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.

 

[Cergorach]

I'm starting to think that there's a Paizo mole in the upper echelons of WotC... ;-)

The amount of business opportunities WotC is creating for Paizo (specifically) is tremendous!
Dungeon/Dragon discontinuation => Paizo Adventure Paths
D&D 3.5E to 4E transition => Paizo Pathfinder
OGL shenanigans => Paizo ORC alliance

 

[The Stray]

Lok'tar ogar!

Zug zug!

 

[BrokenTwin]

Erik Mona is live now

Man, dude grew out some luscious locks since that cover picture was taken. Didn't recognize that it was the same person at first.
I really hope this ORC license works out in the long run. Having a truly independent open license for people to use is a fantastic deal, it just needs to hit critical mass.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The big question now is whether the non-D&D RPG market can grow and expand alongside the number of companies that will be wading into that pool for the first time as they transition away from making D&D supplements or D&D-adjacent games?

We know a large number of companies have been able to survive off the D&D design grid... the question is whether the rest will be able to keep themselves afloat alongside them now as well?

 

[schneeland]

So apparently Critical Role/Darrington Press is absent (kind of expected after their statement), but also MCDM.
(and Free League, but there we already knew they were working on their own licenses)

 

[mamba]

The big question now is whether the non-D&D RPG market can grow and expand alongside the number of companies that will be wading into that pool for the first time as they transition away from making D&D supplements or D&D-adjacent games?

don’t think they will ever get a better opportunity at least

 

[Jer]

Nice to see Pelgrane Press on that list too. But then again, 13th Age is one of the great d20 games that was threatened by the OGLpocalypse.

Yeah - I was very worried about 13th age with all of this, but I saw on Rob Heinsoo's blog the other day that Pelgrane and him were working on a new license for the game so seeing them among the ORC crowd makes sense.

They lost the initiative.

Wizards just knee capped the orc with a Creative Commons cantrip.

Not really. The rules that they're putting under CC are not sufficient to make a full game. And the new OGL is not a share-alike license (and not really open either). So for the rest of the community to continue in the way it has for the last 2 decades something new needs to be done. It's a good move on their part, and embracing the OGL 2.x or whatever is not in any of their interests.

 

[Matt Thomason]

They lost the initiative.

Wizards just knee capped the orc with a Creative Commons cantrip.

Hardly, for the majority of creators their new license arrangements still take far more than they give, while the ORC looks to restore most of the status quo other than the ability to cut+paste text from WotCs SRDs.

In fact, it's arguable that we might actually end up with more than before by using the ORC combined with the CC license on the core rules.

The huge blocker for the majority of 3PPs is going to continue to be that 1.2 contains no identified mechanism for mixing in 1.0a content from other 3PPs to your own work unless you get that 3PP to issue it under a different license.

 

[Morrus]

They lost the initiative.

Wizards just knee capped the orc with a Creative Commons cantrip.

No, the CC is a takeback. The amount of open content has just reduced to a fraction of what it was yesterday.

(Well, it's all still draft, but you get the point)

 

[gweinel]

So apparently Critical Role/Darrington Press is absent (kind of expected after their statement), but also MCDM.
(and Free League, but there we already knew they were working on their own licenses)

Free League has expressed that they are waiting and see what the ORC looks like and after they ll decide. Probably they know by now...

 

[taosecurity]

No, the CC is a takeback. The amount of open content has just reduced to a fraction of what it was yesterday.

(Well, it's all still draft, but you get the point)

agree. Too many people are missing this, including Ben Riggs, per his FB post yesterday.

 

[gweinel]

I really can't express how excited I am with these news.

 

[Fandabidozi]

Me that kind of ORC!

 

[rknop]

They lost the initiative.

Wizards just knee capped the orc with a Creative Commons cantrip.

It's sad that you say this, because it means that WotC's smokescreen is working. By releasing a very small fraction of what used to be open content under CC, they can posture about how open they're being.

Don't fall for it. Until and unless they release all of the SRDs that are under the real OGL under a CC license, it's just a PR stunt to try to make us think they've beat ORC or other real open gaming initiatives.

 

[JThursby]

No, the CC is a takeback. The amount of open content has just reduced to a fraction of what it was yesterday.

Arguably, the only things they're putting in the CC are things that are indefensible as copyrightable material anyways, such as "D20 + Modifier" or "Attack Action" concepts. This is entirely for generating headlines that sound good to stop the rampant bleeding of D&DB users.

 

[Jer]

Arguably, the only things they're putting in the CC are things that are indefensible as copyrightable material anyways, such as "D20 + Modifier" or "Attack Action" concepts. This is entirely for generating headlines that sound good to stop the rampant bleeding of D&DB users.

At best what it's doing is outlining what Wizards will not sue you for using in your games.

Of course, that's just this Wizards executive team. The next one might decide they don't like those terms and think they can change them. If they actually revoke the 1.0a OGL then it's all Calvinball going forward and nobody should make any long term (i.e. more than the next quarterly reporting period) plans around what Wizards is currently doing.

(Edit: And to a large degree that ship has sailed. Nobody should be partnering with Wizards on any kind of "open" license they put out because they've shown that they're willing to change the rules on you with a change of executives. Even if they back down this time, there's nothing binding them to back down next time, so why trust them at all?)

 

[JThursby]

If they actually revoke the 1.0a OGL then it's all Calvinball going forward and nobody should make any long term (i.e. more than the next quarterly reporting period) plans around what Wizards is currently doing.

Right on the money.

 

[Thaumaturge]

(Edit: And to a large degree that ship has sailed. Nobody should be partnering with Wizards on any kind of "open" license they put out because they've shown that they're willing to change the rules on you with a change of executives. Even if they back down this time, there's nothing binding them to back down next time, so why trust them at all?)

To really regain trust WotC needs to release the SRD under ORC. But that seems so unlikely as to be impossible.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Jer]

To really regain trust WotC needs to release the SRD under ORC. But that seems so unlikely as to be impossible.

Thaumaturge.

I don't think Wizards actually can regain trust at this point, so to a large degree what they do next is kind of moot. They've at a minimum shown themselves to be incompetent in the one area that they need to be competent to be trustworthy - understanding the broader tabletop RPG market and their actual place in it. Possibly they're not incompetent but actively malicious - they know what position they hold and are purposefully being disruptive. Either way it's not good.

Trust is a thing that's easy to lose and very hard to regain. It would take an effort on par with the original OGL and d20STL to even start to bring it back. Ironically the whole reason the OGL/STL was created was so that Wizards could try to regain the trust of the community after the disastrous and malicious tenure of T$R as the stewards of D&D.

(I was thinking about this - it really is the case that for me at least the Wizards purchase of D&D was a bit of a reset in my attitude towards D&D and TSR. I'd fallen off the D&D train in the 90s in large part because TSR was just a terrible company online and I didn't want to support them. I came back to D&D with Wizards in large part because they said all the right things and did all the right things to indicate that they weren't going to be TSR and they understood how bad that was. 20+ years later and Hasbro is right back where TSR was with me, destroying all of that goodwill in one fell swoop.)

 

[DariusArgent]

Lok'tar ogar!

WAAAAAAAGH!
But seriously this looks like a huge gathering of an Ork Waaagh.