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.

 

[ZeshinX]

THAC0 gets mentioned often enough that it's fine lol, it's when it's something you haven't even thought about for decades lol.

I had a similar experience not too long ago.

Still have my 2.5e Spells & Magic....decided to leaf through it for fun, and was looking through the Build-A-Cleric options and....I was floored. You can make every other class in the game...but better with the 2.5e Cleric! Even thought "Wouldn't this be a fun idea for a game...every player has to be a Cleric, but not-a-Cleric!"

I still think it would be bonkers fun from time to time haha (those Player's Option books were nuts ).

 

[Riley]

I had a similar experience not too long ago.

Still have my 2.5e Spells & Magic....decided to leaf through it for fun, and was looking through the Build-A-Cleric options and....I was floored. You can make every other class in the game...but better with the 2.5e Cleric! Even thought "Wouldn't this be a fun idea for a game...every player has to be a Cleric, but not-a-Cleric!"

I still think it would be bonkers fun from time to time haha (those Player's Option books were nuts ).

I remember building a Player’s Option bard that I just loved to play. He had a wide variety of skills and lots of spells… but he wasn’t good at them. Had a 15-25% spell failure rate, that seemed to come up far more often than that.

I played him as a wildly enthusiastic adventurer, who was often in way over his head.

He died, of course.

 

[darjr]

Watching History in the making is kinda awesome.

Spoiler

I want to make sure that we have a clean and clear record on what has happened in last few turbulent days in TTRPGs.
The effort to create a new OGL was first publicly launched by Wolfgang Bauer of Kobold Press. As I was discussing all this with my friends at Frog God Games, Mark Greenberg of Frog God suggested that this new open, free, permanent, and irrevocable OGL be owned by a nonprofit 501c3 rather than a single publisher like Kobold.
I then passed that along to Wolfgang Baur and he agreed and then discussed this with Mark and his lawyer Brian E. Lewis who also represents Paizo. Brian was the architect of the original OGL 1.0 so it is excellent that he is now leading this new effort.
The point of this post is to make clear that, at least for my part and my involvement, the creation of a new OGL would not be by or for any one publisher. It will be something that literally anyone can use to nest their own SRD (rule set) and know that those rules will be forever open and free.
The moment it looks like a single publisher is seeking to own or control this OGL, I am out as that is precisely the problem we are all facing now. As long as this is a collaborative effort, I will be donating my time towards this most worthwhile cause.
And all this said, I do hope that Wizards course corrects here and backs away from the proposed OGL 1.1. I feel bad for my friends on the D&D design team that are caught up in all of this. Having a strong D&D brand is great for the hobby. But that said, an independent and permanent OGL that any game publisher can use would be very beneficial for our hobby.

 

[ZeshinX]

If/when Kobold produces

I remember building a Player’s Option bard that I just loved to play. He had a wide variety of skills and lots of spells… but he wasn’t good at them. Had a 15-25% spell failure rate, that seemed to come up far more often than that.

I played him as a wildly enthusiastic adventurer, who was often in way over his head.

He died, of course.

RIP Bard-in-Over-His-Head (was his name Jack Burton by chance?)

 

[Riley]

RIP Bard-in-Over-His-Head (was his name Jack Burton by chance?)

His name was Riley.

 

[Vaalingrade]

That's the thing isn't it? It won't "feel" like D&D.

This is the perfect time to kill this notion off once and for all for the good of all gaming.

"It doesn't 'feel' like D&D?" GOOD.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Didn't you post this exact same point in some other forum?

It's kind of like the people (carnivores) who say that people who choose to be vegetarians shouldn't eat tofu that is flavored like meat. And that they should just eat lettuce, since that doesn't taste savory like meat. As if savoring an aesthetic similarity is just the same as actually, materially patronizing something which we vegetarians view to be harmful: namely, conventional industrial animal farming.

What kind of abstract magical influence are you attributing to playing a game that provides the D&D experience we love (under a different name), but is not materially (monetarily) benefitting the evil untrustworthy corporation who happens to legally own the name "D&D"?

Every one of the persons who canceled their D&D Beyond account (including me) more or less loves the game which happens to be called "D&D," and which happens to be owned by an insane megacorporation. Canceling and severing that bond is some kind of sacrifice. Yet it has a real, actual result, of not materially (monetarily) support the backstabbing corporatist liars at Hasbro.

Are you so confused that you can't distinguish between claiming for ourselves the nourishing traditions of "D&D" (under another name: Pathfinder, Level Up, etc.), and the action of actually, monetarily patronizing a corporation which we view to be harmful?

If not, that's some weird kind of confused, unreal 'perfectionism' and magical thinking.

I'm saying that supporting a D&D-like game and telling people you like playing and supporting a D&D-like game tells all of the "normies" out there you like playing and supporting D&D. 99% of the world out there can't tell the difference.

Which means the same way the folks at WotC have always said "We don't care what edition of D&D you play, so long as you are playing something" (because for them a player of ANY version of D&D just inspires other people to potentially play RPGs and will possibly eventually find themselves at the doorsteps of D&D 5E and becoming a customer)... you telling people you play "a game that's like Dungeons & Dragons but not" and companies making "a game that's like Dungeons & Dragons but not", is all of you giving your advertising dollars to Dungeons & Dragons and Wizards of the Coast. But maybe that doesn't matter to you? Okay, that's fair. But at least to me that "punishment" to Wizards of the Coasts seems a lot less then it should be based on the anger people are displaying towards them.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Most of the gaming community still probably isn't too aware or invested in the current controversy and those who are probably don't hate D&D because of it. Those who are aware of it may be upset with Hasbro/WotC and some of them may no longer be willing to support the company but that doesn't mean they need to stop playing D&D-like games, whether they are released under some new open license or are something unrelated but still a sword and sorcery game. There are tons of options out there that will allow people to find a game the like, whether it's D&D, D&D-like or something totally different.

I guess the question comes down to whether or not (general) you are looking to make a "statement" against Wizards of the Coast? From a lot of the talk here on the boards, making a really strong statement seems to be many people's goals.

Now if (general) you don't really care to make a really strong statement... then sure, you can play a D&D-like all you want. That makes sense. But at least from my perspective... you can't make a very strong statement against Wizards of the Coasts when your entire focus is playing a series of games directly inspired by the game owned by Wizards of the Coast. To me that doesn't make sense.

But whatever. People can and will do whatever they want and justify things however they want.

 

[Composer99]

I remember building a Player’s Option bard that I just loved to play. He had a wide variety of skills and lots of spells… but he wasn’t good at them. Had a 15-25% spell failure rate, that seemed to come up far more often than that.

I played him as a wildly enthusiastic adventurer, who was often in way over his head.

He died, of course.

I made a dwarf fighter using Player's Option who was almost invulnerable to poison.

Naturally, he died failing a saving throw against poison within an hour or so of beginning play.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You can make every other class in the game...but better with the 2.5e Cleric! Even thought "Wouldn't this be a fun idea for a game...every player has to be a Cleric, but not-a-Cleric!"

I mean, literally the very first 2E character I played, in 1989, was a Speciality Priest of Mask, and my brother was playing a Speciality Priest of Torm (yes, I know, we didn't even realize we were doing the whole mismatched buddy cop trope lol), and that was the whole party, so that's just AD&D to me baby.