3.5 Beholders, Mind Flayers, Yuan-tis...

[Kae'Yoss]

I assume you mean sea LION? I thought "sea cat" was pathetic, as well. Sea cat sounds like a miniature sea lion. Most likely, they wanted to end any confusion with the mammals of the same name, so folks like myself would stop saying "feline sea lion" all the time. Perhaps they should have merged sea lion with feline, to create "sealine".

Hee hee hee. Sea Loin. I think that was a Freudian slip.

Sealine could be confused with coastline...

And Sea Cat makes me think of Meerkat.

It's all very weird.

 

[Numion]

The thought that I can't help thinking is "why *those* creatures in particular?"


Why not Howlers, Inevitables, Solars, Invisible Stalkers?

Why not Tendriculous, Thoqqua, Tojanida and Xorn?

Why not Drow?

I doubt that all of those have some pre-existence in other forms, but I can't think of a reason for producing a list which includes beholders, mind flayers and displacer beasts but excludes any number of other completely made-up monsters ?!?

Maybe the purpose wasn't to remove all things thought up by wotc, but rather the creatures that are most representative of / associated with Dungeons & Dragons. Dungeons and Dragons is not open content.

I think that they just wanted better protection for their D&D ip. Those creatures you listed are not as closely related to D&D as the illithid, carrion crawlers and other classics.

 

[DaveStebbins]

The thought that I can't help thinking is "why *those* creatures in particular? Why not Drow?

I doubt that all of those have some pre-existence in other forms, but I can't think of a reason for producing a list which includes beholders, mind flayers and displacer beasts but excludes any number of other completely made-up monsters ?!?

IIRC Drow *DO* have roots in European mythology. For some reason, I remember it being a norse term for a dark elf, but I could be mis-remembering.

The list they used were creatues which are their intellectual property which help to define the game in a major way, so they view those particular pieces of IP as more valuable than others.

Finally, to echo what others have said, I have also heard from several sources that WotC have generally been helpful and agreeable when publishers have approached them for permission to use those IP creatures in gaming products.

-Dave

 

[Plane Sailing]

But displacer beasts and carrior crawlers?

I'd hardly have said *those* were iconic creatures representative of D&D... probably used them a total of once each in nearly 30 years of playing

 

[Ketjak]

Re: Re: 3.5 Beholders, Mind Flayers, Yuan-tis...

Mind Flayer actually was listed there, along with it's name of Illithid.

Um, no:

http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/ogl.html

http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/OGLv1.0a.rtf

For the other books, well, they can still release under 3.0 (final) of the SRD if those critters were included there. Legions of Hell was allowed to use Tanar'ri and Baatezu due to the gentlemen's agreemtn (if they did in fact use them)

They did in Legions of Hell (pats his copy).

that was in place until the final SRD was complete/released. I believe the same was true of the Slayer's Guide to Yuan-Ti (And also Veiled Masters for reference to the Illithid-actually due to WotC and Paradigm making some arrangement I believe).

Sounds like it. I'm glad those companies are OK, but it looks like I'm going to have to find an OGC version of these monsters for 3.5, since I'm not buying the books.

- Ket
edit: added reference to WotC's OGL page, like I meant to do in the first place :bonk:

 

[reiella]

Re: Re: Re: 3.5 Beholders, Mind Flayers, Yuan-tis...

[ Edit ]

Doh I see what you meant now.

They were actually not included in the Final 3.0 SRD.

 

[The Sigil]

The thought that I can't help thinking is "why *those* creatures in particular?"


Why not Howlers, Inevitables, Solars, Invisible Stalkers?

Why not Tendriculous, Thoqqua, Tojanida and Xorn?

Why not Drow?

I doubt that all of those have some pre-existence in other forms, but I can't think of a reason for producing a list which includes beholders, mind flayers and displacer beasts but excludes any number of other completely made-up monsters ?!?

Drow - the word itself is an old Nordic(?) term for dark elf... and the "original" drow, Eol, appears in Tolkien's "The Silmarillion" - so drow has a pre-existance.

The other creatures, I'm not sure about. It's possible that they have their origin in public domain legends, etc. and thus cannot be claimed strongly as "wholly invented by WotC" and WotC was just trying to protect a few of the things that are clearly "wholly theirs" without any mythological or historical background.

--The Sigil

 

[Jhyrryl]

I'm sure there are myriad products that include mind flayers, beholders, and yuan-tis, not to mention tanar'ri, baatezu (see Legions of Hell) as monsters... how's that being worked out?

Despite not being in the SRD, it's possible to gain permission to use product identity. For example, when the 3.0 SRD was first updated to exclude certain creatures that appeared in the MM, I wrote WotC and was able to obtained permission to use Kuo-toa and Yuan-ti in a product that I had been working on for awhile, but which I had put on hold until such time as 3.5 was released (not having been published previously, I was not able to gain access to the exclusive publisher's pre-release email list). However, I have been unable to convince any publisher that said product would be worth their time, so despite 3.5's release, I have not endeavored to waste time that can be better spent preparing campaigns to entertain my friends.

In any case, existing products muct conform to the new standards if they reprint, but WotC has been quite fair in allowing existing product to stay on the shelves. Requests to use WotC's product identity in new publications will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Correct. Kuo-Toa are no longer in the SRD. I guess we can still call them by their 1e nickname, "gogglers", and be safe.


I assume you mean sea LION? I thought "sea cat" was pathetic, as well. Sea cat sounds like a miniature sea lion. Most likely, they wanted to end any confusion with the mammals of the same name, so folks like myself would stop saying "feline sea lion" all the time. Perhaps they should have merged sea lion with feline, to create "sealine".

:O

Look for the sea loin in the BoEF

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Actually, I don't think Eol was anywhere near a D&D drow. I mean, he was called a dark elf, but he had white skin and dark hair like the others, and lived in a forest. Sure, it was a deep, dark, black forest, but still. I think that he was a master smith who liked dwarves. I really don't think that the drow are based on him. But hey, I haven't read the Silmarillion since I was 11, so I'm probably wrong.