4 ms·
I'm not sure what you mean with 2E. It's a near total rewrite, isn't it?
by jonnycomputer 4y ago
I'm not sure what you mean with 2E. It's a near total rewrite, isn't it?
- Macha 4y agoPathfinder 2E is clearly a derivative work of Pathfinder 1E which is a derivative work of 3.5. It's not clear that none of the content in 2E would cross the threshold of being both (a) copyrightable and (b) sufficiently unmodified from D&D 3E to be under scope. It's not clear how much of Paizo's decision to license 2E under OGL was as a CYA in case someone found that some of the content was derived from D&D 3E, and how much was for continued compatibility with the PF 1E ecosystem, but likely both concerns were considered
- hgsgm 4y agoThis is the first HN comment I've seen that used "derivative work" correctly instead of claiming that derivative works are exempt from copyright (comflating with "transformative work")
- crooked-v 4y agoPathfinder 2e's text is completely written from scratch and it has original aesthetics and branding around the various things used in marketing (for example, even the shared dragon types have different art and abilities). I think would leave the only real copyright and trademark concerns around things that were nominally invented by D&D, like tieflings and balor demons... and even those would be a stretch, since for the most part they're obviously based on preexisting pop culture (70s and 80s comic books for plenty of tiefling-like characters, the balor originally just being a slightly rethemed Tolkien balrog, etc).
- ladyattis 4y agoApparently, 2e books have the OGL 1.0a in the back pages which means they're OGL dependent.