I just picked up my copy of "The Slayer's Guide to Hobgoblins", and compared the artwork in it to the image of a hobgoblin in the MM. The artwork is obviously derivative, from the spacing of the lower fangs, the rake of the ears, to color of the hair, to the split twin goatee. The armor consists of similar overlapping plates with ridges and spikes, right down to the single row of spikes on the helmet.
The SRD says only that Hobgoblins are strongly disciplined relatives of goblins. No mention of pointy ears, beards, lower incisor fangs, or brownish skin. There is no way they could have come up with an image that looks so close to the WotC Hobgoblin without basing it on the MM. In court they'd be toast. The book itself is not a stand-alone work. It bears the d20 logo. It has stats in it that come from the SRD. It uses a mechanic and rule set that is 100% compatible with 3e D&D. Players who buy this work MUST have the PHB at a minimum, and probably the DMG as well. It is conceivable that they could get by without the MM, but only if Hobgoblins were the only enemy race on the planet. I found the consistent artwork a great tie-in to the WotC material. It gave me a dozen more images to work with when showing and describing encounters to players. It gives the players a consistent point of reference, so that when they encounter a creature they KNOW what they are looking at because it looks the same as it did the last time they saw it. No explaining away why "old" klingons don't look like "new" klingons. So I have a question. Does this obviously derivative work hurt WotC? Does strict enforcement of the IP rights of the WotC artwork hurt the utility of the SRD as a WotC marketing tool? Is it better to have a few well-defined creatures to work with, or many sketches that must diverge or risk litigation? I would like the question to be "what is best for the player". But this is business, and when the question is "what is best for WotC" I can't imagine how forcing the creation of dozens of divergent descriptions for the same critter helps sell copies of the MM. -Brad _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
