| Aaron Bitman |
Obviously, you're free to use whatever you want when simply running games. But your question implies that you're thinking of publishing your own content using Pathfinder monsters. If that's the case, here's my attempt at an answer:
Generally, the stats in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game products (such as the Bestiary, Bestiary 2, Bestiary 3, etc.) are OGL. Generally, the stuff in the campaign setting books, adventure paths, modules, etc. are not. The litmus test is to look for a statement in the beginning of your book like "the game mechanics of this Paizo Publishing game product are Open Game Content".
Is there a list of OGL monsters? Look in a Pathfinder SRD, such as this one or this one and browse away!
Vic Wertz
Chief Technical Officer
|
That's not quite right—the line isn't drawn between "products in the Pathfinder RPG line" and "products in the other lines," it's drawn (usually) between "game mechanics" and "stuff that defines our setting." Or, more accurately:
When it comes to the Pathfinder RPG, our intellectual property generally falls into two categories: Open Game Content (generally game mechanics) and Product Identity (generally setting material, trademarks, artwork, and other non-mechanical stuff).
Anything we've declared as Open Game Content in our products is available for use under the Open Game License; anything we've declared as Product Identity is not available under the OGL. In most of our products, you'll find the statements of OGC and PI on the title or credits page at the front of the book. Note that these statements occasionally vary from product to product, so you'll need to check the individual statements in each product you wish to draw from.
If you are a noncommercial user, you may be able to use some of our PI by way of our Community Use Policy, which you can find at http://paizo.com/paizo/about/communityuse. If you are a commercial user, our PI is not available for your use without a specific license.
To use Open Game Content in your own products, you need to use the OGL, which you can find in any OGL product. The OGL itself tells you how to use it. Please note that the OGL is Wizards of the Coast's license, not Paizo's, and so I can't provide any advice about its suitability for your use. You may wish to consider speaking with an intellectual properties legal specialist.
Note that the OGL specifically restricts you from using "any ... trademark or registered trademark clearly identified as Product Identity by the owner of the Product Identity", or from "indicat[ing] compatibility or co-adaptability with any Trademark or Registered Trademark in conjunction with a work containing Open Game Content except as expressly licensed in another, independent Agreement with the owner of such Trademark or Registered Trademark." So to indicate that your OGL product is compatible with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, you'll need to follow our free Pathfinder RPG Compatibility License, which you can find at http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/compatibility. Note that the Compatibility License is only applicable to books, electronic books, and freely available websites. (You can still use Open Game Content in a OGL product that's not a book, ebook, or free website, but you can't say it's compatible with the Pathfinder RPG or use trademarks like Pathfinder or Paizo in any way; you may, however, use the non-trademarked term "PFRPG”.)
Also, note that even though (to take an example) the game mechanics for goblins are Open Game Content, the artwork depicting our goblins is Product Identity. So you can't make your goblins look like our goblins (just as our dragons can't look like D&D's dragons, and so on).