EXAMPLE: Monolith
The word by itself could not be PI any more than "the" could be.
If you create a Monolith monster however with unique characteristics:
"A Monolith is a monsterous beast from the realms of Valginar. It is half demon, half man exhibiting the horns and tail of a demon on a man's body along with the monsterous size (10') of a demon. It attacks good creatures on site. It bears the mark of C'ateth and breathes fire."
Now a Monolith associated directly to the description above could very easily be PI. If someone else makes a "Monolith" and it is described with different words but exactly the same I would feel comfortable betting on the first party to have made the creature. It's like if I made a hero called Spider-guy and gave him all the powers of spiderman...even if I changed the costume a bit guess who'd get sued.
The actual TEXT above could be copyrighted.
The word "Monolith" could be trademarked in association with the specific creature described above (along with a picture for good measure).
The numeruic values of the stats that go along with this monster could not be trademarked or copyrighted or PI. US law has already determined that game mechanics can't be trademarked. The stats are a unit of measurement. It's like me trying to make any 10 foot tall monster PI since the Monolith is.
At 03:56 PM 9/25/2000, you wrote:
". . . the character and creature names Shandril, Corian,
Tavik, Vortigern, Talon, Baran, Lauriel, Arlen and
Eralion . . ."
Vortigern is a famous historical name. Talon is the name
of one of my favorite NPC rangers. 99% sure I played with
Lauriel in an adventure when I was in High School. Arlen
is a town from a FOX TV show.
Hehe.
Can you mark these as PI? Can you take action against
anyone using the names? I think that you could make a case
for a number of the places, as well as the history and
background of the creatures/characters. But the names?
"Designation of Open Game Content: The following
material is hereby designated as Open Game Content and
may be Used pursuant to the terms of the Open Game
License: all creature, character, item, spell, town,
deity and trap �stat blocks� and their accompanying
names, including the stat blocks and names of any such
creatures, characters, items, spells, towns, deities
and traps original to this adventure module, except
for those specifically designated as Product Identity,
above."
Unlike Pierre I see no problem at all with traps used in
this sense. It appears clear the distinction you are
making for OGC purposes, and unless you wholly ripped off
a comercially published trap, you're fine to OGC it.
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For more information, please link to www.opengamingfoundation.org
