It just hit me the other day that Paizo might help spread the hobby as well as exposure to Pathfinder by talking to podcasts or other media outside the general gaming community.
By day, I'm a Unix/Linux systems admin and I am ensconced in the open source community and philosophies.
It's funny, because I had no idea about the OGL when DnD was released under the license by WotC. However, when I started looking at getting back into RPG playing Pathfinder's development history as a direct offshoot of the OGL version of DnD was appealing to me. The methods that were used to bring the Pathfinder RPG to publication including public alpha and beta tests as well as active community involvement ("bug reporting," "feature requests") had a very familiar and comforting ring to it.
I think other open source enthusiasts may be interested in the story as well. If some of them, like me, have played in the past and fallen away from the hobby, they may be tempted to pick it up again. Others, who never played an RPG in their life, might be intrigued enough to give the game a go.
With that in mind, I sent a suggestion for a Paizo interview to one of the hosts of the FLOSS Weekly podcast. FLOSS weekly is a podcast about open source. It is hosted by Randal Schwartz, aka Merlyn, Jono Bacon and Leo Laporte. It is part of Leo Laporte's wildly popular This Week in Tech (TWIT) network. Leo is one of the most successful podcasters out there and has arguably the largest audience.
I sent Randal Schwartz the basics, as I understand them, of the Pathfinder RPG story. While FLOSS focuses mainly on software, they have also covered novel uses of open source including subjects like open source law, advocacy, research, science, etc.
Randal keeps a list of upcoming shows online. It's a long list and, taking into account that it is a weekly show, it'll take years to get through it. He doesn't even have the contact info for all the projects listed, they've just been suggested by listeners. Randal does all the legwork, so anything that makes his job easier helps move people up the stack. So, if someone from Paizo were to contact him via his email address, merlyn@stonehenge.com, I'd bet they could get onto the show to discuss the OGL and Pathfinder's history relatively soon.
As I said, I think it would be a sizable audience that would be receptive to the topic and could expand the audience for RPGs in general and Pathfinder specifically.
I'm not associated with TWIT or FLOSS other than being a listener.
I know the Paizo staff is insanely busy, but I wanted to pass this along as an idea before I forgot about... "Squirrel!"
What do you guys think?
I think it'd be awesome to hear them (Paizo) talk on something like FLOSS about how the open source movement has affected them, their company and the Pathfinder RPG in general!
That and well I like Leo's network of podcasts too.
I like them too.
The TWIT podcast network that Leo has created has enough listeners and followers a month that it has costs of about $350,000 a year on revenue of over 1.5 million dollars a year (which has doubled for each year). He has stated that he reaches millions of people a month.
Admittedly, FLOSS Weekly has probably one of his smallest audiences (tens of thousands, maybe), it is still a large new audience to expose to Pathfinder.