[Note:] This document is a work in progress.
This web page has notes on my interest in the Dragonlance Campaign Setting for D&D 3.x, and the The Inner Sea World Guide for Pathfinder.
Paizo is the publisher that Wizard's of the Coast (WotC) hired to maintain the Dragon and Dungeon magazines. They also published the classic Amazing Stories science fiction magazine. Before the announcement of D&D Fourth Edition (4e), WotC pulled Paizo's license. To replace Dungeon magazine, Paizo offered the Pathfinder Adventure Path. Already, improvements to the mechanics were being offered, so when 4e was released, Paizo decided to continue Pathfinder as a game system built on 3.5.
Mentioning D&D 4e is worth at least a note here. Many complained that 4e was too different as a game. However, other than the short time frame of the changes (3.0 was introduced in 2000, 3.5 in 2003, and 4 in 2008), the main problem with 4e was the GSL, the more restrictive license for third parties to utilize for their campaigns, intending to replace the OGL 1a going forward (a much more open license). The game itself has its admirers.
This needs to be understood in context of D&D Insider, the official website for handling 4e character sheets and an intended virtual table top, now defunct and partly due to the GSL more difficult to replace. When Hasbro bought DnD Beyond in 2023 and introduced the OGL 1.1, the connection in thinking should be stark.
Paizo's being cut off by Hasbro, among others (such as Weis and Hickman, and their involvement with Dragonlance), is the real motivation behind the Pathfinder fork, which continued the development of the D&D 3.x game past the release of D&D 5 into 2018, where it was ultimately replaced by Starfinder.
Look at Dragonlance Nexus website for notes on playing and converting Dragonlance to Pathfinder, but really there's not much difference. Ultimately, I intend to switch my Dragonlance campaigns to D&D 5. Also see the Dragonlance FAQ. The Dragonlance Campaign Setting takes place in the Age of Mortals. The War of the Lance gives much more detail than the campaign setting on running a campaign in the Age of Despair. There are other Dragonlance books offered at the time.
Dragonlance books contain no open content, or licensing of any kind for derivative development, so anything created is essentially fan fiction and campaign description. I never went beyond the first Dragonlance trilogy in my reading, and so really never moved beyond the War of the Lance. I'd like to think that Dragons of Despair should have been my first D&D game experience, but I was exposed mostly to homebrew and OD&D until D&D 3. D&D 3 and Pathfinder provided open game content and so had greater appeal, but the origins of my interest still remain. With the release of Shadow of the Dragon Queen, my interest has returned to Dragonlance.