Month: August 2025

ORC 2-ish years later

It’s been 2-ish years since Paizo “finished”1 “ORC License: The Final Version is Here!” (29 June 2023) Paizo <paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6sico> their Open RPG Creative License (ORC)2 “Open RPG Creative License” Paizo <paizo.com/orclicense> (more on that in a bit) so it seems like a good enough time to see how the new license is coming along, what sort of momentum has it built, what was the overall outcome. Did it revolutionize tabletop role-playing games (“TTRPGS”)? And what was the overall significance and involvement of Azora Law?3 Azora Law <azoralaw.com/>

The Azora Law logo which is very specifically designed ot look like a d20... not well, by very specifically.
Tell me you want to be the premier law firm for TTRPGs without telling me you want to be the premier law firm for TTRPGs.

Azora Law is, according to a publication in the Washington State Bar News – June 2021, it is “one of Seattle’s oldest virtual law firms”.4 Brian Lewis “Three Big Developments in Soft IP Law” Washington State Bar News (Washington US, June 2021) at 30 This seems to be the singular instance of it claiming to be a virtual law firm, which is an odd claim since if they’re all in Seattle and they have a registered office address… that means they just let staff work from home if they want? Pretty sure that was the standard in mid 2021.

Unless they also had a presence in the Metaverse at some stage.

Anyway, I thought ORC sucked… but I’ve been known to be wrong.5 Kim Wincen “The ORC has landed. It kinda sucks” (2 June 2023) A gentleman with opinions <blog.wincenworks.com/2023/07/02/the-orc-has-landed-it-kinda-sucks/>

My name is Kim. I am not a lawyer, certainly not a US lawyer specializing in copyright and most importantly I am not your lawyer. I am a law graduate in New Zealand who has a passion for role-playing games, and you should not consider anything I post to be legal advice (or take legal advice from blogs or social media posts in general). Also please, understand – absolutely nothing you say to me falls under lawyer-client privilege – especially if you do it in the comments.

Okay, now that’s done, let’s look at this.

Continue reading ORC 2-ish years later

What is GiantLands? Is it… a theme park? A bimonthly snack box, or phat beats?

So, after GiantLands 1st Edition1 James M. Ward & Stephen E. Dinehart GiantLands 1st Edition (Wonderfilled Inc, Wisconsin USA, December 2021) (also known as “GiantLands, the only edition”) was released, it only had 1,000 units (again, 1,000% of the amount promised in the Kickstarter).

What next for this exclusive limited edition?

As a note, this has gotten trickier to report on as in June 2025, Dinehart had another meltdown – this time provoking the far-right audience he’d cultivated and ended up nuking most of his public facing posts and accounts. So I’ll have to be relying on screenshots, notes and memory from here on.

Is GiantLands: A Theme Park?

Well the first thing was a paid press release “article” about how Wonderfilled intended to make a nightmare of a theme park in Wisconsin.2 Stephen E. Dinehart “GiantLands Theme Park Will be a Game Park Built on a Groundbreaking Vision” (1 January 2022) PressRelease <https://www.pr.com/press-release/852171> Archive: <https://web.archive.org/web/20220101122718/https://www.pr.com/press-release/852171>

A drafts diagram of an Inca/Mayan/Aztech "theme park" which mostly seems to consister of huge, inexplicable sculptures and buildings - with farms and shrubbery, a river on one side and an aquaduct. Also, agraian animals wandering about.
“A project of remarkable vision” according to the project proposer.

Wisconsin receives an average of 40+ inches of snow per year, with higher snowfalls in particular areas – not exactly a place that’d be create for pseudo-Mayan/Aztec/Inca fusion architecture that was designed for the tropics.

But, by far the weirdest thing about this is its not clear what the vision is. This doesn’t seem to be a specific location, so the overall layout etc isn’t really clear if its a proposed layout, or a sort of conceptual depiction. There’s also no way to know what the attractions are supposed to be. Is the arena for shows or do you go to fight?

Largely the reason that’s not clear is there’s no real thought beyond it other than he assumes that native american themed Evermore would be a license to print money for no particular reason. Evermore closed it’s doors permanently in April 2024, and this seems to have gone unnoticed by Dinehart.3 Darienne DeBrule “No fantasy: Evermore Park closes its gates for good” (10 April 2024) FOX News Utah <https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/no-fantasy-evermore-park-closes-its-gates-for-good>

Continue reading What is GiantLands? Is it… a theme park? A bimonthly snack box, or phat beats?