, formerly known as Paizo Publishing, is a Tabletop Game, magazine, and book publisher based in Redmond, WA. They are best known for being the creator of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.Paizo was originally founded in 2002 by Lisa Stevens, Vic Wertz, and Johnny Wilson to take over publishing Dungeon and Dragon for Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast. For a time they also published the gaming magazine Undefeated as well as resurrecting Amazing Stories, though both titles were discontinued in 2006.
Wizards of the Coast declined to renew the contract for Dragon and Dungeon in 2007. To fill the gap, Paizo began a subscription for its own original setting using the Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition ruleset: the Pathfinder Adventure Path, set in the world of Golarion (which would become known later as the Lost Omens setting). The announcement that Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition would not be using the 3.5 Edition Open Game License—substituting the new Game System License which required anyone making 4E content to cease publishing OGL-based 3.X content—led to Paizo's fateful decision to convert the setting into their own Spin-Off of 3.5E, the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Wizards had accidentally created their own biggest competitor: during the 2010s, Pathfinder ended up far outselling 4E.
In 2016, Paizo released a Science Fantasy Spin-Off of Pathfinder titled Starfinder, set in the far future of the Golarion setting. In 2019, they formally released Pathfinder Second Edition after a year of playtesting. Unlike First Edition, Second Edition does not use Wizards of the Coast's System Reference Document as the basis of its rules, instead using the Open Game License to permit third-party content for 2E.
In October 2021, Paizo voluntarily recognized the formation of United Paizo Workers, the first-ever labor union for tabletop game developers, following allegations of workplace misconduct.
In January 2023, Paizo became embroiled in a new licensing dispute following leaks from Wizards of the Coast of plans to update the OGL for the upcoming edition One D&D. In reaction, Paizo announced that they would be migrating their games off of the original OGL onto the planned Open RPG Creative License (ORC for short), in collaboration with several other game and content developers including Kobold Press, Chaosium, Green Ronin, Legendary Games, and Rogue Genius Games. The ORC is to be explicitly irrevocablenote and administered by an open-source non-profit.
Paizo products with pages on this wiki:
- Amazing Stories (2004-2006)
- Dragon (2002-2007)
- Dungeon (2002-2007)
- Kill Dr. Lucky
- Pathfinder
- Starfinder
