PACG Community Projects

[kogarou]

Want to float some projects the community might be interested in, and learn if there are any big "stop signs". Is there any reason I haven't seen these attempted before?

1. I'd like to share (here + reddit) my personal deck listing for the various class decks I've obtained, starting with the Ultimate Add-On decks. With entries targeting intermediate-advanced players, of the following form:

[3] Name of Ally [Trait Trait] "Custom flavortext evoking card powers (no proper nouns!)"
> Recharge [first {C} of turn]: +1d6.
> Discard: Move then Explore, +1d6 on first {C}.

(4) Name of a Blessing {D} [Trait] "Custom flavortext evoking card powers (no proper nouns!)"
> Discard: +1 die, or +2 dice to STR/CON {non-C}.
> Discard: Explore, +1 die STR/CON {non-C}.
* Recharge(timer is Trait) and shuffle.

This listing would be linked from an high-effort post analyzing the deck composition and why players might get excited to add its options to their OP characters. Feels like a pure improvement over the YouTube "unboxing" videos that mostly just show every card.

I'm not expecting feedback on the format, which I'm still rapidly changing - and I'm certainly not expecting approval - I'm providing a channel for disapproval! Perhaps this sort of project would be more welcome on older Class Decks. Or if it's not welcome at all, (even though perhaps it could be legal under Fair Use), I'd rather look for other ways to contribute to the community.

2. On that note! The PACG wiki is extremely bare compared to the various extremely-thorough rules resources for Pathfinder RPG, or wikis for games like Hearthstone and MtG. Fleshing out these resources would make homebrew using official content more accessible and enable new community gameplay modes! Off the top of my head - imagine a format where players could challenge custom scenarios with hand-crafted characters or parties (within certain requirements: sum of card deck numbers <= X, # of class decks <= Y). More accessible play -> the most fun options float to the top -> Paizo can better serve their community. So I'd like to add content to this Wiki, but only after receiving guidance on how to proceed.

3. Finally, I'd like to share card mock-ups that are less wordy and backwards compatible. I'm aware that the original decision was made for good reasons, but now that the game's matured, players are better, and there are more resources for players to learn and adjudicate their games, I think the community would like to weigh in and look to the future, drawing inspiration from games like MtG that say a whole lot with "3/3 Flying, Vigilance, Haste", a few symbols, and a few semantically-organized traits (and flavortext!). If cards were easier to scan, I think I'd be able to play this game with many more friends.

-

With this new (universal?) Base Set on the horizon - perhaps making big changes - and given that this game has distribution far more locked down than the RPG line (you need to obtain physical product, the licensed app, and/or use the licensed DriveThru engine to really play - not just obtain PDFs), I'm hoping that all these efforts are warmly welcomed. If so, maybe the best thing I could do would be to encourage others to share and contribute!

I'm the type of person who enjoys helping even more than play. So before all else, I'm eager to not hurt or obstruct the awesome Paizo/PACG crew. I'll proceed cautiously if I hear nothing back.

[kogarou]

I've read http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qosq?An-important-note-about-creating-and and the Community Use Policy to the best of my ability!

More importantly, I finally got the Approved Product List to open, and that seems central to what content I'm allowed to share! Moving carefully...

[kogarou]

Postponing Ultimate Add-On deck reviews until they're in the Approved Product List.
Proceeding with wiki content overhaul.
May share mock-ups (with no official art or Golarion/product identity stuff, of course).

I've gained confidence, so I guess all is well - and I've got an excuse to dig into the earlier class decks!

[cartmanbeck]

I'm pretty sure Golarion content would be perfectly fine. For example, you could absolutely use the card name "Blessing of Calistria" and list the Calistria trait. That's the beauty of the community use policy... Add long as it fits under the CUP, the only major restrictions from what I understand are how you use art.

After I get back from PaizoCon and get finished with the major PACG project that I'm working on, I'd be interested in helping you with the wiki. There's a lot of strategy for things like deck building that could be examined.

[kogarou]

Awesome! I'll be at PaizoCon too (2nd year) and know it'll get me super excited to help with a community project afterwards. I'd love to have your help and learn from your strategy tips!

I've done a lot of research since my last post, and here's what I've discovered so far. The Community Use Policy was designed to fill in gaps around OGL + PRD, granting access to the Setting and Proper Nouns. PACG gets the CUP, but no OGL - so nothing (explicitly) permits sharing of mechanical game content! Just card titles. Having CUP gets us awesome community Adventure guides, but leaves a hole where we're not (explicitly) permitted to reproduce official card mechanics or perhaps even list the official recommended starting decks for AP characters - though community recommended builds would be OK! Along that line of reasoning - a PACG wiki could focus on less controversial aspects, like deck-building/strategy discussions and opinionated class deck analysis. But I am personally most motivated by a belief that PACG's potential is severely limited so long as cards are not publicly catalogued. I'll save the rest for those most motivated in that direction, or as my fallback plan.

That said, let's draw a comparison - there are extremely thorough, popular wikis for Magic the Gathering and Hearthstone. They make their derivative content available to the world under permissive licenses, but I have not been any justification for how they can use high quality card artwork and text - just "trademarks/copyright are owned by Blizzard/WotC yo". And these particular websites thrive even though they're constructed in a way I suspect Paizo would take issue with (heavily branded; close proximity to paid accounts). These websites are represented by a big gaming company with lawyers, and I'm not. But I'm still holding out hope that a free-access, community-spirit project will be quietly accepted, and that Paizo will have every opportunity to tell us to turn back if we approach any lines in the sand. Far better would be if Paizo helps out and makes even more content available - especially card images!

So basically, Paizo's Community Use policy and packages are a much better starting point than similar Wikis work from. There are no OGL guardrails, but that doesn't mean we're not safe. My first draft of this post was nearly despondent, but after getting recharged seeing your response and researching beyond my comfort zone, I now feel quite confident. We've got Fair Use and obvious good intentions on our side. Paizo can reserve and exercise their copyrights however they like - hopefully by taking no action and reaping the benefits! (Unlike trademarks, copyrights don't need to be exercised to remain valid. And I seriously doubt this clearly fan-based project will threaten either category.) Still, I'm receptive and will take action the moment Paizo reaches out, publicly or privately.

To Paizocon and beyond!

[cartmanbeck]

Make sure to stop by one of my Greenskins of the Shackles games (Friday, Saturday or Sunday afternoons) while you're there, and we can chat about ideas/restrictions. :)

[kogarou]

Absolutely! Looking forward to it.

The more I learn about this game, especially by looking at the incredible variety of class deck designs, the cooler it gets, and the more confused I am about why I can't find articles (besides the product announcement blog) talking about how awesome it is for roleplaying, strategy, and simple fun.

Is there a lot of this sort of discussion on the official Paizo forums? I don't spend much time here.

[Hawkmoon269]

There is a fair amount of discussion over here.