(DaemonEye) Psionics Handbook Companion

[AerosAtar]

The WotC psionics board moderators ARE employees of WotC, thats why thier handles have "WotC_" as the first half.

Those with a WotC_ tag are indeed employees of Wizards of the Coast, however, see below.

They make it a practice to warn people on the board when they start to step out of line with the d20 license, and have warned ME about other such things. They have NEVER posted squat about "Psionics Handbook Companion" or "Illithid" in any of my threads about my book, put have posted thier opinions about other things. No comments (with these guys) usually means you are in the safe-zone.

I've emailed WotC_Mark and WotC_Snark telling them about the relese. No reply.

OK, in future please check your facts before posting.

First, WotC_Mark is a member of the web team, not the legal team.

Second, Snark is a WizO, not a WotC. He is one of the myriad volunteers who give up their free time to moderate the message boards and chat site.

Third, (and this is the big one) the WotC message board moderators hand out warns for violating the Online Code of Conduct, not the d20 and OGL licences, although that is occasionally covered by the Illegal Activities section of the CoC (when someone posts something covered by copyright and similar situations). As Matthew said, basing a potentially diastrous decision on inaction by a community moderator (not lawyer) is a very risky thing to do.

As to the rest, my advice is to email Legal@wizards.com and check with them. That, and make sure your section 15 is perfect.

 

[Morrus]

Strutinan, you have been advised correctly in this thread by Matt Sprange and others. Fair Use is irrelevant - the D20 license is a contract with which you agree not to use those terms.

Secondly, the moderators on WotC's messageboards are not the legal team - they, like the moderators here, are primarily there to keep the messagebiards civil. I would suggest that basing a decision on something they haven't said, and not on what the legal team could tell you if you asked is somewhat unwise.

Then again, none of us here are WotC's D20 Police Force either, so we have no stake in what you decide to do - nothing to do with us, really. Your call, but I would advise you to check before acting.

 

[Ghostwind]

The word "illithid" when used in context with/to represent mind flayers is indeed intellectual property of Wotc and cannot be used. If you doubt this, I suggest you talk to Monte Cook who, I believe, was asked by Wotc to change the term in the print version of "If Thoughts Could Kill". Furthermore, Anthony Valterra himself has said that Wotc considers the term illithid and any of the background history involving mind flayers that was developed during the "Monstrous Arcana" series on mind flayers to be their intellectual property and is, therefore, hands-off.

If it's not covered in the SRD or d20 Modern SRD and it originates from a product issued by Wotc, then you are opening yourself up for a rather polite letter from the Wotc legal department over your product.

Furthermore, just because the Wizards moderators have the WotC_ before their name, does not mean they are qualified to dispense proper d20 license advice. I doubt every moderator works for the legal department. You would be far better off speaking to Anthony or Andy (the person in charge of finalizing the unapproved sections of the SRD) as they are far more knowledgable about the license than the moderators would be.

 

[Mongoose_Matt]

I've emailed WotC_Mark and WotC_Snark telling them about the relese. No reply.

You cannot use that as tacit agreement by WotC. First, because they are not the legal team, second because silence is not agreement.

The word "Illithid" is used in the Dragonstar game, another d20 product. So is "Orc", "Dragon", ect. So far, nobody has complained..

Never base your own legal standing on what other people have done in the past - it holds no water whatsoever. Also, you do not know if any kind of deal was made between WotC and FFG for useage of the term. Not saying there was one, but it is not unknown in this industry.

Orc and dragon, BTW, as well as being in common useage, are also in the SRD.

But hey, what do I know? I've only been doing this full-time for the past two years. . .

Think about it - what will a single mail (and a wait for a reply) to WotC's legal department cost you?

 

[Steve Conan Trustrum]

Like others have said, I'd double check the use of "illithid" with WotC. It doesn't matter if it is in the Monster Manual, it matters if it is in the SRD (where I've never found it, despite much searching.) Proof 2: all mentioning of "illithid" in the SRD sections of the psionics handbook have been changed to "mind flayer", including those of the Slayer PRC. As for illithid showing up in Dragonstar, I'd have to have the instance of it pointed out to see for sure - I can't recall seeing it while skimming the book.

And the reason why this sprng to mind is because many moons ago, on the OGF lists, the topic came up of the name changes of certain creatures from the Monster Manual when they appeared in the SRD, and the illithid was one of the examples used.

Illithid is, as far as I know, IP of WotC. "Orc" and "dragon" are not; they are open domain names that had appeared in fiction LONG before the very first DnD product, let alone WotC DnD product, hit the shelves.

The problem, as I see it because you mention how it was in the Monster Manual, is that you seem to have been using the actual corebooks as your resource rather than the SRD. That is a big mistake because, not only do you run into problems such as this, but you might also end up using wording from the corebook that has been purposely modified in the SRD - this may seem minor, but it is a violation. Only use the corebooks while writing in order to make a referrence to them if you're not sure which book something in the SRD came from, otherwise it is safer to pretend the corebooks don't exist while writing and only use the SRD.

Hopefully an email from WotC's legal team will sort things out for you with some definative answers.

 

[HellHound]

Having worked on "Veiled Masters: the Essential Guide to Mind Flayers", I can asure you that WotC will take the use of the word Illithid as violation of the OGL / D20STL with regards to Product Identity.

 

[2WS-Steve]

Having worked on "Veiled Masters: the Essential Guide to Mind Flayers", I can asure you that WotC will take the use of the word Illithid as violation of the OGL / D20STL with regards to Product Identity.

Are they cool with the squid-headed illustrations of the mind flayer? That would make a lot of illustrators and publishers pretty happy.

 

[Strutinan]

All righty then, point taken. I'll do a mass-edit of the book and replace all entries of "Illithid" with "Mind Flayer", then upload the edited version to RPGNow.com. You can expect the altered version to be on-line sometime tomorrow evening (my computer takes HOURS to compile a .pdf file).

BTW, the instance of the use of "Illithid" in Dragonstar occurs when referring to the dead-space zone that the mind flayers come out of, "above" the Dragon Empire.

As far as how much this would cost me from the WotC staff, I don't know. I sent an email off about it when this first came up, and haven't heard squat since.

 

[HellHound]

I also emailed you a list of discrepencies this document contains vis-a-vis the Open Game License.

 

[Steve Conan Trustrum]

As far as how much this would cost me from the WotC staff, I don't know. I sent an email off about it when this first came up, and haven't heard squat since.

You should consider joining the Open Gaming Foundation (sorry, don't have the addy handy.) If you ask there you'll have access to many of the big d20 publishers, as well as some of the people who helped develop the license.