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.

 

[mhd]

Thoughts on the Cypher System? They have their own open license, SRD, and are more rules light than 5e.

Well, the license seems open enough, but does have some moral codes that I wouldn't like to see in a less system-/IP-specific version. But it seems okay enough.

On the lightness of Cypher: It's a rather different type of game. So I'd say it would depend on the group whether it's easier to transition from 5E to Cypher or to PF2E. One has rabidly more options, the other has a different core mechanic. I mean, you have to think about using resources from a limited pool for a lot of general stuff. I've seen sooo much choice paralysis for this with some players who had no issues with doing mental spreadsheets about modifiers.

I fully expect someone to do a "5E-ish" collection of pre-determined advancement paths for Cypher that stick closer enough to some 5E tropes. Sadly this will involve bards.

 

[WarDriveWorley]

This press release is strong with big dice energy and is a great example of calling someone out without naming names. Also this is taunt in press release form.

 

[MichaelSomething]

 

[Abstruse]

Okay, seeing some confusion here about how Creative Commons works.

There are multiple different Creative Commons licenses:

CC-BY aka Creative Commons Attribution: You can download, copy, upload, share, distribute, modify, change, or otherwise use the content as you like for commercial or non-commercial purposes so long as you credit the original creator.

CC-BY-SA aka Creative Commons Attribution Share-a-Like: Same as above but you must also release your document under the CC-BY-SA license as well.

CC-BY-NC aka Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial: Same as the Attribution license but you cannot actively monetize. This means no selling, no paywalls like Patreon subscribers only, no using it directly in advertising (like a CC-By-NC song can't be bed music for a commercial). You can passively monetize through non-intrusive ads, accepting donations, stuff like that.

And you can mix them, so CC-BY-SA-NC means it must be shared under this license and cannot be used for commercial purposes. There's also the "No Derivatives (ND)" license, but that's mostly for artists wanting to release their work for free like music downloads or movies because you can't re-use the material in your own creations, which is against the whole purpose of an open gaming license.

The problems for using the Creative Commons as a replacement for RPGs are:

1. It's all or nothing. If you license a work under CC, then the ENTIRE work is under that license. This means that if you make a game system and release the rules in an SRD under Creative Commons, I can use it to make an adventure but I cannot designate that the new spells, monsters, magic items, etc. are also under CC while keep my story, characters, etc. under copyright. So I can't contribute to the open gaming community without giving away all my rights AND giving away my entire adventure (because releasing it under CC means that anyone can upload it themselves which directly impacts potential sales).

This is also an issue for artwork as all art would also be released under Creative Commons. This can get you into trouble if you don't have permission from the artist to do this as you're basically giving away their art.

2. Any products released under share-a-like must also be released under a share-a-like license, taking the choice out of the previous problem entirely and meaning no one can actually USE that license. They'd have to give away the entire product along with any intellectual property in it just to make anything at all.

The ability for creators to add more content as open gaming is what helps open game systems grow. With more content available, that means more resources for creators to use. So you can either take the first option when releasing your system so that it's CC-BY only and actively disincentivize people from releasing more open content, or you force them to release more content with CC-BY-SA but disincentivize any creation at all because it can't be effectively monetized (again, it can be re-uploaded and distributed by anyone else legally) and requires releasing rights to things you might not want to like characters and setting.

Now, there are companies that have made the CC license work for RPGs. Evil Hat releases under CC-BY so that people can use their SRD and they aren't particularly worried about encouraging creators to release their own material as well, while Posthuman releases under CC-BY-NC-SA which means that there's a lot of Eclipse Phase fan content out there, but no third parties creating content for sale because they can't sell it. But for most companies, the Creative Commons license isn't a good fit for a roleplaying game.

 

[mhd]

I wonder whether this will grow a bit beyond what it replaces, i.e. whether some companies a) held back open licensing because of the WotC ownership and/or b) notice that people actually like that a lot more than they thought.

(Come one, RTalsorian, Fuzion ORC!)

 

[Shardstone]

@Helena Real why the laugh react?

 

[Morrus]

The problems for using the Creative Commons as a replacement for RPGs are:

1. It's all or nothing. If you license a work under CC, then the ENTIRE work is under that license. This means that if you make a game system and release the rules in an SRD under Creative Commons, I can use it to make an adventure but I cannot designate that the new spells, monsters, magic items, etc. are also under CC while keep my story, characters, etc. under copyright. So I can't contribute to the open gaming community without giving away all my rights AND giving away my entire adventure (because releasing it under CC means that anyone can upload it themselves which directly impacts potential sales).

That's why you make an SRD and release that under CC.

 

[mhd]

It's all or nothing. If you license a work under CC, then the ENTIRE work is under that license.

Is that so? The license talks about "Licensed Material", where does it say that this has to extend to the full "product"? I guess there are some formalities about the language that you have to apply to except or include material in your game, but it's not like PI/OGC declarations were always legally sound.

I definitely saw games that did it that way, with art being separated, but that alone of course doesn't say too much.

 

[amethal]

No, the whole exchange of
Player: “I got an X (Y on the die +Z mod)!”
DM: “Ok, their AC is N, with a -N from [source], so that’s [result]!”
Other player: But wait, that should actually be [other result] because of [factor].”

That hardly ever happens.

Not in a nice sequence like that, anyway . The player has rolled damage, the DM has announced the creature's death, a few more players have had their turn, and then somebody goes "But wait ..."

 

[Cergorach]

Sooo.... When wil the Empire/WotC/Hasbro blow up their first rebel planet/company? If we're going with the SW theming here...

As for the Paizo ORC license, let's first see what/how/if that happens. All the good intentions in the world doesn't bend reality. And the assumption that such an ORC license will be 'safe' forever is also a bit... Naive, such a license will work, until it doesn't. When someone challenges it (like WotC is doing now) and actually wins (which might be a crapshoot). Underlying laws change, the general consensus changes, politics change, etc. It wouldn't surprise me at all that in 2045 we would have a similar 'crisis' because of reason xyz...

And how much impact the WotC/Hasbro OGL 1.1 change/enforcement will have on the RPG market depends on the big D&D centric influencers. If those move from D&D to something else due to the OGL 1.1 change/risk, then the damage is potentially huge, with D&D loosing a huge market unless they start pushing their own influencers and are able to get as much cloud as those. I do not like watching others play D&D on YouTube/Twitch, and have no real interest in those influencers, but I do recognize that much of D&Ds current popularity/influence is due to those influencers. Those channels are businesses by themselves, so decisions there will probably be done based on a bottom line, which is also quite difficult to gouge. How large are the groups there, purely due to D&D, purely due to the personalities playing, how many would leave is they kept playing D&D, how many would leave if they started playing something else, how much does WotC/Hasbro want for their use of D&D, etc...

Even if WotC/Hasbro rolls back their OGL shenanigans, 3rd party companies will probably start moving away from the OGL, the question is, would they risk another Open Source license? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me!