fissionessence
First Post
This might not be the same kind of legal advice people around here are used to dealing with, but hopefully someone has some insight/experience.
I was just wondering how close a 3PP could come to mimicking Wizards's 4E layout design without infringing on any kind of copyright or whatever restrictions. Things like margin width, column width and font sizes seem like no big deal, but what about when you start getting into the precise fonts that their books use (Mentor and Mentor Sans), copying the hues in their monster stat blocks, and using the same gradient in the background of every other box in the power tables?
Additionally, the SRD seems to suggest that 3PPs may use the power icons; does anyone know if that's actually the case? If it is, have these symbols been made freely available? (I was able to rip them out from pdfs of the books for personal use, but I wanted to see what was known about using them commercially, and how then they should be obtained officially.) Along similar but different same lines, what about WotC's special fonts DNDVecna and DNDLolth (used for their main headings and subheadings repsectively)? I was able to rip the Lolth font, but not the Vecna font (once again, for personal use), but I hoped someone would have insight on what kind of things one would actually be able to with any of those fonts [legally].
Thanks for your time!
~ fissionessence
I was just wondering how close a 3PP could come to mimicking Wizards's 4E layout design without infringing on any kind of copyright or whatever restrictions. Things like margin width, column width and font sizes seem like no big deal, but what about when you start getting into the precise fonts that their books use (Mentor and Mentor Sans), copying the hues in their monster stat blocks, and using the same gradient in the background of every other box in the power tables?
Additionally, the SRD seems to suggest that 3PPs may use the power icons; does anyone know if that's actually the case? If it is, have these symbols been made freely available? (I was able to rip them out from pdfs of the books for personal use, but I wanted to see what was known about using them commercially, and how then they should be obtained officially.) Along similar but different same lines, what about WotC's special fonts DNDVecna and DNDLolth (used for their main headings and subheadings repsectively)? I was able to rip the Lolth font, but not the Vecna font (once again, for personal use), but I hoped someone would have insight on what kind of things one would actually be able to with any of those fonts [legally].
Thanks for your time!
~ fissionessence