Paizo

Paizo Publishing Game News, Reviews, Editorials & Unboxings.

Paizo Inc. (originally Paizo Publishing) is an American RPG publishing company based in Redmond, Washington, best known for the tabletop role-playing games Pathfinder and Starfinder. The company's name is derived from the Greek word παίζω paizō, which means 'I play' or 'to play'. Paizo also runs an online retail store selling RPGs, board games, comic books, toys, clothing, accessories and other products, as well as an Internet forum community.

Paizo was formed by Lisa Stevens, Vic Wertz, and Johnny Wilson in 2002 to take over publication of the Dungeons & Dragons magazines Dragon and Dungeon, formerly published in-house by Wizards of the Coast. Paizo publisher Erik Mona is the former editor-in-chief of Dragon, while former editor-in-chief of Dungeon James Jacobs oversees the Pathfinder periodicals.

In 2023, Paizo announced plans for a new RPG license called the Open RPG Creative License (ORC). Additional publishers, such as Kobold Press, Chaosium, Green Ronin, Legendary Games, and Rogue Genius Games, will be part of the ORC development process. The ORC will be an open, perpetual, and irrevocable system-agnostic license with legal development paid for by Paizo "under the legal guidance of Azora Law", however, the license "will not be owned by Paizo, nor will it be owned by any company who makes money publishing RPGs". Paizo plans to find a "nonprofit with a history of open source values to own this license" and stated that "Azora Law's ownership of the process and stewardship should provide a safe harbor against any company being bought, sold, or changing management in the future and attempting to rescind rights or nullify sections of the license".