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.

 

[darjr]

 

[Siltoneous]

Best of luck, but I worry a little about this specific thing. Part of the beauty of the SRD was the fact we called things the same names. Magic missile was universally understood as 1d4+1 auto hitting force bolts. But that's a very D&D specific effect. So now anyone wanting to reference it will call it a different name (force bolt, force missile, magic dart, Fitzgerald's Magnificent Missiles) and will probably define the spell parameters differently (damage dice, scaling, auto-hit vs attack roll, range, etc).

Beauty and Bane of the SRD I'd say.

I rather like the fact that there will be diversity in what a 'Magic Missile' does. Personally I'd be bored to tears if it was the same damn thing across 20 systems. Holy C*ap, if I'm forced to use the same name, same description, same damage and same effects, why even bother writing a new system? How is that not basically the same as saying that "The beauty of the 5.1 SRD is that 'Magic Missile' is the 'McDonalds hamburger' of the RPG world"? Too bad Wendy's, SmashBurger, Culvers, etc... you will never find success or customers because you don't make your hamburgers the exact same way as McDonalds. Phah.

Maybe I'm being harsh, but while I appreciate what the 5.1 SRD has done, there are implicit chains with it's usage too.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Your position is that, because SRD 5.1 was published under OGL 1.0a, a publisher could throw OGL 1.0a in the trash and instead publish their 5e clone under ORC?

If your position (as with @pemerton) is that publishers should instead continue to exercise their contractual rights under 1.0a, I fully agree with that. But that doesn't appear to be what they're doing, and it isn't what was suggested (to me, at least) by an "ORC version of 5e."

I didn't say that. They could continue with the initial part of it under 1.0a OGL, and further releases that relate to it under ORC -- or more likely, perhaps release it under both OGL 1.0a and ORC.

My point: I think it is likely that we will ultimately see for 5e what we saw with PF1 in 2008. I think that's coming. It isn't certain, but it does seem likely at this point. Frankly, Kobold's post earlier this week (now edited) suggested exactly that was to be expected coming out of "Project Black Flag". We'll see.

 

[Greg Benage]

I didn't say that. They could continue with the initial part of it under 1.0a OGL, and further releases that relate to it under ORC -- or more likely, perhaps release it under both OGL 1.0a and ORC.

Fair enough -- I don't really see what work ORC is doing here, but no matter. I agree that a publisher can use OGL 1.0a to release Pathfiver using SRD 5.1.

 

[Steel_Wind]

An Update on the Open Game License (OGL)

Although we are not yet able to release the OGL at this time, we would like to update you on how things are developing, and the goals we have in mind fo...

www.dndbeyond.com

So now the point of the updated OGL 1.1 was to:

1 - stop hate speech and being nasty to minorities and LGBTQ;
2 - to stop NFTs; and
3- oh yeah, to stop "Big corporations" from using our IP.

"We rolled a 1"

But no, you can't say we lost and the other guy won. "We both won."

Excuse me while I go chase down my eyeballs rolling on the floor before they vanish under the fridge.

In a face-saving culture, we'd keep a still face in an effort not to smirk at this blatant lie.

Psst: this isn't Japan.

 

[Scribe]

View attachment 272442

Sounds great to me.

It will take some time to get off the ground, but people need to stop fooling themselves that 5e is somehow "just right".

What a time to be alive...

 

[hedgeknight]

I've always wanted to make the trip to Paizo Con...and I bet this year's con is going to be stacked! Would love to go!
Anybody already signed up to go?

 

[payn]

I've always wanted to make the trip to Paizo Con...and I bet this year's con is going to be stacked! Would love to go!
Anybody already signed up to go?

No, but I’m down!

 

[Helena Real]

@Helena Real why the laugh react?

Sorry! Wrong emoji. It was late

 

[Nylanfs]

Smiteworks licenses aren't affected by WotC's OGL decisions, but at the same time Doug is publicly stating support for the ORC.

Doug, Owner and CEO of Smiteworks:
At the same time, I publicly offer my support for the Open RPG Creative (ORC) license proposed by Paizo, Kobold Press, Legendary Games, Rogue Genius Games, Chaosium, and other publishers. We are happy to continue working with all publishers, big and small, to provide players with the greatest choice of games available and to lift all boats.

SmiteWorks Official Statement about OGL 1.1 and Open Gaming Licenses

SmiteWorks established Fantasy Grounds as the first virtual tabletop (VTT) to receive an official license for D&D back in 2015. In many ways, SmiteWorks paved the way forward for online D&D and for online roleplaying from many other game publishers and game systems. Our partnership with Wizards...

www.fantasygrounds.com