Director of Brand Strategy
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As of tomorrow, the OGL will no longer be a permitted license in new products sold on Pathfinder and Starfinder Infinite. Since we made that announcement, a number of community members have asked what that means for support of Pathfinder and Starfinder first edition material on the Infinite marketplace. Below is an early look at the FAQ that's going to go up tomorrow alongside the revised Community Content Agreement for Pathfinder and Starfinder Infinite, both as a sneak peek, but also here on the forums where commenting on it is easier than the FAQ itself.
If we can’t use the OGL in our products, does that mean we can’t support Pathfinder First Edition or Starfinder First Edition?
In January 2023, Wizards of the Coast released the System Reference Document 5.1 under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. This released many of the proprietary terms and the specific expressions of many game mechanics upon which Pathfinder and Starfinder were built into the Creative Commons space. Since the Infinite License does not prohibit the inclusion of Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) content, you may be able to use some elements of Pathfinder and Starfinder that would be otherwise unlicensed without the OGL.
This is not blanket permission to use the entirety of Pathfinder and Starfinder in your products. There are many aspects of both games that derive from Open Game Content that are not covered in the System Reference Document 5.1, and it is your responsibility as publisher to ensure you are only using elements that are licensed under CC-BY.
If a game term is owned by Paizo, such as the strix ancestry or skittermanders, then you need no license beyond the Infinite Licese to use that content in your product for any game edition. If a game term is not owned by Paizo but is available under a license compatible with the Infinite License, such as the terms aboleth or tiefling as found in the SRD 5.1, you may use them in your Pathfinder First Edition and Starfinder First Edition products to the extent you comply with the CC-BY license of the SRD 5.1.
Please note that this FAQ does not constitute legal advice, and publishers are each responsible for using the content in their products legally. We recommend you consult with an intellectual property attorney if you have any questions about this.
Okay, but what does that mean in practice?
In general, if you’re making something of your own creation, like a monster or spell or feat, that’s your material. If it refers to a game term or bit of setting lore that Paizo owns (like if it’s related to Thassilon or comes from the planet Eox) then the Infinite License grants you permission to use those terms. If it includes game terms that Paizo doesn’t own, like the magic missile spell, the chaotic evil plane of the Abyss, or owlbears, you will just need to make sure that those non-Paizo terms are something you gain access to via the SRD 5.1 and Creative Commons.
Some topics will be easier to adapt using Creative Commons than others, and we encourage publishers to collaborate with the larger Infinite community to find creative solutions to the tougher ones. But for many publishers, readers, players, and Game Masters, a Pathfinder First Edition-compatible product or Starfinder First Edition adventure that uses the SRD 5.1 in place of the OGL will feel seamless.
Can I use a monster, spell, class, feat, or magic item from a pre-Remaster Pathfinder Second Edition product in my Infinite project?
Probably. Most Pathfinder Second Edition material was written entirely by Paizo and is thus something we can license to you under the terms of the Infinite License rather than the OGL. In some cases, however, this new content might refer to OGL elements that you’ll need to strip out if you reprint it. This means you can create new feats for the magus, include an anadi NPC in your adventure (or even present a remastered version of the anadi ancestry), and include magic items or spells from most Legacy sources in your content as well. If a Remastered version of the rules element you’re using exists, we prefer you build upon and reference the Remastered version, but if no Remastered version exists and Paizo created the content in question, you are free to use it in your Pathfinder Second Edition project.
Does this mean I can use the SRD 5.1 and Creative Commons to include things like drow and owlbears in my Second Edition release?
While this might legally be allowed, we ask that you reference the SRD 5.1 only in Pathfinder First Edition and Starfinder First Edition releases, in place of the Open Game License. Pathfinder Second Edition and Starfinder Second Edition products should use Paizo-owned terminology as released in ORC-licensed products.
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Well, that confirms my sense of what the legal situation is with the SRD 5.1 - but I'm still perplexed why Paizo didn't just use the SRD and CC-BY themselves to avoid having to get rid of chromatic dragons, spell schools, alignments, magic missiles, owlbears and the like. It seems as if it would have avoided a lot of confusion.
(Yes, I appreciate that not everything OGL in PF2e would have been usable via the SRD 5.1, but a huge amount would have been.)
I don't know the full reason, but bear on mind that WitC didn't release anything to CC-BY until after there had been some intense and ongoing backlash, and even then some believe it was a hasty job and that WotC would definitely pull a similar stunt the moment they thought it was profitable.
Meanwhile, Paizo had been faced with an existential threat yet again from the same company. I think they quite reasonably were tired of letting WotC have any power to collapse their business, even if it means not getting to play with some of their toys anymore. The loss of drow was painful, but not living under that gun I think many Paizonians would say is quite worth it.
This seems rather sparse if I'm being honest. I agree with Ravien here, do people actually get to make 1e content when we don't even know whether basic mechanics of the game are fair play or not?
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My experience with OneBookShelf is that they're not going to raise a fuss about something on their platform unless someone else has done so first or you're doing more complex stuff like POD. They don't read everything on their storefronts because they don't have the staff for that.
So if you're publishing a 1e thing that 5 people are going to buy and you're acting in good faith, your chances of being in someone's crosshairs are extremely low.