Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder First Print Run Sold Out

[Perram]

One of the things I'm most surprised about is that there isn't a signifigant amount of Pathfinder Mods out there for NWN or NWN2. I wish I were better at using their tools to solve the problem myself... but... not the case.

 

[Perram]

Question for you Paizo people:

How much celebration was there in the office when you guys figured this out? Much cheering and booze? Were their party hats? Did you guys carry Jason around the office on your shoulders? (Or maybe did you guys carry your marketing team on your shoulders?)

I think this may make a very interesting blog post in the future.

 

[jmucchiello]

I don't think it'd be a problem to mark stuff as open.

KM, how to do OGL computer programs was hashed out for years on the OGL mailing lists. It is neither easy nor trivial to accomplish. It is in fact hard. How do you "clearly indicate" the Open Game Content contained in the combat engine? When the engine generates a random d20 and adds str mod and all that stuff together and compares against armor class there is Open Game Content being used. How do you indicate that clearly?

The OGL is not friendly to computing. Either take my word that this isn't simple or read the thousands of mailing list posts about it. As I said, all the existing 3.x tool makers had to jump through hoops to comply with the OGL and none of them performed task resolution or applied combat affects to combatants.

 

[Darrin Drader]

One of the things I'm most surprised about is that there isn't a signifigant amount of Pathfinder Mods out there for NWN or NWN2. I wish I were better at using their tools to solve the problem myself... but... not the case.

I was just thinking the same thing. Pathfinder video games are totally doable without worrying about the license as long as you aren't trying to make money from it. And of course that kind of defeats the purpose. One thing that occurs to me is that there would need to be a significant difference between traditional D&D branded video games and Pathfinder games to make it worth wrestling with the limitations of the OGL. I feel that the average video game buyer would look at the game and go "Pathfinder, what's that," and then their friend would start rattling on about D&D, WotC, Paizo, and adventure paths, at which point the video game buyer is going to put it down because they've already played Baldur's Gate I & II.

I'm not saying that I have anything against a Pathfinder video game, but I feel that at best, it should be a licensed product so that Paizo can keep focusing on what they do best, which is giving us the best tabletop roleplaying game material money can buy.

 

[DaveMage]

Some people are reporting that they have received their RPG book TODAY!

(Bastards!)

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm not saying that I have anything against a Pathfinder video game, but I feel that at best, it should be a licensed product so that Paizo can keep focusing on what they do best, which is giving us the best tabletop roleplaying game material money can buy.

Well, that makes the clearest sense, and I guess kind of what I was assuming: Paizo would sell the IP rights to a Company Z, who would make a game out of it, grounding it in the d20 system.

feel that the average video game buyer would look at the game and go "Pathfinder, what's that," and then

I think the average video game buyer would actually want to know more whether it was an MMO (to compare it to WoW) or a dungeon game (to compare it to Diablo) or a strategy game, or a fighting game, or whatever.

Video game players are used to stomaching new IP similar to old IP and do so fairly easily. D&D or Pathfinder or Warcraft is semantics to the average player. Sexy elves fighting evil dragons? Sold. I don't care what it's called, as long as it's fun to play. And "Turn-based RPG" implies a certain style of "fun to play."

KM, how to do OGL computer programs was hashed out for years on the OGL mailing lists.

I guess I don't understand why a theoretical Pathfinder videogame would need to designate any code or anything as open. It's the game stats that might be. And jamming some legalese in the end credits to the extent of "all character statistics and abilities are licensed under the Open Gaming Liscence v. whatever" doesn't seem that hard to me.

 

[Darrin Drader]

I guess I don't understand why a theoretical Pathfinder videogame would need to designate any code or anything as open. It's the game stats that might be. And jamming some legalese in the end credits to the extent of "all character statistics and abilities are licensed under the Open Gaming Liscence v. whatever" doesn't seem that hard to me.

Technically speaking, I don't even think it would have to be tossed into the end credits. We all suffer through splash screens on our way into just about any game. One splash screen could very easily contain a bunch of text that includes the OGL as well as any other open content used. As long as every user has to look at that screen once every time they play, I think it would be hard to make the claim that it's not compliant with the OGL. That said, there's a lot of legal wrangling that I don't fully understand and I'm certainly not a lawyer, let along an IP lawyer.

 

[Psion]

Some people are reporting that they have received their RPG book TODAY!

(Bastards!)

Yes, I got both Pathfinder RPG and Bastards.

 

[James Jacobs]

I always presumed KOTOR and sequel used the D20 system as they were licenced from the D20 SW RPG from WOTC and Lucasfilm. Using this system also allowed Bioware to use the NWN Aurora engine which they already had - which was developed to run a licenced version of D20 D&D following the move to 3e (BG2 being based on 2e AD&D).

I'm not sure how this all panned out, honestly. I know I was surprised to recognize game elements like prestige classes and some skills and feats and all that when I fired up the game. Enough that I went looking through the manual for indications that it was officially licensed somehow from WotC, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't. I could be wrong. This could also fall into that creepy gray area where you can't actually copyright rules mechanics or something like that.

In any event... I should also note that a Pathfinder game need not use the Pathfinder rules. It'd be cool, sure... but it might not be possible or too complex to pull off due to OGL constraints. I'm not in the video game biz, alas, so I can't say for sure. But Paizo DOES own all of its flavor and IP... so a video game set in Golarion that uses different rules would certainly be possible. Especially if said game was a tactical RTS or a first person shooter or an adventure game or something of the sort.

 

[James Jacobs]

Question for you Paizo people:

How much celebration was there in the office when you guys figured this out? Much cheering and booze? Were their party hats? Did you guys carry Jason around the office on your shoulders? (Or maybe did you guys carry your marketing team on your shoulders?)

I think this may make a very interesting blog post in the future.

So far there's been very little celebrating. When we got the news, it spread through the office like zombie plague, and everyone was pretty excited, but we don't really have time right now to drop everything and go crazy with parties... especially with the Pathfinder Bestiary, the Adventure Path, the Chronicles and Companions and Modules, and oh yeah Gen Con breathing down our necks. Oh... and moving to a bigger office at the end of the month too.

I'm pretty sure a party at some point is inevitable, though... but it won't be happening until after Gen Con for sure, at which point I'm hoping we'll have EVEN MORE reasons to celebrate.