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For those who don’t know me, I’m a soon-to-be-published author who has been playing DnD and Pathfinder for over 20 years now, and writing for even longer.
I recently had an idea for a VERY long series of early young adult fantasy novellas within the frame of Pathfinder and DnD. In the books, there will be hundreds of opportunities to introduce unique characters and locales. As a way to thank this amazing community that has given me so much, I want those characters and locations to be your creations.
If you’d like your character to be featured in my series, please tell me a little bit about them (race, class, age, etc), with an emphasis on their personality (how you roleplay them is a good start).
Any race/class/alignment is fair game, even third party or DnD content.
If you’d like a place you’ve created to make the cut, please tell me all about it and what makes it special.
I look forward to meeting your characters!
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How are you publishing D&D and Pathfinder novellas?
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How are you publishing D&D and Pathfinder novellas?
by just writing about it. It’s not set in any world or setting connected with either property, features no names, characters, or likenesses from any lore or other story, and has nothing really to do with them besides the basic framework of adventuring parties and the class concepts. I don’t want to spoil the main hook for the books because it hinges almost entirely on the premise we’re discussing, but I will say that I should have zero copyright issues from either Paizo or WotC.
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Since you have a totally blank profile, with no links to your work or your website, could you please post a link here to the Intellectual Property contract you expect to sign with us for use of characters and settings we've devised?
Certainly you'd want to protect yourself from future copyright claims, so it would be useful to see what the legal document looks like.
So I honestly hadn’t thought of that before. Man, that’s a buzzkill. You’re absolutely right that I would want to protect myself from that, though I wish I didn’t have to.
This post was supposed to just be a way to say thank you to the amazing players and GMs I’ve had the pleasure of working with for the past few years. Hopefully it will still be a good thread.
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I have dozens of characters ready to go.
You can't have them for your books. Not until I see the contract and I sign off on it.
Good luck in your endeavors!
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Since you have a totally blank profile, with no links to your work or your website, could you please post a link here to the Intellectual Property contract you expect to sign with us for use of characters and settings we've devised?
Certainly you'd want to protect yourself from future copyright claims, so it would be useful to see what the legal document looks like.
So I honestly hadn’t thought of that before. Man, that’s a buzzkill. You’re absolutely right that I would want to protect myself from that, though I wish I didn’t have to.
This post was supposed to just be a way to say thank you to the amazing players and GMs I’ve had the pleasure of working with for the past few years. Hopefully it will still be a good thread.
Yeah, you really need to consult a Lawyer with Intellectual Property Rights experience before moving forward with this idea: You are taking the results of many other people's work (including 40+ years of game designers) and publishing them (presumably) for personal profit. Even if you shave off all the relevant serial numbers, that might not be enough to protect yourself (particularly if you try to promote it as a D&D/Pathfinder tale)...
Honestly, I doubt a competent publisher would touch this product without a strong legal opinion saying they won't get sued (or even just dragged into a lawsuit against you).
Simply put, you are no longer just playing a game...
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Like, really, talk to a lawyer.
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Like, really, talk to a lawyer.
Or, and I say this from a writer's POV as well as a reader's, don't use other people's characters if the work's not in some way already linked to that person or character. That's not a desirable link.
Characters exist within the timeframes of their stories, with the author displaying them most strongest in the choices they make. It's difficult to extricate characters from this (or from their associates & backgrounds too for that matter). Adopting somebody else's character (especially sans the setting & campaign arcs they've experienced) doesn't give you any of that. It'd be more like a writing prompt you'd have to expand on anyway, a seed you have to grow with the caveat that there's an original player/author who might clash with you on interpretation! (Or horrific setbacks & consequences too.) You'd be so much freer with your own material.
So yeah, while it's legally desirable to own your characters, it's arguably required to conceptually own (as in internalize) your characters too to a depth that'd be awkward with a borrowed idea (much less one the lender might want unblemished).
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Like, really, talk to a lawyer.Or, and I say this from a writer's POV as well as a reader's, don't use other people's characters if the work's not in some way already linked to that person or character. That's not a desirable link.
Characters exist within the timeframes of their stories, with the author displaying them most strongest in the choices they make. It's difficult to extricate characters from this (or from their associates & backgrounds too for that matter). Adopting somebody else's character (especially sans the setting & campaign arcs they've experienced) doesn't give you any of that. It'd be more like a writing prompt you'd have to expand on anyway, a seed you have to grow with the caveat that there's an original player/author who might clash with you on interpretation! (Or horrific setbacks & consequences too.) You'd be so much freer with your own material.
So yeah, while it's legally desirable to own your characters, it's arguably required to conceptually own (as in internalize) your characters too to a depth that'd be awkward with a borrowed idea (much less one the lender might want unblemished).
Yeah, I get mad enough when a GM makes decisions for my character, much less a complete stranger.