cheat, somehow...