Pathfinder Infinite (And Other News Involving Paizo)

For those folks who unplugged themselves recently, there's been a lot of big news going on. The one that a lot of people are focusing on is the announcement of Pathfinder Infinite (and Starfinder Infinite as well, if that's your thing). In short, after years and years of steadfastly going things on their own, Paizo seems to have finally decided to get on the community creation bandwagon along with Onyx Path, Wizards of The Coast, and a lot of other developers out there.

So what does this mean, exactly?

Before we get into the nitty gritty details of how this is going to affect not just me, but other creators out there, take a moment to sign up for my weekly newsletter if you haven't already. And since my blogs basically run on the contributions of readers like you, consider becoming a Patreon patron if you haven't already!

How Does Community Content Work? What About The OGL?

For folks who aren't sure what's going on, I'll begin at the beginning. A community content platform is when a gaming company allows creators to use their intellectual property under the rules they set forth, typically with a royalty/profit split between the creator and the company. So if you wanted to put together an adventure set in, say, Ravenloft or the Forgotten Realms you could publish it through DMs Guild which is the platform for Dungeons and Dragons. Alternatively, if you wanted to put together a book expanding on the Hedge in Changeling: The Lost (such as my recent releases 100 Strange Sights to See in The Hedge as well as 100 (Mostly) Harmless Goblin Fruits and Oddments to Find in The Hedge) then you could publish that piece through Storyteller's Vault.

And once this project is up and running you'll be able to publish similar content using Golarion and its surrounding solar system with both Pathfinder and Starfinder content.

Yes, yes, the Open Game License, that's next.

For those of you not familiar with it, Pathfinder as well as Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition (and 3.5 and 4th Editions as well, to the best of my knowledge) are written under an Open Gaming License. This means that the mechanics, the systems of the games are open to anyone who wants to use them for their own worlds, settings, RPGs, etc. It's why I can put out something like my recent Species of Sundara: Dwarves book for both Pathfinder Classic and DND 5th Edition without even once worrying about getting sued over them, or having to share my profits with anyone. Because nothing in those books uses the intellectual property of either Paizo or Wizards of the Coast, even though they use the mechanics of both Pathfinder and DND 5E respectively. Because those things were basically open for anyone to use already.

So if you can use the mechanics freely, then why would anyone sign up for the platform where you have to split your earnings with the company who holds the intellectual property, and follow all the rules they set out for what you can and can't do with it?

The short answer is money. The longer answer is because it's a lot easier to get people interested in a new contribution to a property they already know and like than it is to get them completely invested in a new property they've never seen or played around in before. So while you might get some people to check out your completely unique fantasy setting where you get to keep all the profits of those sales, you're likely to make far more sales using a setting they already know, love, and probably have campaigns and characters active in. And so those increases in number of sales more than makes up for splitting your royalties with the company who holds the intellectual property you're being allowed to use.

But What About That "Other" News?

Again, for those who haven't been paying attention recently, you may not have heard about the other news story involving Paizo of late. In short, Jessica Price dropped a lot of accusations about scandalous behavior that other creators and freelancers have stepped forward to confirm (at least in part) in the week or so since it's come out.

I'd advise folks to read the thread in its entirety, but a lot of it is going to feel very familiar if you've been following revelations like this from big companies in general, and gaming companies in particular. We've got the classics like bullying female employers, management entrenching itself against progressive ideas and stifling voices from POC creators, not paying people who actually created the product enough to live on while hoarding profits for the higher-ups... but there are some I didn't expect. Not cleaning the office to the point that it was a health hazard for employees wasn't on my bingo card, nor was the weird obsession with Victorian occultism that led to... problematic discussions, to say the least.

Huh... didn't expect that one.

This puts a lot of us in a bind, creatively and professionally. Because on the one hand it's an opportunity to make the content we never had the chance to before (I would very much like to write sequels to The Irregulars, for example, since I was only ever allowed to write a single tale for the squad, and I had more adventures planned for them), and it would allow creators whose voices may not have been heard before to step up. This could allow a lot of us to make the setting genuinely more diverse, without meddling from management and higher-ups who (according to accusations, at least) often tried to rein those efforts in. On the other hand, that profit split means that everything sold through the platform puts money right back into Paizo's pockets as a company.

I can't speak for any other creators, as I haven't had any in-depth conversations with anyone on this subject yet. However, as folks have pointed out, a lot of the individuals accused of bad behavior at Paizo no longer work for the company. However, that doesn't let them off the hook for the accusations that prove true. Generally speaking I want to see things change (both at Paizo, and at companies in general) and for problems like these to be fixed so that I am not supporting bad faith and negative behavior. I'd like to be a part of making a gaming company whose products I like better and more profitable, but only if that company is going to treat its creators well, and not try to drag itself backward into all the -isms we've worked so hard to undo, shrug off, and cut away over the years.

So, while I'm still tentatively excited about the potential opportunity Pathfinder Infinite presents, I'm not going to sweep aside my other projects to jump right on it any time soon. The dice are still rolling, and I hope they come up good... but we'll just have to see how that turns out before I put my nose on this particular grindstone.

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