Pathfinder 2e & Community Content Programs


Paizo General Discussion

Liberty's Edge

According to Paizo's Playtest FAQ the Community Use Policy will continue, being system neutral.
This means you can use Paizo's Intellectual Property (such as logos, the names of the gods, etc) so long as you don't make money:
http://paizo.com/community/communityuse

(And, as was found by d20pfsrd.com, this would include operating a webstore. Anyone wishing to make money is directed to the OGL and away from Golarion.)

However... in the years since it was last updated (Thursday, January 30, 2014) there has a revolution in how fans interact with the campaign settings and systems published by RPG companies. Specifically the Community Content Programs on DriveThruRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/community_content.php

There is the Dungeon Master's Guild (dmsguild.com/) that allows anyone to publish 5th Edition D&D content for the Forgotten Realms and Ravenloft, using WotC's characters and locations and proprietary monsters.

There is also the Storyteller's Vault for White Wolf (storytellersvault.com) that allows fans to produce material for any edition of Vampire (and slowly other genres), and even allows the fans to use the trade dress of official products!

There's now similar programs for Shadows of the Demon Lord, Cortex, 7th Sea, Cypher System, and more.

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Why doesn't Pathfinder have a similar program?

They operate their own web store and can take PDFs from other 3rd Party publishers already. It wouldn't be a stretch to open that to the fans. That way, skilled fan authors can make money from their passion AND Paizo can also make a share.
Plus, it effortlessly replaces the now defunct RPG Superstar program, allowing Paizo to look at the best selling fan products and see if the author would be willing to try a PFS module or Player Companion.

I'm mentioning this now as pairing such a program with the launch of the new edition makes sense. Or even a year or two later with a new campaign setting.

Perhaps the program could be kept in mind when creating the campaign setting, with certain regions of Golarion being left alone to be explored by the community. So rather than open up all of Golarion for adventuring, the program could focus on the River Kingdoms, with adventures set there. Let the fans and community run wild there and share their own stories of the region.
River Kingdom Adventures.
It'd be cool.

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Okay, the BIG problem with this kind of program would be people forgetting the OGL, which NEEDS to be included with every product.
The advantage of these programs over the OGL is really one of not having to *fully* understand the OGL, making it more accessible for common gamers to publish. (Becoming a 3rd Party Publisher is not easy.) But some knowledge is still required so you don't throw in a Mind Flayer or forget the OGL at the end. And the Paizo folks won't be able to personally check every single community created product like they could a 3rd Party Product. (A "report product" button would suddenly be essential.)

But just because it's trickier doesn't make it impossible. Or not worth doing.

Instead, there just needs to be simple but very firm and plain guidelines people need to know when posting to a community program. (And in plain text, not legalese.) Such as:
1) Products must use the pre-formatted OGL page needs to be included at the back of EVERY product.
2) Products must include the standard disclaimer about what is and is not open content.
3) Products cannot use any non-Paizo content.

(Paizo could even hedge their bets by including a separate OGL page with the ZIP file of every download.)


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Unless I'm misunderstanding your point, I think you're conflating two separate things.

The Community Use Policy allows references to Golarion-centric IP. It doesn't - to the best of my knowledge - allow production of fresh content using said IP. Meaning CUP does not allow for production of in-setting adventures or fiction, regardless of if it is for-profit or not.

My understanding is that this is deliberate. The intention is to keep the setting's storyline solely in Paizo's hands. Which is a Good Thing in my opinion. It for instance prevents fanfic portrayals of Aroden secretly imprisoned in Calistria's sex-dungeon. Which again, is a Good Thing.

On the other hand, the community is free to create and publish all the adventures they want, as long as they don't touch on the Golarion setting.


Jester David wrote:
(Paizo could even hedge their bets by including a separate OGL page with the ZIP file of every download.)

Sorry, missed replying to this specific part. I'm almost positive it can't work that way. Most of a product's OGL declaration is boilerplate, yes. But at least one section of it must be customized to reference all OGL products it references. So if you use a monster from Bestiary 4, that has to be included in the OGL statement. As well, your own product has to be referenced, which means every OGL statement is unique.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Jester David wrote:

According to Paizo's Playtest FAQ the Community Use Policy will continue, being system neutral.

This means you can use Paizo's Intellectual Property (such as logos, the names of the gods, etc) so long as you don't make money:
http://paizo.com/community/communityuse

(And, as was found by d20pfsrd.com, this would include operating a webstore. Anyone wishing to make money is directed to the OGL and away from Golarion.)

For clarity on that: d20pfsrd.com initially used the Community Use Policy, but when they launched their web store and became a commercial entity, they could no longer use the CUP, so they had to remove Paizo's product identity from their site. They currently operate using only Open Game Content under the OGL.

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