Over 1,500 Publishers Support Paizo's Upcoming Open RPG Creator's License

Paizo has revealed some of the 1,500+ tabletop RPG publishers who have expressed an interest in their new Open RPG Creator's License (ORC), describing the group as the 'ORC Alliance'.

The license itself is still being worked on, so these 1,500 publishers have not actually seen it or signed anything. But they have indicated to Paizo that they support a new, truly open, irrevocable industry license.

Over the course of the last week, more than 1,500 tabletop RPG publishers, from household names going back to the dawn of the hobby to single proprietors just starting out with their first digital release, have joined together to pledge their support for the development of a universal system-neutral open license that provides a legal “safe harbor” for sharing rules mechanics and encourages innovation and collaboration in the tabletop gaming space.

The alliance is gathered. Work has begun.

It would take too long to list all the companies behind the ORC license effort, but we thought you might be interested to see a few of the organizations already pledged toward this common goal. We are honored to be allied with them, as well as with the equally important participating publishers too numerous to list here. Each is crucial to the effort’s success. The list below is but a representative sample of participating publishers from a huge variety of market segments with a huge variety of perspectives. But we all agree on one thing.

We are all in this together.

• Alchemy RPG
• Arcane Minis
• Atlas Games
• Autarch
• Azora Law
• Black Book Editions
• Bombshell Miniatures
• BRW Games
• Chaosium
• Cze & Peku
• Demiplane
• DMDave
• The DM Lair
• Elderbrain
• EN Publishing
• Epic Miniatures
• Evil Genius Games
• Expeditious Retreat Press
• Fantasy Grounds
• Fat Dragon Games
• Forgotten Adventures
• Foundry VTT
• Free RPG Day
• Frog God Games
• Gale Force 9
• Game On Tabletop
• Giochi Uniti
• Goodman Games
• Green Ronin
• The Griffon’s Saddlebag
• Iron GM Games
• Know Direction
• Kobold Press
• Lazy Wolf Studios
• Legendary Games
• Lone Wolf Development
• Loot Tavern
• Louis Porter Jr. Designs
• Mad Cartographer
• Minotaur Games
• Mongoose Publishing
• MonkeyDM
• Monte Cook Games
• MT Black
• Necromancer Games
• Nord Games
• Open Gaming, Inc.
• Paizo Inc.
• Paradigm Concepts
• Pelgrane Press
• Pinnacle Entertainment Group
• Raging Swan Press
• Rogue Games
• Rogue Genius Games
• Roll 20
• Roll for Combat
• Sly Flourish
• Tom Cartos
• Troll Lord Games
• Ulisses Spiele

You will be hearing a lot more from us in the days to come.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Signing on in the sense of openly supporting the creation of the license. Not the release of their IP under it.

They play mostly straight D&D in Matt’s homebrew world, I don’t see an issue with them keeping their stuff PI instead of OGC.

And when they publish their own RPG (which seems inevitable), I’m hoping they do so under the ORC.

I'm not looking forward to how toxic the community is going to be toward them when they...don't stop playing DnD.

 

[Rabulias]

Not sure they will need to. In the Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn, they don't provide any of their content for use by others via an SRD and in fact explicitly state that none of their content can be used without their express written agreement. They only use the license for WotCs 5.1 SRD. So unless they decide to switch to a system under ORC, I don't know why they would use it.

Critical Role did release a bunch of content as OGC in their 2017 Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting from Green Ronin.

 

[OB1]

Critical Role did release a bunch of content as OGC in their 2017 Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting from Green Ronin.

And then as their revenue and brand grew they incorporated and formed their own publishing arm to further their business, including not releasing new material as OGC. I'd say it was a smart move by them.

 

[Vincent55]

Hasbro is one company, we are legion.

 

[TarionzCousin]

This is like how Darth Vader "united" the Force: by compelling everyone to join forces against him.

Hint: WotC = Vader

 

[Stormonu]

This is like how Darth Vader "united" the Force: by compelling everyone to join forces against him.

Hint: WotC = Vader

I think Leia's quote is more apt.

"The more you tighten your grip, the more systems will slip through your fingers."

 

[zhivik]

Other big publishers that are missing from the list include Catalyst Game Labs (Shadowrun, Battletech), White Wolf (World of Darkness, Exalted), and by extension, Onyx Path. I honestly didn’t expect to see either Catalyst or White Wolf there (even though Catalyst are in dire need of fresh ideas). However, I thought Onyx Path would benefit from being part of a more open licence, especially after they have their own D20 line (Pugmire), which was published under OGL 1.0.

Let’s hope it is a “wait for the final version of ORC and OGL” thing.

 

[Cergorach]

Hasbro is one company, we are legion.

'We' is not a single entity, 'we' is a bunch of people who say one thing and do a multitude of other things in reality. 'We' are a vocal minority on the Internets that just makes a lot of noise and not very consistent noise at that. 'We' are a legion of sheep...

IF 'we' look at who has the most power in these relationships (outside of WotC/Hasbro), then we should look at the influencers like Critical Role and their ilk (NOT a fan, but I recognize their power). Those are a class separate from most publishers, if WotC/Hasbro manages to keep/pacify them, nothing much will change in the short term and very little in the long term. If current OGL companies move away from D&D support with ORC or ORC compatibility with D&D becomes unclear, it leaves a massive door open for new publishers that will use the new OGL that see money being left on the ground...

 

[EthanSental]

Agreed Cergorach and well said. I think in 3 years, dnd will be number one by a long shot like currently, one dnd keeping the steam up since it’s based on 5e and proven to be popular. Whatever comes of ORC will strike a cord with a group of gamers like PF2, just it won’t be as profitable for smaller publishers as a supplement under the future terms of the finalized new OGL1.2. This passionate fervor will be a bump on the Highway of gaming history…just hopefully we all learn something from it, especially WoTC. I just hope myself and my group of friends are still around and gaming in 20 years since we will be pushing 70!

 

[MNblockhead]

Sorry. Reading five things at once.

I empathize. I feel rather overgeeked myself these past few days. Really think I need to step away from all this for the next week and come back when the dust settles.