New and Revised Licenses

Maurizio Liparesi wrote:

Hi i'm actually managing a website similar to aon+ pathfinderwiki, but in italian, if i understood correctly till 31 August 2024, content can still be done with the Cup licenze and will not be subjected to be deleted after.

First, nothing released under the CUP has to be deleted. It's grandfathered in.

Second, we're going to be looking at the license and how it can better serve our international community in ways the CUP allowed. That will take time, and we appreciate everyone's understanding and patience. As long as you're operating in good faith as we make these adjustments, no one is going to come after you to delete anything.

thank for your reply, i will wait your update i hope as soon as possibile, but at this point and seen the number of problems to address is not possibile to get a bit more time from one month to solve everything, especially the month when you are busy with the biggest con of the year?

Although this whole thing has been (and still is) incredibly stressful and disheartening, considering that huge parts of the work done during the last 15 years might have to be scrapped or simply discontinued (since, like other fan communities I guess, we simply do not have the resource or manpower to go through all the content to scrub out all the things that the CUP allowed and that are no longer legal under the new licence), I would like to thank you, Mark, for taking the time to answer each and every comment in this thread. The answers might not always be what we hope for, but the fact that they exist is very much appreciated! We'll wait for an update.

(And we even got a bonus answer from James Jacobs. – No, I’m not fanboying. YOU are fanboying!)

@Mark: Thanks so much for your ongoing diligence and patience.

For what it is worth, I think there are a bunch of distinct conversations happening here, and a lot of the confusion seems to be about what the following actually are:

The OGL
The ORC
The Paizo Compatibility Licence (The PCL)
The Fan Content Policy (and how it differs from the old CUP)

where and how they differ and interact; and what you can and cannot publish, create and sell.

Personally I’m still having difficulty tying the ORC and the PCL together, but I *think* that if, in the old days you published PF1/OGL stuff using the PFRPGCL then nowadays if you want to publish PF2/ORC stuff you use the PCL. And given I don’t want to include any Golarion lore, nor interact with Infinite, I can do so, and sell PDFs here on the Paizo storefront.

hephaistos_official wrote:

The CUP doesn't exist anymore, and Hephaistos is an RPG product as defined by the Fan Content Policy so that doesn't apply either. This means that Hephaistos must now rely upon the OGL for Starfinder 1E content, and so existing content on the website must be sanitized to remove any Product Identity (as defined by the OGL). Is that correct? If so, is there a "grace period" for these changes to be made?

Yes, you have the basic understanding of it. There's no defined grace period, per se, but we also understand that changes of this nature take time, especially for community projects run by volunteers in their spare time. If you're making a good faith effort to scrub setting material from the resource, then that's good enough. If it's still there after months of no progress toward the end goal of compliance, that's a different issue.

Thank you for the clarification.

Thank you Mark and James. That helps significantly with clarifying my understanding of how the new licenses work

Thanks so much for your ongoing diligence and patience.

For what it is worth, I think there are a bunch of distinct conversations happening here, and a lot of the confusion seems to be about what the following actually are:

The OGL
The ORC
The Paizo Compatibility Licence (The PCL)
The Fan Content Policy (and how it differs from the old CUP)

where and how they differ and interact; and what you can and cannot publish, create and sell.

You are absolutely right. In an ideal world, these would be 4 distinct conversations, just as they're 4 distinct licenses. But they're also all sort of touching the same thing because of that last part about their interactions and so forth, so the conversation would bleed anyway.

Personally I’m still having difficulty tying the ORC and the PCL together, but I *think* that if, in the old days you published PF1/OGL stuff using the PFRPGCL then nowadays if you want to publish PF2/ORC stuff you use the PCL. And given I don’t want to include any Golarion lore, nor interact with Infinite, I can do so, and sell PDFs here on the Paizo storefront.

Part of the reason that particular change took so long was that the old Compatibility License referred specifically to the OGL, because when it was written, we never envisioned a world in which we wouldn't be using that for all our releases. We had to not only combine the licenses to allow for a single Compatibility umbrella to cover all our current games and leave room for future games (like Starfinder Second Edition) but also make sure that it wasn't tying people using the license to some other license. We want as few interactions as possible between licenses, which has been an overarching goal since early 2023, for reasons you can likely guess.

As it stands, the only time you should be publishing material under more than one license is with the PCL, because it requires your product to be compatible with one of our games, which would necessitate either the use of the OGL or ORC to publish that material.

In the olden days (like more than 24 hour ago), if you were publishing a Pathfinder First Edition book, you used the OGL and the Pathfinder First Edition Compatibility License. If it was a Starfinder First Edition product, you used the Starfinder First Edition Compatibilty License and the OGL. If it was a Pathfinder Second Edition product, you used the Pathfinder Second Edition Compatibility License, which unfortunately required you to use the OGL, so you couldn't use the ORC with it if you wanted to.

NOW, you use the rules license appropriate for your product's content, and then pick the logo that best represents what game system(s) it is compatible with via the Paizo Compatiblity License, and you're good.

Hey Mark! Thank you for answering all these questions and offering clarification allround.

There are a lot of words and references that I'm not sure I'm understanding correctly as it stands. As such I'd love to ask for some guidance here.

I've always wanted to write an AP of my own set in Golarion. I've already structured quite a few things to outline the idea I have and the very thought of it excited me. All of the license talk is disheartening though. Mostly because it goes straight over my head.

Can you help me understand whether what I'm doing is even feasible and agreable with these changes?

I'm creating a new town from scratch in Andoran. With completely custom NPCs and using only Remaster rules, stats and what not from Pathfinder 2e. I wish to actively involve lore about Aroden, Sarenrae, Mephistopheles, Pharasma and some other named deities such as Zyphus. Additionally I would want to reference and use Arazni. Would this even be legitimate and allowed?

I would eventually want to publish it as a paid product on Infinite. But before I push this forward in any form or way: Should I? I'm not sure at this point.

Hey Mark! Thank you for answering all these questions and offering clarification allround.

There are a lot of words and references that I'm not sure I'm understanding correctly as it stands. As such I'd love to ask for some guidance here.

I've always wanted to write an AP of my own set in Golarion. I've already structured quite a few things to outline the idea I have and the very thought of it excited me. All of the license talk is disheartening though. Mostly because it goes straight over my head.

Can you help me understand whether what I'm doing is even feasible and agreable with these changes?

I'm creating a new town from scratch in Andoran. With completely custom NPCs and using only Remaster rules, stats and what not from Pathfinder 2e. I wish to actively involve lore about Aroden, Sarenrae, Mephistopheles, Pharasma and some other named deities such as Zyphus. Additionally I would want to reference and use Arazni. Would this even be legitimate and allowed?

I would eventually want to publish it as a paid product on Infinite. But before I push this forward in any form or way: Should I? I'm not sure at this point.

I am not Mark, nor a lawyer, but in short this entire thing looks exactly like what Pathfinder Infinite was made to do. The only hitch is if you put in mimics, Orcus, or some other thing that neither you nor Paizo owns, its not allowed (again, because neither if you own that).

No company that takes its commmunity seriously should be making "as of today the rules have changed" announcements. Doesn't matter what the change is or justifiable it is, trust that there would be dialogue and community engagement has been broken.

I am genuinely really disappointed in Paizo. I was looking forward to hearing/seeing your announcements at GenCon as well, not sure at all now.

No company that takes its commmunity seriously should be making "as of today the rules have changed" announcements. Doesn't matter what the change is or justifiable it is, trust that there would be dialogue and community engagement has been broken.

I am genuinely really disappointed in Paizo. I was looking forward to hearing/seeing your announcements at GenCon as well, not sure at all now.

The fact that these changes have been declared with no warning or community engagement is part of the problem. Many of us have spent years building Pathfinder-related things, only to discover 24 hours ago that the license now forbids our work.

The problems with Starfinder Infinite, with translations, and with tools, could easily have been foreseen and avoided if you'd engaged with the community, asked for feedback.

Mark, thank you so much for clarifying all this and answering questions.

I very likely don't fully understand any of this, but I want to try repeating what I'm seeing back while trying to use concrete, non-hypothetical examples of projects that previously used the CUP in order to determine if I'm at least on the right track:

Ok so a day in and after a lot of reading FAQs and license text, I've started to put some thoughts together on this.

I get why the Infinite changes happened due to how aggressively copylefted OGL is.
I also get that translations getting caught up in this was unintended.

However what is still unclear to me is why suddenly non-monetized community tools (ex, interactive character sheets, etc) & resources (SRDs) are currently being forced with no warning to either:
1) navigate the uncertainty of individually trying to negotiate for a commercial/proprietary license
or
2) undergo the labor intensive process of stripping out all setting IP that had been previously allowed under the CUP, and either putting that all on a different site that doesn't contain OGL/ORC rules or ditching it completely

It would be very helpful to know what the intent here for these tools and resources is, and why this change needs to happen to them, if this is not merely another oversight like the translations.
If its intentional, it seems completely nonsensical with the information currently available, and that this change if intentional will scare off anyone wanting to put in the effort to build useful tools in the way all the publishers got scared off of the OGL.

I'm also extremely confused as to how this affects FoundryVTT modules.

Is a free module for the PF2E System on FoundryVTT that automates aspects of some Feats or Conditions (that are in System already, to be clear) now unable to do so if the Feats/Conditions themselves come from a mix of OGL and ORC sources? Cause if so that's going to be doing some significant damage to a number of ubiquitous modules in the community and potentially kill a bunch outright.

A bit above your post Mark acknowledged that currently there is a gap in the FCP vs the CUP in allowing translations, and they are looking into options to make that available again.

Woooo this is so empathetic!!

So I’d really Appreciate we stick to those questions

Arisaya wrote:

A bit above your post Mark acknowledged that currently there is a gap in the FCP vs the CUP in allowing translations, and they are looking into options to make that available again.

Woooo this is so empathetic!!

Arisaya, Thank you for confirming I can read english correctly.
As a matter of facts, I am expecting answers to the 4 use cases I mentionned, though you are right one of them has been answered.

So I’d really Appreciate we stick to those questions

It was merely a courtesy in case you had not had a chance to see it if it had been posted by Mark while you were typing your post.

I very likely don't fully understand any of this, but I want to try repeating what I'm seeing back while trying to use concrete, non-hypothetical examples of projects that previously used the CUP in order to determine if I'm at least on the right track:

** spoiler omitted **...

For what i've understood you are near the only change is that you can still use the Cup until august 31 (time do adapt or die) and everything done until then can be manteined, the problem arise after the 1 September, either you have to put extra work to strip the setting terms from the rule (one example was the pathfinder agent converted in guild agent) that will create a problem for the people who want to use the srd along with the official books one having the pathfinder agent because has buyed the splatbook the other having the guild agent because use d20pfsrd and the GM SHOULD KNOW that they are the same.

Mark: Where is this FAQ that you are referring to?

Also, sending you a PM.

Mark: Where is this FAQ that you are referring to?

Earlier, Mark mentioned he was working on an FAQ for the new license changes so people don't need to read the entire thread to view his helpful answers. It isn't done yet but I assume there will be a post here in the thread when it is.

Mark Moreland wrote:

OceanshieldwolPF 2.5 wrote:

Will third party publishers still be able to publish PF1 and SF1 OGL conversant content outside of Pathfinder Infinite/Starfinder Infinite? I mean, Paizo is still currently a storefront for digital third-party PDFs - so a publisher could still, after August, publish PF1 OGL content and sell them here, or elsewhere, anywhere but Infinite?

We have no ability nor desire to restrict what people can do with Open Game Content (OGL) or Licensed Material (ORC) for any of our games. We offer the Paizo Compatibility License to further allow people using those game rules via either license to also use an easily recognizable logo to express their game's compatibility with our system(s). All we're changing is the ability for someone to combine our Product Identity (OGL) or Reserved Material (ORC) with those licenses.

The Paizo Compatibility License is the only license that should ever be used in conjunction with a different license (either the OGL or ORC, or both if done correctly). Anything else should use solely the Infinite License or the Fan Content Policy.

Community members please help: Did Mark say “yes”?

If so, I guess I’m trying to work out why folks are decrying the “end of PF1 and SF1” third party content creation when…it is still just as possible as it was before, only less “available” because of the walling away of Infinite.

As always to start with, I am not a lawyer and this is just my best effort at understanding the situation; if anything is wrong, please feel free to correct me. From what I've seen, the primary source of these frustrations is that there now exist many types of content that have been previously published and would be illegal to do so now. Any combination of the setting material and the rules text cannot be released in any way for pf1 or sf1 as of the end of August, and releasing in non-Infinite locations is barred as of yesterday. For Starfinder in particular, much of the rules content will require changes to be able to used at all - for example, equipment often has proper nouns in it that can no longer be used. It also complicates some sort of content - if you want to write a book that's focused around giving cool mechanical options to deities, you either have to try and refer to existing Setting material very obliquely ("Prerequisite: Worship a god of love and art") and hope people get what you mean, or you have to release it for your own custom deities and hope people like them enough to add them to their version of the canon PF1/SF1 settings. Neither of them are great solutions. This whole act of removing setting material in general is also just complicated to do, and puts a significant barrier to releasing something that otherwise was just going to be a free document on the internet. It's also just a lot of work to catch all of this - look at d20pfsrd, which has been a pf1 rules source without the setting material for a very long time now, and it's still not uncommon for someone to catch some piece of setting material that got through their protective measures.

The other big one, which is true for all paizo products now, is that there's no longer a license for free digital tools that combine the setting and the rules. For instance, the Archives of Nethys would not be able to launch today and provide the combination of rules content and setting material they do as it would be illegal - they can only continue to do so due to a unique license with Paizo. For other tools, something like Hephaistos which is broadly regarded as one of the best tools in the SF1 community for what it does, they now have to remove all setting material - which in Starfinder, is a lot. A large amount of the names of ship components have some degree of setting material, and so they'll all need to be changed; it will be significantly more confusing now there will have to be a different set of names in the online tool and in the book you own. I can say personally that there have been multiple times that the way Pathbuilder removed setting material from mechanical options led to confusion at my PF2 table, and back in the PF1 days I very frequently had to deal with issues arising from d20pfsrd's scrubbing of setting material. Although the removal of these digital tools is true for both pf1/sf1 and pf2/sf2, it feels like a bigger deal for pf1/sf1 stuff, at least to me - I think there's a bigger chance for people working on the latest game to put in the effort to remove it so that they can continue updating it, whereas it seems more likely for tools for games without new content to be removed, or try to use the way that things previously published under the CUP can be left online if they're not modified. From the way it was talked about here by Mark Moreland it didn't sound like that was an option for Hephaistos, but I'm not a lawyer and I may just be misunderstanding that. Even if it is an option to keep them "grandfathered" in, it does mean that rules content cannot be fixed if issues are noted in it - if Hephaistos made a rules error that substantially effects the accuracy of the website, I think changing that would mean it could no longer use the CUP. Typos are OK, but changing the game content itself? That seems to be stepping over the line.

In terms of community made digital tools that people use to supplement the game... I think most people will agree, including Paizo, that renaming things, causes absolute confusion. The aim is to make the game easier to play and changing the names of things has the immediate opposite effect.

Personally I would love a situation where the community could...

- Release data files for digital tools on an agreed platform like Pathfinder Infinite/Starfinder Infinite.
- Be allowed within that platform, to release content using the Proper Nouns without change.
- To expand on this... have access to the API. Imagine a world where you could unlock the Adventure Module X content in Pathbuilder because you downloaded an access code from Infinite. Infinite api has confirmed the customer has already purchased that pdf and thus the community is allowed to release that content to that person within the community driven tool.
- My personal situation. I use Obsidian.md and having statblocks and adventures in markdown format already that I could download and use would be a massive win.

I'd love to hear from Paizo on their opinion on the digital tools and if they want them to exist.

The community is trying to make it easier to play the game. And the "official" tools are fantastic, they don't fill every niche. They are lots of other smaller niche tools that fill essential gaps for lots of people. Does Paizo want them to go away?

Thanks Brayden.

First of thanks to Mark and the whole team for the effort they put in to help us all to understand things better.

I'm the maintainer of the german AoN and the german blog about all things Pathfinder.

For the rules part I am NOT translating myself I'm using the translation of the german partner Ulisses Games and have their permission to do that. Am I still affected by the changes?

For the Blog I do translate some stuff, mostly news and announcements an I guess this is covered under the Fair Use clause but just to make sure I 'm posting here.

OceanshieldwolPF 2.5 wrote:

I also wonder if a lot of this could be avoided if the Pathfinder/Starfinder rules were *not* setting specific. Were the rulesets scrubbed of Golarion or the Pact Worlds etc, could this not all be much much simpler?

That therein is why the rules for the system are so good. They feel like part of the setting, and make it feel well done.

I’m going to have to disagree wholeheartedly with this. The ruleset is awesome, elegant and robust. It isn’t by any means perfect, but I do like it much more than any other system I have played in 40+ years. But none of the Golarion tie-ins impact that for me one bit. None of the lore is inseparable from the ruleset mechanics. In fact, much of the gating of certain options behind “lore” is nonsensical. I saw a post where someone suggested that if you wanted to use a breaching pike as an Alchemist you should choose hobgoblin as your ancestry. Because I always choose my ancestry based on what singular weapon I might want. The fact that at the time I read it the post had 10 other posters actively take the time to “favorite” said post told me all I needed to know about the direction of current social mores in roleplaying games. But I digress, the setting and the ruleset, to me, have no business together. I would happily get more content devoid of Golariona.

But Paizo doesn't want people to enjoy that anymore, apparently. Only if you're a licensed partner, a 2e creator, or a commercial fan product designer do you matter to them anymore.

No longer are community tools and homebrewers something they desire to exist.

I’m…just not sure that that is true, at all. Perhaps you aren’t familiar with my work. I’m a local grump who pervades the forum, stalking tersely over the past….12 years decrying Paizo’s various identified-by-me missteps. I’m usually the first to plant the flag of “No!!!!!!!!”, and detracting is a Trained skill for me. At 1st level.

But what I’m seeing here is something that they have been talking about for at least…since November, and to a certain extent is merely an extension of the ORCification of their IP. Now I don’t exactly understand why they want to let you make money off Golarion by making beloved homemade faction dice bags *where you can’t actually use the beloved faction sigils*, or why they won’t let you use RPG stuff in….RPG stuff….or something; and they really haven’t closed as many doors as people think they have; though it seems they did underestimate just how many devoted foreign speakers were translating their IP to grow their fanbase outside of ‘Murika; and perhaps this all wasn’t as communicated as clearly as it could have been, or thought out nearly as much as it could have been BUT apart from this being nothing entirely new for Paizo (as an organisation across the 12 years I’ve been complaining) I DON’T think this is an easy case of superevil Corp’s malfeasance, and more simply goingtobeabitsupoptimalifyoumakestuffforlucre. Capitalism is, at its core, gross and exploitative at every end where it touches…everything. Systems can be made “better” but ultimately they are (currently) mostly managed by largely imperfect people.

So. By all means complain. And have reasonable discussions. Believe me, I’ve tried the alternatives, and they a) aren’t pretty b) are a bit…embarassing and c) get you nowhere and fewer friends.

Also, get in line, bub.

But seriously, I hope Paizo can find a path through this that doesn’t impact a whole bunch of people so negatively, and for Gorum’s sake, clarify it a bit, because the hardest thing about being a creative should be making your ideas come to fruition, not navigating the legals.

First of thanks to Mark and the whole team for the effort they put in to help us all to understand things better.

I'm the maintainer of the german AoN and the german blog about all things Pathfinder.

For the rules part I am NOT translating myself I'm using the translation of the german partner Ulisses Games and have their permission to do that. Am I still affected by the changes?

For the Blog I do translate some stuff, mostly news and announcements an I guess this is covered under the Fair Use clause but just to make sure I 'm posting here.

we are in the same boat i'm working on the italian wiki, apparently if they not find a solution or we negotiate a separate license like aon, from septembr 1 we have to strip every reference to paizo's product identity from the rules similar to d20pfsrd way (for example no pathfinder agent but guild agent no red mantis assassin or similar reference and no Abadar Asmodeus etc) for the new material, the old one seems to be ok.

I remember a different company playing games with licenses not so long ago and being declared The Bad Guy.

You don't make more restrictions and get to be The Good Guy.

I remember a different company playing games with licenses not so long ago and being declared The Bad Guy.

You don't make more restrictions and get to be The Good Guy.

I guess it depends on what kind of games you are playing. But you make a compelling point.

I remember a different company playing games with licenses not so long ago and being declared The Bad Guy.

You don't make more restrictions and get to be The Good Guy.

I think it i a bit "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of situation.

Doing nothing would meant that they still had entablements with the OGL and where still somewhat dependent on WotC goodwill. In the long term this would be a very bad descission as WotC (or better Hasbro) has shown that they don't really respect the customers.

Paizo has allways been more open with their licences and the fact that AoN exists - and as Mark has posted is in now way affected - shows that they continue that way.

Yes, it will be bumpy for a few month for sure, but this not so good decisssion seems to be better then the alternative.

This is annoying from a tools perspective.

PCGen was just getting some coders back involved and we were getting ready to start being active again. So now we have some data pruning to do, or approach Paizo about a separate license.

We may have a dual approach where we have the actual release be OGL & ORC only, but then have a separate download hosted on Infinite that modifies the data to use the proper IP from the book. And add the deities so that clerics can choose their deity as opposed to a generic NONE and they have to pick the right domains and such, then handwrite the deity's name on the character sheet. But maintaining two sets of data in separate locations, and THEN tell the users they have to get these other files to make it match the book info.

Anguish wrote:

I remember a different company playing games with licenses not so long ago and being declared The Bad Guy.

You don't make more restrictions and get to be The Good Guy.

I think it i a bit "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of situation.

Doing nothing would meant that they still had entablements with the OGL and where still somewhat dependent on WotC goodwill. In the long term this would be a very bad descission as WotC (or better Hasbro) has shown that they don't really respect the customers.

Paizo has allways been more open with their licences and the fact that AoN exists - and as Mark has posted is in now way affected - shows that they continue that way.

Yes, it will be bumpy for a few month for sure, but this not so good decisssion seems to be better then the alternative.

The OGL vs ORC thing is just a convenient excuse. They are also gutting their Community Use Policy, and now Infinite products can't be released under OGL vs ORC. So they're funneling all their content into Infinite but want to say "mine mine mine".

As another poster mentioned there was no comment period, no advance notice. These changes were just dropped all of a sudden, through a blog. Paizo has had over a year to work on the ORC and they just now are communicating this? And to top it off, the licenses and FAQs are a complete mess. For instance, the current Infinite License Agreement text that is still available on their infinite platform and updated October 2023, still contains a clause that tells you to include the Open Game License if you are using content with OGL. But then the FAQ under the paizo.com/licenses page tells us that the Infinite License Agreement cannot be used with any other license other than the Infinite License Agreement meaning no OGL and no ORC.

So to go back to what I was saying -> Your CUP Projects that are RPG products can't be CUP projects anymore, and they don't qualify for Fan Content Policy -> You now must choose between Infinite or OGL or ORC, and gutting your content to match. And if you already have something on Infinite then if it has OGL or ORC content then you'll have to figure out what to do about that, but you'd be gutting it in some form or another.

So we can say that this is all just to protect them from the OGL and the evil wizards, but ask yourself why ORC can't be used with the Infinite platform? "mine mine mine". They have also taken the opportunity to funnel content into their Infinite License Agreement and disallowed the use of OGL and ORC licenses under that license Agreement. It's a great business idea.

But, lesson learned: CUP was a Policy, it was right there in the name. Same with Infinite Agreement. This just highlights the value of having an irrevocable license and avoiding policies/agreements that can be rugpulled.

I'm not a lawyer, i'm not your lawyer. Im an unpaid consumer going through the stages of grief.

Anguish wrote:

I remember a different company playing games with licenses not so long ago and being declared The Bad Guy.

You don't make more restrictions and get to be The Good Guy.

I think it i a bit "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of situation.

Doing nothing would meant that they still had entablements with the OGL and where still somewhat dependent on WotC goodwill. **In the long term** this would be a very bad descission as WotC (or better Hasbro) has shown that they don't really respect the customers.

Paizo has allways been more open with their licences and the fact that AoN exists - and as Mark has posted is in now way affected - shows that they continue that way.

Yes, it will be bumpy **for a few month** for sure, but this not so good decisssion seems to be better then the alternative. [Emphases added by Redgar]

That's definitely one take. To me, announcing big changes with 5 weeks notice (and one week before the biggest North American convention) seems worse than the clear alternative. That alternative being Paizo announcing the sunsetting of the CUP with a few months lead time, to provide for community feedback and recalibration/adjustment by all parties... .

I agree that these (or similar) changes seem to be needed *in the long term*. Any such changes would likely be bumpy *for a few months*. Paizo decided to implement these changes on a 5 week timeline - a stark contrast to the *long term* need and timeframe for community adjustment.

Hmmm... did Paizo get bought out by WotC? Because there's some major walling in the garden going on here. It would certainly make them a more appealing acquisition, with all that juicy IP tied up neatly in a bundle.

In actual seriousness, I've had really bad feelings about the direction Paizo was taking for a while now, and I feel justified that I've been working to extricate my own works from any Paizo written lore and content.

Giving the community little over a month to comply with a drastic reduction in their freedom to create and contribute, and then sell it like it's a good thing? Honestly, it's insulting.

The justification that PF1e and SF1e sales are low of Infinite, a platform intentionally designed to promote PF2e is rather ridiculous. If anything, this seems as much like an attempt to completely force the PF1e and SF1e communities to "upgrade"to PF2e Remaster, new revisionist PF2e lore and to host their content on Pathfinder Infinite.

It's actually kind of sickening to watch Paizo come full circle and become the very thing they'd built PF1e to oppose. This is poisoning the roots of the community ecosystem, even after so many players bounced off PF2e after the OGL debacle.

As for me, this may be the last nail in the coffin. I've seen this coming for a long time, but I didn't want to believe it. I wanted to believe Paizo was better than this.

Clearly, that's no longer true.

PS: I like PF2e a lot (haven't had time to dig into the Remaster yet), and was excited about SF2e. This isn't just about a PF1e of SF1e.

… i dont think P1 was built to oppose anything. I think it was just made so Paizo could stay in business.

… i dont think P1 was built to oppose anything. I think it was just made so Paizo could stay in business.

You weren't there at the beginning, clearly. ;)

Anguish wrote:

I remember a different company playing games with licenses not so long ago and being declared The Bad Guy.

You don't make more restrictions and get to be The Good Guy.

I think it i a bit "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of situation.

Doing nothing would meant that they still had entablements with the OGL and where still somewhat dependent on WotC goodwill. In the long term this would be a very bad descission as WotC (or better Hasbro) has shown that they don't really respect the customers.

Paizo has allways been more open with their licences and the fact that AoN exists - and as Mark has posted is in now way affected - shows that they continue that way.

Yes, it will be bumpy for a few month for sure, but this not so good decisssion seems to be better then the alternative.

I think it's a matter of scale, transparency, and contrast. The FCP affects swathes of community-run passion projects negatively (the thing Paizo is allegedly trying to support with the new license), which is a change that was made effective overnight with a loose grace period of "you're fine for now as long as you're making a good faith effort to comply." I think people would be more forgiving is Paizo made any attempt to communicate their intentions to tighten control of their IP ahead of time, clearly laying out the reasons for it, and gave a chance for feedback before it was suddenly enforced. For a company that does public playtesting so well you'd think they'd see the value in that.

The changes to what's allowed on Infinite are much more understandable in my opinion, but again, even if you argue it was common sense that this was the direction they were headed, they haven't made any explicit statements saying so. A little over one month advance is not a reasonable time frame to finish ongoing projects that aren't already basically complete. I would imagine Paizo knows that better than anyone after the OGL scare. If they announced this earlier and explained the threat not doing it posed, or even just gave a greater window of time to finish ongoing projects, there would probably be much less outrage. As it stands though, Starfinder players are expected to sit out... My gut says probably about a full year until SF2 playtesting, refining, and production wraps up, without any new rules content on Infinite to tide them over. I see the threat continual allowance of OGL on their platforms poses, but there's no recompense for 1e players who simply don't like the new systems, and are being forced out of communally supporting their preferred system with their preferred rules with its native setting on Paizo's (up until now) premier platform to do that. In fact, thanks to the FCP, doing it outside of Infinite as a free passion project will be disallowed as well.

All in all, this whole thing just feels like an unnecessary echo of the OGL scare. I mean that's what Wizards and Hasbro planned to do, didn't they? Tighten one of their most foundational licenses that provided creative freedoms to their community, with no advance or warning. The reason they (for now) haven't gone through with it is because it was leaked and there was mass community outrage about it before it could go into efect. It seems rather ironic to me that Paizo did... Well, basically that. I don't for a moment believe Paizo had the same malicious motives behind their actions, heavens no. They're clearly not looking to drive already successful profits even higher, they're trying to protect their business from potential ruin. But this? This isn't the company I decided to put my (admittedly statistically miniscule) weight behind when I abandoned D&D. I knew a Paizo that's better than this. I have faith this mess was just a fluke that will be corrected as soon as they get the chance. They've earned that goodwill. In the event they do decide to squander it though, I should rather thank them, reduced spending on their books will be very good for my personal finances.

James Jacobs and or Jason Bulmahn was there and he repeataly stated that they had to hurry to produce Pathfinder because 4E wouldn't allow them to continue there line of APs. So, yes, PF1 was built so Paizo could stay in business.

AND he said that the OGL debacle was the second time they nearly went out of business because of another company and so they decided now to cut all ties as fast as possible.

EDIT: Mixed up names.

James Jacobs Jason Bulmahn was there and he repeataly stated that they had to hurry to produce Pathfinder because 4E wouldn't allow them to continue there line of APs. So, yes, PF1 was built so Paizo could stay in business.

AND he said that the OGL debacle was the second time they nearly went out of business because of another company and so they decided now to cut all ties as fast as possible.

EDIT: Mixed up names.

I was there, I'm aware. But this is a false dichotomy, of course.

PF1e was created to so Paizo (and the 3.5e community ecosystem) could stay in business doing what they loved. And it was meant to oppose WotC tightening the grip on the community to control IP and monetization (via the introduction of 4e and changing licenses).

To act like none of this was personal (just business) to the folks at Paizo displays a deep misunderstanding of what all of this means to them and to the community.

You don't go into the RPG printing business to get rich. You do it because you love it.

That's the last I'll speak of this.

Mark, can I ask why this CUP news was released with 0 days notice for all affected parties? There are many free fan projects that some of your most loyal customers have spent thousands of hours on and have generated Paizo money indirectly that are now put on ice forever. Dropping this on them so suddenly just seems unnecessarily cruel. I’m not thrilled about the OGL change on Infinite but I can totally understand why you’re doing that, but removing CUP I just don’t understand.

I’d also like to ask what existing projects Paizo intended to shut down with this and why? We know from your posts here that disability tools and translations weren’t intended to be harmed, but that free databases were. Why? What about the vibrant existing 1E to 2E fan conversion community that generates Paizo revenue via necessitating sales of 1E products they otherwise wouldn’t buy? What about the numerous Foundry modules that automate rules interactions from pre and post remaster books?

Mark, I also want to thank you for answering questions here, I know it must be tricky for you since you probably didn’t make any of the decisions that lead to this and you’re answering for those people instead.

You don't go into the RPG printing business to get rich. You do it because you love it.

Umm, if you really loved it, you wouldn’t go into business. The commodification of your passion isn’t love…it’s just….business. And to be quite frank, a business that has been “successfully” running for over a decade has made one or two people…a lotta cash.

Artofregicide wrote:

You don't go into the RPG printing business to get rich. You do it because you love it.

Umm, if you really loved it, you wouldn’t go into business. The commodification of your passion isn’t love…it’s just….business. And to be quite frank, a business that has been “successfully” running for over a decade has made one or two people…a lotta cash.

I don't think it's necessarily true that you can't go into business doing something you love, especially when that something costs time and effort to do. And someone purely out for money would go into the fossil fuel or arms industry, not a portion of the entertainment industry with a small audience and razor-thin margins.

Garrett Guillotte wrote:

I very likely don't fully understand any of this, but I want to try repeating what I'm seeing back while trying to use concrete, non-hypothetical examples of projects that previously used the CUP in order to determine if I'm at least on the right track:

** spoiler omitted **...

For what i've understood you are near the only change is that you can still use the Cup until august 31

I don't believe this is true. August 31 is the date of the changes to Pathfinder and Starfinder Infinite, which are wholly separate of the CUP/FCP changes.

The blog post rather specifically states that "As of today, (July 22) Paizo’s Community Use Policy has been replaced by the Paizo Fan Content Policy". Mark's said in the thread that the CUP ended on July 22 when the FCP took effect, and that it did so without an official grace period. If a person is starting a new fan content project today, the CUP no longer applies to them, only the FCP.

Mark has mentioned that existing CUP projects don't have to be deleted. He's said that they aren't expected to immediately comply with the FCP but should show that they are making progress toward doing so ASAP.

He also has not provided a date for when the FCP would go from being in effect to being actively enforced against active and ongoing CUP projects that have not moved into compliance with the FCP, though he did say "if it's still there after months of no progress toward the end goal of compliance, that's a different issue".

Also, re: questions about where the Fan Content Policy FAQ is, it's at https://paizo.com/licenses/fancontent/faq.

You can get there by:

- Going to https://paizo.com/licenses.

- Selecting "Learn More" under "Fan Content".

- Selecting "Fan Content Policy FAQ".

paizo.com/licenses has "Learn More" links for each of the licenses. The FCP, Infinite, Compatibility License, and ORC License all have FAQs (on the ORC, it's called the AxE for Answers and Explanations).

Also. We know that Foundry has a special license to host Pathfinder, but what about Foundry *modules* for Pathfinder, like those that help with gameplay automation and accessibility? Are any of those going to land in hot water just for making the game easier to run? Because these modules are a HUGE reason why people use PF2e on Foundry in the first place. If you restrict them, you are going to make a lot of people very upset.

If you restrict them, you are going to make a lot of people very upset.

No ill will harbored, you're asking very important questions, but that last sentence is really funny to me. I'm no Investigator or anything but my cursory research into this thread leads me to conclude that the scenario outlined is already past hypothetical.

Marlin the Red wrote:

I do not pretend to fully understand all the changes here, but my group exclusively uses pathbuilder for multiple reasons. Seeing that builders may no longer be covered and demiplane being the only official thing that I can think of that comes even close worries me, it is much too similar to dnd beyond and my group avoided it due to needing to buy packs or classes to be able to build a character.

Pathbuilder should be unaffected by these changes. That site and app do not use the Community Use Policy nor the Pathfinder Compatibility License. They just use the OGL and ORC. Nothing Paizo does or could do can alter their ability to use that content, nor would we want to.

Printing this and marking it “Defense Exhibit A.”

holy s@@!, that Fan Content Policy is out of this world.

More reasons that Paizo is one of the best companies for fans.

I feel like it's telling that the reactions range from "who would Paizo do this, they're evil" to "this is the best thing I've ever seen." Obviously this is because different folks are affected in different ways, but it shows that a bit of perspective is needed here when assessing the actual effects and motives of these changes.

This is my first post on Paizo blog/forum since I started playing TTRPGs and specifically Pathfinder almost 6 years ago.

I was fine with ORC/OGL changes because it's understandable that Paizo as a business wants to safeguard itself from potential legal problems with Hasbro which might just bankrupt them. But revoking CUP is whole different matter as is the presentation of this change to the community.

Honestly, I'm no creator nor a lawyer, I'm just ordinary GM that's having fun playing PF and SF with my friends and mostly uses modules on VTTs like FG and Foundry. And their potential future scares me a lot. I'm not worried about core modules or AP modules, but about community-made stuff that helps to smooth out different aspects of gameplay via VTTs. And I believe a lot of big module creators (PF2e Workshop and Toolbelt for example) on Foundry will just discontinue their modules instead of complying with new licenses and agreements which will make new and old players think twice before committing to Pathfinder or Starfinder in future. VTTs as of now play huge role in living TTRPG society and making them less accessible for playing is sure not the best way to move forward.

Though I still hope that Paizo will correct this issue about digital tools, translations and other mentioned stuff in this tread.

Otherwise, chances are that me and other people will move forward to other systems, and Pathfinder and Paizo will just be another closed chapter in our lives. Which is the thing that I would like to avoid tbh, because I love the system, setting and our whole community.

Though I still hope that Paizo will correct this issue about digital tools, translations and other mentioned stuff in this tread.

Translations are being looked at, digital tools are potentially an issue. Unless they are already OGL/ORC sanitized already like Pathbuilder apparently is already.