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[tomBitonti]

Originally Posted by Scott_Rouse

Our intention was to let you use a term like Dragonborn and add to it through creative design and devlopment. We wanted to avoid copy and past publishing. So we add rules of use but we didn't do a good job of explaining how you can (or can't) use it.

As an example:

Maybe in your campaign world dragonborn live underground. Does this redefine dragonborn? Probably not. What if they also get darkvison? OK. What if they have albinio skin and can walk through solid stone once per day? Well not this likely crosses a line, but then again maybe not.

(Additional text omitted.)

First, I think this would work out better if the term "redefine" was avoided. That word has a very basic meaning, and I think that established meaning is interfering with your desire to place concise allowances and restrictions on how you want your property to be used.

For one, I think you will run into problems with words that already have an estabilished meaning. "Troll" is a common word with several definitions. If I use "troll" as a referent to a set of statistics and to a game world description, have I "redefined" the word "troll"? (My professional mathematics training says, very definitely, no.) You get into a second level problem, too, in that I don't think that you really mean to say "redefine". I would gather that that is not a legal term, so we are left with the common English one ... and I am thinking that under that meaning "Dragonborn" are simply "humanoid creatures with draconic characteristics", and anything else is fair game for revision. (Or most everything else -- I would think that the definition could have a line or two more.)

Second, I think there are two issues which are being mixed up. One is establishing new referents to existing words. That is, "In my campaign, Dragonborn have these characteristics ...". The second is to create new words for existing characteristics. "In my campaign, Scions of Tiamat have these characteristics ... " followed by a reproduction of the statistics for Dragonborn.

Third, can a exemplar be created for the use of the license? That is, hire an author to create a sample work that uses the license, to show how the license is intended to be used. (If there is a problem with creating such a work and its probably use as precedent in any legal issues ... then I would have to ask you to take a look back at what the license is trying to achieve.)

Thx for having the bandwidth to contribute to these forums. My view that to have the allowance to make statements here is pretty big Mojo for the the corporate world.