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.

 

[TheSword]

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.

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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.

Interesting. Do any of those have a license to publish IP of note? I note that Cubicle 7, Fria Ligan, Edge Studios, and Free League all aren’t on the list? Should we read anything into this?

 

[Weiley31]

Lok'tar ogar!

Zug zug!

Wort Wort Wort!

 

[eyeheartawk]

Interesting. Do any of those have a license to publish IP of note? I note that Cubicle 7, Fria Ligan, Edge Studios, and Free League all aren’t on the list? Should we read anything into this?

Goodman has an agreement with WOTC directly for the OAR stuff. Though, I don't know if that's still active because the most recent announced stuff has all been Judge's Guild.

 

[MGibster]

Today I learned there are at least 1,500 RPG publishers out there.

 

[Jer]

Today I learned there are at least 1,500 RPG publishers out there.

I mean, have you looked at the DriveThruRPG sidebar? That dropdown list for publishers is nuts if you ever try to use it.

(And that's without the indie publishers who only publish on itch and won't work with OneBookShelf for whatever reason. Lots of small single person shops out there putting out ttrpg stuff these days. It's a golden age for RPG systems in a lot of ways.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Goodman has an agreement with WOTC directly for the OAR stuff. Though, I don't know if that's still active because the most recent announced stuff has all been Judge's Guild.

The last time they talked about it, that I can recall, it certainly sounded like there would be more TSR stuff coming after Caverns of Thracia.

Although, as I've said in the past, they've burned through all of the true TSR classics that aren't in Yawning Portal, Curse of Strahd or Ghosts of Saltmarsh, so I don't know how many more OAR installments we've got left. Against the Cult of the Reptile God, Dungeonland/The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror and the Slavers series seem like the only remaining obvious ones, as the Pharaoh series is after the era the company has traditionally cared about. Palace of the Silver Princess also has enough history and alternate versions to justify it (OAR books are half history books, after all), although Wizards did a pretty good job with that on their website a few years ago.

If anything, Goodman should probably work on wresting the rest of the Judges Guild catalog away from the Bledsoes and do City State of the Invincible Overlord, Tegel Manor, Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor and Citadel of Fire and then call it a day.

I find it hard to imagine many folks will be signing up for OAR 21: The Forest Oracle.

 

[overgeeked]

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.

Exactly. Mechanics cannot be protected by copyright, only the specific expressions of those mechanics...you know, all that natural language nonsense. No loss not using their exact phrasing.

 

[overgeeked]

Wow, in a very fractured industry, that number is pretty much everyone.

Well, which is it? It's not "fractured" if that "number is pretty much everyone". They're all standing united against WotC's overreach and for properly open gaming.

 

[Clint_L]

I mean, have you looked at the DriveThruRPG sidebar? That dropdown list for publishers is nuts if you ever try to use it.

(And that's without the indie publishers who only publish on itch and won't work with OneBookShelf for whatever reason. Lots of small single person shops out there putting out ttrpg stuff these days. It's a golden age for RPG systems in a lot of ways.)

Yikes, that's going to be like herding cats...on steroids...getting a consistent message out there. You are going to have a lot of voices going rogue. I assume they have made some sort of provision for a few of the larger publishers to be the de facto spokespersons.

 

[overgeeked]

There's also the fact that Mercer/Crit Role/Darrington Press maybe stuck at the moment due to NDAs and whatever contracts they signed on to when, at the time, WoTC wasn't being so money hungry.

If it probably wasn't for that fact, then they probably would've joined the ORC by now or what not by now.

More likely they're under an anti-disparagement clause, meaning they can't say anything negative about WotC. But that shouldn't prevent them from signing on to the ORC.