Paizo Announce Open RPG Creative License In Reponse To OGL 1.1

January 13, 2023 by brennon

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In the wake of the turmoil surrounding Wizards Of The Coast and Hasbro's OGL 1.1 announcement, Paizo has decided to preempt the folks behind Dungeons & Dragons with their own Open RPG Creative License that is supported by a good chunk of well-known tabletop RPG companies.

Open RPG - Paizo

Open RPG // Paizo

Find The Transcript Of The Announcement Here

For those not in the know, Linda Codega of Gizmodo last week talked through an extensive leak of the new OGL (Open Gaming License) from Wizards Of The Coast. This is the agreement that allows third-party companies to create content using the basic framework of the D&D rules. It was put into place during Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 and has meant that, throughout 4th and 5th Edition, the popularity of D&D has exploded. You just need to look back at Kickstarter's projects from last year to see just how many people have benefited from the OGL.

The new OGL, OGL 1.1 would put an end to that previous relationship between Wizards Of The Coast and the creators that, for many people, have made their game what it is today. The new agreement asks for payments from creators who earn money off their D&D-related products across a variety of different brackets. The more discomforting aspect of the new agreement (as it stands) is that if you sign up, you effectively give Wizards Of The Coast the right to use your work in whatever manner they see fit amongst a multitude of other interesting pitfalls.

It seems pretty overwhelmingly unpopular amongst the tabletop roleplaying game community, both gamers and companies. If you want a very comprehensive breakdown of all of this, it is best to refer to Codega's Gizmodo Article as they have done a sterling job of making it easy to understand where creators stand at this point in time.

Open RPG Creative License

That is where Paizo and a bunch of other companies have stepped in. The Open RPG Creative License (ORC) 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. Multiple leading publishers have already signed on to the effort to create a new and truly open license that allows all games to provide their own unique open rules reference documents that open up their individual game systems to the world."

The idea is to get companies to work together to produce properly open gaming licenses for creators to use. Paizo and the Pathfinder system will be one such option but companies like Chaosium, Green Ronin and Kobold Press have all joined in, proposing new open-use rulesets that creators and play around with. You can find Kobold Press' announcement HERE as an example.

It seems like there is a bit of light at the end of the tunnel for creators and by extension, consumers. Whilst there might be some big announcements from Wizards Of The Coast over the next few days about the direction of their OGL, it seems like other companies have beat them to the punch. Why risk working with them when there is a new offer in town?

Has the bubble burst for D&D?

"Multiple leading publishers have already signed on to the effort to create a new and truly open license..."

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