Pathfinder and "Product Identity"


Paizo General Discussion


D&D 3.5 had some "product identity" monsters like the githzerai, beholder, and mind flayer.

Does Pathfinder have anything similar they consider "product identity"?

Silver Crusade

darth_borehd wrote:

D&D 3.5 had some "product identity" monsters like the githzerai, beholder, and mind flayer.

Does Pathfinder have anything similar they consider "product identity"?

Quite a bit, actually. The simplest answer is any proper noun that doesn't appear in the Pathfinder Reference Document. That's not exactly right, but pretty close.

Owner - House of Books and Games LLC

All the proper names are, but I'm pretty sure Paizo didn't pull the "product identity monster" stunt like WoTC did.

It's primarily Golarion and Golarion-related content that's product identity - they've tried to keep all actual game rules (including monsters AND monster names) as OGL.


gbonehead wrote:

All the proper names are, but I'm pretty sure Paizo didn't pull the "product identity monster" stunt like WoTC did.

It's primarily Golarion and Golarion-related content that's product identity - they've tried to keep all actual game rules (including monsters AND monster names) as OGL.

Yes, that's what I was wondering.

Sczarni

darth_borehd wrote:
gbonehead wrote:

All the proper names are, but I'm pretty sure Paizo didn't pull the "product identity monster" stunt like WoTC did.

It's primarily Golarion and Golarion-related content that's product identity - they've tried to keep all actual game rules (including monsters AND monster names) as OGL.

Yes, that's what I was wondering.

Certain monsters like the Sandpoint Devil need to be renamed, since Sandpoint is product identity, even if the creature isn't. Also there are two creatures that were released in adventure paths that are not OGL. The Deep Crow and the creature that the displacer beast were based on (forgot it's name). These two are not creatures that paizo has the rights to, beyond the issues that they appeared in, so they cannot make them open content.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

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The only sure way to determine what's Product Identity and what's Open Game Content is to look at those declarations in each product. For *most* Paizo products, they read like so:

Product Identity: The following items are hereby identified as Product Identity, as defined in the Open Game License version 1.0a, Section 1(e), and are not Open Content: All trademarks, registered trademarks, proper names (characters, deities, etc.), dialogue, plots, storylines, locations, characters, artwork, and trade dress. (Elements that are in the public domain or have previously been designated as Open Game Content are not included in this declaration.)

Open Content: Except for material designated as Product Identity (see above), the game mechanics of this Paizo Publishing game product are Open Game Content, as defined in the Open Gaming License version 1.0a Section 1(d). No portion of this work other than the material designated as Open Game Content may be reproduced in any form without written permission.

However, they *do* occasionally vary from that, so prospective publishers should check each product they wish to draw material from.


Cpt_kirstov wrote:
the creature that the displacer beast were based on (forgot it's name).

The coeurl, from A.E. Van Vogt's short story Black Destroyer (collected as part of The Voyage of the Space Beagle).

Note that the coeurl has been used out-of-copyright extensively in Japan -- Final Fantasy has it as a recurring panther monster, and Mughi of Dirty Pair is a friendly coeurl who works with the title characters.


Wake of the Watcher also has a few Chaosium monsters from CoC used with permission. They are PI, just not PI for Paizo.

The Githyanki from the Fiend Folio (1e) came via White Dwarf. Unfortunately, WD in its early days didn't pay as much attention to copyright and the name actually appeared in a book by George RR Martin... the author of the monster write-up being... Charles Stross! So WotC now claims PI on a creature that came from someone else's novel.


Jeff de luna wrote:

Wake of the Watcher also has a few Chaosium monsters from CoC used with permission. They are PI, just not PI for Paizo.

The Githyanki from the Fiend Folio (1e) came via White Dwarf. Unfortunately, WD in its early days didn't pay as much attention to copyright and the name actually appeared in a book by George RR Martin... the author of the monster write-up being... Charles Stross! So WotC now claims PI on a creature that came from someone else's novel.

Stross gave us gith (yanki and zerai), slaadi, and death knights... hey, Paizo hired Ed Greenwood and China Mieville to do writeups, how about asking Charles if he'd like to take another swing at monster design? ^.^


Jeff de luna wrote:

Wake of the Watcher also has a few Chaosium monsters from CoC used with permission. They are PI, just not PI for Paizo.

The Githyanki from the Fiend Folio (1e) came via White Dwarf. Unfortunately, WD in its early days didn't pay as much attention to copyright and the name actually appeared in a book by George RR Martin... the author of the monster write-up being... Charles Stross! So WotC now claims PI on a creature that came from someone else's novel.

Aye. I agree that it is not ethical for them to do so.

It isn't the only example of them doing so too.

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