Can Event Organizers Provide Scenarios to GM's?


GM Discussion

Scarab Sages 1/5 5/5

I'm hoping to get official confirmation to my question so that I do not run afoul of Paizo's Community Use Policy and continue to respect their IP. If there is a more appropriate vehicle to pose the question, I'd appreciate the direction.

If I organize a face-to-face event with multiple tables, can I buy the Scenario one time and provide to each of the GM's? Similarly, if I organize an online event and convert the Scenario into a vtt format, can I share the vtt scenario with each of my vtt GM's?

Sovereign Court 5/5 Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds

Talwynor wrote:

I'm hoping to get official confirmation to my question so that I do not run afoul of Paizo's Community Use Policy and continue to respect their IP. If there is a more appropriate vehicle to pose the question, I'd appreciate the direction.

If I organize a face-to-face event with multiple tables, can I buy the Scenario one time and provide to each of the GM's? Similarly, if I organize an online event and convert the Scenario into a vtt format, can I share the vtt scenario with each of my vtt GM's?

Physical copies? Yes.

Electronic copies? No.

I.E., feel free to print out everything your GMs need so that they can run their games. But do not, under any circumstance, electronically redistribute these products. That's why the watermark on the product has your name and email address on it.

Liberty's Edge 5/5 *** Venture-Captain, Missouri—Cape Girardeau

Having organized a few PFS events for our local conventions, I feel confident in answering this.

The preferred method for putting the scenarios into the hands of your GMs for large events is to contact Mike Brock at Paizo about convention support. If they can help, you give them a list of who is GMing what (along with the e-mail address associated with their Paizo account), Paizo will put these into their downloads. Remember, this method takes a lot of pre-planning to make it happen in a timely manner.

Other than that, you are allowed to distribute physical copies of the scenarios for the GMs to run (the idea being to have them returned to you as your property when done); this means that all printing is done by you, the organizer.

I've used both methods... the first with better results. Since the GMs own the pdf, they are more likely to take time to properly prepare.


As Arnim said, unless this has been changed by Mark or Mike, any physical copies shared with the GMs must be returned to you at the end of the event. Paizo allows you to loan them the copies, not give them away. If they want to own it, then they have to buy it.

Grand Lodge 4/5

You can also gift them the scenarios if you want to purchase them as a GM thank you or some such. Otherwise, send me an email about what is running and the GM, along with their Paizo email store account, and the event number, and I will get customer service to place it in their downloads.

Note that your event must be registered here on the event finder to receive these downloads into GM download account.

Liberty's Edge 4/5 5/55/5 **

Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Michael Brock wrote:
You can also gift them the scenarios if you want to purchase them as a GM thank you or some such.

This is not for everyone, but this is what I kind of Do.

For every Star a GM gets in our group they get 10 Paizo Gift Certificate, 1 Star $10, 2 Star $20, etc.

I have found they use that to buy scenarios!

Like I said, this is not for everyone, because it requires you to have cash to burn.

Scarab Sages 1/5 5/5

Thank you for the clarification on the physical copies -that part is crystal clear to me now. However, Im still unclear on how to handle online gaming events. What can I provide as a vtt file to the GM to run (understanding I definitely cannot send him the pdf)? The conversion of the scenario into a vtt fle is very time consuming and a barrier to getting new GM's. I'd like to be able to do that work and send the file to the GM to run the game...but Im getting the sense that that would not be permitted...Im hoping Im wrong.

Sczarni 4/5

Talwynor wrote:
Thank you for the clarification on the physical copies -that part is crystal clear to me now. However, Im still unclear on how to handle online gaming events. What can I provide as a vtt file to the GM to run (understanding I definitely cannot send him the pdf)? The conversion of the scenario into a vtt fle is very time consuming and a barrier to getting new GM's. I'd like to be able to do that work and send the file to the GM to run the game...but Im getting the sense that that would not be permitted...Im hoping Im wrong.

Hmm... that's into iffy ground.... I would say as long as they can provide a watermarked copy of the PDF, it would be ok to send the VTT file to them, but not until then. You'd have to wait for Mike or Mark for a final say though

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

Talwynor wrote:
Thank you for the clarification on the physical copies -that part is crystal clear to me now. However, Im still unclear on how to handle online gaming events. What can I provide as a vtt file to the GM to run (understanding I definitely cannot send him the pdf)? The conversion of the scenario into a vtt fle is very time consuming and a barrier to getting new GM's. I'd like to be able to do that work and send the file to the GM to run the game...but Im getting the sense that that would not be permitted...Im hoping Im wrong.

Your best bet in these situations is to fall back on the Community Use Policy (here) which would basically mean you'd be able to distribute, for free, accounts of the events within the adventure, as well as names and statblocks and such, but you'd have to redraw the maps and not use art that's not in the blog. If an individual GM had access to the PDF to actually run the adventure (since a VTT file isn't likely to actually include more than the statblocks, maps, and macros and such) they can pull the maps from their file and add those to the VTT file you distribute or they can get PDF versions of the GameMastery maps to include for those scenarios that use them.

So most of the work in making a VTT campaign file can be done and distributed, just not the PDF itself, nor any artwork or maps not included in the Community Use Package or blog/web fiction.

Scarab Sages 1/5 5/5

Mark Moreland wrote:

Your best bet in these situations is to fall back on the Community Use Policy (here) which would basically mean you'd be able to distribute, for free, accounts of the events within the adventure, as well as names and statblocks and such, but you'd have to redraw the maps and not use art that's not in the blog. If an individual GM had access to the PDF to actually run the adventure (since a VTT file isn't likely to actually include more than the statblocks, maps, and macros and such) they can pull the maps from their file and add those to the VTT file you distribute or they can get PDF versions of the GameMastery maps to include for those scenarios that use them.

So most of the work in making a VTT campaign file can be done and distributed, just not the PDF itself, nor any artwork or maps not included in the Community Use Package or blog/web fiction.

Ok, think I'm about there so let me restate to make sure I understand correctly - in essence I have to make sure I don't send the maps and artwork in the VTT file. I also need to include the community use policy statement in the file and register with the website. Also, because this falls under the community use policy, it does not appear I need to limit their availability to games I have organized and reported. If that lets me provide stat blocks and everything else to GMs in our online society, while not ideal, will definitely work.

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

Talwynor wrote:
Ok, think I'm about there so let me restate to make sure I understand correctly - in essence I have to make sure I don't send the maps and artwork in the VTT file. I also need to include the community use policy statement in the file and register with the website. Also, because this falls under the community use policy, it does not appear I need to limit their availability to games I have organized and reported. If that lets me provide stat blocks and everything else to GMs in our online society, while not ideal, will definitely work.

If following the exact letter of the policy, then yes, you would need to include the community use policy statement in there (it could even be in the form of a player handout within the document that never gets shown to the players) and register on the website. And you are correct in understanding that you don't need to limit the availability to games you organize. If you want to include plot details (including faction handouts and readaloud text and such) you are getting close to including things not covered by the CUP, however, as VTTs aren't expressly covered in the clause allowing you to "descriptively reference dialogue, plots, storylines, language, and incidents from products ... in campaign journals and play-by-post or play-by-email games." In this case, including those elements in something you're directly involved in as GM or organizer falls within the spirit of the rule, but if you were to make such content readily available outside of a game you're involved in, it starts to get fuzzy.

Ultimately, we want to make playing our adventures as easy as possible and as accessible as we can while still protecting the words, artwork, and maps that we've paid for. I hope the tools we've provided through the CUP help you in that endeavor, and if you find a good balance between adhering to the terms of the policy and making the most useful tools for your players and GMs, I'd be eager to hear the details, as other online groups would likely be interested in similar tools for their VTT and online community of choice.

Scarab Sages 1/5 5/5

Mark Moreland wrote:


Ultimately, we want to make playing our adventures as easy as possible and as accessible as we can while still protecting the words, artwork, and maps that we've paid for. I hope the tools we've provided through the CUP help you in that endeavor, and if you find a good balance between adhering to the terms of the policy and making the most useful tools for your players and GMs, I'd be eager to hear the details, as other online groups would likely be...

Mark, thank you for the direction. I'll keep everyone posted on our continued development. Ill also continue to think about developing additional controls to adhere to the spirit of the cup ( adding some sort of password protection immediately comes to mind). I'm hoping once we get our structure in place we'll be able to grow the fantasy grounds VTT society and approach what we did with another living campaign where we had over 600 players at its high point.

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

I recommend connecting with the folks at the Pathfinder Society Online Collective. They're not restricted to a single VTT, but they are likely to be able to offer suggestions or resources for you, and may even help grow the number of people using FG for PFS gaming. They currently have a membership of almost 400 members!

Scarab Sages 1/5 5/5

Mark Moreland wrote:
I recommend connecting with the folks at the Pathfinder Society Online Collective. They're not restricted to a single VTT, but they are likely to be able to offer suggestions or resources for you, and may even help grow the number of people using FG for PFS gaming. They currently have a membership of almost 400 members!

I'm a member there as well and they offer alot of games. There doesn't seem to be alot of activity with fantasy grounds however so this was designed to address that specific segment. Thanks for the heads up.

3/5

I'm running my first event and I was wondering much of these questions so thanks for your answers!

Community / Forums / Organized Play / GM Discussion / Can Event Organizers Provide Scenarios to GM's? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in GM Discussion