Pathfinder 1E Paizo Licenses

I'm out of my depth here, but I confident someone will correct me.

But aren't Pathfinder, M&M, Etherscope, all examples of stand alone games?

Yes and they are derived from the OGL and the SRD.

The Pathfinder license is not preventing anyone from using their mechanics to derive a new system. But after you have derived said system you cannot then claim compatibility with the old system. But you could publish it under the OGL and be perfectly fine.
 

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Translation: Don't do to us what we did to D&D.

Uhm, first you do realize standalone games are permitted under the OGL anyway...right? This is the Pathfinder license, not the OGL or d20 license. When did WotC offer a D&D license that allowed standalone games?

Second, I might be confused, but when did Paizo put out a standalone game under the current D&D rules, using a D&D license? Oh, wait they didn't. Instead they supported D&D 3.5 under WotC with two magazines (adventures and supportmaterial) and adventure modules, adventure paths, campaign setting, etc.

I guess revisionist history can be great but what I remember is that Paizo was one of the companies who basically used the OGL/d20 license to support 3.5 exactly how WotC wanted it supported at the time...
 
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The cancellation and modification terms seem more generous.

A lot of the generosity has a lot to do with the OGL though. Paizo isn't writing on a blank slate here. Just as having your car repossessed doesn't deny you the use of public roads, losing the Pathfinder Compatability license doesn't deny you the OGL.

Of course, to an actual businessman instead of a forum-kiddie, the morality of a Paizo's IP stance is or ought to be a moot point. A better cancellation clause is a better cancellation clause, whether it was done out of goodwill or out of a need to comply with an existing license from a third party.

As for the morality clause: JUST LIKE THE CANCELLATION AND MODIFICATION CLAUSES IN THE GSL AND THIS LICENSE, it has to be judged as a business matter. It can only be interpreted in the context of assumptions about the future actions of another company. If you believe WOTC is likely to lure you in with the GSL then alter it to screw you over, don't accept it. If you believe that some functionary at Hasbro is going to censor your game, don't accept it. Same thing's true with Paizo.

My best guess as to those business matters? WotC has no intention of screwing over third party publishers by altering the license to hurt them. It also has no intention of being overly picky about the morality clause. And Hasbro doesn't even care. WotC does intend to publish a fifth edition someday, and they don't intend to tell you about it in advance. But they don't intend to do that for a while, and there's probably money to be made in the meantime.

Paizo probably has no explicit plans of a new edition that will make your older products harder to sell. But we're dealing with eight year timeframes here, so who knows what will happen by then. If I had to guess, I'd say that the longer that Paizo publishes independant work the more they'll trend towards creating their own non OGL products, simply because they'll develop more of a unique identity and will want to change the game to match their own style more closely. Paizo likewise won't spend much time monitoring your products for morality, and like WotC, will probably only act if they get complaints or if you do something really icky. On top of that, you always have the OGL to fall back on if you can't work with Paizo for some reason.
 

Where are people getting that you can reprint monster stats from Pathfinder products?

All I can find is that under the compatibilty clause, it states you can reference their books, but you can't even use page numbers.
 


Then I was mistaken. All good here. Looking forward to announcing my Pathfinder: Futures Lost supplements soon. Dark future/PF-punk, here we come!
 

Then I was mistaken. All good here. Looking forward to announcing my Pathfinder: Futures Lost supplements soon. Dark future/PF-punk, here we come!

I think you're missing the point a bit on this one. The Pathfinder mechanics are available through the OGL - if you wanted to create a Pathfinder version of d20 Modern, for instance, you can do that using the OGL but not the Pathfinder logo.

This license that was just released is essentially the ability to place the Pathfinder RPG logo on a product, similar to how the GSL allows a D&D compatibility logo. It flat out wouldn't make sense to have the license allow for stand-alone games. That would be putting the Pathfinder logo on something that is definitively not compatible with the Pathfinder RPG.

As an example of the difference, look at Castles & Crusades. It was created using the OGL, meaning that it could be a standalone game. It couldn't have been created using the d20 License because it is not compatible with d20 games (conversion might be easy, but that doesn't make it compatible). It would make no sense to have slapped a d20 logo on Castles & Crusades, because they are two different systems.
 

I think you're missing the point a bit on this one.

I'm sorry and I am not trying to be dense. I think I need to direct my questions to the PF boards. But ...

...I like the 3.75/PF mechanics. But I also want a PF-themed dark future world. Without explicitly touching their IP, can't I use the mechanics + my new fluff/crunch, + the PF logo to create PF Futures Lost? (Of course, players and DMs would have to own the PF core book to use my world.)

Again, please understand that I am not trying to be a jerk/obtuse.
 

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