Paizo Announces New Irrevocable Open RPG License To Replace the OGL

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Paizo, the maker of Pathfinder, has just announced a new open license for use with RPGs. The license will not be owned by Paizo - or by any TTRPG company, and will be stewarded by Azora Law, a company which represents several tabletop gaming companies, until it finds its home with an independent non-profit. This new license is designed to be irrevocable.

We believe, as we always have, that open gaming makes games better, improves profitability for all involved, and enriches the community of gamers who participate in this amazing hobby. And so we invite gamers from around the world to join us as we begin the next great chapter of open gaming with the release of a new open, perpetual, and irrevocable Open RPG Creative License (ORC).

The new Open RPG Creative License will be built system agnostic for independent game publishers under the legal guidance of Azora Law, an intellectual property law firm that represents Paizo and several other game publishers. Paizo will pay for this legal work. We invite game publishers worldwide to join us in support of this system-agnostic license that allows all games to provide their own unique open rules reference documents that open up their individual game systems to the world. To join the effort and provide feedback on the drafts of this license, please sign up by using this form.

In addition to Paizo, Kobold Press, Chaosium, Green Ronin, Legendary Games, Rogue Genius Games, and a growing list of publishers have already agreed to participate in the Open RPG Creative License, and in the coming days we hope and expect to add substantially to this group.

The ORC will not be owned by Paizo, nor will it be owned by any company who makes money publishing RPGs. Azora Law’s ownership of the process and stewardship should provide a safe harbor against any company being bought, sold, or changing management in the future and attempting to rescind rights or nullify sections of the license. Ultimately, we plan to find a nonprofit with a history of open source values to own this license (such as the Linux Foundation).

Read more on Paizo's blog.

 

[Parmandur]

I also think the fact they have an apparently gamer-friendly law firm on standby could help somewhat with the risk of legal fees should this turn into a waiting game.

I also feel it's not going to turn in to that anyway from the comments I've seen, and that they're likely confident any case will be dealt with in an affordable manner, or that they have such a strong case that even Hasbros lawyers will be reluctant to go to court.

More importantly though is the mental image I now have of you and Lisa surrounded by eight tables with all of those games going on at once.

Yeah, I doubt it would get to that point. But I wouldn't bet against it at this point, or on any player.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Why is ENP not listed in the announcement?

 

[mcmillan]

Why is ENP not listed in the announcement?

Not to put pressure on him, but a major factor is probably that Morrus is asleep

 

[Yaarel]

It's a neat idea but... can't you just use the various Creative Common licenses? About The Licenses - Creative Commons
I know Eclipse Phase uses them, so it's possible for gaming.

Generally these CC licenses forbid making a profit when borrowing from CC-licensed content.

This means, people who put in effort to build up the content lack a way to gain sustenance from their effort.

The OGL 1.0a solved this problem.

 

[Abstruse]

Likely Savage Worlds as well, based on Pinnacle signing on.

Oh, I didn't see Pinnacle. Do you have a link, or was it just something they talked about on their live stream earlier?

 

[Nylanfs]

It's a neat idea but... can't you just use the various Creative Common licenses? About The Licenses - Creative Commons
I know Eclipse Phase uses them, so it's possible for gaming.

Ryan went into their thinking on the CC when they were making the OGL. Basically it was that you could get too fiddly with the CC license and there were too many ways people would assume that it was released under the most permissive combination.

 

[Matt Thomason]

It's a neat idea but... can't you just use the various Creative Common licenses? About The Licenses - Creative Commons
I know Eclipse Phase uses them, so it's possible for gaming.

While possible, it's probably not practical for those games that want to retain exclusive rights to their own setting while only opening the rules up. One thing the OGL1.0a did well (and presumably the ORC will too) was delineate Product Identity from Open Content in its licensing. Another important thing was the safe harbor provisions that required notification of breach and time to remedy, which don't seem to appear in the CC licenses.

In addition Eclipse Phase chose the noncommercial version, likely because they wanted to encourage fan fiction for their setting. So that prevents 3PPs making any products based on their game.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Not to put pressure on him, but a major factor is probably that Morrus is asleep

Fair enough—valid reason!

 

[Faolyn]

Yes, you did. Especially in Foundry. There is substantially less math with PF2 in Foundry VTT than there is with 5e. By a LOT. It's noticeable as you run it. PF2 in Foundry VTT is exceptionally well implemented.

Yes, seriously.

Out of curiosity, how does it run without a VTT? Is there less math if all you have is your brain to do the calculations for you?

 

[Abstruse]

It's a neat idea but... can't you just use the various Creative Common licenses? About The Licenses - Creative Commons
I know Eclipse Phase uses them, so it's possible for gaming.

Creative Commons isn't a great license for tabletop RPGs. A couple of companies use it - notably Posthuman (who make Eclipse Phase) and Evil Hat - but it's really geared toward non-interactive media like music, photographs, visual art, movies/TV/videos, podcasts, etc. There are some interactions between the license you have to be wary about, specifically because it's all-or-nothing. You can't say "This part of the work is CC-licensed but this part is copyright all rights reserved" to split game mechanics from setting fiction, characters, etc. So you can't really designate Open Gaming Content the way you can with the OGL. This is especially important if you want a share-a-like license as CC-BY-SA requires that all derivative content also be CC-BY-SA licensed. And since you can't specify what is and isn't covered in a work, that means if you make a game system under CC-BY-SA and I write an adventure for it, I HAVE to release that adventure under CC-BY-SA as well in its entirety including all the art, maps, fiction, and other material. I can't release JUST the new monsters, traps, magic items, spells, etc.

If you have a strong understanding of how licensing works and know precisely how to release content, you CAN use a Creative Commons license for RPG content...but it's not optimal.