Never mind. I'm clearly sounding odder than normal.
It's worth noting that the original Ravenloft module WAS a generic setting. There was no Dark Powers, no Mists, etc. Ravenloft as a separate setting didn't happen until 7 years after the publication of the original module.
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That's a misconception. The old d20 license had prohibitions against "interactive game" software, but the OGL has no media restrictions; in fact, the OGL's Software FAQ specifically addresses how to do it.
Having never bothered to look into it because I barely play video games, so I'm certainly not going to produce one, I always took that misconception at face value. It's my understanding that Pathfinder Online didn't use "regular" Pathfinder rules, though. Why that decision when it's apparently possible?
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I also believe that the creatures in question (beholders, mind flayers, dicplacer beasts, etc) were made up by some TSR person rather than having been derived from some myth or what have you.
In the case of some of these monsters, it strikes me as a little disingenuous.
On a purely physical level, Mind Flayers look fairly heavily derivative of Cthulhu.
Displacer Beasts, again on a physical level, are widely recognized as being based on the Coeurl from A.G. van Vogt's story "Black Destroyer, which is incorporated in to his novel The Voyage of the Space Beagle. Take a look.
Really, it'd be silly to try and copyright a chimera, a Nemian lion, a hydra, or a dragon.
Remember, though, the question of what monsters are or aren't declared Product Identity is less a matter of copyright and more a matter of the terms of a license that is completely voluntary, i.e., it's a matter of contract.
By way of example, you and I could enter into a contract whereby we agree that I will pay you $10 on February 1 on the condition that you not sing "The Star Spangled Banner" in public between January 25 and 31, and you agree not to sing the song during that period. If we entered into that contract, copyright law would have nothing to do with whether you can or can't sing the song in public on January 29, but if you did, you would break the contract, and if I find out, I'd be justified in not giving you the $10.
Similarly, without even looking at the question of whether copyright law "really" prevents an OGL publisher from using a Beholder in an OGL product, by accepting the OGL, the publisher agrees not to use a Beholder in an OGL product, so if the publisher does, that's a breach of the contract.
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I knew about the Cthulhu thing, and I once knew and forgot the coerl thing, but in those instances, it is more about appropriating than it is about just having it be the exact same thing. I don't know enough about the coerl to know how close the monsters are, but a mind flayer just happens to look like Cthulhu and has weird psychic powers and eats brains.
But ultimately it just feeds into the sense that WOTC and Tsr have weird reasons behind protecting the monsters that they do. I would be curious to find out what motivations exist there. I'd be willing to bet that tie in products and media might play a role.
Cthulhu has wings, is miles tall, and doesn't eat brains.
So they aren't as close as some people make them out to be.
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But ultimately it just feeds into the sense that WOTC and Tsr have weird reasons behind protecting the monsters that they do. I would be curious to find out what motivations exist there. I'd be willing to bet that tie in products and media might play a role.
Tie-in material might well have played a role, but my sense was that they picked the monsters that they felt set most D&D apart from generic heroic fantasy, or were heavily tied to story elements.
On the first count, I think they were fairly successful because the lack of Mind Flayers and Beholders in products has always made Pathfinder seem a little less D&D to me, an I brought in a few Displacer Beasts in my Kingmaker campaign a month or two ago and that encounter scratched the D&D itch in a way others haven't.
In terms of story elements, I'm thinking specifically of the Githyanki and Githzerai, who had an unusually specific origin story, but there may be others I'm not thinking of off hand.
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I think that it's interesting that they are really holding on to the baatezu and tanar'ri, being that they were effectively meant as euphamisms for demons and devils in response to the anti-D&D craze.
But it had the side effect of both making Planescape feel like its own setting, and making those terms uniquely D&D. But even Pathfinder is starting to go in this direction, making distinctions for things like psychopomps and qlippoths. Not that they would likely trademark those.
Also, you can't copy the entire SRD as a published work either because this would be in violation of its copyright.As long as you include the OGL you can reprint the entirety of the open content in the SRD, and the SRD is supposed to only contain open content.I wanted to point out that the SRD 5.0 does contain protected content. Quite a bit, in fact.
This protected Product Identity content is declared in the SRD 5.0's OGL notice, and the claims are pretty broad, including content previously declared as Open Game Content in the 3.5 SRD. I've been converting the SRD to more accessible formats, removing or replacing the protected content in the process. Stuff I've removed includes named NPCs and locations, several spells mentioned in class features and stat blocks that are not open content. I've also declared the 3.5 SRD in this project's OGL notice to recognize the proper names of locations and items that it declared as Open Game Content.
Note that even Paizo's PRD also lets some product identity slip on occasion. There are still protected deity names on the official PRD. Their presence on the PRD does not automatically make them open content.
If you're using a reference document, it's your responsibility, not the publisher's, to make sure the content you use is actually Open Game Content and not protected as product identity. The only way to do so is to find the original source and read its Product Identity declaration.
I didn't realize how terrible their SRD was, but you are right. There are mentions of beholders in the deck of illusions and the aberrations description. I had assumed they did a better job of making a system reference document.
Chief Technical Officer
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This protected Product Identity content is declared in the SRD 5.0's OGL notice, and the claims are pretty broad, including content previously declared as Open Game Content in the 3.5 SRD. I've been converting the SRD to more accessible formats, removing or replacing the protected content in the process. Stuff I've removed includes named NPCs and locations, several spells mentioned in class features and stat blocks that are not open content.
I can't speak definitively on this, but I would certainly argue that if you declare something as OGC and then declare it as PI, I can treat it as OGC. The three sections of the OGL I would quote to back that up are these:
- Product Identity" means [stuff] clearly identified as Product identity by the owner of the Product Identity, and which specifically excludes the Open Game Content...
This is worded so that exclusion specifically trumps inclusion. It therefore doesn't matter if you clearly identify something as PI if you've also specifically excluded it.
- the Contributors grant You a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license with the exact terms of this License to Use, the Open Game Content.
If I have been granted a perpetual license to use it, you can't shut it off.
- You may use any authorized version of this License to copy, modify and distribute any Open Game Content originally distributed under any version of this License.
"Originally" brings in a temporal element here that pretty strongly suggests you can't undo what's been done.
Note that even Paizo's PRD also lets some product identity slip on occasion. There are still protected deity names on the official PRD. Their presence on the PRD does not automatically make them open content.
"Letting it slip" implies that those things are there accidentally—they were included intentionally. But, as you say, their presence does not automatically make them OGC, and the statement of Product Identity included with the PRD does specify that, among other things, "proper names (characters, deities, etc.)" are Product Identity.
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Chief Technical Officer
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That's a misconception. The old d20 license had prohibitions against "interactive game" software, but the OGL has no media restrictions; in fact, the OGL's Software FAQ specifically addresses how to do it.Having never bothered to look into it because I barely play video games, so I'm certainly not going to produce one, I always took that misconception at face value. It's my understanding that Pathfinder Online didn't use "regular" Pathfinder rules, though. Why that decision when it's apparently possible?
I don't want to derail the thread here, so I'm going to keep this (relatively) simple and leave it at that—if you want more detail, there has been discussion about that in the PFO forums.
First and foremost, we didn't want Pathfinder Online to be a direct adaptation of the Pathfinder RPG because we think a direct adaptation would make a pretty lousy MMO. To give you just two examples, Pathfinder RPG is fundamentally turn-based, and we didn't want an MMO where you have to wait while your opponents and allies act. The way you gain experience and level up in the RPG also doesn't work for PFO—it takes you from ordinary to superhuman in the space of a few dozen encounters. In the RPG, your GM can ensure that you face mainly level-appropriate challenges, but we want a shared-world MMO where everyone coexists regardless of level. If we brought that system in as-is from the RPG, die-hards would max their characters to level 20 in no time at all, which has three huge problems. First, there's no way for them to continue improving. Second, anything that challenges them would destroy a newbie. Third, newbies would have no capability to compete with them, whether that's competing for resources or competing in direct combat.
The second problem is a bit more on topic for this thread: While it's *possible* to create a video game under the OGL, there are nevertheless challenges in doing so.
One of those challenges has been discussed a fair amount, and that's complying with this requirement: "If you distribute Open Game Content You must clearly indicate which portions of the work that you are distributing are Open Game Content." As the OGL FAQ I linked above said, that may be as simple as including a human-readable file in the distribution that includes all the OGC you're using.
A challenge that has been discussed far less is complying with this requirement: "No other terms or conditions may be applied to any Open Game Content distributed using this License." So you have to ensure that any licenses you may use in your game don't step on that. Most obviously, this needs to be considered with any end-user license you may have. Less obviously, the software distribution platforms you might want to use all have licenses, and if any of them tread on this, you can't use those outlets. Same deal with licenses for libraries used in your software (for example, if you want to use Unity, you need to make sure nothing in Unity's licenses collides with this).
It's all doable; it's just added complexity that may or may not be worthwhile in your particular circumstance. And you're certainly going to want to get lawyers involved, especially with regard to that paragraph directly above, so it does come with an expense. It also comes with some risk, as if you get it wrong—or even if Wizards just *thinks* you got it wrong—you could have problems.
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Turn based probably wouldn't work with an MMO...
but I LOVE turn based RPGs. Most action RPGs actually stink to high heaven these days. They just don't get the action combat right. Of course, this applies more to the Japanese Action RPGs than the Western RPGs overall, but even in the West, you have Diablo...and then everyone else that clones Diablo.
Or you have the TPS or FPS disguised as RPGs. Mass Effect did great, and I enjoy their mechanics...but most of those that try this aren't all that great.
For a non-MMO give me a great Turn Based RPG any day of the week over that of an Action RPG.
At the most, make it like the BG/IWD series where you could pause it from time to time.
There are other ways to get a more traditional D&D feel to a game without using the OGL...I think the Dragon Age/Fantasy Age series does a great job at doing this...and Bio has some in their Computer games which does an okay job at replicating the D&D RPGs of the past.