New and Revised Licenses

Today, we’re excited to launch a new landing page featuring all the information fans, content creators, and other publishers need to legally use Paizo’s intellectual property—game rules, setting details, artwork, logos, and other copyrights and trademarks—in their own products. Whether you’re looking to make an online rules database using the ORC license, a setting compatible with Pathfinder Second Edition, an adventure set in the Pact Worlds system, an actual play podcast, or a series of handmade plushies of iconic heroes like Valeros, Seoni, and Lem, we’ve got everything you need at paizo.com/licenses.

Along with this new hub of information, we also made a few updates and revisions to our existing licenses, both for ease of use and to bring them up to date with the current state of our games and brands. You can find out more about these specific licenses on their respective pages on the site.

Paizo Compatibility License

With Pathfinder (and soon Starfinder) in its second edition, we were starting to get a bit of a glut of system-specific compatibility licenses. So, we consolidated what was previously two distinct Pathfinder RPG Compatibility Licenses and a Starfinder Compatibility License into a single Paizo Compatibility License. Using the new license, a publisher can declare compatibility with any of our games and use the appropriate logo, and we don’t have to constantly maintain the list of products and game systems you can use it for.

We also got rid of the registration process by which publishers had to inform us they were using the license. Now, you agree to the license when you publish something using it, the same way you do for the OGL or ORC. Your use of one of the Compatibility Logos or our proprietary Pathfinder-Icons font aren’t locked behind any red tape. Just create your content, ensure you’re following all the rules of the license, and you’re ready to go.

Pathfinder and Starfinder Infinite

In October, on the eve of the Pathfinder Second Edition Remaster Project launch, we announced that the ORC license wouldn’t be usable on our Pathfinder and Starfinder Infinite community content publishing platforms. While this initially caused a bit of confusion, in the months since, we’ve seen publishers continue using both platforms with great success, accessing Paizo’s IP via the Infinite License alone.

Next month, with the release of Pathfinder Player Core 2, we’ll have completed the 18-month task of divesting our core game from the OGL, and thus, starting on September 1, 2024, publishing of new OGL content on Pathfinder and Starfinder Infinite will cease; publishers wishing to release game content on either platform will need to use the Infinite license exclusively.

This means that until Starfinder Second Edition is officially out in just over a year, Starfinder content on the platform is going to need to be free of rules (setting lore, fiction, art assets, etc.) but once the new edition of the game is out, we plan to relaunch Starfinder Infinite in style. It also means that Pathfinder First Edition content, or Pathfinder Second Edition content based on OGL material, will also sunset from the platform in just over a month. So, if you have a Pathfinder product in the works featuring chuuls, the eight schools of magic, or yes, even drow, you have until the end of August to release them. We won’t be removing OGL-based content from the marketplace in September, but you won’t be able to release new material using the OGL after that point.

The Infinite FAQ and End User Licensing Agreement on the marketplaces will be updated closer to the date of the actual change, but consider this your fair warning.

Fan Content Policy

As of today, Paizo’s Community Use Policy has been replaced by the Paizo Fan Content Policy, which serves a similar role, but with different provisions.

First, the Fan Content Policy will allow you to sell merchandise using our IP. Yes, for money. You will also be able to monetize other content using Paizo’s IP, like putting a live play of one of our Adventure Paths behind a Patreon paywall. There are restrictions to this, however, so make sure you read the license carefully before you put in your order with the factory to make high-end poster maps of Golarion. Anything you sell needs to be made by you and sold directly by you to the consumer. You can’t upload a bunch of our art to one of those print-on-demand shops that will let anyone put the art on whatever hat or mug or shirt they want. You can screen print shirts or sew your own plushies and sell them on an Etsy storefront you operate or at conventions, but not mass produce either or sell them through external services or storefronts. But those Pathfinder Society faction dice bags you have been making because you love them? You can totally start selling those now instead of just giving them away for free.

Most of what you could previously do with the Community Use Policy is still permitted under the Fan Content Policy except for making RPG products, which you’ll need to release through the Pathfinder or Starfinder Infinite storefronts (even for free if you want) from now on. So, you can’t use art from the blog or setting material from Golarion to make your own rulebook or adventure under this license. If you’re currently using the OGL or ORC in conjunction with the Community Use Policy, in order to be compliant with the new Fan Content Policy you’ll need to either remove any game rules that would require you to use cite those licenses or remove any non-rule content you accessed via the Community Use Policy.

We know that all this legal stuff can be intimidating and confusing for many fans, and for that, we apologize. It’s our hope that these changes largely improve the community’s ability to create and engage with our brands, our games, and each other, even if they’re different than what we’ve offered in the past. Be sure to check out each license’s FAQ for more information, or pose your questions in the forums or comments below. We’ll do our best to answer them in as timely and clear manner as possible.

Now go out there and start creating! We can’t wait to see what you have in store for us.

Mark Moreland
Director of Brand Strategy