Creature Catalog to be Published

[Cergorach]

Big news today - Scott Greene's Creature Catalog is to be published by Necromancer Games! Congratulations to Scott, Erica and crew - and I'm sure that the whole EN World community will agree. The Creature Catalog has been posting new and converted 3E monsters for as long as I can remember; originally hosted by Eric Noah's Unnofficial Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition News, it moved to EN World in August of last year. It's great that Scott and Erica are joining Kevin 'Piratecat' Kulp, Claudio Pozas and other EN World members in the publishing industry.

For those who don't know what this is all about, take a look at:
http://www.d20reviews.com/cc/converted.html

What i'm curious about is what's IP from WotC and what's not? And will Necromancer Games use IP from WotC? Do they have the rights for this? If not how is this going to affect the D20 'business'?

 

[drnuncheon]

I'm kind of curious if the original creators of the creatures included in the CC will get credited.

J

 

[XCorvis]

I'm sure they will credit (but not pay) the original authors.

I was under the impression that the CC had a lot of conversions from previous editions (IP, as said above) - Necromancer CAN'T print most of those without WOTC's permission.

Can anyone from Necromancer explain further?

 

[NeghVar]

Did the Hacklopedias credit the original authors?

Clark is an attorney by trade, I am fairly certain that no announcement would have been made, unless some sort of deal was made. And frankly...why is it our business?

Later!
Art

 

[EricNoah]

Hackmaster's a different situation because Kenzer licensed AD&D from WotC, so they have permission.

 

[NeghVar]

Hackmaster's a different situation because Kenzer licensed AD&D from WotC, so they have permission.

Oh man...I hate messing with the man...

I did not forget that fact...but does it make a difference? Even with the license, should you or shouldn't you give credit to the original authors?

Not sure what the reprint rights are like?

Later!
Art

 

[Cergorach]

Oh man...I hate messing with the man...

I did not forget that fact...but does it make a difference? Even with the license, should you or shouldn't you give credit to the original authors?

Not sure what the reprint rights are like?

Later!
Art

That kind of depends on what kind of contract the creatures where created, if the ESD program is any indication, i think that WotC owns those rights lock-stock-and-barrel.

Clark is an attorney by trade, I am fairly certain that no announcement would have been made, unless some sort of deal was made. And frankly...why is it our business?

Why is it our business? Simple on a couple of points:
1.) The CC was created as a fan efford, it didn't adhere to any OGL/D20 rules, it infringes on a lot of IP owned by WotC, but WotC didn't do anything about it because it was 'harmless' fan created material. Now it's going to be pubished by a D20 company. I can see a lot of repercussions for the fan community and the use of IP material owned by WotC.
2.) Everyone keeps saying that Clark is a lawyer and must know what he's doing, what everyone keeps forgetting is that lawyers are people too (yeah, i know a lot of people dont agree with me on that ;-) and can make mistakes. If he makes a mistake or uses the law to the max but does things WotC feels threatend by, this would harm the OGL/D20 community and have repercussions for us all.

In all this affects us as much as it does Necromancer Games...

 

[corndog]

I'm betting the obvious answer here is simple. necromancer will publish an accessory titled Creature Catalog, by the CC crew, ok. I strongly doubt it will be cut and pasted from the CC site. My guess is that the bulk of the monsters in the product will be ones that were written by the CC crew, and any additional ones will have made some arrangement for permission from the author. I am also fairly confident that Necromancer's legal posse will go over the direct WotC IP stuff with a fine tooth comb, to see what will fly and what won't. Don't worry yet, Necromancer is one of the big boys, I really doubt they would be so stupid as to wantonly violate WotC's rights and bring a black mark to the fan site community.

 

[Da Man]

I have visited this site before, but not nearly with the regularity that I have recently.

I was under the impression that the Creature Catalogue was mainly a Conversion manual. Something to save fans time, nothing more. That's the only thing I ever used it for (to get 3e stats for 1e and 2e monsters). If this is true, I do believe that 'Necromancer Games' has seriously misjudged this product's potential. But, only time will tell.

The assertions above, in several instances, that:

1. 'A lawyer did it and he wouldn't do the wrong thing' or implicating that a lawyer cannot make a mistake

and

2. That 'Necromancer' is one of the big boys and won't make a mistake

are absolutely ludicrous in my opinion. For one, I doubt Necromancer's revenues approach even the top salary of Enron's top board members, but Enron certainly dropped the ball. I won't even address the lawyer comment.

People make mistakes all the time. So do big and small companies. I warrant that Necromancy Games is a small company with a shoe string budget trying to make a break of it in the business world. Apparently, part of their business team believes this will be lucrative.

Assumptions are risky when it comes to business.

Also, if Fan submitted material is being used (without permissiion), I would look at all supposed 'contests' on this site as suspect from this point forward. (I really hope this is not the case. I like this site.)

 

[trancejeremy]

Didn't one of the Necromancer modules mistakenly use a monster from Monsters of Faerun? (I'm not sure, since I don't have it, but someone mentioned it someplace...)