Dragon Nexus Games's page

I can't speak for Paizo, themselves but from a third-party dev perspective, I'm sure we can possibly gain some more worlds. A project I am working on for this would open doors for increased possibilities. Granted it may be officially, unofficial, but something fun.

If Paizo sticks to mostly keeping PF and SF separate except for occasionally borrowing creatures or items from one game to the other. That leaves a middle ground for heavily mixed PF/SF products for third-party creators that wouldn't be directly competing against Paizo's core games. Thats where the next golden age for third party content could be.

PF and SF are canon wise, chronologically separate. They are separate. What appears to be a goal is the rules mechanics being compatible. Certainly, there be rules unique to the SF 2e setting but built on the PF 2e-remastered rule system framework.

That can be a good thing. There would certainly be rules that will inherently apply to things in SF setting that is not necessarily in or exist in PF in the chronology of the canon... pre-Gap (Age of Lost Omen) and post-Gap era.

I've removed a few posts that were direct personal attacks. Please don't call each other names, assign motivations to, or otherwise behave badly. Be awesome to one another.

This is not the thread to talk about any upcoming projects. Please make a new thread (or homebrew for SF1) to discuss those topics and how you plan to handle intellectual property concerns.

-Jim

*thumbs up*

Speaking to the obvious:

Conventions are in part about an event to gather customers together and sellers to sell products. It is in part a bazaar. It's all about money because game conventions costs money and its not just tickets but sales that helps fund the operations as sellers gives a percentage of sales to the convention operations as vendors. Much as happens with weekend "farmer's market" and other like events.

To be clear, it is not without doubt that these conventions are not solely about selling stuff. It is still an essential part of "making bank" with these conventions. Kind of gives Vendors/Sellers/Publishers an incentive to be at attendance at such conventions.

That’s unnecessary, you don’t need Paizo to personally sign off on Third Party stuff, that’s what ORC and Infinite are for.

The PF/SF Infinite program may be more preferable from a variety of legal reasons but there may be a reason in my project for PF/SF Compatibility license. It might come to matters pertaining to "new settings".

Generally, more or less... only the Paizo published stuff are official canon of PF/SF. As for story writing to jive with well with official canon would be entirely my responsibility. I would know the official canon changes or amendments eventually as anyone else would be. You are on to something there. Thank you.

That’s unnecessary, you don’t need Paizo to personally sign off on Third Party stuff, that’s what ORC and Infinite are for.

That's true. Before going deeper discussion regarding this, maybe we can PM and then at some point it would go in the third-party "forum " part instead of this topic thread.

*nods nods*

BTW: The books for TTRPG "project" I am working on, there is approximately, between 5 to 10 "core" books to supplement PF2e-Remastered, and SF2e. Exact number will depend.

Letting you know. To get official designation of PF/SF Compatible (assuming the rules remain essentially the same, fundamentally but I would assume that will be updated with the ORC stuff), there are licensing rules to follow, if I recall correctly so it would require use of PF/SF Rulebooks.

Dragon Nexus Games wrote:

Rysky, I know what NFTs are. I'll probably going to rename the corporation name.

Okies, I apologize for the confusion on my part there then.

No problem. A plan to rename the business name is part of why I'm not immediately in a rush to spend $350 to $400 or so on that and other associated costs.

Rysky, I know what NFTs are. I'll probably going to rename the corporation name.

Dragon Nexus Games wrote:

Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:

Dragon Nexus Games wrote:

Maybe, I'll worry about the little state reinstatement/renewal stuff when I get to it.

Wait, your company doesn’t even legally exist due to a major screwup on your “company’s” side of things, so all of the above posts trying to solicit stuff fall under misrepresentation don’t they?

Technically, it's just inactive but reinstatable to active status. Doesn't stop contractual matters. Since the company is for all intents me, anyway... I'm alive and exist. However, Dragon Nexus Games is an ABN of Cyber City - The Online Virtual City, Inc. Which is really a single shareholder corporation. All IP rests with me.

… dood, you’re defunct. And deal in NFTs.

What NFTs??? That's not my business that you looked at. The project I am working on isn't going to be called Cyber City. It is something else. The corporate name may be renamed in the future after reinstatement and update name profile.

"Contact the Marketing Team to see if you can establish a professional connection. Publish third-party products on Pathfinder/Starfinder Infinite. Anything other than wasting your time doing... this, I guess?"

Okay... fair enough. I'll contact them, but it will likely be closer to 2024.

I already plan to publish on SF Infinite, PF Infinite, drivethru RPG, etc. for the books/pdf. Video games and crpg is a different matter. I already know about doing that. I just want to be sure there is no particular surprise in story canon and all with SF2e.

What does that have to do with how you are conducting yourself now?

People harassing me because of wanting a general maybe informal overview of their plans regarding story setting canon, and involve some sort of confidentiality agreement such as some form of NDA so we agree not to disclose what we disclose to each other confidentially to legally protect ourselves. Going in circles over what is moot.

First, it's moot. No particular need to do that, now.

Second, it is premature to discuss licensing and marketing with the licensing and marketing staff at this time.

You’re not doing a very good job of talking to these individuals here. Not inspiring a lot of confidence.

At earliest, I am looking at about 2024/2025 regarding that. There's about a year or two worth of work to do, at least. Don't you think that would be a tad early to get into any licensing agreement or marketing people at Paizo? Maybe in spring 2024.

I just don't want to be bugging the marketing and Licensing guys until 2024. I would want to have a presentation level draft at near final draft level not the mountain of notes and rough drafts.

Dragon Nexus Games wrote:

Maybe, I'll worry about the little state reinstatement/renewal stuff when I get to it.

Wait, your company doesn’t even legally exist due to a major screwup on your “company’s” side of things, so all of the above posts trying to solicit stuff fall under misrepresentation don’t they?

Technically, it's just inactive but reinstatable to active status. Doesn't stop contractual matters. Since the company is for all intents me, anyway... I'm alive and exist. However, Dragon Nexus Games is an ABN of Cyber City - The Online Virtual City, Inc. Which is really a single shareholder corporation. All IP rests with me.

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Dragon Nexus Games wrote:

Ezekieru wrote:

I think it needs to be emphasized: You're not going to achieve any substantial amount of networking and professional work just by posting on the Paizo forums. Contacting the Marketing team via their email on the Contact page would be a much better start. And doing so with previously published third party products for Pathfinder and Starfinder would do wonders more in helping you get your foot in the door than sending a reply to Thurston offering to sign an vague NDA.

At least you didn't suggest customer representatives. Of course, I rather be talking to actual decision makers than going around in circles between people whose job is to be a communication barrier.

Someone with a title like Managing Creative Director sounds like someone with an important leadership role.

PS: Companies are not going to want to discuss things that they have not registered for copyrights protection with someone without an NDA at the very least like all unpublished WIP stuff.

Since Thurston has indicated drows aren't going away, the NDA would be moot.

The "actual decision makers" still have to go through their Hiring Managers in order to get the paperwork ready to work with freelancers or with in-company developers. Or with the Marketing Team in order to set up work contracts with their official partners. Trying to circumvent that because you don't like those departments' people doesn't show professionalism.

Thuston's job is to manage his team on the Starfinder side, and help creatively direct the game. It's not to deal with random people soliciting job opportunities, especially on the forums meant primarily for fan engagement. That's why Thurston would be talking with their HR department or the Marketing department to hire or work with people.

So, again, it might help your chances if you stopped and simply go through the proper channels. Look for hiring opportunities by Paizo through their regular communication channels. Contact the...

Since I am still writing up the stuff, there is no reason to get into licensing agreements. I have to be within 6 months or so to launching my project for sales or pre-orders. What job opportunities was I soliciting? It's not like I am requesting employment with Paizo. It is about working with nor working for, as an independent third-party developer working on an otherwise large independent project which I would want to not canonically contradict SF2e setting, either. It is so the story base jive or plausible canonically. So, it's a matter of coordination. As for licensing, I have no plans to start licensing until closer to release date for any publications when it is at a presentable fashion.

It isn't that I wouldn't be at some point talking with those individuals.

Dragon Nexus Games wrote:

Generally, I feel that most people, when seeking actual, real legal advice are probably advised to listen to actual, real lawyers and not people whose companies have gone into administrative dissolution just to throw out a random entirely unrelated example, maybe that's just me though.

Since you bothered to look up things in a state database, you do know there is this little thing called "Reinstatement" fees. Know how to deal with that. It really doesn't stop me from operating. However, since I'm busy with doing literally everything from the creative writing and content for TTRPG and the programming for a Computerized RPG game based on it all, the artwork, 2d work and 3d models, and music/audio and basically the workload of a dozens of fulltime employees and pay for every single cent without even one peso from any venture capitalist as I am not using any of those leeches. Maybe, I'll worry about the little state reinstatement/renewal stuff when I get to it.

Dragon Nexus Games wrote:

13th century mythology is public domain like the Bible is. You don't need to be a lawyer. The description of drows used by TSR / WotC is public domain. D&D's drow is essentially, the Dökkálfar as written and described in Prose Edda.

So I'm confused, do you think Paizos lawyers are just bad at their job then? Because you, not a lawyer, are saying with absolute certainty the opposite of what Paizo has been advised. Generally, I feel that most people, when seeking actual, real legal advice are probably advised to listen to actual, real lawyers and not people whose companies have gone into administrative dissolution just to throw out a random entirely unrelated example, maybe that's just me though.

Never said or imply that. Are you an attorney? Are you one of Paizo's attorney. If not: What do you know what they advised them? Have you actually read their written advice? As it would be part of professional standard of care to put such advice in written form.

Little side bar note: There is no such thing as absolute original work. You can cite thousands of sources of inspiration and essentially Remix from the various sources of inspiration to make a copyrightable work.

If you are an attorney, it doesn't bode well that you are arguing this, still... considering Thurston Hillman already said that drows aren't going away. You know, the person in the leadership team of the Starfinder projects at Paizo.

I'm not saying that I am smarter than all attorneys but I can probably name a few that I am more likely competent at practice of law and the understanding of laws than they are just on the basis of reading comprehension skill which is an important foundational skill for the practice of law. However, we really don't need to comment about those particular lawyers.

Richard Lowe wrote:

Dragon Nexus Games wrote:

13th century mythology is public domain like the Bible is. You don't need to be a lawyer. The description of drows used by TSR / WotC is public domain. D&D's drow is essentially, the Dökkálfar as written and described in Prose Edda.

So I'm confused, do you think Paizos lawyers are just bad at their job then? Because you, not a lawyer, are saying with absolute certainty the oppositeof what Paizo has been advised. Generally, I feel that most people, when seeking actual, real legal advice are probably advised to listen to actual, real lawyers and not people whose companies have gone into administrative dissolution just to throw out a random entirely unrelated example, maybe that's just me though.

Having read the Eddas, I don't recall the Dökkálfar as being clad in leather, ruled by matriarchs, devoted to evil powers, and being utterly immoral and evil. (The physical appearance is something that you cannot copyright, as have seen with Dark Elves in other companies. Anything resembling what WoTC did.... that is another story.) WoTC took time to craft something off of a concept in the Eddas and Paizo will create something different with the inhabitants of Apostae. Perhaps one day, some will make their way to Golarion in another era.

However, keeping anything far from WotC's intellectual property is a good idea. Even if Paizo or another company did something that WotC could claim as a copyright infringement, the threat of a lawsuit is nothing anyone wants. (Indeed, some companies can file suits to bankrupt their competitors who have fewer resources. As the inhabitants of Apostae might say, money is power and might makes right.)

Even copyright laws don't protect general themes like leather armor. In a world where armor would be worn, you'd expect them to wear armor. Matriarch lead society wouldn't necessarily by copyright protect. It is more of the nuance details. If there is enough differences to distinguish one from another. At one time, you might need 50% difference. Today, with as much volume of copyrights, you only need maybe 10-20% overall differences. It isn't mathematical. You just have to cite the differences enough to distinguish between WotC's drows and Paizo. Not talking about looks. I'm talking about Canon and story base with Golarion and then Apostae. You put the story together, you got something different behind and about the drows or dark elves of Pathfinder/Starfinder than D&D.

Technically, I got the info I needed from Thurston. The exact details we don't need to go into anyway. The drows aren't being removed. Maybe renamed if necessary but not going away. So if they aren't extinct then it won't be an issue for what I am working on in the details. Going over canon details from the PF and SF core books and all... so things will playout just fine.

Ezekieru wrote:

And doing so with previously published third party products for Pathfinder and Starfinder would do wonders more in helping you get your foot in the door than sending a reply to Thurston offering to sign an vague NDA.

Also, if I can offer some unsolicited advice: Asking for an NDA like that screams "I'm an amateur". It does not present the level of professionalism you are looking for.

Novice writers are forever worried about people "stealing their ideas". Experienced writers know that ideas literally aren't worth the paper they are written on; only execution has value. No one is going to steal your ideas, no one wants to steal your ideas, and publicly worrying about your ideas being stolen really just marks you as inexperienced.

People steal ideas every day, literally. If they take your unpublished work and register it before you, your screwed even if you may have wrote it unless you are deep pocket person or corporation. It happens every single day. You'll have to spend well over $10,000, easily over $100,000 in lawyers and court fees with just a maybe you might win but could still lose.

Yes, I have a number of stuff on this project I'm working on that is not published yet and not registered because its not finished and complete. I'm sure they have reasonable concern for keeping wraps stuff that is WIP.

I think it needs to be emphasized: You're not going to achieve any substantial amount of networking and professional work just by posting on the Paizo forums. Contacting the Marketing team via their email on the Contact page would be a much better start. And doing so with previously published third party products for Pathfinder and Starfinder would do wonders more in helping you get your foot in the door than sending a reply to Thurston offering to sign an vague NDA.

At least you didn't suggest customer representatives. Of course, I rather be talking to actual decision makers than going around in circles between people whose job is to be a communication barrier.

Someone with a title like Managing Creative Director sounds like someone with an important leadership role.

PS: Companies are not going to want to discuss things that they have not registered for copyrights protection with someone without an NDA at the very least like all unpublished WIP stuff.

Since Thurston has indicated drows aren't going away, the NDA would be moot.

Rhunny wrote:

Starfinder, as its own separate game is seemingly going to end in 2025.

Not trying to exagerate or be extremist about it. It's just fairly evident whatever SF2 will end up being, it's not a fully realised system but an add on for PF2.

Starfinder will have its own core rulebook that will let you play the entire system on its own.

Basically, they will be incorporating the rules mechanics from PF2-remastered core books and into the SF2E core books with updating of the rule and specs for the various races and new tech and stuff that is in SF that is not in PF but done in a manner compatible with the PF2-remastered rule mechanics which would be substantively compatible with PF2E with the erratas and possibly some corrections and fixes.

However, the content in the new SF2E books would be complete sufficiently that you would not need the PF books to play it. It may be still nice to have the PF books for your campaigns if you have some sort of game campaign, involving say some kind of time travel where, say a party from SF time frame was sent back in time to PF era and before the Gap and then you are dealing with characters and monsters using magic and weapons of PF era that might not be still practiced or used in SF era. Can't expect every weapon and tool of PF era to be incorporated in the SF2E books but can use the PF books with additional stuff from PF era supplementing your game. Same thing as potentially bringing a character from PF era to SF era. The PF stuff (PF2E/PF2-remaster) would supplement optionally for any particular campaign that you the GM decides to come up with.

Richard Lowe wrote:

Are you a lawyer? And is this legal advice you're offering to Paizo, that you're willing to back up with fully researched documentation and argument in court?

13th century mythology is public domain like the Bible is. You don't need to be a lawyer. The description of drows used by TSR / WotC is public domain. D&D's drow is essentially, the Dökkálfar as written and described in Prose Edda.

Something to start with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%B6kk%C3%A1lfar_and_Lj%C3%B3s%C3%A1lfar

Only the actual pictorial illustrations used by TSR-->WotC and the word "Drow", individual characters, and unique story canon used by TSR/WotC is protected intellectual property and their written publications as body of creative work as a whole excluding anything already public domain or otherwise not protectable under the intellectual property rights laws.

Unlike some, I actually have read the U.S. copyright laws and know about copyrights. It is not my first rodeo with copyrights.

PS: I'm not suggesting as legal advice. They have their lawyers and you don't need to be a lawyer to know creative works, that would be intellectual property under modern laws, from the 13th century is definitely public domain. Intellectual property rights laws do not protect works that old. Why do you think so much work involving Thor and Odin and core mythology can and is so easily used by all sorts of authors. They don't have to pay Disney for having a Go character named Thor. Only if you use Marvel's or Disney's depiction of Thor and their unique story elements.

The only snafu in intellectual property laws for say "Dökkálfar" would be a trademark for a company name/logo or a product brand logo but only then only protects the use as a trademark logo of a company or product brand but it doesn't cover the same rights being protected as is covered by patents or copyrights. Each serve a different purpose and different scope of protection.

Trademarks protects company logos, corporate branding, and product/service branding / logos for a particular product or product line or services. Trademarks for Services more commonly called service marks. There is limits in the protection and scope of the protections for each of the three general categorical types of IP laws.

Are you a lawyer? And is this legal advice you're offering to Paizo, that you're willing to back up with fully researched documentation and argument in court?

13th century mythology is public domain like the Bible is. You don't need to be a lawyer. The description of drows used by TSR / WotC is public domain. D&D's drow is essentially, the Dökkálfar as written and described in Prose Edda.

Something to start with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%B6kk%C3%A1lfar_and_Lj%C3%B3s%C3%A1lfar

Only the actual pictorial illustrations used by TSR-->WotC and the word "Drow", individual characters, and unique story canon used by TSR/WotC is protected intellectual property and their written publications as body of creative work as a whole excluding anything already public domain or otherwise not protectable under the intellectual property rights laws.

Unlike some, I actually have read the U.S. copyright laws and know about copyrights. It is not my first rodeo with copyrights.

PS: I'm not suggesting as legal advice. They have their lawyers and you don't need to be a lawyer to know creative works, that would be intellectual property under modern laws, from the 13th century is definitely public domain. Intellectual property rights laws do not protect works that old. Why do you think so much work involving Thor and Odin and core mythology can and is so easily used by all sorts of authors. They don't have to pay Disney for having a Go character named Thor. Only if you use Marvel's or Disney's depiction of Thor and their unique story elements.

Doodledibob wrote:

As it stands, I have little faith in Paizo's commitment to existing lore and the previous stories that were told in the setting.

I'm sorry you feel that way.

As someone who has been with Starfinder from the beginning, I assure you that we're committed to our lore and setting. We're not deleting drow, we're making legally necessary changes that will better improve the setting. Also, spoiler, Apostae isn't going anywhere. We have plans.

With: We're not deleting drow, we're making legally necessary changes that will better improve the setting.

That makes me feel better. As I develop plans with the "drows" and say... the Dökkálfar variant in my project... we'll have the opening in canon for this.

Doodledibob wrote:

As it stands, I have little faith in Paizo's commitment to existing lore and the previous stories that were told in the setting.

I'm sorry you feel that way.

As someone who has been with Starfinder from the beginning, I assure you that we're committed to our lore and setting. We're not deleting drow, we're making legally necessary changes that will better improve the setting. Also, spoiler, Apostae isn't going anywhere. We have plans.

I'll be happy to talk with you about it and sign an NDA if need be from a professional standpoint of responsible use of confidentiality as this is worked out. I'll be able to talk in more detail about my project as well.

Dragon Nexus Games wrote:

TOZ wrote:

Yeah, but they don't want to do that.

Maybe but they could decide to...

No amount of hopeful ideas is going to make someone do something they just don't want to do.

By all means, make your own content on it. But Paizo just isn't interested in pursuing that.

They can certainly use a few sentences or such way of writing to hint there may be survivors and those that may exists on other worlds. Like, even something simple like "The dark elves are extinct, or are they." Then leave it there. Just leave enough for third-parties. Without that "or are they" literary device to put into question whether or not they are extinct, it becomes an absolute. Third-party content publishers will generally not want to jive or contradict Paizo canon. I know Paizo is reading the forum. I'm sure they are.

I'm placing it here for them to look at. How hard is it really to make 1 hour (or less) of text edits of the specific pages where drows are relabeled dark elves (Apostae) and relabel the language as "Dökk álfur". Ultimately, removing any use of the term "drow" and replace with dark elf/elves. We know.... dark elf basically equals drow. Dark Elf is just English translation for Dökkálfar (Norse/Icelandic). Here we can just call them dark elves and a very particular heritage (which I'll work on introducing under ORC), as Dökkálfar with a even darker skin tone and maybe a few things I may come up with.

Point: Mainly, I just need them to leave enough opening literary-wise so that it is not going to be an issue with setting canon. It doesn't really change their setting ideas, either... if they just craftfully wordsmith it so there can be third-party content on it that won't be breaking the setting's canon either. In other words, all they need to do is leave a small opening in their wordage.

Yeah, but they don't want to do that.

Maybe but they could decide to craft it enough so there is flexibility. I'm already going to work on an implementation of dark elves (maybe a little different or variant species of dark elves with slight differences in look (but fit closer to the public domain canon of icelandic/norse mythology yet are in the human height scale) but related to the very dark elves of Apostae which may have always existed on other worlds than just Golarion/Apostae. So maybe they aren't and won't be completely gone and as a third-party publisher, I just might make that work.

So we may have our dark elves after all regardless if they destroy Apostae.

keftiu wrote:

Paizo has been very clear about not wanting “basically Drow” going forward.

I'm making the point for Paizo to look at. Why completely getting rid of the "drow". So what about WotC and OGL. We just rename them like I said and there would be effectively nothing they can really say or do about the matter.

You can still have the race just like there are goblins. In a spacefaring era as well as magic, there's an unlikely basis where all of a race that are now existent on multiple worlds and space ships, that even if their main world they are on on the SF main universe were to disappear or destroyed, would be extinct. They may be endangered but like Vulcans in the alternate reality Star Trek films (Abramverse), Vulcans are still around even though less of them.

Likewise, you can still have the race. Just they would be a more rare sight. We may simply call them "Dökkálfar" or dark elves in the core rulebook going forward. They can do a world shattering event as they said without destroying the race entirely and we just relabel them in the book and you'll basically get around the "drow" problem which may be a protected term of WotC.

We also have other planes and dimensions (and other worlds perhaps beyond the Galaxy of the Material Plane) as indicated in PF and SF. This is where a project I am working on would intersect with SF. Potentially factions of various races of PF/SF may exist or live in these other dimensions including elves (collectively referred to as Ljósálfar or light elves, although they may have subspecies or heritages like woodland elves) and the dark elves "Dökkálfar" (drows). Hint Hint Paizo.

Keep enough flexibility for the possibility without writing yourselves in a box that you can't get out of in the core canon story of the setting.

An option may be, the standard "drows" or dark elves we may call them the Golarion-Apostae Dark Elves. Golarion as noted in Pathfinder is not the original homeworld of Elves (and dark elves alike). When Golarion, well, sometime before the Gap, its apparent people of the varied races had started habitating other worlds as in the Pact Worlds for example.

Paizo has been very clear about not wanting “basically Drow” going forward.

I'm making the point for Paizo to look at. Why completely getting rid of the "drow". So what about WotC and OGL. We just rename them like I said and there would be effectively nothing they can really say or do about the matter.

You can still have the race just like there are goblins. In a spacefaring era as well as magic, there's an unlikely basis where all of a race that are now existent on multiple worlds and space ships, that even if their main world they are on on the SF main universe were to disappear or destroyed, would be extinct. They may be endangered but like Vulcans in the alternate reality Star Trek films (Abramverse), Vulcans are still around even though less of them.

Likewise, you can still have the race. Just they would be a more rare sight. We may simply call them "Dökkálfar" or dark elves in the core rulebook going forward. They can do a world shattering event as they said without destroying the race entirely and we just relabel them in the book and you'll basically get around the "drow" problem which may be a protected term of WotC.

We also have other planes and dimensions (and other worlds perhaps beyond the Galaxy of the Material Plane) as indicated in PF and SF. This is where a project I am working on would intersect with SF. Potentially factions of various races of PF/SF may exist or live in these other dimensions including elves (collectively referred to as Ljósálfar or light elves, although they may have subspecies or heritages like woodland elves) and the dark elves "Dökkálfar" (drows). Hint Hint Paizo.

Keep enough flexibility for the possibility without writing yourselves in a box that you can't get out of in the core canon story of the setting.

Dragon Nexus Games wrote:

Karmagator wrote:

Alynia wrote:

Does this mean we will also lose the Apostae-Setting or have it replaced with Snek-People also? I really would be sad, because "evil weapontrader-mercenery-elves in space" were cool. In my opinion way cooler than the same trope with Lizard- or Snakepeople could be.

The drow part will probably have to go no matter what, because of OGL reasons. Paizo weren't happy about this in PF either, but they don't really have a choice.

We can work around that. Dark Elves or Black Elves also known as svartálfar (Norse mythology [Edit: and Icelandic]) or Dökkálfar. Even Gary didn't invent the concept of drow entirely. Only the particular narrative and story which we wouldn't even need to use in PF/SF canon.

We can borrow from the canon of Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson and take it from there. That's what Gary did. This is public domain mythology story that we can draw from.

I'll help with that so we need can work around using any terms coined by D&D and use this public domain canon to tie it into PF/SF story canon and just have to check the existing canon over. So we won't have major canon breaking issue and of course our mechanics. Update our illustrations as needed.

Dökkálfar literally translates to Dark Elf (Elves). The Norse/Icelandic counterpart Ljósálfar (which directly translate to Light elf referencing their dark and light skin and such. ) I plan to incorporate these dark elves in my project so we may still have dark elves even if we just don't call them drow and avoid some OGL issues with WotC.

If there is a problem with "Drow", we can relabel it to "Dökkálfar" and keep them in the SF 2nd Edition world. The Dökkálfar would have the common translation "Dark Elves" and we can call the language "Dökk álfur" which would directly translate to "Dark Elven" as Elven being a language family and "Dökk álfur" being a specific tongue of that language.

For the rest of us... that basically means 'drow' but a public domain way to just get around WotC if there were to be any issue. Providing a way around WotC for Paizo not depending on OGL stuff and something under ORC.

Karmagator wrote:

Alynia wrote:

Does this mean we will also lose the Apostae-Setting or have it replaced with Snek-People also? I really would be sad, because "evil weapontrader-mercenery-elves in space" were cool. In my opinion way cooler than the same trope with Lizard- or Snakepeople could be.

The drow part will probably have to go no matter what, because of OGL reasons. Paizo weren't happy about this in PF either, but they don't really have a choice.

We can work around that. Dark Elves or Black Elves or Dökkálfar perhaps loosely related to svartálfar (or not). Even Gary didn't invent the concept of drow entirely. Only the particular narrative and story which we wouldn't even need to use in PF/SF canon.

We can borrow from the canon of Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson and take it from there. That's what Gary did. This is public domain mythology story that we can draw from.

I'll help with that so we need can work around using any terms coined by D&D and use this public domain canon to tie it into PF/SF story canon and just have to check the existing canon over. So we won't have major canon breaking issue and of course our mechanics. Update our illustrations as needed.

Dökkálfar literally translates to Dark Elf (Elves). The Norse counterpart Ljósálfar (which directly translate to Light elf referencing their dark and light skin and such. ) I plan to incorporate these dark elves in my project so we may still have dark elves even if we just don't call them drow and avoid some OGL issues with WotC.

Alynia wrote:

Does this mean we will also lose the Apostae-Setting or have it replaced with Snek-People also? I really would be sad, because "evil weapontrader-mercenery-elves in space" were cool. In my opinion way cooler than the same trope with Lizard- or Snakepeople could be.

The drow part will probably have to go no matter what, because of OGL reasons. Paizo weren't happy about this in PF either, but they don't really have a choice.

We can work around that. Dark Elves or Black Elves also known as svartálfar (Norse mythology) or Dökkálfar. Even Gary didn't invent the concept of drow entirely. Only the particular narrative and story which we wouldn't even need to use in PF/SF canon.

We can borrow from the canon of Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson and take it from there. That's what Gary did. This is public domain mythology story that we can draw from.

I'll help with that so we need can work around using any terms coined by D&D and use this public domain canon to tie it into PF/SF story canon and just have to check the existing canon over. So we won't have major canon breaking issue and of course our mechanics. Update our illustrations as needed.

Heh, I wonder if the Grimmerspace dudes have even started writing their thing, or are they behind far enough to switch to SF2 ;)

I'd recommend a writing with two rule sets in mind for people working in SF original edition and 2nd edition. Just have to have flexibility for end customers.

I look forward to Starfinder 2nd Ed. I will want to incorporate that in mind with regards to a project I am working on. It would be part of the plan.

Paizo, I'll be happy to discuss story base of a project I am working on and will forward to the story context and details so that there is no problem in story canon. So the story of my project and the starfinder story can "play together". I have ideas but dialogue with Paizo will be great to have.

I look forward to Starfinder 2nd Ed. I will want to incorporate that in mind with regards to a project I am working on. It would be part of the plan.

Part of the challenge is license terms do in fact have to have a certain level and use of legal terms and such in order to be legally enforceable when it come to intellectual property laws and there is a lot of legal world issues arose throughout international laws that have to meet standards in the EU, the U.S. and many other countries. IP licensing like most licensing agreements are suppose to be written for lawyers as LEGAL DOCUMENTS. Supplementing a lay man's level commentary can supplement the license itself but they are suppose to be written by lawyers, used in courts for legal actions or defense from legal actions whenever there is legal disputes.

Licensing agreements are legal documents and the principle users of the documents are the lawyers whose job it is to provide legal advice. However, a commentary about the intent and explanation of the terms should be produced which in essence is the role of AxE but a line by line commentary may be appropriate. License agreements is itself a contract "law" between parties in the contractual relationship which in this case means anyone entering and agreeing to the terms. The commentary would not be the legal binding document but a support aid to help understand the terms.

When I prepare contracts where I might get a bit 'legalese', I may incorporate commentary that are not in themselves legally binding but to aid in understanding the terms and even the intent. They can play a role in court disputes to understand the intent so it can be useful or not useful to either party of a legal dispute but it's there to help communicate intent that might not always be possible to be clear in the legal parlance of the agreement. Commentary explanations are useful to non-lawyers to process the intent and meaning of terms of an agreement.

Numerous countries are notorious for an affinity of long comprehensively expressed, often very verbose legal documents such as contracts, license agreements, etc. If it isn't precisely and explicitly spelled out, it isn't in the agreement. Short cuts like "etc." might not be accepted or enforced. These short cuts might be acceptable in U.S. but not in some countries. When OGL was written, they were probably not so up on international law issues but were familiar with U.S. but the experience then gained in the 20+ years may have expanded their understanding of the complex matters of laws and courts of the many nations throughout the world.

the license has to hold up in the courts throughout the world.

Coridan wrote:

As to Pastafarian, because they purport themselves to be a religious faith I do not believe they can claim copyrights.

Tell that to Scientology!

There is nothing about being a religious organization that puts your creative works in the public domain*.

I think you're confusing "religion" with "government"**. In general, government entities can't claim copyright over their publications/images, etc. Mostly. There are exceptions, even for government publications.

*Although Pastafarians have a LOT of propoganda materials you can freely reproduce.

**Easy to do these days.

Yes, religious things can be copyrighted. However, a lot of religious things would be public domain because its so old and any copyright on them if they were copyrighted would have expired. These 20th/21st century religious cults and organizations may copyright their authored work if there is any copyrightable content. The Christian Bible is not really copyrightable just by making yet another "translation" and such given the basic words and meaning doesn't change.

Dragon Nexus Games wrote:

taking the latin word for octopus

that would be 'octopus'

Maybe derive from scientific name which is often derived from latin.

Which the latter is one I am thinking of using.

Of course as an alien race that could be fun for use in say, Starfinder in the future.

Dragon Nexus Games wrote:

Steve Geddes wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

The original meaning of Intelligence in AI, before romanticism grabbed the words, is not INT. It is the I in CIA.

Thats a fascinating thought.

Thanks!

Yes but its more a coincidence of timing and easy fruits of AI academia to find a real-world application.

I have a degree in philosoohy including a fair chunk of cognitive science.

Im of the view that artificial intelligence is impossible, in principle.

I can get behind an alternate meaning suggested by The Raven Black's comment though.

As for philosophy, whether possible or not is irrelevent. It was part of the researching and theory. If we look at it from today's lens, it may be different. I believe the illusion of intelligence and emotion is conceivable but it doesn't mean it is. Then again, are we not our own illusion of emotive intelligence? Are we not a fancy android race that reproduces because we are based on chemicals and what we call "biological"? These are all theories. Beliefs is irrelevant. Fact is to be determined. The theories can make one think about their preconceptions.

The Raven Black wrote:

The original meaning of Intelligence in AI, before romanticism grabbed the words, is not INT. It is the I in CIA.

Thats a fascinating thought.

Thanks!

Yes but its more a coincidence of timing and easy fruits of AI academia to find a real-world application.

The original meaning of Intelligence in AI, before romanticism grabbed the words, is not INT. It is the I in CIA.

Actually, Intelligence as a word predates CIA. CIA goes back to 1947. Intelligence in artificial intelligence was an extension of science theories and understandings as it began to be employed into computer science with major early leader in artificial intelligence and computer science and logic, and programming.... Alan Turing. Science based theories of intelligence based on the common definition of the word intelligence and build their hypothesis and observation on what is intelligence. Naturally, we have been largely myopic but science community and even AI research is looking more broadly than human intelligence and the diverse range of applications of artificial intelligence.

If we are not basing our interpretation of intelligence only from the human model, but observe intelligence of creatures in nature. Like even the simple ants, bees, etc. have a different model of intelligence like the 'hive intelligence'. There is surprising application that model of intelligence useful for swarm flight of many drones.

You can see, intelligence is a word derived from Latin that basically means possessing the ability to understand, comprehend, perceive. Intelligence has been used for applications like espionage, information gathering,... work of CIA, and the OSI before it for some time like "we need to get intelligence on what the King of England's plan for stopping our revolution. So intelligence being a synonym for understanding or comprehension. In other words, "wrapping our head or mind" around a subject matter. This meaning is derived from the original meaning as it was in Latin when the word was imported and adapted into English language form.

This would take us to the era of the Roman Empire in the area of modern day Britain, Wales, and perhaps parts of Scotland.

Artificial Intelligence research is both the broader academic study and the application. The first application of Artificial Intelligence was certain for stuff like OSI and CIA because of a clear and present need and application for an aspect of AI. Other aspects less relevent to their needs was less useful until breakthroughs were made to take what was still academic and theoretical into a useful application.

Dragon Nexus Games wrote:

thejeff wrote:

The DM as an AI isn't going to be a real thing for a long time. Not as more than a gimmick. Or unless they're really just making scripted video games.

And for the VTT if you go too far with it, it's not just 3rd party creators who can't do much, but GMs can't really do anything but run official adventures with no changes or improvising.

Basically, AI GM is easy to implement (to a point). AI is basically fancy way of saying conditional logic. At minimum, it would be somethin used to make turn based games like the SSI published D&D games for multiplayer and kind of like what what was done in Baldur's Gate games.

The game mechanics, rules, SRDs, are basically a logic tree. If you follow it to the letter, you can certainly make a conditional logic tree. Roll of dies would be at minimum an Random number generator setup. RNGs can be true random if you employ certain measures, it won't be a PRNG (pseudo random number generator). It won't be quite like rolling the dice but it can be more cheat resistant in some ways. People can cheat with dice by controlling how they roll the dice to steer the odds in their favor even with regular dice not loaded dice (cheat dice). However, different type of cheating would have to be defended against with computerized RPG game play. However, the sophistication of the conditional logic can be fairly impressive for 'automating' game mechanics and eliminating some of the time to do such matters manually.

There are caveats. AI layers can be advance and sophisticated where you can use dice and the system setup can read the dice numbers like OCR scanning the numbers from the photo image of the dice and all. You can also have more sophisticated A.I. where it can analyze what you say (spoken) or write and determine what you want to do but there maybe limits that is different than the free flow nature of human GMs and particular house rules modifying or changing (departuring from strict canonical game rules,

...

AI is a term that can mean a lot of things and in practice, conditional logic is part of the umbrella of A.I. because even logic is part of intelligence which we try to simulate with computers then there's "machine learning" and simulation of associative memory borrowing from advancements of concepts used relational databases to simulate certain behaviors of human brain such as patterns and virtual "neural" networks to words analysis with association to other words in a definition tree.... like the good ol' ELIZA and contemporary application... Alexa.

Conditional logic is fundamentals to how any artificial intelligence works because with out it, it won't happen. Essential for any computer to under go the turing test and also an essential part of and computer language to be turing complete. Conditional logic is part of Combinational logic and is the building blocks of FSMs (finite state machines) which ultimately the core of many game logic. Which is in itself a basic for what handles game mechanics in video game which is fundamentally not all that different to game mechanics of ttrpg, board games, and other games. A computer can never really be feeling emotions but it can also be an argument whether humans actually have emotions or its an extremely sophisticated interplay of sophisticated combinational logic and extensive finite state logic. Today's computers have much faster cpus and much larger memory capacity to handle more sophistication in logic. Humans have been theorized as "biochemical andriods with a biological-chemical based computer we call the brain" of a sophistication that are in some ways far beyond our digital computers but our digital computers are far faster doing math because it doesn't have the overhead of our "operating system".

A.I. actually ranges from the mundane stuff that isn't promoted and portrayed in sci-fi as much which often is the sky high imagination of what A.I. could be in the near future.

What is actually part of A.I. research in the world of A.I. is not the "fantastical" stuff of hollywood depiction. A.I. is about simulating intelligence with our computers. What is "intelligence"? not to be confused with what is life or sentient. Computers are already "intelligence" even if it is low IQ or limited. However, your typical computers re not sentient. A.I. we use have not possessed the qualities sentience and similar sophistication of intelligence in the form that compares to the qualities and nature of human type sentient life. Our concept of life and sentient tends to be very myopic.

The type of A.I. we would use or need, would not necessarily be sentient or sophisticated enough to reliably detect and determine our emotive feelings and use of dramatic effect theory artfully... well... for quite some times. We will probably delegate to computer as a too for what it does best that would be of effective usefulness to us in TTRPG --- depending on how well we can make use of the computer and software to our benefit.

It misses the point though, at least for more pure roleplay. A -2 unstable platform penalty isn't really something to add all the time, it's something to add to enhance the feeling of risk and danger, and that doesn't really happen when it's just added in the background automatically.

Frankly, I've always considered the modern playstyles, starting with the community perversion of 3e to be far too computer like as it is. Everything you suggest takes that ten times further.

A lot of the magic that truly separates ttrpgs from videogames will be lost. People will start to see it more as a highly flexible videogame (which will still fall short of my current plans anyway), but because of the association with ttrpgs, the real art of it will once again become a minority as most players won't realize enough of a difference to really separate it out from video games, and actual videogames are just about to really take of in terms of verisimilitude, which will draw away most vttrpg players after a while, bringing non-videogame rpg games down to a smaller niche market.

Of course, that's the most likely outcome if the vttrpg AI GM is generally accepted. If it's done horribly or enough people recognize what popular play has forgotten due to this ogl issue, there might still be a chance for ttrpgs to grow larger than they are now.

Then, perhaps you don't have all mechanics the computer apply automatically with certain ones like you said, like that -2 unstable platform penalty be triggered by the GM at times but the computer can then with it, apply it to the calculation when it's in effect by the GM. So, yes, like you said. Computer can be a tool like a calculator but more useful yet if implemented right for CA-TTRPG (computer assisted - TTRPG), the GM has more latitude of control on those things so they need not always be on. Taking rolls and doing the math work for the players and GM while allowing the degree of control for the GM for a more pure roleplay without the computer compromising it. Can it be done, absolutely. Has it been done effectively, not always.

You do have a fair point regarding how trends in the VTTRPG and AI GM has and/or appears to be heading.

Traditional TTRPG relied more on picturing in the mind and quick & dirty sketches, and maybe sketched of character or just descriptions with reference to various inspiration and appearance of your character. It's easier to make sketches 2d (although with 3d-ish appearance due to artistic skill) than to make a computer 3d model. Video games tend to lack somewhat in that fidelity of customization because it is so much work to program. As a video game developer as well, I am familiar with the challenges. The implementation of computerized assistance would need to take steps back to more traditional manual turn-basing and GM inputs. One benefit to VTTRPG with networking technologies is enabling connectivity of game groups especially as game group members move away due to real life life. So you can engage together remotely together. To maintain that spirit of traditional RPG, we have to strike the right balance of computer assist without it being dumb logic. Computers can't decide really about emotion based decisions like dramatic effect to enhance the feeling of risk and danger. Computers have the ultimate proverbial vulcan deadpan. Those things should be something human GMs can invoke as part of the theater of role-play.

DropBearHunter wrote:

I‘m wondering about the lack of mention of older editions:

they put 5th edition under CC but not 1st to 4th.
Are those just too irrelevant for WotC now, or is that a sign that 6e is going to resemble some aspect of those more than 5e?

6e going full VTT might be a good opportunity to make the rules so old school (complicated) that P&P is just unfeasible.
Why implement „advantage“ when „+20% success chance“(+4 on d20) is probably easier to program.

Watching 5e played on Youtube…
it looked pretty dumbed down to make playing faster.

When your DM is an IA and the dice are digital, this „dumbing down for fast play“ is not required at all.
6e can be fully digital source code and all 3rd party creators can do is link to CR rated monsters in the D&D-One eco system.
Or pay for the privilege to glimpse at the creation mechanics under NDA and create monsters for their content that they then give to WotC to market for them.

The DM as an AI isn't going to be a real thing for a long time. Not as more than a gimmick. Or unless they're really just making scripted video games.

And for the VTT if you go too far with it, it's not just 3rd party creators who can't do much, but GMs can't really do anything but run official adventures with no changes or improvising.

Basically, AI GM is easy to implement (to a point). AI is basically fancy way of saying conditional logic. At minimum, it would be somethin used to make turn based games like the SSI published D&D games for multiplayer and kind of like what what was done in Baldur's Gate games.

The game mechanics, rules, SRDs, are basically a logic tree. If you follow it to the letter, you can certainly make a conditional logic tree. Roll of dies would be at minimum an Random number generator setup. RNGs can be true random if you employ certain measures, it won't be a PRNG (pseudo random number generator). It won't be quite like rolling the dice but it can be more cheat resistant in some ways. People can cheat with dice by controlling how they roll the dice to steer the odds in their favor even with regular dice not loaded dice (cheat dice). However, different type of cheating would have to be defended against with computerized RPG game play. However, the sophistication of the conditional logic can be fairly impressive for 'automating' game mechanics and eliminating some of the time to do such matters manually.

There are caveats. AI layers can be advance and sophisticated where you can use dice and the system setup can read the dice numbers like OCR scanning the numbers from the photo image of the dice and all. You can also have more sophisticated A.I. where it can analyze what you say (spoken) or write and determine what you want to do but there maybe limits that is different than the free flow nature of human GMs and particular house rules modifying or changing (departuring from strict canonical game rules, mechanics).

There's pros and cons in all this. AI GMs would remove human subjectivity of the rules.... no GM rule bending or changes. So, mechanics would have a more strict interpretation of the "rules by the numbers" logic. Then of course specific interpretations of the rules are set and established and that is how it would be played out... much akin to a tournament where there is a specific interpretation policy of the rules which may differ to how you may play the game in your local game group.

Of course, video games will be more scripted with regards to campaigns but this can be less "scripted" in feel if you allow and build into the mechanics a very wide range of circumstances and outcomes. You will more likely see advancements of computerized assistance in VTTRPG than outright AI GM. If you think of it, it might be AI GM-assistant to help with things like calculations, the mechanical processing of the game mechanics system, and automating stuff that takes more time so the GM focuses more on the game play and such that is not so much the role of the computer.

With virtual dice, the computer can collect and gather the dice rolls for each player's character(s), automate the application of any pluses or negatives according to the game mechanics which itself is very much the stuff computers can do and do efficiently in milliseconds compared to humans which are slow when it comes to mathematics and logic... which is what game mechanics systems are. Let the computer aid TTRPG but not necessarily replace the human part like game story development and such.

That is what we can call a GM AIS (Game Mechanics Artificial Intelligence System) where GM in the acronym doesn't mean Game Master. It would just be a tool that aids the GM and the Players.

That we are there to some degree and continue to advance for say.... VTTRPG / CA-TTRPG (CA being computer assisted)

I‘m wondering about the lack of mention of older editions:

they put 5th edition under CC but not 1st to 4th.
Are those just too irrelevant for WotC now, or is that a sign that 6e is going to resemble some aspect of those more than 5e?

6e going full VTT might be a good opportunity to make the rules so old school (complicated) that P&P is just unfeasible.
Why implement „advantage“ when „+20% success chance“(+4 on d20) is probably easier to program.

Watching 5e played on Youtube…
it looked pretty dumbed down to make playing faster.

When your DM is an IA and the dice are digital, this „dumbing down for fast play“ is not required at all.
6e can be fully digital source code and all 3rd party creators can do is link to CR rated monsters in the D&D-One eco system.
Or pay for the privilege to glimpse at the creation mechanics under NDA and create monsters for their content that they then give to WotC to market for them.

They would most likely not release the editions already released under OGL 1.0a to be released under CC. Some of the others like the very first D&D edition, don't know.

Dancing Wind wrote:

Dragon Nexus Games wrote:

I myself and business is not a lawyer/law firm.

Good to know that what you post is not actually based on any legal training and can't be relied on as legal advice.

There are a lot of us creators on these boards who are "familiar with the IP laws". As I stated earlier, I've been using CC licenses on my creative work since 2005.

But what you post so confidently is simply "something someone who is not a lawyer said on the internet" in the end. It might be useful to post such a disclaimer when you give advice.

Rule #1: Never depend on what anyone says on an internet/web forum as legal advice. Always consult with an attorney qualified by educational specialization or experience for the subject area of law that is verified to be an attorney in the geographical & legal jurisdiction of practice [in cases under U.S. laws --- be it state, licensed in that state or in federal court cases - licenses in the federal level. In cases in other countries, be licensed to practiced in their respective jurisdiction and courts]. Note: Not all attorneys are equal. IP law is a specialized area most lawyers you may find listed are not as qualified to practice that area of law.

((--SNIPPED --))

Before doing something legally relying on what anyone says or write on this forum or any forum on the internet, take that time to consult a lawyer - in this case one that is specializing in intellectual property laws. You may not have to do it now but do so before you rely on it. If the lawyer affirms it then you are relying on the attorney's advice.

Dragon Nexus Games wrote:

I myself and business is not a lawyer/law firm.

Good to know that what you post is not actually based on any legal training and can't be relied on as legal advice.

There are a lot of us creators on these boards who are "familiar with the IP laws". As I stated earlier, I've been using CC licenses on my creative work since 2005.

But what you post so confidently is simply "something someone who is not a lawyer said on the internet" in the end. It might be useful to post such a disclaimer when you give advice.

Rule #1: Never depend on what anyone says on an internet/web forum as legal advice. Always consult with an attorney qualified by educational specialization or experience for the subject area of law that is verified to be an attorney in the geographical & legal jurisdiction of practice [in cases under U.S. laws --- be it state, licensed in that state or in federal court cases - licenses in the federal level. In cases in other countries, be licensed to practiced in their respective jurisdiction and courts]. Note: Not all attorneys are equal. IP law is a specialized area most lawyers you may find listed are not as qualified to practice that area of law.

Bottom line: Check and verify the validity of what someone writes with a lawyer where appropriate or if validated by high credible sources such as the U.S. copyright office, but even then they should consult an attorney especially with cases that are less cut and dry and more nuanced or where other laws may come into the picture.

What I may wrote is grounded on the basis of copyright law in the U.S., as written. There are other countries and the laws may be different on details of how the laws are written word by word, sentence by sentence. If something is in public domain then there is no copyright protection for that something which is in public domain. That's basic principles even from the U.S. Copyright office.

However, there may be issues with stuff like those stuff registered as trademarks. However, they can be craftfully worked around without using trademarked words and trademarks are not for the same purpose and type of coverage as for copyrights.

What the law says is what the law says. Only in corrupt courts with corrupt judges interprets laws in a manner so opposite of what the words mean by statutory definitions or by any regular dictionary definitions.

We seen some weird stuff in fairly recent years. That is why they can be challenged and ultimately corrected.

Heymitch wrote:

Apparently, the SRD that was published under Creative Commons mentions beholders, slaads, and mind flayers (although it doesn't include stat blocks).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this mean that Paizo could include their own versions of these creatures in Pathfinder and in Golarion, as long as they give proper attribution to the Creative Commons license?

The word beholder isn't sufficiently unique. If your own implementations are unique then you might not even have to attribute. However, if its characteristics is reasonably derivative then, yes, attribution. You can bypass some of the issue of some of the races like Slaad by making a race called... say Enkians and depict them as frog like humanoids with a tail. Enkian with a frog-like god named Enki or Kek.

For the Illithids or mind flayers, we can rename them and reference and build a race drawing from H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulu. Since that's their source of inspiration to begin with, and is public domain. So even Cthulu may become public domain. However, Chaosium trademarking may get into an issue. So, you can merely come up with a new name. You may adapt a name from taking the latin word for octopus or squid or similar ancient names and adapt it. The mere characteristics of Cthulu (for example) as described by Lovecraft's written work can be used as a source.

WotC may have decided to might not worth it to fight it too much.

I just reworked the naming for a frog/toad like humanoid race (Salientiaurians) with a tail for the game and such and drafting up a background. I may outright make it essentially "open game content" - ideally with some ideal of not breaking canon of story background but that story background would be shared enough. Before employing it in publishing, I'll want to make sure a basic story canon is there in part.

I am also thinking of various species variants that can be many.

The key is think your way around carbon copying what may be copyrighted depictions or derivatives of such. Maybe you redefine stat attributes and powers as well. It's up to you to think it out so its not too close. With some of this, I may think of some things for these races in my game project I am working on and make them potentially open game content or equivalent section in ORC so it can potentially be usable with Pathfinder/Starfinder. So it would nor be something that I'll probably note attribution to inspirational elements with respect to these other works yet they are also distinct enough from sources of inspirations.