Is this okay?

[Malwing]

As you may or may not know, I have a blog running about 3pp material for Pathfinder. To some extent its meant to be a place for my reviews to show up, but I wanted to post articles of various types within the realm of third party material, but I wanted to ask publishers if certain things are okay to put in my articles.

One thing was explaining or even writing down crunch. More specifically I was working on articles where I post an NPC that is built with third party material and explain the abilities that it has. For example, I'm planning a game where the PCs run into a character that is a level 6 Dread from Ultimate Psionics and is wielding a beam sword from Rite Publishing's Treasury of the Machine. I also go in depth about how the NPC works to showcase what the third party crunch does to make this character and why I chose the crunch I did to make the NPC. Another scenario is building a monster using third party templates and explaining what I used and where it was from. A third example is cases where I use crunch in unconventional ways and post a feat or ability that I'm using as an example of what I'm doing. Basically these are instances of quoting crunch to explain what I'm doing.

In some cases this is more extreme as I thought about posting my homebrew adventures, which would heavily feature creatures, equipment, and NPCs piecemealed from more than one source and explanations of whats happening with the stats and what books I'm using. This includes house rules on some products.

Another thing was logs, written or audio, with spoiler tags that describe gameplay of third party adventures. For example say I recorded a session of the Santiago adventure and posted it (with spoiler tags).

So how much of this is okay to post and how much is definitely not cool?

[J4RH34D]

I dont think most would mind so long as you give credit where it is due

[Little Red Goblin Games]

As long as you are not like reprinting large sections of books I think it would probably be fine (speaking for myself I guess). Also, if you linked to the products in question, probably even score a few points with the publishers ;-)

[Owen KC Stephens]

Yep, Rogue Genus Games is totally fine with this.
And Green Ronin is okay with the kinds of provisos mentioned above. :)

And if you ping me on Facebook or some other social media source, I'd likely even link to them on my online places.

[Seginus]

Everything I write is under the OGL, and in the next few weeks Path of Iron will end up on the d20pfsrd anyway, so use what you want. The only thing I would definitely ask permission for ahead of time (for any publisher) is if you want to use artwork from a book; some artists only want their pieces used in the work it was commissioned for.

[Purple Duck Games]

All our text is Open Game Content. Use whatever you like freely.

[The Ragi]

Malwing wrote:

I was working on articles where I post an NPC that is built with third party material and explain the abilities that it has.

I started something like that on the Advice and Rules section of this third-party bit of the forum.

Got a tinker, a daevic and a psionic warrior up. It's an interesting exercise.

[RJGrady]

If it's for an example, I would say print as much as you need. And no more, obviously.

For an adventure, that's getting into fairly serious fair uses discussions. A blog is "commerce" whereas an adventure is probably "transformational." But, IANAL, that doesn't necessarily mean someone won't freak out. My suggestion is to ask, and use good manners. In my non-lawyerly opinion, posting any unique stat block is probably okay, even if it's based on a published monster or class, but it seems that if you are using a published stat block, it might be better to simply state what you are using and where you found it. Is it possible, even, to link to stat blocks on other websites?

[GM Rednal]

Specific cases may vary, but generally speaking, rules material tends to be open, while adventure material (plots, dialogue, setting, etc.) tends to be closed. This is why sites like d20pfsrd.com can host lots of third-party rules material... though I'm sure the publishers here wouldn't mind if you provided a link back to the products you used when you're discussing them. XD

Logos... that's a little more complicated. I know some of Paizo's logos can be used under the Community Use Policy. For other stuff, you'd probably have to write to the publishers, asking if A) They have a logo they can give you, B) If you can use it, and C) What other requirements they might have for the use of said logo.

[Rusted Iron Games]

Hey Malwing,
I think posting a review or example is covered under what's called fair use and you should be okay. As others have said, I have no problems with you using R.I.G. material in this fashion. A link back to the product would be nice, however. :)

If you publish an adventure on your blog you would probably want to use the OGL and cite all the sources that you drew material from to be on the safe side.

[Little Red Goblin Games]

Keep in mind fair use is basically "an acceptably legal defense why you did something" if someone sues you rather than an actual legal loophole (a lot of folks get this confused).