As OGL Furor Continues, Paizo Announces Its Own Gaming License
Paizo, makers of Pathfinder and Starfinder, have at last weighed in on recent events, announcing a new gaming license amid WotC’s silence.
Paizo is no stranger to the Open Gaming License. As the publishers of Pathfinder, they built the only RPG to ever knock D&D from its coveted top spot in the RPG pool off of the OGL. This is why many Pathfinder fans were wondering what Paizo would do in the wake of Wizards of the Coast’s plans to severely restrict the latest OGL while invalidating the one which allowed Pathfinder to bloom in the first place.
Now we know. They announced a new creative license for third-party developers, which will be “open, perpetual, and irrevocable.”
Paizo Announces New Gaming License
Paizo’s announcement introduces the Open RPG Creative License (ORC), which is their answer to keeping alive the “spirit of the Open Game License.”
Alongside this, they made their stance on Wizards of the Coast’s proposed changes very clear:
We believe that any interpretation that the OGL 1.0 or 1.0(a) were intended to be revocable or able to be deauthorized is incorrect, and with good reason.
We were there.
And indeed, they were. Paizo’s owner and president were both leaders on the D&D team at the time. And the co-founder of the IP law firm that Paizo uses was Brian Lewis, the attorney at WotC who authored the OGL.
This is why Paizo stated they were prepared to argue, in court if necessary, that the OGL 1.0a cannot be “deauthorized” they expressed an interest in moving on from WotC’s proposed changes:
We have no interest whatsoever in Wizards’ new OGL. Instead, we have a plan that we believe will irrevocably and unquestionably keep alive the spirit of the Open Game License.
As they outline in their announcement, (which at press time was having server issues, again, likely because of excessive traffic), the OGL helped Pathfinder to grow, and to grow quickly.
But over the years that changed:
By the time we went to work on Pathfinder Second Edition, Wizards of the Coast’s Open Game Content was significantly less important to us, and so our designers and developers wrote the new edition without using Wizards’ copyrighted expressions of any game mechanics. While we still published it under the OGL, the reason was no longer to allow Paizo to use Wizards’ expressions, but to allow other companies to use our expressions.
The Open RPG Creative License
Which led them to announce the Open RPG Creative License. A license-built to be system agnostic so that publishers of any sort could use the framework to allow people to use their games. Paizo has stated that they plan to support the legal work necessary to create the license.
But Paizo also makes it clear that they will not own the license, nor “any company who makes money publishing RPGs.” The license is intended to be a “safe harbor” against the rug being pulled out from under any company’s change in management or ownership which could lead to rights being rescinded.
And other publishers have joined. Per Paizo’s announcement, Kobold Press, Chaosium, Green Ronin, Legendary Games, Rogue Genius Games, and others have agreed to participate in the license.
Though as the EFF pointed out, this may not be strictly necessary. These sorts of licenses are mostly protection against legal action. And that’s been the purview of D&D’s owners, historically. You can’t copyright rules. And people who sign on may give up rights they would otherwise be able to use freely in exchange for that safety.
Only by testing the idea in court can anyone know for certain.
We’ll just have to wait and see if it comes to it
