D&D 5E Final Fantasy and D&D

[Elderbrain]

In a lot of the older Final Fantasy games (haven't played recent ones, so don't know), monsters from D&D make an appearance. For example, the Mind Flayer, the Piscodemon, and the Sahuagin, as well as "generic" ones such as Tiamat and Bahamut, chromatic dragons, and others. With regards to the (presumably) copyrighted ones like the Mind Flayer, is this legal? Could TSR/WOTC have sued? Have there been any crossovers in the other direction (FF monsters appearing in D&D)? The Malboro plant creature with its Bad Breath attack would be a mean one to sic on PCs!

 

[BigVanVader]

All I know is I want a Buster Sword.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I believe that legal action was taken, at some point, leading to a number of changes during localization. For example, the elemental Fiend of Fire in Final Fantasy I was known as Marilith in the Japanese release and Kary in the US release.

Or perhaps the changes were made to avoid the need for legal action? In any case, the intent of the first game was very much to be as accurate to D&D as possible, right down to the pseudo-Vancian spell slots. Quite a bit of traditional D&D was modified from existing sources, though, so things like Bahamut and Tiamat are open season for any game that wants to use them.

 

[Nebulous]

I heard that Bahamut is some kind of evil god in FF14, not the platimum god of good dragons in D&D.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

All I know is I want a Buster Sword.

In 5E, it would just be a longsword. In 3E, it dealt d10 damage and could be used one-handed if you had the proper feat.

(That particular name is just a translation issue for a weapon that has been semi-common in most editions.)

 

[Elderbrain]

Hmm. I've been playing the versions released for the PS one, and they use the D&D names (Marilith is called Marilith, not Kary) So in between the original releases (on Nintendo/Super Nintendo), they must have reached some sort of agreement (I played FF 1 on Nintendo, but my puny brain can't recall whether Marilith was called Kary, but I'll take your word on it.)

 

[Sigbjorn_86]

The naming issues were matters of translation, not legality. Simply put, up through the PS1 era, translation was supbar and changed many names for no reason. Later remakes restored the original names to be truer to the source.

Besides, given D&D's own history, I don't think they would be worried about anyone 'stealing' monsters.

 

[Elderbrain]

I know that the Nintendo versions changed the name of the Holy spell to "White", presumably out of fear of offending some American parent who saw his kid cast a "Holy" spell in the game. Go figure... with regards to Bahamut, he is traditionally a good guy in FF. (However, in some games he must obey whoever summons him, good or bad, and in the movie Final Fantasy: Advent Children he is summoned by a villain and Cloud has to fight him.)

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

I have always wanted to run a BECMI adaptation of FF1, but can never gather enough players.

 

[Remathilis]

Paging @KamakizeMidget