Adventure Path 2e Conversions

[thewamp]

I'm interested in posting on a free blog a 2e conversion of one of the old dungeon magazine APs. This would contain conversion material only (eg: not enough for someone to run the AP off of). If that isn't possible, I'm interested in doing that for a pathfinder AP.

So I understand that the APs are not covered under the Community Use Policy. But I've also noticed some AP conversions in the Community Use registry, which use proper names and location names (such as "Blog Under a Wanderin' Star", a conversion of Legacy of Fire).

What are the allowances and limitations in doing this for APs in general?

Are those limitations different for the dungeon magazine APs? I understand that the IP gets a bit complicated in the case of those properties and would likely strive to convert all wizards IP into similarly themed paizo IP, if this is possible.

(And lastly, is this the right place to put this question? I couldn't tell if this forum or the licensing email was the better bet).

[Vic Wertz]

This is a fine place for this question.

The answer is slightly complicated, so let me begin with some general background before we get to the specifics regarding your question.

When it comes to the Pathfinder or Starfinder RPGs, our intellectual property generally falls into two categories: Open Game Content (generally game mechanics) and Product Identity (generally setting material, trademarks, artwork, and other non-mechanical stuff).

Anything we've declared as Open Game Content in our products is available for use under the Open Game License; anything we've declared as Product Identity is not available under the OGL. In most of our products, you'll find the statements of OGC and PI on the title or credits page at the front of the book. Note that these statements occasionally vary from product to product, so you'll need to check the individual statements in each product you wish to draw from.

If you are a noncommercial user, you may be able to use some of our PI by way of our Community Use Policy, which you can find at https://paizo.com/paizo/about/communityuse. If you are a commercial user, our PI is not available for your use without a specific license.

To use Open Game Content in your own projects, you need to use the OGL, which you can find in any OGL product. The OGL itself tells you how to use it. Please note that the OGL is Wizards of the Coast's license, not Paizo's, and so I can't provide any advice about its suitability for your use. You may wish to consider speaking with an intellectual properties legal specialist.

Note that the OGL specifically restricts you from using "any ... trademark or registered trademark clearly identified as Product Identity by the owner of the Product Identity", or from "indicat[ing] compatibility or co-adaptability with any Trademark or Registered Trademark in conjunction with a work containing Open Game Content except as expressly licensed in another, independent Agreement with the owner of such Trademark or Registered Trademark." So to indicate that your OGL project is compatible with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, you'll need to follow our free Pathfinder RPG Compatibility License, which you can find at https://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/compatibility; the equivalent license for the Starfinder RPG is at https://paizo.com/starfinder/compatibility. Note that these Compatibility Licenses are applicable only to books, electronic books, and freely available websites. You can still use Open Game Content in a OGL product that's not a book, ebook, or free website, but you can't say it's compatible with the Pathfinder RPG or the Starfinder RPG or use trademarks like Pathfinder, Starfinder, or Paizo in any way; you may, however, use the non-trademarked terms “PFRPG” or “SFRPG.”

Okay, so how does that pertain to your question? When you're talking about "conversion material only," that's mostly going to be stat blocks. If you look at the statements of OGC and PI in the Adventure Path volumes you're interested in converting, you'll find that most of the contents of most stat blocks will fall into the category of Open Game Content, which means you can use them if you use the OGL. ("Use," as defined by the OGL itself, means "use, Distribute, copy, edit, format, modify, translate and otherwise create Derivative Material of.")

However, a lot of stat blocks include character names or other proper nouns, which are generally Product Identity. The Community Use Policy allows you to "descriptively reference trademarks, proper names (characters, deities, artifacts, places, etc.), locations and characters from products listed in Section 1 of our Community Use Approved Product List," which includes all Pathfinder Roleplaying Game books (and that includes Adventure Path volumes).

(The CUP prohibits you from "descriptively referenc[ing] dialogue, plots, storylines, language, and incidents from products listed in Section 1 of our Community Use Approved Product List" unless your project is a campaign journal or play-by-post or play-by-email game, so you couldn't just redistribute our APs with converted stat blocks, but that's not what you're trying to do here.)

As for Dungeon magazine APs, they too have statements of Open Game Content to check. However, their copyrights (and therefore their Product Identity) belong to Wizards of the Coast, not Paizo, so our CUP doesn't apply to that; I'm not familiar with their current policies regarding that content.

[Laclale♪]

Um... There is convert guide for 1e to 2e, but Samurai and Ninja and Technomancer are missing and we need update for this.

[David knott 242]

Samurai is a Cavalier variant.

Ninja is a Rogue variant.

Technomancer is a core class in Starfinder but not in either version of Pathfinder.