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(in a spoiler)"Assuming the Vanguard is open content."
The Geniuses seem to fully support the OGL. I've yet to see anything they've released not be 100% Open Game Content (other than the usual limits on proper nouns etc.)
It's one of the reasons we so strongly and frequently support them and pimp their products on d20pfsrd's various social sites (FB/Twitter/G+ etc.)
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I'm not sure how else I can clarify my argument. I am not arguing that you need to use 3rd party material if they have made something filling a niche you are interested in writing for. What I am proposing, is that you do a quick search of the easily (and freely available) 3rd party material to see if anyone has done something in that niche, and let what they've developed act as a research input into your development process. Maybe they've already written a perfect example of what you wanted, in which...
The major limitation is word count. Do they print the OGL material of another company in their module, or do they just put a tag saying 'Pathfinder Book X pg 42'? Because they cannot publish material in a module unless they can expect every customer to have access to it. And while d20pfsrd is a wonderful tool, I don't know if Paizo can officially recognize it in a product. Their own PRD is what they usually use for that.
The other limitation is review time. They have a schedule, and I imagine that reviewing every other 3rd party product is a very low priority task. It is much more cost effective for them to develop and publish their own version in their own book that can be put on their own PRD and ensure that customers can access it officially.
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I'm not sure how else I can clarify my argument. I am not arguing that you need to use 3rd party material if they have made something filling a niche you are interested in writing for. What I am proposing, is that you do a quick search of the easily (and freely available) 3rd party material to see if anyone has done something in that niche, and let what they've developed act as a research input into your development process. Maybe they've already written a perfect example of what you wanted, in which...The major limitation is word count. Do they print the OGL material of another company in their module, or do they just put a tag saying 'Pathfinder Book X pg 42'? Because they cannot publish material in a module unless they can expect every customer to have access to it. And while d20pfsrd is a wonderful tool, I don't know if Paizo can officially recognize it in a product. Their own PRD is what they usually use for that.
The other limitation is review time. They have a schedule, and I imagine that reviewing every other 3rd party product is a very low priority task. It is much more cost effective for them to develop and publish their own version in their own book that can be put on their own PRD and ensure that customers can access it officially.
I bolded some text. On the first couple of pages in every AP adventure they list what books you need to run this adventure. Since everything on that List will be in the PRD - everyone can run it.
If you don't like to work with a computer while gaming or prepaiering your adventure you have the option to get the printed book.If you add some 3rd party material, you would have to reprint it ("wasting" a lot of space) or provide a source. But what happens if the product is only sold as pdf, and maybe even only from a store that only accepts credit cards from you. You might very well be screwed.
Of course there my beloved d20pfsrd.com - which saved me countless hours already, and was one of the big reasons to buy a laptop (paizo pdf were another). Of course, when I happen to be stuck in traffic for hours and like to prep the adventure... I am screwed. I usually carry the core rulebook and the APG with me and UC, UM, Bestiary I II and III... (and I should really buy the pdfs of those I miss some of these days), but everything else is really not an option.
I think using stuff from other sources is a great idea, and some items are definitely on my wishlist after seeing something from them in an AP (complete tome of horrors), but often creating something yourself is quicker than checking other sources.
Some feats that give more rounds of rage, music or add some points for monks and magi aren't really that complicated. In other situations, the desigerns might very well have some pretty detailed ideas for feats before the development work on a new project even starts (ideas, wishes, complaints on the forums and experiences from their home games).
One more thing, in my home game we only use paizo stuff, it's not that its always better, but there are some factors:
- translation:about half of the books used in my group are german, and since only a fraction of 3rd party books are translated, some of my players wont touch them
- we play other systems too, and once you limit the time your group spends with a particular system, you have to limit the amount of material to use. Could that evoker from Kingmaker be a lot more powerfull and deadly with some more recent spells from the APG - YES - did I change his spell selection - NO he was tough enough after all.
Of course sometimes I take the time to prepare an encouter to keep it challenging - (just try to hit an eidolon with mage armor using monsters from an AP after level 10...) but I rarely have the time these days.
- To much stuff already, it may be fun to own a lot of stuff (boxes upon boxes of mtg cards and half completed decks wait for my attention) but there is only so much time to actually read the stuff and bluntly unless I am hit pretty bad with unemployment and or a lot of cash, reading all my backlog ...wont happen.
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in my home games i havent had a single gm that allowed 3rd party material. i would buy the books, want to play something but the gm would say no every time. i stopped buying 3rd party material because of that. if people want 3rd party developers to be sucessful and accepted in home games, and even paizo products, 3rd party producers need to do something drastic to change the stigma they have in the eyes of the average gamer.
Although I still havent seen any example of what the OP was talking about - some mechanical feature produced in a Paizo product which covered the same ground as had already been done by a 3PP and which did it "worse".It's always disappointing to see a bunch of time and effort put into writing something that has already been done by another. Especially so if the 3rd party offering is better written and works better mechanically and in actual play.I didn't want to post specifics since it would have caused the thread to devolve into an off-topic tangent debating the minutae of whether one feat was objectively better or worse than others, but since this has been running for a while I'll throw up a couple examples that I can vaguely drew my eye. I'm sure there were others, but it's been a while since I compared Paizo rules and mechanics to 3rd party rules and mechanics.
Paizo: Antagonize
Open Design: ProvokePaizo: Crane Wing
Super Genius Games: Acrobatic Dodge
Interesting though I am not sure they are really better, they have some odd quirks in feats I'd like to avoid. I think I will play with acrobatic dodge to adjust it to my tastes.
in my home games i havent had a single gm that allowed 3rd party material. i would buy the books, want to play something but the gm would say no every time. i stopped buying 3rd party material because of that. if people want 3rd party developers to be sucessful and accepted in home games, and even paizo products, 3rd party producers need to do something drastic to change the stigma they have in the eyes of the average gamer.
Ah, the sins of our fathers.
in my home games i havent had a single gm that allowed 3rd party material. i would buy the books, want to play something but the gm would say no every time. i stopped buying 3rd party material because of that. if people want 3rd party developers to be sucessful and accepted in home games, and even paizo products, 3rd party producers need to do something drastic to change the stigma they have in the eyes of the average gamer.
This may not help, but I think that Dreamscarred's Psionics material is a good "gateway" 3PP. Like PF itself, it's an update of 3.5 material, so it's familiar to anyone who played 3.5 (and didn't arbitrarily wig out about psionics), and it's pretty well done.
I have almost everything that Super Genius Games ahs put out. Little of it gets used, mainly because a majority of it doesn't fit in the game worlds I run. I did use the Deathmage as a class particular to the Blood of Vol in Eberron. Now, if I ever decide to run a strictly hombrew world, I will use a lot of SGG, and other 3pp stuff. They have many of the things I want for such a world. The quality is EASILY equal to Paizo, it's just different in context.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I have almost everything that Super Genius Games ahs put out. Little of it gets used, mainly because a majority of it doesn't fit in the game worlds I run. I did use the Deathmage as a class particular to the Blood of Vol in Eberron. Now, if I ever decide to run a strictly hombrew world, I will use a lot of SGG, and other 3pp stuff. They have many of the things I want for such a world. The quality is EASILY equal to Paizo, it's just different in context.
Paizo has prettier pictures :P
More seriously, keep in mind the tales Auntie-Lisa's been telling us about Paizo. a lot of 3pp stuff might be the rough, but there are diamonds in the rough. In 5, 10, 20 years it might be SGG or Rite, or someone we've not heard of yet who will be nipping at Paizo's heels, in their quality.
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It's possible to have 3pp products every bit as good (and maybe even better) than those from the primary publisher. I seem to have heard of a company that did quite a good job along those lines developing something they called "Adventure Paths".
Oh yea, something like Cakezo?
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It's possible to have 3pp products every bit as good (and maybe even better) than those from the primary publisher. I seem to have heard of a company that did quite a good job along those lines developing something they called "Adventure Paths".
You know, I heard something similar, a magazine was involved at the start, and were dealing with some wizards living on the coast^^
No, no, they were some sorcerers by a bay!
EDIT:
But yes, the learner can surpass the master.
EDIT 2: Especially if the learner is, sometimes, the master, as is often the case with these 3PP.
I have almost everything that Super Genius Games ahs put out. Little of it gets used, mainly because a majority of it doesn't fit in the game worlds I run. I did use the Deathmage as a class particular to the Blood of Vol in Eberron. Now, if I ever decide to run a strictly hombrew world, I will use a lot of SGG, and other 3pp stuff. They have many of the things I want for such a world. The quality is EASILY equal to Paizo, it's just different in context.
This is a much more accurate statement of my views than my own earlier effort. My aversion to mixing 3PP products with Paizo products is about context/tone/mood/whatever, not about quality.