Paizo


Paizo Inc. is an American publishing company in Redmond, Washington that originally specialized in game aids and adventures for Dungeons & Dragons and now produces its own flagship spin-off game and setting, Pathfinder. Prior to 2014, the company was known as Paizo Publishing. The company's name is derived from the Greek word paizō, which means 'I play' or 'to play'. Paizo also runs an online retail store selling role-playing games, gaming aids, board games, comic books, toys, clothing and other products, and has an Internet forum community. The current CEO of Paizo is Lisa Stevens.

History

Paizo was formed by Lisa Stevens, Vic Wertz, and Johnny Wilson in 2002 to take over publication of Dragon and Dungeon magazines, formerly published in-house by Wizards of the Coast. Publisher Erik Mona is former Editor-in-Chief of Dragon. The former Editor-in-Chief of Dungeon is James Jacobs, who is now Creative Director overseeing various Pathfinder accessories.
The company started producing a bimonthly magazine called Undefeated in 2003, and in 2004 resurrected the venerable science fiction title Amazing Stories. The two publications were placed on hiatus in 2005, and finally canceled in 2006.
In early 2007, Wizards of the Coast announced it would not renew Paizo's license to publish Dragon and Dungeon, leaving a seven year run from September 2002 to September 2007.
Paizo announced on March 18, 2008, that they would be launching the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Through the new product line, Paizo would modify, update, maintain, and publish the 3.5 System Reference Document. The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game would also support Paizo's Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting. In March 2008 Paizo also announced that it was introducing an organized play program called "Pathfinder Society Organized Play". The program was loosely modeled on the RPGAs "Living" campaigns. It releases 28 scenarios each year for members to purchase. Scenarios are short adventures meant to be completed within four to five hours.
Paizo's flagship product line, Pathfinder Adventure Path, continues the Adventure Path concept featured in Dungeon: monthly installments of adventures that tell a self-contained story. Additional products set in the Pathfinder campaign setting include Pathfinder Modules, Pathfinder Campaign Setting, Pathfinder Tales Novels, and Pathfinder Player Companion.
Up until 2013, the company was called Paizo Publishing. From 2014, it called itself Paizo Inc.
In May 2016, Paizo announced a new sci-fi roleplaying game, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, scheduled for release in August 2017. The game was released on August 17, 2017.
In May 2018, Paizo announced it was working on Pathfinder Second Edition to refine elements of the rule set to reflect feedback and clarification on the original system over the prior years. The preliminary ruleset was published in August 2018 as Pathfinder Playtest so that players could test out and provide feedback. The final rule set was released on August 1, 2019.
On June 15, 2020, Paizo announced CEO Lisa Stevens was going to step down from daily operations in preparation for her retirement.
Other Paizo products include the Titanic Games line of boardgames such as Kill Doctor Lucky, and the Planet Stories line of classic fantasy, science fiction and science fantasy novels.