Mark Moreland's page

The distinction is that Core 20 doesn't necessarily mean "most important gods in the universe" (unless you're Asmodeus' ego) but rather means "most important gods in this region" in which case its only natural that a Core 20 for somewhere beyond the Inner Sea doesn't include, for example, the Taldan humans who touched the Starstone.

The two continents do indeed share several deities in common, including Pharasma, Desna, and Lamashtu. Of course, a deity not appearing in the Core 20 of another continent doesn't mean they don't worship them there--just that the deity isn't as widespread. After all, even in the Inner Sea you don't find every deity equally represented in every nation. For that matter, I don't think the concept of the Core 20, by any name, is strictly diegetic.

The Core 20 is totally non-diegetic, but they are represented in-world in that they are the handful of gods that are well-known enough that you basically don't need to make a Lore check at all to be aware of them. So, like, no one in the Inner Sea region or Tian Xia needs to dig for answers on who Desna is (on a surface level, at least), but in the Inner Sea, someone might not be familiar with Tsukiyo.

The Core 20 was created in part so players and GMs could safely learn just a few gods and have them cover most niches that would arise in a campaign, either for players or enemies, and because originally it was far easier for the setting's creators to come up with a list of 20 brand new gods than 50. So there are very real real-world reasons the list exists, as well as the in-world conceit that they're the most well-known deities in a region, even if their worship isn't particularly common or overt (like worship of Rovagug or Lamashtu among the civilized peoples of the Inner Sea).

Y'all have the most interesting theories and discussions. I love it! Especially because I know what I know...

That's a bingo!

Zalen Raun wrote:

It's official: Thermos LLC exists on Golarion. Personally, I blame the Reign of Winter PCs.

I can't believe anyone's mentioned that photography is a thing on Golarion. That's 18th-century tech! Far more advanced than even the most advanced firearms on Golarion.

I believe it's among the "Stasian" tech that has come out of Irrisen since cross-world contact with 20th Century Russia occurred in Reign of Winter.

Fun behind-the-scenes fact that I'm sure you'll all love:

You're welcome!

Interesting

My own theory is that Paizo decides on who the next deity will be based on the comments following the previous deity's blog post.

While that would have been fun (for me especially), the art department made all the versions of the Days of Future Past poster at once, so we had to tell them who should be marked "safe" in each subsequent version. In general, we operate too far ahead of time to actually pull something like that off without putting a lot of extra work on just about everyone in the process to drop what they're doing and pick up the thread for the next installment.

I'm just glad that this whole hype-building thing didn't happen until well after the point where they'd solidly decided which deity to kill off. If we had any inkling of an idea that our arguments here could actually influence the devs on which deity to kill and which ones to keep, the discussion would be so much more toxic.

Whenever we do that sort of community engagement for setting continuity, it almost always comes from our Organized Play programs, where players can influence the world not via online chatter but through play.

Like if Urgathoa knew that she would create some kind of zombie apocalypse by dying, she'd be trying to figure out if something less than dying would trigger it.

Let's hope she doesn't read this blog, then!

olimar92 wrote:

I'm not going to believe the primary Deity that wants Undeath to basically take over the whole of Golarion is someone stopping it from happening. Urgathoa being destroyed causes Undeath to act without anyone causing it? Armies of Undead rising from crypts and battlefields?

This prophecy is false because it makes no damned sense. Why would Urgathoa's destruction force even more Undead to exist?

Seriously. Its baffling

Sometimes the leader of a cartel insures that all illicit trade goes through them, providing a degree of stability, even for something that is a net negative to the world.

Interesting

TheTownsend wrote:

Such a delightful story! Does this prelude character options?

Doubtful, these types of blogs are generally just promotional articles meant to hype up a product and sometimes the author which seems to be the case here given the blog links to all of their socials and some products they made/are making.

I can't speak to the specifics of this story or Tian Xia World Guide because they're other people's babies, but we often use fiction to preview character options or mechanics presented in an associated book. In fact, the very first web fiction we did in the lead-up to Second Edition, the Iconic Encounters series, was intended to showcase new mechanics and character options within a less mechanical narrative.

In this case, however, Tian Xia World Guide isn't the character options half of the pair, so expect much more in that regard as we approach the release of Tian Xia Character Guide, either in fiction or more general rules preview blogs.

So how much of this is canonical then? Does Cayden really believe that he is only a God because he faked passing the test and everybody believed him? Is the drink in his flask real?

What is canon:

1) The nosoi psychopomp, Yivali, uncovered a series of prophecies she (or the original author) refers to as "The Godsrain Prophecies" and has been researching them and annotating them in the process.

2) The prophecies contain the text included in the "The Death of [GODWHODIES]" sections of this webfiction series.

Beyond that, it's all up for debate.

I mean, I can predict that Oppenheimer will win the Best Picture Oscar next month, but until that happens (or doesn't) it's not canon for our real world. Same is true for the contents of these prophecies.

Here's an interesting detail: it's the same author across all of these prophecies. Whether that changes or not, not sure, but it's definitely something worth noting.

If you mean real-world author, yes, the entire series is written by Erin, who is doing a bang-up job with them so far!

If you mean, in-world author, you'll just have to wait and see, though Yivali is starting to formulate some theories about the prophecies' origins.

Interesting

Oh my God...all 20 of 'em. So week by week is how we're gonna find o-WAIT NO!!

There's only 10 weeks until April 16th. They're only gonna clear half the names by the time that stream goes live, if I'm doing my math right (which is questionable).

Correct. There's enough teasing in this thread and campaign in general that I do feel a certain level of transparency and expectation management is warranted. This is a 10-part series, during which we will reveal 10 of the core twenty "safe" from the pending demise set to fall upon one of their number. This means that when we do our big stream on April 16—in which we'll reveal not only who dies, but a bunch of info on tie-in products and more—there will be 10 potential victims. We didn't want to narrow it down too much and ruin the fun of speculation!

And now back to being a cagey instigator!

So based on the image url, I assume we will get updates weekly?

From the office of expectation management: yes, this series will run weekly until April. As the teaser mentions, we'll have a stream on April 16 that will answer (most of) the remaining questions, and reveal covers and release dates and product titles and iconic artwork and all sorts of other things related to War of Immortals, the death of

I've been vibrating about this for WEEKS and I'm so excited for this project! And I gently bullied my coworkers into posting Pharasma today for my birthday because she is my favorite and I love her!

Happy birthday to Rue

Interesting.

Internal Respirator is a bummer to see as a level 9 feat. Androids in SF1 could survive vacuum indefinitely from level 1 by default, while this is just giving an hour of breath-holding halfway through the career. This really feels like a first-level feat in terms of what it can do and how Starfinder should be valuing things as a game with space suits as armor.

Sounds like some excellent feedback to provide when the playtest launches!

They were removed for entirely out-of-game reasons. These reasons were discussed in panels at PaizoCon and you can find further elaboration in subsequent threads here on the forums.

Fans who want to keep using them can, because all the original source material and rules for them all exists.

They just won't be mentioned or expanded upon in official Paizo sources going forward, and references to past mentions will be retconned for future consistency.

Oh, wait a minute - I’m looking at it backwards. I was looking at it from the terms of the ORC, but it’s Infinite that creates the “problem”. If you publish your PF2R product on Infinite, you can’t sell it anywhere else. Even Paizo’s store.

So if you want to publish PF2R material, and have it be accessible to as many *storefronts* as possible (not necessarily *more* people, that might be on Infinite) then you avoid Infinite.

Exclusive distribution is a core part of a lot of licenses we use, so the Infinite license is in good company.

It's just as the Audible-exclusive audiobooks of the Pathfinder Tales novels are available exclusively on that storefront, based on the terms of the license Paizo has with Audible that allowed them to produce said audiobooks in the first place.

And just like the license with Syrinscape that allows them to make sound sets of our adventures and sell them exclusively on their platform.

And just like the license with Demiplane that lets them adapt our material and sell it exclusively on their platform.

While it would be awesome to always be able to sell content our licensees produce using our IP, in some cases that's not feasible (like selling Owlcat or BKOM computer games or LoreMasters content. There are already other stores (Steam, Epic, Google Play store, etc.) that do that.

In this case, one of the things Roll20/DriveThruRPG gain in exchange for managing the CCP for Paizo is that they are the exclusive marketplace for content published on it. It's nothing more than a trade-off between Paizo and DTRPG. We give them the IP, they get to sublicense it to publishers on their platform.

Someone who wanted to release Pathfinder Second Edition material on Paizo.com can do so with the Pathfinder Compatibility License and a consignment account on the Paizo Store.

Rather than quote the entire post, I will just address those elements that seem to be causing confusion.

Mark Moreland wrote:

…those same rules (in Player Core)—as well as setting info like about Golarion and such—are also licensed to creators on Pathfinder Infinite.

I thought in the discussion the other day that it was clear that ORC products couldn’t also be licensed exclusively, which Infinite is, because that was anathematic to open gaming and the ORC?

This restriction only applies to content that is licensed from upstream by the ORC. Both the ORC and Infinite license are downstream licenses for Paizo, so we can release any content we own under either or both, and neither license talks to the other. This is also how we could license something we created, like charau-ka, under the OGL, the ORC, the Infinite license, in a bespoke license to Netflix to make a charau-ka tv series, Dynamite to make comics, WizKids to make minis, etc. None of the licenses restrict what the copyright owner can do with their own IP. They only restrict what downstream users can do with that IP when they use it in their own works.

Mark Moreland wrote:

The ORC does not restrict Paizo to license its copyrighted material solely under the ORC.

I get that there can be multiple licenses, but that it was the exclusivity of Infinite that ORC forbade.

Paizo is at the top of the content stream on Infinite, and has not (to date) released any material on the platform. So anyone using Infinite is doing so with the understanding that 1) they are using at least something (be it rules or setting content) that they don't own and 2) that both content derivative of that upstream content and their original creations will be licensed downstream only under the Infinite license (and OGL if they are using upstream Open Game Content). So the publishers releasing content under the Infinite license agree to that exclusivity; Paizo never did so, as everything we produce is available on platforms other than Infinite.

Mark Moreland wrote:

Player Core 1 Expanded uses that material via the Infinite license, and does not utilize the ORC at all, either downstream or to use upstream content.

See this has me flummoxed. You say the content of PC1 is licensed under the ORC. Player Core 1 Expanded most definitely seems to use PC1 as its base. What am I missing?

The creators of PC1E got access to the PC1 content via the Infinite license, not the ORC. Those streams flow out of PC1 in two different directions. Same source material, different pathway for non-Paizo parties to use it.

Paizo owns all the content in Pathfinder Player Core and can license that content under multiple licenses. The rules in PC are licensed for anyone to use under the ORC; those same rules—as well as setting info like about Golarion and such—are also licensed to creators on Pathfinder Infinite. The ORC does not restrict Paizo to license its copyrighted material solely under the ORC.

Player Core 1 Expanded uses that material via the Infinite license, and does not utilize the ORC at all, either downstream or to use upstream content.

probably not just one

1) You said this on stream and I’m hoping for some clarification on the bolded section. What is “this case” that you’re referring to? Context clues are a bit jumbled as to whether you’re referring to “publishing under the Infinite License” or “publishing under the Compatibility License.”

"In this case," means if you were publishing under the Compatibility License and not Infinite, because in that situation you'd need the OGL to grant you permission to use those rules. If you're publishing on Infinite, the Infinite license already does that.

2) A hypothetical came up when I noticed that the SRD has nightshades in it. Paizo repurposed nightshades under the name “darvakka” and gave each one their own unique name (“nightwing” to “vanyver,” etc.). Are those still usable as long as I don’t refer to the names “nightshade” or “nightwing”?

It's certainly safer to use Paizo's invented names for those monster concepts, but this is a gray area. I would wager we simply won't use them going forward, just to be safe, but that doesn't mean you can't. If you're just referring to the stat block and pointing people to an existing page reference, then you can totally use the new names we gave them, as those words never appeared in an upstream source from us. If you're describing the concepts extensively, you might need to cite the OGL.

3) By the same token as 2), could I still, say, link to AoN with a “pride demon.” Is that kosher due to the fact that I’m not explicitly saying “marilith”? Even though the thing I’d be linking to would then use “marilith”? I figured that that’s another Russian nesting doll thing (where only the outermost layer matters), but I figured I’d ask. I do recall the adventure card game not being under the OGL and still having images for a glabrezu while referring to it as a “treachery demon.”

Yeah, this is probably okay (with the caveat that it's not up to me if this is okay or not. The marilith is owned by Wizards, so they'd be the ones to potentially call you out for using their IP without a license. I think it's a tenuous claim at that point, but I can't speak as an authority on what they'd do. The marilith and glabrezu are not in Monster Core, even under new names, so take that for what you will.

4) to follow up on 3), assuming I never used the word "marilith," could I still stat out, say, Ylleshka, the siamese twin marilith? It would be of my own creation, but it would be toeing a line due to it being a "six-armed demon wielding longswords" and that's really close to being clearly a creature derivative from the OGL. It's basically a question of how close I can get to the line without crossing into the "I definitely have to use the OGL" situation.

Yeah, it's certainly toeing the line, but it's up to you as the publisher of the work in question if you feel it's crossing it. Ylleshka is our IP, but a lot of elements of her character are derivative of material from the 3.5 SRD.

5) Stuff from the Tome of Horrors is just an absolute “do not touch this whatsoever” with the Infinite License, yes? And how would that work with, say, Baphomet. I’ve seen a lot of “Baphomet from Tome of Horrors” stuff here and there, but I notably DIDN’T see it in Gods & Magic, which is where Paizo “statted out” Baphomet as a deity to be worshiped.

Baphomet is a weird corner case, where he was statted up in ToH, but not presented as a god you could worship, and certainly not in a rules expression resembling the way we do it in P2. I'm not as involved in the discussion of how we're handling him or Kostchtchie or other demon lords and demigods in a similar situation going forward, so I can't give more insight into that. Again, you as publisher have to make the call you're comfortable with.

Thanks to everyone who came by today's Twitch stream. I hope it helped clarify things. We'll have the VOD up soon, and will upload the whole thing to YouTube after the long holiday weekend.

Assuming War of Immortals is under the ORC, that means that I couldn’t refer to the mythic rules in there while also putting my conversion under the OGL, yes? Because that’d be mixing the licenses?

Correct. War of Immortals will be released under the ORC, but you won't be able to refer to both OGC monsters like vrocks or alu-demons in the same product as new mechanics that aren't already OGC (the War of Immortals mythic stuff).

And would I be able to still stat out any unique NPCs that are, say, a drow, but just not use the word “drow” anywhere? Or would that be too close to “cavern elf who worships a demon lord is obviously a drow”?

Yeah, you could make a P2 stat block for Areelu Vorlesh, an alu-demon, that didn't use that OGC term and just used Remastered rules. Since P2 NPCs and monsters are all custom stat blocks and not "built like PCs" as they were in P1, you are already making a mostly original work by statting them up anyway. You just need to make sure you're not using any spells or feats or other terms that Paizo can't license to you without the OGL.

For something as OGL-laden as Wrath, I would recommend waiting until after Monster Core comes out, so you can get a clearer idea of where Paizo drew the line between mythology/original creation and OGC-derived work. It will also provide you some alternative demons to use in place of the ones we didn't reprint.

Ok, folks. I've spent the better part of the last 3 days going through questions and comments with what I'm sure were entirely too verbose responses and clarifications. I have other work I need to do, but I will keep watching this thread, Reddit, and discord for other questions for Tuesday's stream. I will make a point to continue addressing people's questions after that time if they're made here, so if you're seeing this in the futurefuturefuture and have a question, don't hesitate to ask.

Thanks to everyone for a civil conversation about this topic, and for caring enough about Pathfinder and Pathfinder Infinite to even engage in the discourse.

You're all awesome, and I hope to see you on Twitch on Tuesday.

I feel like a chart that shows the differences would help a lot. A flowchart or one of those checkmark comparison charts.

We're working on one! We've got some changes to our other policies (Community Use and Compatibility) that are going through legal/ownership review at the moment that I hope to have available to the public soon. When we release those, we'll also be putting up a central Licensing landing page that will briefly explain the various licenses Paizo uses and that the public can use to access our content. It will also include either a flow-chart or a table to help people see more visually what licenses work in what circumstances. I don't have an ETA on these updates or that landing page, but I'd guess it'll be before the end of the year.

Trying to wrap my head around this, are the following statements accurate?

-Infinite is more tied to OGL content and can still use OGL references

More connected to the OGL than what? It's more connected to the OGL than it is to the ORC, yes, by nature of already hosting hundreds of OGL products. There is nothing inherently linked between Infinite and the OGL other than the fact that our game, at the time Infinite launched, was an OGL game, so the license provides guidance and requirements for Infinite products that are also OGL. But it was always possible to make a non-rules release like fiction or art or maps or fonts or whatever and release them on Infinite without including the OGL in those products.

-Infinite is more lore influenced, and can refer to other works published under Infinite

Again, more lore influenced than what? But the second part is unequivocally true: the Infinite license grants publishers the right to use Paizo's lore and original lore content of other Infinite products.

-Infinite's license can't be modified to be more open due to agreements with other marketplaces (re: DTRPG).

I'm not at liberty to discuss the specifics of the contract between Paizo and DTRPG (now Roll20, actually, but that's neither here nor there), or between Paizo and any of our other partners.

-Even if it could, replacing Infinite with ORC would mean people wouldn't be able to use the OGL content.

The AxE addresses this, and that's really the authoritative source on what you can and can't do in relation to the ORC. The specific part we'd look at for this question is the following:

• Can I use OGL licensed content in my ORC Product?
  
• The OGL stipulates that “Open Game Content may only be Used under and in terms of the OGL License” (OGL Sec. 2). So we do not see any way that Wizards of the Coast’s Open Game Content you got a license to use under the OGL could be licensed out by you under the ORC unless they published an SRD type document with the ORC Notice in it. Despite that, if you published an OGL product, you could strip out any protectable expressions of game mechanics you received under an OGL license, and release that new product under the ORC.

This is essentially what we did with the Remaster. Since the core of Pathfinder Second Edition was our own creation, and not derivative of anything owned by another publisher, we could keep most of the game intact while simultaneously removing those elements that did come downstream to us from the 3.5 SRD or another OGL product.

-ORC has been removed from OGL influences, but as a result it can't use said OGL references.

ORC is a license. It never contained any OGL influences or references. Can you rephrase this one?

-ORC is more mechanics and rules oriented. What lore it does use is no longer OGL derived.

Again, ORC is a license. It doesn't contain any lore, just legal stuff.

-ORC can refer to anything else that is open and non-exclusive

If I understand you correctly—and I admit the last few statements have thrown me for a loop—yes, if you publish a book under the ORC, you can refer to anything that has been declared Licensed Material in an upstream ORC product.

-ORC's main incompatibility with Infinite is ORC requires/grants non-exclusivity, while Infinite requires exclusivity. You'd imagine that the exclusivity would take precedence if you tried to use both, but I'd take it there wouldn't be an advantage to doing so (which is why you can't).

Basically, yes. But I don't imagine anything when it comes to conflicting licenses. This has never been tested in court because the ORC is new. By not allowing the ORC on Infinite, we're hopefully not going to find out anytime soon if your assumption is correct, and if we do, Paizo, Roll20, and the publishers releasing content on Infinite won't be involved in the associated lawsuit.

Also I guess one question I also have, if you wish to use the world of Golarion specifically, to what degree would either license apply, if at all?

The world of Golarion and associated non-rules are not Licensed Material under the ORC, so you'd have to use the Infinite license.

But the two can't mesh. If I want people to be able to use it on Infinite and beyond, that's not an option right?

Correct. Infinite has the same exclusivity clause that's present in all of DTRPG's community content programs.

If you are making 3PP PF2R it is just a function of citing the Pathfinder Compatibility Licence, and the ORC, right? Kinda like in the old PF1 days where you used the PCL and the OGL?

Correct. The ORC and PCL are still the way to go if you want to release something without using Paizo's Reserved Material or you want to be able to sell it somewhere other than the Infnite marketplace.

That Infinite is *only* available on “Pathfinder Infinite” and “Starfinder Infinite” which in turn are hosted by DriveThruRPG boggles my poor brain.

It's a marketplace owned and operated by DriveThru, just like Pathfinder Nexus is owned and operated by Demiplane. One of the terms of our license with DTRPG, which is the case for all their CCP agreements, is that content released there is exclusive to there. That's the trade-off we and end users agree to in order to be able to participate in the program. If you want to ensure your Pathfinder release is available on paizo.com, then the ORC and PCL are the way to go. You can get a product up on the Paizo Store by contacting Consignments.

What is it about the exclusivity of Infinite that prevents ORC products - is it that the ORC is “open gaming” and Infinite, by its very nature, is not?

Essentially. Though, Infinite is still "open gaming" just within a clearly defined landscape. Content on the marketplace is open to other Infinite creators, but not folks beyond the sandbox.

An ORC publisher could sue an Infinite publisher, or visa versa, because there's no such protection between the two.

That was always the case. In this situation, any protections they have come from normal IP law. If I publish the pizzafolk ancestry on Infinite, I own that copyright. So if a hypothetical publisher we'll call Chad Razmir—that guy's a jerk—releases a book referencing the pizzafolk elsewhere (regardless of what license he releases it under, be it ORC or CC or no license at all), he's using my copyrighted material without a license. I can sue him for that.

If I release the pizzafolk ancestry via the ORC only, I still own the copyright, but other ORC publishers, including that jerk Chad Razmir, can use it and there's nothing I can do about it, even if Chad Razmir puts it in a book I don't like or adds a bunch of his own content to my pizzafolk I find objectionable (like pineapple). That's the protection provided by the ORC.

Similarly, if I release the pizzafolk ancestry on Infinite and Chad Razmir makes a deep-dish heritage for it that also offends me (because pizzafolk should be flat), and he releases that on Infinite, he's good and there's nothing I can do.

If we're looking at it in reverse, if I release the pizzafolk (I'm sorry, it's lunchtime) via the ORC on paizo.com or DTRPG or itch.io or wherever and then Chad tries to make an adventure using them on Infinite, he's likewise violating my copyright on that creation.

If you want people to be able to use your content on Infinite, release it on Infinite. If you want them to be able to use it beyond Infinite, release it via the ORC.

Infinite lets you use Golarion.

ORC lets you use Pathfinder.

Right?

In essence, but we're talking about IP ownership and binding legal agreements, so details matter.

More accurately, Infinite allows you to use most content Paizo owns, including Golarion, as well as rules created by Paizo from whole cloth and not adapted from the 3.5 SRD or another OGL source, a variety of art assets released on Infinite or in the Community Use Package, and access to most of our non-logo trademarks and registered trademarks.

The ORC lets you use anything that's been released by its copyright holder as Licensed Material as defined in the ORC itself. So in the case of Paizo products, as of yesterday, that's all the rules in Player Core and GM Core. The ORC actually doesn't give you access to "Pathfinder" which is a registered trademark you can use via the Pathfinder Compatibility License.

So I... do not understand at all.

I'm going to answer your questions here for posterity, but will also add at least some of these to the question pool for the stream. Thanks for asking them.

Could I publish fiction set in PF/SF settings on Infinite?

Totally! There is already a fair amount of fiction on the platform. This is already covered in the FAQ, by the way, so make sure to check that out for an even more thorough answer.

could I publish game material such as new enemies or new classes for PF/SF on Infinite? Because I already have done so, using the editions of the game current as of one year ago.

If I was to do the above in two weeks' time, would that material need to be in the new ORC-based mechanics system?

Yes, you can still publish game material. It is the bulk of what creators release on the marketplace. In, say, 2 weeks, you can release content for any version of the game, so long as you're properly attributing any content you didn't create yourself. If your product includes pre-remaster content that's accessible to you via the OGL, then you need to include the OGL in your product as well. If it's based entirely on the Remaster and doesn't, for example, include a feat named after a WotC-owned demon or something, then you're good to release it without a secondary license, and just use the Infinite license.

Just because a rule, like those in the new Remaster books, is available as Licensed Content under the ORC doesn't mean that's the only license that can apply to that content. Since Paizo owns the copyright on the material, we can license the same feat under the ORC, under the Infinite license, or under a custom license to someone like Demiplane for inclusion in the Pathfinder Nexus character toolset, a VTT partner, a foreign language localizer, or whatever. Regardless of how many other licenses apply to the content you're using, all that matters is which pipe that content flows to you through, as that defines how you need to attribute it in your own work.

could I create the above new enemies or new classes for a setting other than PF/SF, such as a homebrew, on Infinite? If so, would it need to be done under new system, or previous system? Or not permissible at all?

Pathfinder and Starfinder Infinite require that all content either be set in one of the official settings, or be setting-neutral. If you make a new setting, that needs to be released elsewhere. If your content is setting-neutral, it just needs to be compatible with any version of Pathfinder or Starfinder (P1, P2, SF1) to go up on Infinite, we don't care which.

same, but for adventures? If I create an adventure set in Golarion, using PF2 mechanics, can that be released on Infinite? What about post-ORC mechanics? What about an adventure using either PF2 or post-ORC PF2 mechanics but NOT set on Golarion?

Same question, same answer. Allowing people to create and sell adventures on Golarion is the primary purpose of Pathfinder Infinite. You're not only allowed to release such content, we actively encourage you to! It doesn't matter what mechanics you use in your adventure, so long as you're attributing anything you didn't create yourself correctly. For Remastered rules, that attribution is baked into the universal Infinite copyright statement. If you're using OGC, you'll need to release your book under the OGL, and must declare any non-OGC from the Remaster as Product Identity so that Paizo's copyrighted rules expressions aren't incidentally released into the OGL. My recommendation would be to make your adventure based on Remaster rules, and scrub any OGC that Paizo didn't create from it, so that it's also a fully Remastered product.

If your adventure is not set in Golarion, it probably doesn't belong on Infinite. The exception to this is that if it's a generic town of your own invention—let's call it Cybertron, a totally safe name that we'd never get sued for—and you don't define what non-Golarion world it's set in, then you're good. That's a modular setting-neutral location that someone could put into Golarion if they wanted to, or could put in their homebrew, or the Forgotten Realms or Eberron game they run using P2 rules.

spells. Some of the spells have changed under ORC. Does material CURRENTLY published on Infinite which reference spells need to be changed?

Nothing currently on Infinite needs to change. The OGL is permanent, so if you released something under the OGL before, it's good. If you release something under the OGL now, it's good, you just have to make sure you're not including something Paizo hasn't released as Open Game Content, like a spell that originated in a Remaster book, into the OGL in your work, which will have to also include the OGL.

I've been holding off on working on publishing more material on Infinite until ORC was established, set up and had this in place, so I have been watching for this post but I've really tried and I really just don't grasp any of this at all. Sorry!

No apology needed. This stuff is arcane and largely hidden from view for most players, GMs, and even publishers (though a publisher should understand what they're doing if using someone else's IP or license, but not everyone does). That's part of why we're trying to reduce the total number of licenses in play for Infinite creators. We want you to be able to focus on making cool content, not on whether you're violating Paizo's or WotC's or anyone else's copyrights.

If you were waiting for the ORC, then I assume you would have released your product under the ORC had such an option been available. If you were already intending to reference only Remaster books and rules in your own release (which you should have if it was going to be an ORC release), then you can safely release that exact same book under the Infinite license without needing to use the OGL or ORC.

For example, you just confirmed to me that I could say “NPC X is an advisor (Gamemastery Guide pg. 207)” in one of my conversions. Now, that opens a weird can of worms because the advisor has magic missile (an OGL spell) in their spell repertoire. So would I still be able to cite that statblock? Or would I have to only cite statblocks that are not only original to Paizo, but also ONLY contains stuff that’s ALSO only original to Paizo, and so on down the chain?

The OGL doesn't care if there's OGC content nested in your references if you're not actually citing or reprinting the OGC itself. So if there were a stat block for the archmage Nex, and he had 100 spells prepared somehow, because that's how badass he is, and every one of those spells were Open Game Content, you can still mention Nex, you can still refer to his stat block (by page number or as an abbreviated stat block as in an adventure). As long as your product doesn't actually include any of the OGC directly, all you're doing is pointing readers to another source, which would be an OGL product.

Think of them like Russian nesting dolls. As long as the outer doll doesn't have any OGC, any OGC within is irrelevant, since it's hidden from view, and not technically part of the outermost doll, which is the one you're actually releasing and thus need to license.

Is there a reason why infinites license cannot be just... Done away with and have it be under soley the orc?

I guess it could, but the ORC doesn't give people permission to use content we want them to be able to use on Infinite. Both Paizo and the Infinite publishers need to agree to terms for how they can and can't use content the ORC doesn't grant them the right to publish.

I have a class published on there under the OGL. I want its mechanics to stay open, but I also want to publish a revision that is compatible with the remaster (with OGC content removed) - preferably giving the revision away for free to everyone who has already bought the first version.

With this announcement, I believe there's no way to do that while keeping the mechanics open to use in 3rd party ORC products.

You are correct. If you want the product to be available to non-Infinite ORC publishers, it shouldn't be released on Infinite. Whether or not you use any of Paizo's setting or flavor elements, by releasing content on Infinite, you're making it inherently part of the brand. If you don't want to tether the mechanics to our non-open IP, Infinite isn't the place to release it.

Mark Moreland wrote:

OceanshieldwolPF 2.5 wrote:

If I make a whole new RPG, that uses the ORC SRD, then that is ORC, and not needing PCL nor Infinite (as it is neither Pathfinder, nor IP.

If you are making a whole new RPG, you likely don't need to include the ORC in order to use someone else's rules expressions, as it's a brand new creation you own.

I think there's a typo or miss-wording in there Mark. :)

If somebody is using another's rules expression (via the ORC), and not re-wording them to be able to use just the mechanics then your product can only use them via the ORC (or a separate license with the original author). Which means that your product itself has to be licensed under the ORC. :)

Sorry, I wrote a lot of words yesterday and this could have been clearer.

You do need to include the ORC in your product if you want to reprint someone else's copyrighted rules expressions that are Licensed Material, but since the example was for a unique, original game system that was derivative of someone else's copyrights, you wouldn't have to do so. You could still choose to do so if you wanted to share it downstream, but if there's no Licensed Material flowing into your product, there's no obligation to release anything under the ORC.

If Paizo doesn't use the ORC license in Infinite in the same way that it is currently using the OGL, it makes it look like:

- Paizo is not committed to open gaming (since their own store front is going from "open mechanics" to "closed mechanics").

- There is some flaw in the ORC license that makes even Paizo (the people that spearheaded its creation) afraid of using it, while they continue to allow the OGL.

While I hope those aren't the actual reasons for this announcement, that's what it looks like.

We have no plans to abandon open gaming, and are actively working to transition all our product lines (not just the rulebook line) to the ORC. The rules in those books will always be open via the ORC.

There's no flaw in the ORC that's precipitating this decision. If licensing were a highway, the ORC and Infinite license are two different lanes to the same destination. We don't feel it's safe to drive in more lane than once (using "safe" here as part of the metaphor, not because there's some inherent danger inherent in the ORC or Infinite licenses themselves.)

It sounds like the only way to publish open content (mechanics) in Pathfinder Infinite is now by referencing the OGL and making sure to include some OGC.

While I understand the reasoning, this is a terrible look.

If you do want to avoid crossing the streams, I strongly recommend starting a second digital storefront for ORC titles. Otherwise the headlines just write themselves: "Paizo prohibits 3rd party publishers from using ORC license in its storefront." "Only way to publish open content in Pathfinder Infinite is by using the OGL."

You can publish mechanics on Infinite with the Infinite license itself, so long as those mechanics are owned by Paizo or another Infinite creator. You don't need the OGL or ORC to do that.

Non-Infinite publishers using the Compatibility License or just the raw OGL or ORC can already sell their products wherever they want, including both paizo.com and DriveThruRPG. I'm not sure there's a need to set up another storefront for this sort of thing, since we don't need such a storefront to serve as a walled garden the way Infinite does.

But both of the headlines you mention write themselves because they're accurate. I'd personally change the first to, "Paizo prohibits 3rd party publishers from using ORC license in its IP-based storefront," or similar to clarify that there are other storefronts where people can use the ORC, just not the one intrinsically tied to the very content we define as Reserved Material under that license.

Here is a hypothetical. I write a small novel of one of my PFS characters (his Grandfather or possibly his grandson). He is flitting back and forth through time, getting to see pivitol moments in Golarian history, and even visits the Starfinder Absalom station in space.

I put it on Infinate, and Paizo likes it so much, they might want to publish it themselves.

How does that change the ORC considerations?

The ORC was never going to be a factor in fiction, as you're dealing exclusively with Reserved Material (or Product Identity, if we're talking in terms of the OGL). You can publish that novel on Infinite without need of another license, but you will need to make sure that you aren't including flavor elements that are Open Game Content, like the names of some planes or languages, creature or spell names, etc. This is why in Pathfinder Tales novels, we referred to Radovan solely as a hellspawn, and never a tiefling; those novels were not OGL releases, so we didn't have access to Wizards' IP in them.

In the unlikely event Paizo were ever to take any unofficial content from Infinite and publish it ourselves, we would make a good faith effort to buy that copyright from you outright before doing so, which would be a completely different contract between you and Paizo than the Infinite license itself.

I have some clarifying questions for you Mark, if you'd be so kind.

There's a lot to unpack here, so I'm going to try to consolidate these and similar questions into one or two basic questions to address in next week's live stream.

Ultimately, the conflicting nature of the OGL and ORC's share-alike requirement and Infinite's exclusivity agreement is part of why we have opted to keep the ORC and Infinite licenses separate.

But this question has come up in various forms across a number of channels, so I'll be sure to put together the best answer for it I can in the next week.

So if I ever want to finish that dire corby pf2e bestiary thing I made stats for but then kinda run out of steam since I was like "how the hell I would edit it and graphic design it" based on pf1e misfit monsters redeemed, would that be infinite license or ogl?

The dire corby is an extra deep Open Game Content cut, as it originated in the first Fiend Folio, and was released under the OGL back in the Tome of Horrors, when Wizards gave Clark Peterson and crew permission to do OGL versions of FF monsters, because they thought they were never going to use them in official products. That's why the dire corby, among other ToH creatures, requires a specific callout in the OGL Section 15, whereas something that was in the SRD doesn't.

So, yeah, if you want to do anything with dire corbies, you'll need to do so under the OGL. We didn't change the Infinite license to restrict OGL content, so you can release your proposed book either on Infinite (using the OGL and the specified language for OGL products as outlined in the EULA and FAQ) or as an independent product, so long as the latter didn't include any Paizo-owned Product Identity that would require the Infinite license to use.

I don't think my ADHD can handle publishing anything more on PFI now. I'm so confused, and I can't afford to pay someone else to figure it out for me on each product.

I know it can be overwhelming. If there are specific questions that you have, about process or licenses or Infinite in general, ask 'em and we can try to address them in next Tuesday's Q&A stream. I know (as a fellow superhero with ADHD origin story) that text-based explanations don't always work as well as spoken word (which I am sure you can totally believe given the walls of text I have subjected everyone to in this thread) so maybe that will help? Anyway, there's a great community of other creators out there who are generally really helpful, and more experienced folk can certainly walk you through some of the intricacies of the licensing element of RPG publishing, or double-check your work before you release it to make sure you didn't miss something. I hope you're able to connect with them.

Sorry...Didn't mean to offend, I was just genuinely confused.

Thank you for answering my other questions, though. That was very helpful!

One last thing, because it's not fully clear to me: will Infinite creators have to put the ORC legalese stuff at the end of our documents like we did with the OGL?

No offense. I thought I was being funny by feigning offense, but I guess the internet it gonna internet, so tone might as well not exist. Thanks for pointing it out! As embarrassing as it is, I'd rather fix it tomorrow morning than have it out there for everyone to see for months.

No ORC legalese will be required on Infinite releases, because we're not allowing Infinite releases to use the ORC. You can just use the standard Infinite boilerplate for non-OGL releases, as detailed in both the EULA and on the FAQ. And, heck, reprinted below, because why not?

Is there any word on Community Use Policy updates? Back in June, you said:

Jim Butler wrote:

The shift to the ORC license will also necessitate a change to our Compatibility License and Community Use Policy. We’ll have those available for public comment soon, and final versions will be released before the new Remaster books come out in November.

I don't know that we'll end up doing a public comment period on it, because it did take longer to revise than we anticipated. I just got a near final draft from our attorney today, so we're likely close. There are still a number of approvals the policy needs to go through internally, and we are going to roll it out at the same time as the license landing page I mentioned upthread.

So I anticipate we'll have it out before the end of the year, but more likely in mid-to-late December than this month or immediately after the Thanksgiving holiday.

I was wondering if I could still DO that without needing to license it under the OGL, because I'd still be referencing OGL books for the statblocks, for example.

The OGL is just one license that allows other parties to use Paizo's IP. In the case of the proposed text, Paizo owns everything you mentioned, so it's already covered by the Infinite license. While other folks doing other OGL products can also

Side note: you keep saying "caliban." That's...not a word I've seen anywhere else in Paizo's material. I thought the new term for "fiend-blooded nephilim" was "cambion."

Look, I just typed the equivalent word count of a Pathfinder Society Scenario across all these forum posts, and you're going to correctly call me out for using the wrong word? How dare?! I meant "cambion," obviously, but decades of reading X-Men comics and my 12th-grade Shakespeare teacher made me say "caliban" instead. This is what I get for trying to remember anything these days.

I will make sure that gets corrected anywhere that text can be altered indefinitely, unlike the Paizo forums, where my mistake will live forever to be mocked by people who double-check terms before using them in authoritative FAQ answers.

Ok, thanks Mark. That is helpful. However, I think I’m confused a little about the interactions or functions/properties of the following:

* The OGL
* The ORC
* The Pathfinder Compatibility Licence/Starfinder Combatibility Licence (PCL/SCL)
* Community Use Policy (CUP)
* Infinite Licence. (Infinite)

Now I don’t want an exhaustive discussion on these, but perhaps examples of a type of product and where it goes and why could help.

One of the top tasks on my (and a few others, but mostly my) to-do lists is to put together a landing page for all these licenses to help people make heads or tales of which one does what they're looking for. I aim to have it include a graphic representation in either the form of a flow chart or a table to answer just this sort of comparison question. In the meantime, and because I'm here anyway, let me address these.

Say I want to publish third party rules for PF2R, with no setting IP. Is that PCL? So I just make “The Rules Interpreter” class, a 3PP class for PF2R and slap a PCL on the front and the licence in the back?

At minimum it's got to have either the OGL or ORC, because you're reprinting or making works derivative of Paizo's copyrighted rules expressions. It's PCL if you want to put the Pathfinder Compatible logo on the cover and refer to our trademarks (like "Pathfinder" or the titles of some of our books).

If it does contain Golariona/IP does it then *have* to be Infinite? With Inifinite on the front, and the Infinite licence in the back? And Infinite is only sold at DriveThruRPG not here from the Paizo website? And must not be sold elsewhere?

If you're selling it and includes Golarion or other non-open IP, then yes, it's gotta be on Infinite, with the Infinite logo on the front and the specific legal text outlined in the Infinite license either at the back or on your title page. It can only be sold on the Pathfinder Infinite marketplace hosted by DriveThruRPG and not on paizo.com or elsewhere.

If I make a whole new RPG, that uses the ORC SRD, then that is ORC, and not needing PCL nor Infinite (as it is neither Pathfinder, nor IP.

If you are making a whole new RPG, you likely don't need to include the ORC in order to use someone else's rules expressions, as it's a brand new creation you own. You can still choose to use the ORC so others can use your copyrighted game in their own products. You are correct that it's neither Pathfinder nor based around our IP, so it's not going to use either the PCL or Infinite license.

But if this new RPG that uses the ORC SRD, but is set in Golarion, is it ORC and Infinite and thus bound by both?

See above re: the ORC SRD. The Infinite license requires your product be compatible with Pathfinder, Starfinder, or contain no rules, so if you made the OceanShieldWolf RPG that was a completely different game that used a dreidel instead of dice or whatever, that wouldn't meet those standards and you could neither use Golarion lore nor release the game on Infinite.

Forgive me if I have the ORC misconstrued as more of an SRD than a licence.

You are forgiven.

But no, the ORC is just the license. It contains no rules in and of itself. The ORC can just as easily be used to open up content from Pathfinder Second Edition (like we're doing with the Remaster books) as it could the proposed dreidel game you are now obligated to make by my decree. In the case of both the Remaster and OceanShieldWolf RPG, the ORC would be an outflowing license rather than a pass-through license, as it's just opening the Licensed Material within each game to other publishers; neither is using the license to publish content previously created and released by a different company.

If I’m referencing a book published under the OGL (like, say, AP#100: A Song in Silver), then do I HAVE to publish it under the OGL? I’m not reprinting the whole book, just creating a supplementary document that makes minimal sense without the context from the original book.

It depends on the content you're referring to in your book. That book was Pathfinder First Edition, so way more of its content was derived from the 3.5 SRD than a Second Edition adventure path would be. But the OGL doesn't care about the book overall; it only cares about the specific content of your book.

You can, for example, refer to the character Strea Vestori by name, since Paizo owns her. But you can't refer to her as a tiefling, since Wizards of the Coast owns that word, and without the OGL, you don't have a license to use it.

The dragon Rivozair is even more complicated because, again, Paizo owns the name and most of the concept of the character, but she's an adult horned-devil-bound blue dragon, and now we're getting into some weird territory where judgment calls about what is and isn't Open Game Content come into play. The idea of "true dragons" with age categories that determine stats like size and Hit Dice and such are a copyrighted rules expression owned by Wizards of the Coast. Similarly, blue dragons, as a subset of chromatic evil dragons who have distinct breath weapons determined by their color, are also WotC IP. So you have to disentangle that stuff from the Paizo IP if you want to avoid the OGL. Similarly, horned devils are from the 3.5 SRD and not a Paizo creation, so that's another layer of complexity.

If you're just mentioning these characters by name, and, I dunno, writing a short story about them before the events of the adventure, then you can get around a lot of this by just using proper nouns and using a Paizo-owned term like nephilim or caliban or hellspawn if you need to refer to Strea's heritage. You can describe Rivozair a blue dragon (a dragon that is blue) instead of a "blue dragon" as a subset of chromatic dragons. You can even say she's an adult and bound to a devil. But if you're including any Pathfinder First Edition rules in your product, you likely still need the OGL.

If it's a conversion to Pathfinder Second Edition, you still need to de-OGL-ify the book, which is the same process we took to the Remastered books that start releasing tomorrow. You can make an NPC statblock for either of these characters, but you have to build them using Remastered rules or otherwise avoid specific rules expressions that derive from the 3.5 SRD.

It's possible—after all, we just did it for three whole books and are working on doing it to a fourth—but it's work, and it's nuanced. I don't want to discourage you from making the proposed product or something similar, but these are the realities of using another party's IP under license (be that the OGL, the ORC, or the Infinite license).

And by a different coin, let’s say I want to use the Horde Lich from Book of the Dead, which is not under the ORC, would I be unable to reference that creature because that book is under the OGL? Or the vast number of NPCs in the Gamemastery Guide that weren’t reprinted in the GM Core. Like, obviously if it’s something like an aboleth then I have to use the OGL, but sahkils are Paizo’s IP, but still in Bestiary 3 under the OGL.

You can reference the horde lich, GameMastery Guide NPCs, and sahkils, for sure. You can even use more specific references to them via a micro stat block or give tactics advice for running them, referring to specific abilities (with a few exceptions, but mostly). You can reprint their stat blocks in their entirety with a few modifications, like removing alignment and any spell or feat that we didn't reprint in the Remaster or that uses another company's IP.

I am far from a lawyer, so a lot of this stuff is going over my head.

It may surprise you, but IANAL either lol. Unfortunately, IP law and licenses and such are lawyers' domain, so we're doomed to these sorts of arcane discussions as long as we lay peons try to understand them. Add to that the infinite combination of specifics of any given product, and it's a lot to untangle. That's part of the reason we are resetting things with the ORC in our own publications, and why we opted for only allowing a single license (Infinite) instead of two (Infinite and ORC) for non-OGL material on the site.

I encourage you to check out the live stream next Tuesday, either live or on-demand afterward, as a lot of this stuff is easier to grok in conversation instead of read. It's certainly easier for me to talk about than to write about, at least. We'll be taking questions through the rest of the week, so if you have more questions or clarifications you'd like, please send 'em my way and I'll do what I can to address them.