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Old 18th June 2008, 02:06 PM   #12 (permalink)
kenmarable
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Location: East Lansing, MI, USA
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kenmarable Goblin Sharpshooter (Lvl 2)
Quote:
Originally Posted by DiasExMachina
I think we should look at what SRD stands for. It is a reference...so, I think what this means is that you can reference our elf but you cannot modify our elf. Right? So...this could be a good thing. By not including a non-copyrighted term like demon, they are saying "You cannot reference our demon" thus allowing you to create your own.

How's that?
Actually, "demon" and "devil" are in there as headings, but with nothing under them.

However, I know there's strict interpretation of the license if that you can't redefine "elf" or "demon", but I'm sure as this plays out between WotC and third parties, it will become clear that WotC doesn't want people redefining things like "Dexterity", "hit points", "Armor Class", but are fine with elves that aren't an exact thematic match to their elves. (But again, that's just my guess at their intent.)

I'm just surprised that the demon and devil headings are in there without anything under them. We don't really need an SRD to use very generic terms like "demon" and "devil", just the specific demon and devil monsters. So if they wanted them blocked off, why even include the headings? And why try to block them off when, as someone mentioned above, many of them are pulled from mythology and can third party publishers can just create their own replacements? Not to mention they were very often used and not very abused in the days of 3.x. Looking back, I'm pretty sure that just about every adventure I wrote as a freelancer had some devil or demon in it. But now, unless this is an oversight, nothing, despite having a core class that allegedly interacts with them, and a core race that has dealt with them. They are now more core than ever, yet cut off from third party publishers. That just seems really odd.
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