This may sound wierd but try listening to your local AM radio stations. Some of them, like the one we have here, run legal advice shows at some point during the week. You might be able to get some help that way.
Thanks. That's alot of AM stations to go through, but I suppose it can't hurt. I'll try it.
The Game is also a Holmesian term. (Or Sherlockian. But people who say Sherlockian are WRONG!)
The Game is also also an evil, evil book that is nonetheless a fascinating read by Neil Strauss about the underground world of pick-up artists. Fun read, and gave me some good (or should I say evil?) insights. (Evil laughter) Ironically, it looks like a Bible.
Warning, though: If a paladin so much as peruses the pages of this wicked tome, he will lose 1 level!!!
You guys got off the subject, as for doing a conversion I have done a couple of them for my game. since we can not post them if anyone would like to see them let me know I'll email it to you. just a warning I use the 2nd edition/3.0 stat block set up, I'm not to fond of the way monster and NPC are done. I have certain things I want to know and they do not put them in.
Hey, DS, I'd be curious to see what you did. If you don't mind, send it to
Just eliminate the spaces and type out the punctuation, it's all lowercase. Thanks!
Michael, fun-ny. My wife just got through reading I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. Of course, the guy at Half-Price was positive I was buying it for myself.
Michael, fun-ny. My wife just got through reading I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. Of course, the guy at Half-Price was positive I was buying it for myself.
Not familiar with that one. What's it about?
Evil things a guy supposedly got away with it, and the idiot women who let him get away with it. At least, that was my take from looking over wife's shoulder. The guy who checked me out said: it's funny, but just as a warning, that stuff doesn't work. It made me wish I'd have asked him what trouble he got himself into trying to follow the author's strategies.
Evil things a guy supposedly got away with it, and the idiot women who let him get away with it. At least, that was my take from looking over wife's shoulder. The guy who checked me out said: it's funny, but just as a warning, that stuff doesn't work. It made me wish I'd have asked him what trouble he got himself into trying to follow the author's strategies.
LOL, very like The Game. Have you read it? (And if so, did it cause you to shift toward the Dark Side? :))
No, I haven't read it, but I'll keep an eye out now.
No, I haven't read it, but I'll keep an eye out now.
Likewise for me about I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell (great title, btw).
I'm currently converting Ravenloft setting material. Should I be?
Only problem you run into is if you publish the info. Otherwise you are fine
If it's freely available, yes. Copyright does not magically disappear simply because you aren't making a profit.
If it's freely available, yes. Copyright does not magically disappear simply because you aren't making a profit.
*Gulp*
I guess I'd better start making some changes to my PF Gamma World doc...
I mean, er, Mutant World ...
Well, acknowledged conversion guides are on slightly better legal ground, but I only did one term of legal studies at university :)
I really have no idea. I couldn't possibly provide accurate legal advice :)
I agree and all. Whether you're right or wrong, getting lawyers sending certified stuff to you is no damn fun.
What I find ironic is that a mindflayer is basically a shrunken purple C'thulhu without any damn wings, and H.P. Lovecraft LOVED for and ENCOURAGED people to borrow his mytho's and add to them.
It ought to be SRD by proxy. I know it ain't but it ought to be.
It gets worse than that they are a direct snatch of the star spawn of cthulhu, human sized cthulhu's basically it's like if I copyrighted count smackula the Transylvanian prince turned vampire or maybe if I just copyrighted the griffon, or Pegasus.
While I'm going I really dislike that a gorgon is a big metal bull and a snake haired lady is called a medusa...
Hey, you're not the guy who created the Polydoros Kin, are you?
This website may be helpful. I emailed a patent attorney about this subject and I'll post the answer if he gives one. (He may not - I'm asking for free legal advice, after all.)
Since I'm emailing him and hoping for a free answer, let me advertise his work. Here's a free PDF for the long form.
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Going back to the original point of this thread, it seems to me that there are alot of misunderstandings about the legal protections being claimed by the GSL.
It is impossible to claim ownership of a fictional race as intellectual property. The landmark case which established this was over... Dungeons and Dragons. Specifically, the early D&D materials included "hobbits" and "Ents" and "Nazgul" and dozens of other direct borrowings from the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Saul Zaentz, aka 'Tolkien Enterprises', who had obtained the merchandising rights to Tolkien's stories (and still holds them) sued claiming that TSR had violated his intellectual property. TSR, apparently having smarter lawyers than Zaentz, quickly renamed everything and thus 'harfoot hobbits' became 'hairfoot halflings', 'ents' became 'treants', 'Nazgul' became 'wraiths', and so forth. Because what the courts eventually ruled was that you cannot have intellectual property rights to a fictional race... but you CAN trademark the NAME. D&D halflings and treants are still direct and obvious copies of Tolkien's hobbits and ents, but so long as the names are different they can do it.
Thus, what WotC has actually done is trademark 13 names: Balhannoth, Beholder, Carrion Crawler, Displacer Beast, Gauth, Githyanki, Githzerai, Kuo-Toa, Illithid/Mind Flayer, Slaad, Umber Hulk, and Yuan-Ti. No one may use those creature names in their products without WotC permission. Also, if you produce artwork which looks a great deal like theirs they may claim it is a derivative copy of that particular work of art... but they can't claim the appearance of the creatures in general.
So, if someone created a 'Cthuloid' monster race of squid-headed psionic creatures WotC would have no legal grounds to object... though the estate of H.P. Lovecraft might... so go with 'Walktapus'... wait no, that'd be the Runequest version... try 'Burrowers Beneath'... wait no, that's the Brian Lumley original that Gygax took it from!
Hopefully you get the point... there are lots of 'Mind Flayer' type races out there already. D&D itself established the legal precedent that you can copy a fictional race down to the least detail just so long as you give it a different name.
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Hey maybe I am in the minority then but I will gladly say. it.
"I believe what WOTC did with 4E was a stab in the back."
My reasons for saying such are many. I have played 4E. Needless to say I am on the pathfinder boards now. 4E does play like an MMO in MHO and yes I do play a MMO or 2 so I do have a perspective on what an MMO is. It is not a fireball I lob just to annoy the pro 4E crowd. Class differences and the mechanics used in them for 4E have been pasted over in a cosmetic way. Real class difference count for very little in 4E. Paizo decided that 4E was not their thing and gambled on adjusting a system that many thought was past its prime. It is not like Paizo said "wow 3E did not work. Let's design our system around AD&D or an earlier version of D&D." Plus I am very annoyed that WOTC pulled the Dragon Lance liscensce away from Margaret Weiss publishing when it was making money and Margaret did want it renewed. For years the offical TSR/WOTC line was Dragon Lance does not sell. Well it sold just fine and they pulled the plug because they didn't want the competition.
I could rant on and on but I definltly feel that WOTC is NOT honoring the D&D legacy and I don't feel that classic D&D monsters need to slink off into obscurity because of it.
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Up to a point. It didn't stop TSR from being sued by Chaosium for putting in the Cthulu Mythos in the original printing of the Dieties and DemiGods, as it was Chaosium who owned the gaming rights to the Lovecraft material.H.P. Lovecraft LOVED for and ENCOURAGED people to borrow his mytho's and add to them.
It ought to be SRD by proxy. I know it ain't but it ought to be.
I would like to point out that H.P. was dead long before this, and some evil selfish doodoohead owned the rights to his work at that point.
But then, chaosium also sued over the Melniboné stuff, even though M.M. told TSR "eh, go for it", so, yeah.
Up to a point. It didn't stop TSR from being sued by Chaosium for putting in the Cthulu Mythos in the original printing of the Dieties and DemiGods, as it was Chaosium who owned the gaming rights to the Lovecraft material.H.P. Lovecraft LOVED for and ENCOURAGED people to borrow his mytho's and add to them.
It ought to be SRD by proxy. I know it ain't but it ought to be.
I would like to point out that H.P. was dead long before this, and some evil selfish doodoohead owned the rights to his work at that point.
But then, chaosium also sued over the Melniboné stuff, even though M.M. told TSR "eh, go for it", so, yeah.
This is actually an urban legend. TSR had permission to put the Cthulhu and Melnibonian mythos into the book; they gratefully thanked Chaosium in the front of the book in the legal text.
The material was removed because TSR management was uncomfortable with what they felt was free advertising for the competition; they didn't want something in a TSR book to lead folks to seek out game material from another company.