An OGL Living Campaign Thought


Product Discussion

Dark Archive

Here’s a wild idea so take it as you will. I'm posting it here because it is something that involves not only players but 3PPs as well. Anyway here's what I have to say.

I’m wondering what everyone’s thoughts are about a completely 100% OGL living campaign? I mean where every aspect of the campaign is determined by the majority of players and then designed and published by the industry as a whole.

The way it could work is a community website could be established where voting could be conducted. The votes could be used to determine everything from the name of the campaign, to what races are playable, to even how the world might look. Every aspect directly and indirectly affected by all the players interested in the world from the ground up and then designed by the industry.

The way design would work is that each company interested would submit their ideas for the different territories. This in effect would create something akin to a patronage program, and after getting community consensus that company then gets free reign to design everything related to that area of the world with the players interested in that region giving their input via their support for the product. The game companies could also provide modules if they are interested, but the majority of those would be via the player base involved in the living campaign.

It’s an ambitious thought I know, but I think if done as suggested, so that each region is effectively its own identity for the controlling company, it shouldn’t be to big a problem. Companies interested in supporting would be assured that they are the only company doing a product for that region so they get exclusive rights to it. Then to appease players who might be afraid that a given area might lose support it could be amended to the campaigns OGL that if a company fails to supports a listed region it becomes available after a given period or in the advent the company forfeits its control.

As I said it’s ambitious, but would be taking the spirit of the OGL to the maximum. Pazio and the Pathfinder Open Beta could be just the beginning. So what’s everyone’s thoughts?


The best implementation would be to keep it on a fan scale. This is just something publishers couldn't do for several reasons. You have to keep in mind that campaign design really covers a lot more trademark and copyright territory than the OGL even begins to approach.


Well there is Obsidian Twilight which is 100% OGC.

I think it would be a neat idea to explore a patronage project for a section of obsidian Twilight and if a fan put a proposal in front of me, I wold open it up to the fans.

In the end it will be about fans who are willing to put their money where their mouth is.

For now though I have far to much on my plate to do more than give it a little thought.

Steve Russell
Rite Publishing.

Dark Archive

Laddie wrote:
The best implementation would be to keep it on a fan scale. This is just something publishers couldn't do for several reasons. You have to keep in mind that campaign design really covers a lot more trademark and copyright territory than the OGL even begins to approach.

Perhaps, but I think by each publisher taking up a specific region and designing it with player input the whole community gets a win. Green Ronin has Freeport. How many game worlds out there have incorporated Freeport if only in spirit? Green Ronin knows that not everyone that buys Freeport is using it straight up as strictly Freeport and nothing else. My suggestion is taking that general assumption out and making it a given by creating a world with everyone involved that wants to be involved. Each company can keep on doing their own things, but via the input from fans they have the potential to share in a community that's one step higher than what's already being done, i.e. almost everyone borrowing from different settings and molding them together. True this new world won't have a Freeport, but it might have something similar or even more unique.

As far as trademark, if it's an OGL campaign world then there would be no trademark and it wouldn't allow trademark marterial in it. I'm not saying Green Ronin use their Freeport setting. Also you really can't trademark a campaign world other than the map created, characters found within it, and a few other minor things created for it, perhaps the name if done in a fancy logo. Again won't be asking publishers to import their own material into it. What's being asked is, "if the players create the world concept, along with different regions and such, will you the publishers create the material with our help? We'll pay you!"


It sounds a little bit like "design by committee", doesn't it?

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Third-Party Pathfinder RPG Products / Product Discussion / An OGL Living Campaign Thought All Messageboards

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