"The birth of the ORC license was driven by OGL 1.1" - Paizo’s Jim Butler discusses ORC, OGL 1.1, and more
Jim Butler, president of Paizo, has been at the center of a major topic of discussion within the tabletop gaming community for the last two weeks. With Wizards of the Coast’s OGL 1.1, Pathfinder’s owners made a landmark decision. Jim Butler and Paizo revealed the Open RPG Creative license, the ORC. This quickly became a very popular idea on the internet, as, unlike the OGL 1.1, it was an irrevocable license. Players won't have to fear their work being stolen or sudden royalties being required.
Jim Butler has been a game designer since around 1995 when he worked for TSR, the company that would later be purchased by Wizards of the Coast. His design work can be found in The Sword of the Dales, Netheril: Empire of Magic, and more. Over the years, Butler has worked for several companies and is currently the president of Paizo. Paizo is best known for creating the Pathfinder and Starfinder tabletop RPG systems.
In a recent interaction with long-time tabletop RPG fan and Pathfinder player Jason Parker, Jim Butler discussed the importance of the ORC, the problems with OGL 1.1, what Pathfinder class he’d be, and much more.
Jim Butler: The Open RPG Creative (ORC) license is, at its core, an irrevocable replacement for the Open Gaming License. It’s a license that allows game publishers to release their game mechanics to other companies, granting them the ability to create content for that publisher’s games. Paizo is one of several larger publishers that have signed up for the ORC license, which is being driven by Azora Law.
Jim Butler: It is a license framework that will allow creators and publishers to deposit their own game mechanics into it for use by other creatives in the hobby, and allow creativity to be unlocked across multiple
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