Import of PRD spells, feats, items, monsters

[Silveras]

Community Use Policy vs. Open Gaming License.

The rules content needs to be OGL to be used in the databases. The CUP affects how the names appear. PathfinderCommunity.net appears to be affiliated with d20pfsrd, which lost the rights to use the CUP when it became a commercial site. The rules content remains OGL regardless, but the use of Golarion-specific names in rules elements (such as named of countries, organizations, or NPCs, etc. in the names and requirements of Feats, Traits, Prestige Classes, etc.) is allowed under the CUP but not under OGL. So d20pfsrd has to re-name content that uses the protected names, and drop requirements that use the protected names.

This leads to occasional frustration for HeroLab users relying on d20pfsrd... they don't realize that the names were altered, and so can't find the d20pfsrd names in HeroLab (because they are present under their 'proper' names). I don't know which names are in the pathfindercommunity.net files.

[kbs666]

Originally Posted by Silveras

I think the creator/maintainer for the databases is a user who goes bv "Chopswil" on the Paizo forums.

Separating by source is reasonable.

I would not want to exclude the Player Companion- or Campaign Setting- sourced items unless necessary. I believe all of the rules content is Open. Paizo generally only posts the content from the "Pathfinder Role Playing Game" book line on the PRD (the world-neutral main rule books line); with the exception of the Technology Guide, nothing from the Player Companion or Campaign Setting line has been posted to the PRD ... but that does not make the content Closed. These amount to a world-specific set of items that some GMs running that world would very much want.. while others may not. So separating by source would help them to make those decisions.

The PRD material should be redistributable without issue as long as no one charges for it. The player companion and campaign setting stuff is not. At the very least it should be broken out into a second package so people who only want the "core" material don't get it.

[Silveras]

Originally Posted by Bastards of Golarion

Product Identity: The following items are hereby identified as Product Identity, as defined in the Open Game License version 1.0a, Section 1(e), and are not Open Content: All trademarks, registered trademarks, proper names (characters, deities, etc.), dialogue, plots, storylines, locations, characters, artwork, and trade dress. (Elements that have previously been designated as Open Game Content or are in the public domain are not included in this declaration.)

Open Content: Except for material designated as Product Identity (see above), the game mechanics of this Paizo Publishing game product are Open Game Content, as defined in the Open Gaming License version 1.0a Section 1(d). No portion of this work other than the material designated as Open Game Content may be reproduced in any form without written permission.

This is what I mean. The rules content is Open Content, and freely distributable. Every Player Companion and Campaign Setting book has such a declaration, and they are pretty much all the same.

Just because Paizo does not put it in the PRD does not mean it is Protected content. However, the restrictions on using the names may be an issue that forces renaming some items. The Community Use Policy allows the use of Protected content (such as names, but also art) within limits and according to the terms of the policy. The wrinkle here may be the requirement that any distribution of the OGL content requires that a human-readable copy of the OGL itself with its "Section 15" (copyright listing) be included with the distribution. That's more likely to be an issue than the actual content.

I certainly agree that separation by source for those who do not want to include world-specific content is advisable.

[kbs666]

Look at it this way, it isn't going to be feasible for most people to import all that stuff to anything other than a Golarian realm and even then I think they're going to have to pick and choose. 5 GB of mechanics data? That's a lot of overhead for very little gain.

[EightBitz]

I'm withholding comments pending Rob's reply.

[Silveras]

Originally Posted by kbs666

Look at it this way, it isn't going to be feasible for most people to import all that stuff to anything other than a Golarian realm and even then I think they're going to have to pick and choose. 5 GB of mechanics data? That's a lot of overhead for very little gain.

I don't think it is 5 Gb of data. The growth of the MASTER.realm file is problematic. I noticed, and reported, excessive growth. I noticed it while doing some exports and imports of my own.

Exporting and importing something between 20% and 33% (at most, probably much closer to the 20% figure) of my 1.3 GB data caused the file to grow from 1.3 GB to 7.5 GB, Prior to "shrinking" the db down to 1.3 GB, it had been as large as 16.8 GB ... and of that, 15.3 GB was empty/wasted space, probably from other export/import testing. That 15.3 GB was "recovered" by deleting my local MASTER.realm and re-syncing the data from the cloud to local.

[Farling]

Originally Posted by Silveras

Exporting and importing something between 20% and 33% (at most, probably much closer to the 20% figure) of my 1.3 GB data caused the file to grow from 1.3 GB to 7.5 GB, Prior to "shrinking" the db down to 1.3 GB, it had been as large as 16.8 GB ... and of that, 15.3 GB was empty/wasted space, probably from other export/import testing. That 15.3 GB was "recovered" by deleting my local MASTER.realm and re-syncing the data from the cloud to local.

My test was on a single import of the converted PRD stuff, which could have been ~5,000 topics, which seemed to increase the master.realm up by more than 5GB from an empty master.realm before starting.

[daplunk]

What's another 5gb?

[rob]

Originally Posted by EightBitz

Uh oh. Principal's office. ;-)

Er, that's not even remotely the situation here. I'm glad you used the smiley.

As you've already begun to tease apart, there are a bunch of complicating factors involved with this project and how you're going about it, many of which could undermine the success of your efforts in a diverse range of ways. I want to work with you guys to navigate those complications and come up with an approach that will work well for everyone involved: you guys, Lone Wolf, and RW users who want to use what you guys are putting together.

So keep working on your respective projects. My desire is to figure out how to make them a success.

[EightBitz]

Originally Posted by rob

Er, that's not even remotely the situation here. I'm glad you used the smiley.

As you've already begun to tease apart, there are a bunch of complicating factors involved with this project and how you're going about it, many of which could undermine the success of your efforts in a diverse range of ways. I want to work with you guys to navigate those complications and come up with an approach that will work well for everyone involved: you guys, Lone Wolf, and RW users who want to use what you guys are putting together.

So keep working on your respective projects. My desire is to figure out how to make them a success.

Ah, Rob, that was the whole point of the principal's office metaphor. You can be summoned to be congratulated for making the honor roll or
to be told you'll be serving detention for the rest of the week. It can have either connotation, and you never know which one until you walk into the office and sit down.

But I think we now know what kind of a student you were. ;-)