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.

 

[MoonSong]

Game over, WOTC and Hasbro. Their greed was their undoing. Serves them right.

OneD&D is dead on arrival. No sense continuing to playtest that. Everyone move on to Pathfinder 2e.

Aww, I don't like 2e... will have to tinker with it and then publish it under ORC...

 

[Leatherhead]

Wow, last night I was just thinking "with all these companies going to make their own systems, I wonder if someone will try it with a non-profit organization?"

I guess I just had to sleep on it.

 

[Parmandur]

Goodman has a very pro-third party stance with DCC, even promoting third party products on their website and in their YouTube videos. If WotC takes away the ability to sub-license under the new OGL, Goodman is going to need to either make its own license or sign on with someone else's. I would bet on DCC being part of ORC.

I wouldn't bet on that.

 

[Remathilis]

Game over, WOTC and Hasbro. Their greed was their undoing. Serves them right.

OneD&D is dead on arrival. No sense continuing to playtest that. Everyone move on to Pathfinder 2e.

I'm sorry, did I miss the part where Pathfinder 2e became rules-lighter, less math intensive and easier to run game?

I have nothing but respect for Paizo, but Pathfinder is distinctly NOT a game I want to run. 5e hits my current sweet spot for rules heaviness, and until someone makes a game that emulates that, I'm stuck with either sticking with 5e or dropping RPGs altogether.

 

[Incenjucar]

The beauty of this is that adapting a lighter-rules game will be a lot easier now that it sounds like we'll have multiple games to choose from under a new license.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I have nothing but respect for Paizo, but Pathfinder is distinctly NOT a game I want to run. 5e hits my current sweet spot for rules heaviness, and until someone makes a game that emulates that, I'm stuck with either sticking with 5e or dropping RPGs altogether.

From a DM side, PF2 is slightly easier to run than 5E, I'd suggest. From a player side I think it eventually evens out but it does start a bit heavier than 5E.

PF1 is nightmarishly fiddly of course.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You think a de-SRD'd (gotta be a better way) Pathfinder is going to have "broad compatibility" with 5e and 1D&D? The fully SRD'd Pathfinder is more work to convert to 5e than I'm willing to put in. And there must be others like me, or Paizo wouldn't be publishing 5e books. Guess I'm skeptical.

Paizo had/has an incentive to get people to play Pathfinder.

For the purposes of an SRD -- which Paizo may not be the authors of -- the incentive would be to create a Rosetta Stone with the core D&Disms. It would probably be so bare bones that only OSR folks would play it as is -- but probably won't, since have any old school smell on it. From that foundation, one can build up to PF2 or 5E or Castles & Crusades, etc.

From my layperson's reading, there's nothing stopping multiple SRDs for multiple purposes being created using ORC.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The beauty of this is that adapting a lighter-rules game will be a lot easier now that it sounds like we'll have multiple games to choose from under a new license.

The OSR would like to remind you that they've been doing exactly that for years.

 

[payn]

From a DM side, PF2 is slightly easier to run than 5E, I'd suggest. From a player side I think it eventually evens out but it does start a bit heavier than 5E.

PF1 is nightmarishly fiddly of course.

Also, tabletop vs VTT is certainly a preference, but Foundry makes it a breeze to run PF2.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I'm sorry, did I miss the part where Pathfinder 2e became rules-lighter, less math intensive and easier to run game?

I have nothing but respect for Paizo, but Pathfinder is distinctly NOT a game I want to run. 5e hits my current sweet spot for rules heaviness, and until someone makes a game that emulates that, I'm stuck with either sticking with 5e or dropping RPGs altogether.

Yup, I'm kinda in the same boat at the moment. I put my hopes on KP, wishing real hard they dont go with a Pathfinder design mentality, because there's no way in hell we'd play a system as heavy as PF, sadly.

Or I'll just mangle my 5e books and create my own system: Day Dream of the 5 Enchanters (DD 5E)