Pathfinder's answer to the Open Gaming License, the Open RPG Creative License (ORC License), has been completed and published. Created in direct response to a rather vicious attempt by Wizards of the Coast to clamp down on the use of the Open Gaming License for its own benefit, the ORC License is a "system-agnostic, perpetual, irrevocable open gaming license, designed to create a safe environment for collaboration in any game.

Even if WOTC had made a U-turn on the OGL plan, the damage was already done: any company that has been part of the D&D ecosystem in the past and present, whether by creating its own games using elements of D&D rules or creating adventures that are compatible with D&D were forced to dispose of their inventory. Suddenly, it seemed foolhardy to bet the future of their business on trusting WOTC's continued intentions, and many companies began the process of severing their ties with the OGL altogether.

In the midst of such turmoil, Paizo, the publisher of Pathfinder, began developing a high-profile ORC license, backed by a huge "alliance" of other tabletop companies that pledged to use it. This is in direct opposition to the OGL and is intended to give the industry a new, secure license. So now that it is finally here, how does it actually work and what impact can we expect?

Rather than being tied to a specific system, the ORC license is intended to work for any RPG. Once a publisher releases a game under this license, its systems and mechanisms are covered, and other creators can use those elements in their own works without fear of legal issues. It also explicitly works in perpetuity. In other words, once something is released under a license, it is covered by that license forever. This is a fairly direct rebuttal to WOTC's attempted change to the OGL, which was widely criticized as an attempt to retroactively change a contract that was originally presented as irrevocable.

To add to this, the license itself is not owned by Paizo and is in the public domain; even if Paizo completely changed its intentions overnight, by design, the genie cannot be put back in the bottle.

This is a remarkable gesture on Paizo's part, and given the legal work done here (by Azora Law), no small amount of time and money must have been spent on this document, and the publisher is offering it into the public domain for free. is ultimately intended to foster and protect on a new scale the very culture of collaboration from which the Pathfinder itself grew. Certainly there are private interests at play - Paizo is D&D's most direct competitor and clearly stands to benefit from any weakening of WOTC's dominance. But this is also the case of a company that, very directly, has put its money on its own principles and hopes to better the future of the industry as a whole.

So what are the practical effects of ORC licensing? Publishers have been creating their own open licenses specific to their products or releasing games under Creative Commons licenses for years, and we have seen some of the effects.

Obviously, D&D is the main example, especially during the 3rd edition era, when the OGL allowed a huge ecosystem of third-party publishers to build around the game. by capitalizing on the popularity of D&D, publishers can gain a larger audience for their products. for their products. For better or worse, the OGL is a big part of the reason D&D has been able to dominate the industry so much.

On the other scale, we have seen smaller games expand their influence in similar ways. The licensing equivalent of Apocalypse World, a typical indie RPG, is a rather obscure online policy statement, but it alone has spawned a huge variety of "Powered by the Apocalypse" games and continues to grow. PbtA went on to shape much of the modern narrative-driven play style and philosophy through games like "Monsters of the Week," "Dungeon World," and "City of Mists." Now we are entering the second generation: "Blades in the Dark," for example, evolved from a PbtA-driven design and has become so popular that it has its own popular license, "Forged in the Dark," spurring further innovation.

However, much of this collaboration to date has been built on shaky foundations. Among independent creators, many simply operate on trust, or the existing Creative Commons license does not cover the particulars of RPG design at all; the potential of the ORC license is based on a universal default, one that everyone already understands and generally accepts, namely principles, to create a freely available license with a strong legal foundation that creators can invest their time and resources in projects that use it with sufficient confidence.

If widely adopted, it would greatly encourage publishers to open up their systems and creators to work with them, allowing more games to expand beyond their original means. The potential benefits for us, the consumers and players, are also significant. More supplements and adventures to favorite games, more opportunities for hobby growth and innovation as creators build on each other's work, more freedom for virtual tabletops to integrate different game systems, and the ability for smaller publishers to use D&D and its more opportunities to actually begin to compete with the enormous level of support.

But while it's hard to say "will it be widely adopted," I think the winds are blowing in this game's favor: the Paizo "alliance" is not only backed by one of the largest RPG publishers in the industry, it's also very large. If the publishers who join this "alliance" keep their promises, we can expect a wide variety of games to begin using the ORC license, including "Call of Cthulhu," "Fantasy Age" (the "Dragon Age RPG" system), "Mutants & Masterminds," "Numenera Major virtual tabletops such as Roll20 and Foundry VTT are also included in this list, which will only grow in importance as more players launch online campaigns and more game systems are freely incorporated into the platform. benefit from this.

I don't think the ORC license will meet much resistance either. While it pushes the concept to a new level, this type of open license is an idea that many RPG creators are already familiar with and support. raised the question of what they want from an open license.

And, among other things, it represents a banner for WOTC competitors, large and small, to rally around; D&D is enjoyed by huge numbers of people around the world, which is great, but it has long been unhealthy for that one game to dominate the hobby, and its orbit For Paizo, competing with D&D has its own rewards, but by providing a clear place for smaller creators to come together, combine their strengths, and compete for a more equitable industry It could be a step toward a future where we can compete with each other. The result could be a more diverse and interesting hobby for all of us.