On June 1, Pathfinder publisher Paizo released the third draft of its new third-party gaming license, the ORC. Designed to allow third-party RPG creators to publish system-agnostic content, the Paizo ORC was developed in response to Wizards of the Coast’s attempts to modify the DnD OGL. “We believe this draft is solid enough to be the final draft of the ORC License”, Paizo says in a press release from Thursday, “but know from past experience that new text brings the opportunity for new errors or requests for clarification”.
“The community has been phenomenally helpful in refining the language of this license, and now it is time to take one last look and provide any final comments you may have before we lock the license terms in the very near future”, the publisher adds. So far, Paizo says the license has been developed “in collaboration with hundreds of publishers and other interested parties on the ORC Licence Discord”.
Paizo provides a “clean” and “redline” version of the new draft to show how it’s tweaked things since the last draft. The feedback period will apparently only last a few days, as Paizo is working “with an eye toward locking the final version of the license by the end of next week”.
After that, Paizo will release a “Final Interim ORC License” on its website, as well as through Azora Law, which has collaborated with the publisher on the document. “Publishers will be able to use this version of the license to publish material under the ORC License by including the proper ORC Notice”, the press release says.
“At the same time that the Final Interim ORC License is published, these documents will be filed with the United States Library of Congress, who will issue copyright registration in about six months”, Paizo continues. “Once registration issues, Azora will publicly release the ORC License.”
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