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I happen to know a little bit about copyright law and derivative works.
It's perfectly legal to take something that is protected by copyright, in this case Mind Flayers, and use it yourself. The derivative work just has to be diffident enough from the original.
I don't know much about this topic. However, the OGL has terms in it about agreeing not to use other people's product identity.
I think its great that most remaining d20 companies respect each other and their products. I seem to remember that Necromancer Games would always ask before using anyone else's stuff, even if that stuff was techncially open game content.
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It's also about self preservation. It's much easier to ask others to respect your intellectual property if you do the same.
A company like Paizo, that puts massive amounts of content out there (and in easy to copy PDF's no less), has every reason to not only follow the letter of the law, but the intent as well. It's just good business sense.
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WotC was much more OGL friendly than White Wolf, inventor of crippled OGC.What do you have against the Sword and Sorcery lines?
Their Product Identity policy was anal.
Basically, if you had a Creature Catalog bestiary creeper, the ONLY open content was its statblock. Unlike Paizo/Necromancer books, description (read: what it looks like) and ecology basics (read: what it behaves like) were closed content, so you actually couldn't use these mosnters without re-inventing their looks and ecology from grounds up.
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PF has Orv and don't need no stinking Mind Flayers.
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WotC was much more OGL friendly than White Wolf, inventor of crippled OGC.What do you have against the Sword and Sorcery lines?Their Product Identity policy was anal.
Basically, if you had a Creature Catalog bestiary creeper, the ONLY open content was its statblock. Unlike Paizo/Necromancer books, description (read: what it looks like) and ecology basics (read: what it behaves like) were closed content, so you actually couldn't use these mosnters without re-inventing their looks and ecology from grounds up.
Worse, the name of the creature was closed content, too. That's the reason why the Iron Tusker and the Sandmasker had to be renamed for Monster Manual II.
I blame White Wolf because the pretty much started it with Creature Collection I, but other publishers such as Monte Cook's Malhavoc Games did the same. This didn't stop WotC from allowing Necromancer Games a to include a large number of its monsters into the Tome of Horrors, making them available as OGC. I'd call that pretty generous.|
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WotC was much more OGL friendly than White Wolf, inventor of crippled OGC.What do you have against the Sword and Sorcery lines?Their Product Identity policy was anal.
Basically, if you had a Creature Catalog bestiary creeper, the ONLY open content was its statblock. Unlike Paizo/Necromancer books, description (read: what it looks like) and ecology basics (read: what it behaves like) were closed content, so you actually couldn't use these mosnters without re-inventing their looks and ecology from grounds up.
Worse, the name of the creature was closed content, too. That's the reason why the Iron Tusker and the Sandmasker had to be renamed for Monster Manual II.
I blame White Wolf because the pretty much started it with Creature Collection I, but other publishers such as Monte Cook's Malhavoc Games did the same. This didn't stop WotC from allowing Necromancer Games a to include a large number of its monsters into the Tome of Horrors, making them available as OGC. I'd call that pretty generous.
Yeah, the names are closed content too.
It was ironically funny, when WotC, after the very open-minded Monster Manual, had to change names of two monsters they printed in MM2 because their product identity was more strict than WotC's. Of course, MM2 itself was closed content, so it was wheels within wheels.
Actually, when WotC struck a deal with Necro for ToH it was still Dancey and Adkinson calling the shots in brand management. Since they reasoned that new monster books from WotC will take some time to come out and Clark was ready and eager to get ToH with dozens of classic monsters out, they let him use a vast chunk of WotC IP as open content.
And that's how Orcus, Jubilex, Dark Creeper/Stalker, Flumph, Crypt Thing, Demodands, Flail Snail, Froghemoth, Grippli, Necrophidius, Yellow Musk Creeper and dozen others became open content. And I think somebody at WotC is still kicking himself about that ;)
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We could write up the definitive post ourselves, and then every time the thread pops up, we can simply direct people to the post.
So, let's see, what's the list?
Mind flayers, beholders, displacer beasts...
Kuo-toa, carrion crawlers, yuan-ti, githyanki, githzerai, umber hulks, battle toads.
For some of those, there are already substitutions in Pathfinder, some by 3PPs:
Slime Crawlers, Phrenic Scourges, Skum, Serpent Folk.
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Kuo-toa, carrion crawlers, yuan-ti, githyanki, githzerai, umber hulks, battle toads.We could write up the definitive post ourselves, and then every time the thread pops up, we can simply direct people to the post.
So, let's see, what's the list?
Mind flayers, beholders, displacer beasts...
Plus virtually everything in Monster Manual II, and everything in Monster Manuals III-V.
Mind Flayers are so Lovecraftian is hurts, You could easily just make mini Cthulhus with massive mind powers and have them be perfect stand-ins, instead of tall a rail thin, they have a little round belly and vestigial wings...bam, no where near WotC content now...Though Cthulhu is published under Chaosium's licensing, it's easier to get permissions from them.
It's definitely something that plenty of other fantasy properties have done already.
From Faceless Ones in Warcraft, to Thulians in Everquest, it's pretty common.
Of course we're talking about Paizo's options here.
If we're talking about GMs, the simplest solution is to simply...use your 3.5 books.
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Now, thirty+ years later, GW claims Beastmen (and the chaos star! which is an actual religious symbol used by actual religions!) as intellectual property.
Being old and all, I think I need to point out that the whole "Chaos Star is an ancient symbol" thing is an increasingly common misconception. Moorcock invented it. Yes, it does bear a resemblance to some older symbols which represent other things, but for all real intents and purposes the Chaos Star begins with Moorcock. Much the same way that the Necronomicon was a creation of Lovecraft, but people still go looking for it in libraries and bookstores.
Also: Gary Gygax confessed numerous times that some of the monsters in the original Monster Manual (like the Umber Hulk and the Rust Monster) started life as funky little japanese rubber monster miniatures that he picked up at the dollar store.
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Also: Gary Gygax confessed numerous times that some of the monsters in the original Monster Manual (like the Umber Hulk and the Rust Monster) started life as funky little japanese rubber monster miniatures that he picked up at the dollar store.
Absolutely! I had a cheap Japanese rubber bulette growing up. Had it for years not knowing what the heck it should be before seeing it in the Monster Manual for the first time.
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I love how the companies that are the most jerkish about there IP are the ones imploding at the moment. Just look at White Wolf's robust upcoming product line. ;)Looking at their recently announced release schedule... looks like a huge release coming out next month followed up by a year averaging 1 product a month - which is to say, what everyone other than Paizo has been aiming for for quite some time now.
Your game info-fu is STRONG! Thanks for the update. :)
We will see if they get this done. WW has a history of sometimes being years late with what still turns out to be rushed looking products.
Also: Gary Gygax confessed numerous times that some of the monsters in the original Monster Manual (like the Umber Hulk and the Rust Monster) started life as funky little japanese rubber monster miniatures that he picked up at the dollar store.
Yeah, I had my own pet Rust Monster before I knew what D&D is*.
*probably - I read the first time about RPGs and D&D in '87 or 88. I think that I got that miniature earlier but I might be wrong. Regardless I haven't any contact with D&D for the next eight years.
Worse, the name of the creature was closed content, too. That's the reason why the Iron Tusker and the Sandmasker had to be renamed for Monster Manual II.Their Product Identity policy was anal.
Basically, if you had a Creature Catalog bestiary creeper, the ONLY open content was its statblock. Unlike Paizo/Necromancer books, description (read: what it looks like) and ecology basics (read: what it behaves like) were closed content, so you actually couldn't use these mosnters without re-inventing their looks and ecology from grounds up.
I'm confused. Aside from the names being closed content, how is this any more draconian than WotC's policy? I could have sworn descriptions have never been open.
Don't get me wrong; names being closed content is pretty ludicrous. (This of course excludes names that contain direct setting references, and White Wolf did a lot of that. But it goes double for particularly generic names such as "shockbat" or...well, "iron tusker.") It's simply the only significant difference that I'm seeing here.
It was ironically funny, when WotC, after the very open-minded Monster Manual, had to change names of two monsters they printed in MM2 because their product identity was more strict than WotC's. Of course, MM2 itself was closed content, so it was wheels within wheels.
Considering that it was "wheels within wheels," as you put it—an open-content, and still perfectly recognizable, sandmasker and iron tusker at the end of an otherwise closed-content book—I hardly think it can be said that White Wolf was more strict by that point.
Plus virtually everything in Monster Manual II, and everything in Monster Manuals III-V.
Also, the Fiend Folio, the Miniatures Handbook, and the Draconomicon. Not to mention any creature, race, or subrace that appeared in a setting or race book and hadn't previously been detailed in the PHB, MM, ELH, or PsiHB.
I love how the companies that are the most jerkish about there IP are the ones imploding at the moment. Just look at White Wolf's robust upcoming product line. ;)
So...how's WotC going, then?
No, really: I wasn't interested in 4e, so I haven't really been paying much attention to them.
Yeah, I had my own pet Rust Monster before I knew what D&D is*.
*probably - I read the first time about RPGs and D&D in '87 or 88. I think that I got that miniature earlier but I might be wrong. Regardless I haven't any contact with D&D for the next eight years.
That almost exactly matches my experiences. As in, it was a rust monster; and, while I may have had some nebulous knowledge of D&D at that point, I didn't identify it as a rust monster until years later.
Mind Flayers are so Lovecraftian is hurts, You could easily just make mini Cthulhus with massive mind powers and have them be perfect stand-ins, instead of tall a rail thin, they have a little round belly and vestigial wings...bam, no where near WotC content now...
And those mini Cthulhus can bust out some mean dance moves every now and then.
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If you only change the name but keep the whole fluff and powers stuff, it is pretty clearly a derivative work and might anger WotC. If you change the name and the fluff and use only some of the powers, there is probably no problem, but also no point in using the concept at all.
For example: Serpent Folk versus Yuan-ti.
For example: Serpent Folk versus Yuan-ti.
And what, exactly, is so bad about serpent folk (apart from the fact that they hate us filthy mammals, anyway)? Paizo just went with the concept that originally inspired yuan-ti to begin with.
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For example: Serpent Folk versus Yuan-ti.And what, exactly, is so bad about serpent folk (apart from the fact that they hate us filthy mammals, anyway)? Paizo just went with the concept that originally inspired yuan-ti to begin with.
Nothing wrong with them. I'm just saying they are a prime example of a new race that borrows the basic concept of a copyrighted race, and gets around the copyright by changing the name and losing the fluff. As far as the "concept that originally inspired yuan-ti," if there was one, it would be the naga, which already existed in Pathfinder before the serpent folk were brought in. The yuan-ti originate 100% from D&D, and I'm pretty sure the serpent folk were a bone Paizo threw to the fans and players who wanted the yuan-ti brought in.
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The yuan-ti originate 100% from D&D
No, they don't.
Oh, the name, sure. But Robert E. Howard's Serpent Men predate D&D by four and a half decades, and the yuan-ti are pretty obviously expies of them.
Yuan-ti and serpent folk are inpired by the same thing, just like the star spawn and mind flayers are.
Two things developed from the same source are a bit different than one thing developed from another, which would be borrowing concepts from copyrighted races.
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The Yuan-ti and Robert E. Howard's Serpent Men (and the countless other snake men from various media) are all inspired by the Naga, from ancient real-world Hindu mythology. Given that the inspiration for all those variants is already in Pathfinder, I think it is a bit of a stretch to try to say that Paizo was just trying to go back to the roots, because they had already done that with the naga races. I have no doubt that the serpent folk were an attempt to bring the yuan-ti into Pathfinder without fighting copyright law, nothing more, nothing less.
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cant we just change the name to brain eaters? or ellithids, cant we make a copy of them with out using them?Google the topics "copyright law" and "derivative works". You might find the results educational.I happen to know a little bit about copyright law and derivative works.
It's perfectly legal to take something that is protected by copyright, in this case Mind Flayers, and use it yourself. The derivative work just has to be diffident enough from the original. The could use Mind flayers and any of the other WOTC enemies, as long as they didn't use:
1) Any of the WOTC art
2) Any of the WOTC descriptions
3)ANY FLAVOR AT ALL from WOTCSo if they made them look different, made them described different, and gave them a different name, and a completely different origin and backstory, and probably reproductive cycle and what not they could use them.
(see Expy and Captain Ersatz. Warning: TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life. I'm aware it's not a legal paper before you go there. It's just a fun site.)
Yah. From my understanding of the law, you can't copyright an idea but only the expression of said idea. That's why anyone can have, for example, serpent people/folks in their rpg, for example, but the description, art, stats, etc., of your specific version of said creature can be copyrighted. Or you can write a story about a young wizard whose parents are killed by the dark forces. Later, the boy goes to wizard school and learns his destiny is to confront said forces. However, you can't name the character Harry Potter or try to use the specifics found in that series.
I'm pretty sure that both yuan-ti and serpent folk are an attempt to bring an ancient serpentine sleeping race bound on retaking the world into the game, which was inspired by various stories in the first half of 20th century.
I have no doubt that the serpent folk were an attempt to bring the yuan-ti into Pathfinder without fighting copyright law, nothing more, nothing less.
And I have no doubt that they were an attempt to bring in Howard's serpent men, yuan-ti notwithstanding.
I'm pretty sure that both yuan-ti and serpent folk are an attempt to bring an ancient serpentine sleeping race bound on retaking the world into the game, which was inspired by various stories in the first half of 20th century.
And this is why: the serpent folk are treated as such. They were around before those nasty endotherms decided to get all uppity and develop thumbs and start building cities of all things, which just should not be happening.
Naga (in D&D or Southeast Asian legends) generally aren't that ambitious. Educate, manipulate, or bully the mammals? Sure. Try to take over the world? Not so much.
Yuan-ti have the ambition; however (IIRC), they're supposed to actually be the descendants of an evil human nation who ticked off their snake god and got cursed for their efforts. Or something of the sort. At any rate, not all that ancient. Or at least, not ancient enough to view humans as the upstart interlopers.
Well, depends on what Yuan-ti are at hand. Faerunian Yuan-ti for example are servitors of hideously powerful Sarrukh (one of the creator races) who had that world-spanning empire that was brought low by environmental change and revolution of the enslaved amelly ape... i mean humans. Now that the sleeping Sarrukh stir in their redoubts their scaled servants are preparing the path for their return. Sounds similar? What about this?
The Yuan-ti and Robert E. Howard's Serpent Men (and the countless other snake men from various media) are all inspired by the Naga, from ancient real-world Hindu mythology. Given that the inspiration for all those variants is already in Pathfinder, I think it is a bit of a stretch to try to say that Paizo was just trying to go back to the roots, because they had already done that with the naga races. I have no doubt that the serpent folk were an attempt to bring the yuan-ti into Pathfinder without fighting copyright law, nothing more, nothing less.
Paizo consistently decry such "tactics". You should be more skeptical, in my view.
Well, depends on what Yuan-ti are at hand. Faerunian Yuan-ti for example are servitors of hideously powerful Sarrukh (one of the creator races) who had that world-spanning empire that was brought low by environmental change and revolution of the enslaved amelly ape... i mean humans. Now that the sleeping Sarrukh stir in their redoubts their scaled servants are preparing the path for their return. Sounds similar? What about this?
That's what I get for not following FR.
And go figure; that really makes it all the more ridiculous that yuan-ti are product identity. It also makes it all the more dubious that serpentfolk were meant as any sort of deliberate expy.
I think what makes Yuan-ti soooo special is their stratification which goes from barely scaled humans (pureblood) to something that blurs the line between this monster and naga (abominations - human headed snakes that are surprisingly clerics). They are set apart from naga by their usually more social nature. Nagas may seek to rule the comunity as a coven at best, but Yuan-ti are more into espionage, crossbreeding and stuff like that - more likely to be servitors as well as rulers, rather than the naga, who are mostly trying to be in mastermind positions.
4E Yuan-ti were made even more snake-like with anathemas (total pinnacle of the race - multi snake-headed, multilimbed mostrosities) moving from obscure sources to basic rulebook
I think what makes Yuan-ti soooo special is their stratification which goes from barely scaled humans (pureblood) to something that blurs the line between this monster and naga (abominations - human headed snakes that are surprisingly clerics). They are set apart from naga by their usually more social nature. Nagas may seek to rule the comunity as a coven at best, but Yuan-ti are more into espionage, crossbreeding and stuff like that - more likely to be servitors as well as rulers, rather than the naga, who are mostly trying to be in mastermind positions.
Which makes them about as special and original as D&D's take on dragons.
As I implied earlier, I've heard rumors that there were motivations behind what was designated "product identity" that had little to do with originality. And while I'm not sure how much truth there is to said rumors, you never can tell.
4E Yuan-ti were made even more snake-like with anathemas (total pinnacle of the race - multi snake-headed, multilimbed mostrosities) moving from obscure sources to basic rulebook
Anathemas actually first appeared in 3e. If you're familiar with the multiheaded naga lord image, that's more or less what they looked like, only with arms.
But yeah, 4e made a lot of weird (and, in some cases, seemingly random) changes. (See also: tieflings being homogenized.)
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The only two I really liked from those no longer used were the displacer beast and the mind flayer.
I never liked beholders, and yuan-ti went so far away from Howardian Serpent Men that I preferred using Green Ronin's serpentfolk anyway.
Still, there are basic concepts that I find cool, such as the Beholder's combat role, which I can replace with a large levitating humanoid crypt guardian / Oni that covers itself with Osirionic glyphs or faux-Asian characters, each of which allows it to use a single spell-like ability, giving me the same basic function as a beholder, without a floating eyeball covered with yet more eyeballs.
Similarly, I could come up with an insect-race that follows the Yuan-Ti patterns of having humanoid mimicing infiltrators that 'molt' into a humanoid form, and serve ever-more-insectile hidden masters, dug into warrens tunneled beneath the communities they seek to subvert. Same campaign role as a Yuan-Ti infiltration, but totally different in feel.
Similarly, I could come up with an insect-race that follows the Yuan-Ti patterns of having humanoid mimicing infiltrators that 'molt' into a humanoid form, and serve ever-more-insectile hidden masters, dug into warrens tunneled beneath the communities they seek to subvert. Same campaign role as a Yuan-Ti infiltration, but totally different in feel.
Actually, aranea or doppelgangers could serve such a purpose.
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4E Yuan-ti were made even more snake-like with anathemas (total pinnacle of the race - multi snake-headed, multilimbed mostrosities) moving from obscure sources to basic rulebookAnathemas actually first appeared in 3e. If you're familiar with the multiheaded naga lord image, that's more or less what they looked like, only with arms.
But yeah, 4e made a lot of weird (and, in some cases, seemingly random) changes. (See also: tieflings being homogenized.)
Yeah, that's why I said that it was moved from obscure sources to basic 4E Monster Manual. I think it was presented in Fiend Folio, which is official, but far from a must-have like MM.
Yeah, that's why I said that it was moved from obscure sources to basic 4E Monster Manual. I think it was presented in Fiend Folio, which is official, but far from a must-have like MM.
Oh, I see.
I suppose that I simply never thought of the Fiend Folio as "obscure." Which probably has something to do with my tendency to pounce on monster books like a bear on a honeycomb (especially monster books containing stats for awesome obscure creeposities like ahuizotls) whenever circumstances allow.
Well, monster books are fine to have and usually offer a good reading as well, but my players hate when I lay my hands on them.
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Heh, I found the inspiration for the Rust Monster and Bullette at a grocery store when I was just getting in to D&D. In a little bag of plastic monsters there they were..obviously Mr. Gygax had found the same cheapo plastic figures a decade earlier and used them.
I had that same bag of plastic monsters when I was a youngster, too! If I recall correctly, the rust monster was yellow with a reddish patch on its back . . . memories . . .
Well, monster books are fine to have and usually offer a good reading as well, but my players hate when I lay my hands on them.
The "oh, shoot, new ways to kill or at least bedevil us" principle, I take it?
Also: rust monsters.