> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of John Kim > Sent: Monday, January 14, 2002 8:03 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: RE: [Ogf-l] If Thoughts Could Kill - Illithid reference > violation? > > No one is saying that "advances by character class" requires > human shape.
Actually, pretty much exactly that claim was made, and I found it weak: <<* mind flayers have four tentacles ringing their mouth * mind flayers have 30 foot movement (human standard) * mind flayers are medium sized (human standard) * mind flayers advance by character class These four together seem enough to declare it a humanoform creatures with tentacles on the head, as I can't think of any non-humanoid form creatures that advance by character class alone. >> > However, if one is forced to come up with a shape for > the creature, it seems like a reasonable guess. Reasonable how? We're told it's an Aberration. That's practically an invitation to an artist to draw up something entirely off-the-wall. The only support for this interpretation is a very exhaustive perusal of the SRD for every creature that advances by class; and this perusal must also overlook the fact that we have all sorts of examples which also cannot be proven to be humanoid from the SRD. > Ryan's claim and your > claim seems to be that the idea of having two arms and two legs is > *SO* original that no one could possibly come up with it without > stealing from WotC. Not at all. Ryan's claim is that there is enough original material in the Illithid to qualify for character copyright. I don't understand copyright law enough to have an opinion on this. My claim is that -- without regard to the merits of Ryan's claim -- leaping to the conclusion that "advances by class" means "humanoid" is a huge leap, and not supported by the SRD unless you also reference the MM. That leap also violates the reasonable person test, because it requires a fairly extensive knowledge of game mechanics and the MM to support. And when someone has to make such a leap, I feel it weakens their overall argument. > I don't buy it. If you are dead set on arguing this, > there is a simple test for this which I could try. I could write > out the mind flayer entry in plain English and giving it to people > who aren't D&D players and see what they come up with. That's a lot closer to a reasonable person test; but I don't believe the reasonable person test means an actual person so much as what a hypothetical person would do in the eyes of the court. Now if you got a large number of such people to reach that conclusion, it might persuade a court; but who knows what will really persuade a court? Maybe a lot of other artists would reach a different picture, then laugh at your sample: "You call that an Aberration? That's just a guy with a funny headpiece, just like a bad Star Trek alien!" Martin L. Shoemaker Martin L. Shoemaker Consulting, Software Design and UML Training [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.MartinLShoemaker.com http://www.UMLBootCamp.com _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
