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Just wondering.
In particular, adventures.
Richard
Yes. Golarion is Paizo's IP. It is not available under the OGL and as such cannot be used without Paizo's permissions. Paizo does authorise use of Golarion via the Paizo Community Use document but this forbids charging for such products, which would probably put off third party publishers.
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It's a curious thing.
I used to follow the fortunes of Glorantha many years ago.
There was no OGL there as such, however the setting was either not copyright or the copyright was not enforced (it may still be the case now), leading to a huge amount of fan created and semi-professional world material.
Which Glorantha benefited from, even if occasionally there was some question about what was "canon" and what was not.
I would like to see adventures created by third parties being set on Golarion if at all possible. I wouldn't have thought this would cause any great problems, and Paizo could always state that third party products are not necessarily "canon".
Richard
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Well, third parties probably could write adventures under the Community Use Policy, but to my knowledge, nobody has yet done so. As mentioned before, though, they would not be able to charge money for them.
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It actually does cause great problems in the sense that somebody else (a third party) would be making money off of Paizo's intellectual property. If people start buying that other company's Golarion adventures rather than Paizo's, Paizo will lose money off of their original idea. Simple economics.
I don't think this happens at all - I think the relationship is symbiotic.
I'm not entirely sure whether this was going to happen with Carrion Crown and Legendary Games, but I think that having extra adventures within an AP would be a grand way for a third party to contribute Golarion material, material which would, in my opinion, help to sell the APs rather than take people away from them. I don't see why a third party shouldn't be able to charge for this either.
Richard
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Reread the CAP again. it strictly forbids you from using what they designate as product identity in this case Golarian in publication. The only purpose of the materials in the CAP is for the fan use they choose to allow.
If you intend to publish, either use your own setting, or ask for a license that you're not going to get.
Well, yes, that's what I meant. I didn't mean commercial publishers, but fans. Sorry, must have been unclear.
You can write adventures, you just can't charge for them.
And please try to be a bit less confrontational. Communication is an imperfect art...
Edit: Quote for clarity.
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I think there's a big difference between making a movie with Mickey Mouse in it and publishing an adventure set in Magnimar.
I wonder, also, what the grey area would be. What about if you wrote an adventure and stated that it *could* be set in Magnimar, or could be set in a city *like* Magnimar, etc.
As a consumer, I am not interested whatsoever in any setting other than Golarion for Pathfinder. This makes it rather hard for third party adventure writers, I think, because I'm very unlikely to teleport my players across worlds just to run their adventures. Inevitably, I end up teleporting their adventure into Golarion, which makes me wish the writer could give me some guidelines about how best to do this.
Richard
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I wonder, also, what the grey area would be. What about if you wrote an adventure and stated that it *could* be set in Magnimar, or could be set in a city *like* Magnimar, etc.
As a third-party publisher, and a game writer who has been dealing with the OGL since there was an OGL, I have to say the grey area actually isn't very grey.
I can absolutely write an adventure set in a city a lot like Magnimar. I can have a city-state, wedged between the sea nd a marsh, founded by dissenters from a bigger empire, that is locked in a political and sometimes military struggle with another local city-state. I could even have it feature an ancient ruined bridge and a giant cliff and call it Landmark City.
I can't call it Magnimar. I can't even say it *could* be Magnimar, because proper names of Golarion are IP, and the OGL forbids use of the same without the owner's permission. I *could* say "Landmark City can be replaced with any similar city featuring an ancient bridge and a big cliff."
Paizo's reasons for holding on to their IP are good, varied, and reasonable. This ranges from not wanting to have to compete with third party material for fluff and fiction set in their own campaign setting, to not wanting some other publishers to taint the public perception of their IP.
For example, if they allowed 3rd party to use their IP, I could set adventures in Magnimar that suggested the entire city was the puppet plaything of a bunch of aboleth. I might even name a specific aboleth, the Kthaken. Fans of my material could come to love the Kathaken, which I keep as my own trademark. Then if Paizo ever releases new adventures in Magnimar, they can't satisfy fans of the Kthaken, since I'm not letting them use that trademarked name.
Or I might print 50,000 copies of a terrible novel, with awful writing, bad pacing, and icky ideas that aren't a violation of the adult standards, but are just nasty. And I call it "The True Adventures of Golarion." And as a result of the negative feedback, no one wants to buy a Golarion novel anymore.
We're really not all that far from the time when organized groups of parents campaigned against D&D as satanic, and many groups still push the idea that playing tabletop RPGs is a sign of a violently unbalanced, criminal mind. There's no reason for Paizo to risk someone else creating a product with their hard-developed world, possibly bringing ill will to it without Paizo having any ability to monitor for such efforts.
As a consumer, I am not interested whatsoever in any setting other than Golarion for Pathfinder. This makes it rather hard for third party adventure writers, I think, because I'm very unlikely to teleport my players across worlds just to run their adventures. Inevitably, I end up teleporting their adventure into Golarion, which makes me wish the writer could give me some guidelines about how best to do this.
If you want to see a really good job of a third party publisher making material for your Golarion campaign, without ever saying "Golarion," take a look at Jon Brazer Enterprises' "Book of the River Nations" products. It all expands the Kingmaker adventure path very well, without having to ever specifically say so.
Check out Wayfinder. I think they have Paizo's blessing. Submit your ideas to them.
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Owen - thank you very much for your comprehensive answer.
Cheapy - I'm not looking to write my own stuff. I'm just pointing that I'm basically sold on Golarion now so any third party adventures I run will have to be transported there.
I also think it's a bit of a shame that 3rd party adventure writers might feel a need to create another world to house their adventures, when this is probably wasted effort.
Point about Jon Brazer Enterprises is taken, though.
Cheers
Richard
I also think it's a bit of a shame that 3rd party adventure writers might feel a need to create another world to house their adventures, when this is probably wasted effort.
Why would you consider that a "wasted effort"? While I do like Golarion, it is not and would not be the "base" setting of my RPG playing. LPJ Design has two setting (NeoExodus: A House Divided and Obsidian Twilight) that fall into very specific niches that I think Golarion does touch on. And with that you can do very unique type of adventures, and it turn role playing, that you don't always see. I could not ask for a better business partner than Paizo.
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There's a difference between a 3PP who *wants* to create a new setting and one who only wants to write adventures but finds themselves having to create a "setting" just because they cannot legally place their material in Golarion, which is where I imagine 95% of Pathfinder role-play takes place.
I've got no problem with other settings at all, but doing so is a massive venture in and of itself and only likely to be interesting to the Pathfinder fan-base (I would conjecture) if it is markedly different to Golarion. I mean, we hardly need two Golarions, do we?
Like I said, as a consumer, I am most interested in 3PP adventures which fit into Golarion, because that's where my standard fantasy-style campaign is going to take place. I think it would be good if Paizo could somehow or another come to an arrangement with one or more 3PPs for the publishing of adventures in Golarion, in much the same way that they themselves had an agreement with WotC about publishing adventures set in Greyhawk.
I've got no problem at all with what Paizo publishes themselves, BTW - I think it's fantastic. I just wish companies like Frog God, to take an example, could place their material in Golarion too, because inevitably I (and I wonder how many others) end up translocating the adventures across.
Richard
Read this, and I'm making a PDF (free) of dog breeds for Pathfinder.
So I guess this means I need to find a new (again) name for a French Bulldog. I was going to go with Galtian Bulldog, but that would get legal hounds set on my arse.
Something like this?
There's a difference between a 3PP who *wants* to create a new setting and one who only wants to write adventures but finds themselves having to create a "setting" just because they cannot legally place their material in Golarion, which is where I imagine 95% of Pathfinder role-play takes place.
An established setting is not required for adventures. Throughout the industry's history, hundreds of adventures have been published that were generic, and not set in any specific campaign setting. The one adventure we have published so far is like that - generic, and we did it on purpose so that no matter what campaign setting someone is using - Golarion, Forgotten Realms, Neo-Exodus, another published setting or their own homebrew - they can plop the adventure in with minimal work. Personally, I think that's the best way to go for most adventures from 3PP.
As good a setting as Golarion is, not everyone that plays Pathfinder uses it.
This is sort of like asking "Why don't 3PPs write more PFS material?" Because it's not ours to write, and we don't have permission to even mention Paizo's IP in our work.
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Something like this?Read this, and I'm making a PDF (free) of dog breeds for Pathfinder.
So I guess this means I need to find a new (again) name for a French Bulldog. I was going to go with Galtian Bulldog, but that would get legal hounds set on my arse.
I have it, and it's not comprehensive enough.
I've got no problem at all with what Paizo publishes themselves, BTW - I think it's fantastic. I just wish companies like Frog God, to take an example, could place their material in Golarion too, because inevitably I (and I wonder how many others) end up translocating the adventures across.
On a business point of view, I would love for Paizo to open up Golarion and PFS to 3PP. It would be great financial windfall for all 3PP to have that. Plus I think I would have different views and takes on Golarion than the folk at Paizo. But I understand why Paizo doesn't and I am OK with that. I mean they have open up SO MUCH stuff to 3PP already so I really can't complain if they want to keep some stuff for themselves.
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I've got no problem at all with what Paizo publishes themselves, BTW - I think it's fantastic. I just wish companies like Frog God, to take an example, could place their material in Golarion too, because inevitably I (and I wonder how many others) end up translocating the adventures across.
Frog God has their own campaign setting, one that's older than Golarion. One that I personally prefer to Golarion.