D&D 5E Everybody's got to have a Patron deity. Where did it come from?

FarBeyondC said:

It seems like you missed a rather important sentence (with very relevant implications) in your summary of what the guidelines say.

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You mean, ‘generic content’?

My personal setting explicitly replaces polytheistic places like the Great Wheel, and the rewriting of rule content assumes my setting.

Non IP settings (ie, homebrew) is exactly what the DMs Guild is trying to discourage.



By the way, how does putting my work in DMs Guild reduce the amount of work that is necessary to unwrite and rewrite the Players Handbook?

By the way, the pdf format is extremely awkward to edit.

Does anyone know of a doc or rtf version of the 5e SRD?

Once, I tried to auto-convert the pdf to doc, but with formatting and weird image objects, the result was a mess, more difficult to fix than to retype everything by hand.

WotC cannot make homebrewing more difficult.

Yaarel said:

You might need to doublecheck the legal fineprint for DMs Guild.

Content Guidelines: ‘You cannot create content for ... personal settings, or any other D&D setting that is not specifically’ ‘Forgotten Realms’ and ‘Ravenloft’.

http://support.dmsguild.com/hc/en-us/articles/217028818-Content-Guidelines

For years now, WotC has been pushing polytheism and pushing hard.

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I did not know that, and find that stupid.

However, interesting part that you seem to have skipped.

You can create system generic content.

So, since what was referenced for you to place in DMs Guild was the rule-set sans setting specific flavor… That is entirely system generic content which is allowed under the fine print.

But, to be slightly more fair to WoTC, they aren’t pushing Polytheism, they are pushing D&D which has a long history of Polytheistic settings. For them to be pushing polytheism they would have to be putting forth an actual religion instead of a game system. The system using Polytheism heavily, but the distinction while minor is an important one to make.


Reading further down, it seems this has been addressed kind of. But I think the intent was if you put work into removing all the flavor text from the rules and put that online to sell that may earn you a profit making the time well-spent.

Yaarel said:

WotC cannot make homebrewing more difficult.

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How could they possibly make it easier?

I don’t understand this need to rewrite the PHB in order to homebrew. I made an entire Steampunk setting with mutagenic mist and massive crystal towers last summer. I’ve made, poorly I will admit, entire cultures and altered classes from the book.

I have never needed to rewrite the PHB, sure, parts of my setting look like FR, I stole a lot of names from the major powers of the cosmos just because it makes my life easier to say Pelor instead of making up a new God of Healing and I’ve stolen Orcus and Asmodeus and a lot of others. My players have barely even heard mention of any of that because they don’t care. Their more interested in the Man-Eating Faerie on the Floating Island, or the Cloud Giant Baroness who made a bet on their deaths in a maze.

I’ve made new origins for quite a few races, new cultures for most of them as well. Heck, I turned all half-orcs into orcs and have tried really hard to remove half-elves and halflings from the game.

I have three binders worth of notes plus a huge word document where I wrote the details of my world. I even have an old draft saved here on ENworld. I’ll link it. http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?470819-Chaosmancer-Homebrew-The-World-of-Arista



None of it required me to rewrite the PHB. My players only look in the PHB for rules, like can I sneak attack a creature if an ally is within 10 ft, or how much gold does a silver longsword cost. Setting information they ask me, (they never wanted packets so there has been a lot I imagine they’ve forgotten, but I’ve provided packets before and no one read them so eh) .

So seriously, I’ll ask again.

What is so egregious in the rules, not the flavor text, that requires rewriting chapters 4 thru 11 of the PHB, or even the majority of the Races or Classes?

And, even if WoTC released a book with zero flavor that you found offensive, how does that reduce the work you need to do to create your homebrewed world? I mean, your players aren’t going to be playing in a massive white room, even in a rule book with 100% setting neutral rules, you still need to add in everything the players are going to encounter.

I'll just note that while the PHB is fairly all-in on the polytheism bit, the DMG has quite a lot of discussion about how you may vary the default setup in your own setting. Check pages 10-13. This includes both monotheism, dualism, animism, and forces/philosophy.

Yaarel said:

You mean, ‘generic content’?

My personal setting explicitly replaces polytheistic places like the Great Wheel, and the rewriting of rule content assumes my setting.

Non IP settings (ie, homebrew) is exactly what the DMs Guild is trying to discourage.

By the way, how does putting my work in DMs Guild reduce the amount of work that is necessary to unwrite and rewrite the Players Handbook?

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No, no, no, DMsGuild isn't trying to discourage. It's just not supporting it. And it doesn't need to.

You say they make home-brew difficult. I think that it's never been easier. Like the d20 SRD, they are providing a free document for all to use any way they want through the OGL. That is specifically for homebrew. Do what you want with it, and publish it where you want - including for money.

In addition, they've gone a step farther. Want to write for the Forgotten Realms? Now you can. You can use any previously published material (not just the SRD) or write new material for the Realms. After CoS was released they added Ravenloft to the acceptable settings. Convert old things, steal old things, write new things. Now, in addition to all of the home-brew you could do with the OGL, you can use their IP for your home-brew products too.

They've made home-brew and 3rd party options available and easier than ever before and they've opened up their IP for anybody to use. That's pretty amazing, actually.

Does it take some work? Of course. Especially if you're somebody that doesn't like parts of the core rules themselves, you'll need to make some changes.

Of course, I wonder how much you'll need to change. You're the DM, right? Do your players object to the mere presence of text that regarding polytheism in their PHB? If not, then it's really only compiling what rules you need available. You probably don't need the rules for playing a cleric yourself, so you can excise that portion from your SRD.

I suggested making your own and publishing it on the DMsGuild because you were talking about wanting a setting neutral PHB. I think that would qualify for their guidelines. You also indicated that there were other people that were hounding WotC about making it "monotheistic friendly" which indicates to me that there are others who share your concerns.

Well, WotC has given explicit permission to do that. Somebody just has to do it. You said you'd love to play 5e, but can't using their book. If you want to excise something that is a core part of the game (and in my opinion, has been since the beginning), then you'll have to do some work, or have somebody do it for you. I didn't say it wouldn't take work, but the reality is, unless you are changing the cleric class entirely, removing what's objectionable to you in the SRD is an hour long project, if that based on the number of things I found in my prior searches.

Here's a word version of the OGL/SRD. This might be the 5.0 version, but WotC has a list of changes made to the 5.1 version.

https://github.com/gguillotte/mdsrd5/blob/master/mdsrd5.docx

The project isn't maintained anymore, so grab it while you can.

Yaarel said:

By the way, the pdf format is extremely awkward to edit.

Does anyone know of a doc or rtf version of the 5e SRD?

Once, I tried to auto-convert the pdf to doc, but with formatting and weird image objects, the result was a mess, more difficult to fix than to retype everything by hand.

WotC cannot make homebrewing more difficult.

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Name another game company that provides 80% of their system free of charge for you to do whatever you'd like with it - including make money. I'm not sure I know of any other company that makes homebrewing easier.

The pdf format is extremely easy to edit if you use the right software.

PDF to Doc has all sorts of issues with tables and such. That's normal, it's not intended to be converted in that manner, and that's a limitation of the format. From a legal standpoint, that's probably intentional, so they know that the document hasn't been edited.

But here's one that's been done for you:

https://github.com/gguillotte/mdsrd5/blob/master/mdsrd5.docx

Ilbranteloth said:

Name another game company that provides 80% of their system free of charge for you to do whatever you'd like with it - including make money. I'm not sure I know of any other company that makes homebrewing easier.

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Well, Evil Hat Productions has released a reference document of their FATE Core system under both the OGL and Creative Commons (CC-BY) licenses, so they have Wizards beat there. But your point is well taken.

Staffan said:

Well, Evil Hat Productions has released a reference document of their FATE Core system under both the OGL and Creative Commons (CC-BY) licenses, so they have Wizards beat there. But your point is well taken.

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I should have expected that one - and probably some other "indie" game systems. But they usually have a different business model altogether. I'll have to check that out too, just to learn more about their mechanics and such.

Ilbranteloth said:

But here's one that's been done for you:

https://github.com/gguillotte/mdsrd5/blob/master/mdsrd5.docx

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The doc is well done. I appreciate the link.

Heh, if only I saw it sooner. I spent the past few days trying to put an editable version of the 5e SRD together, by hand.

Oh well, at least I have a decent spell data base now.

Chaosmancer said:

I don’t understand this need to rewrite the PHB in order to homebrew. ... So seriously, I’ll ask again. What is so egregious in the rules, not the flavor text, that requires rewriting chapters 4 thru 11 of the PHB, or even the majority of the Races or Classes?

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I want a have a comprehensive set of playable D&D 5e rules − that dont refer to polytheism in any way, shape, or form.

So, I should just delete the references from the 5e products that are already out.

Easy, yes? No.

Besides the normal situation of any world-building requiring enormous work, and inconvenient issues like trying to edit a pdf, here is the situation.

The legal department at WotC intentionally created two tracks for how to use the D&D 5e system.

One track is, you must use the Forgotten Realms setting (with all of its polytheism), and if you do, you can freely access everything else in all the other 5e publications, the entire Players Handbook, the Elemental pdf, the DMG, the Monster Manual and other monster books, the Sword Coast and other setting publications, all the adventures, everything that WotC has to offer. You can even make money if you contribute to the Forgotten Realms setting, selling your work in the DMs Guild. As long as the work conforms to this world of polytheism, you have a wealth of resources to enjoy.

If, on the other track, you are creating your own homebrew campaign setting, too different from the Forgotten Realms setting, then you get bare bones. The 5e SRD pdf. And that is it.

Of course, if all of your efforts are strictly for your own personal use, you can do what you want.

But if the work that you are doing for your campaign world, is serious, longterm, public, or who knows, later monetizable, then you need to be careful about the legal status of what you are doing. You cannot mix your homebrew setting with *any* IP content in any D&D 5e product, except the 5e SRD. Because. If you do, the D&D police really will come to your door, and tell you that you are doing it wrong. Namely, the WotC lawyers with cease-and-desists, or worse.

I understand why WotC is doing this. It is a good business model, compromising between complex issues, mostly for mutual benefit.

The problem is. There is no safety valve for me. The only WotC setting that is legally permissible at this time is Forgotten Realms. It is precisely the setting that I dont want because of its polytheism. So have no access any D&D 5e product but the SRD.

For example, the only feat that I am allowed to use in my homebrew monotheistic setting, is the Grappler feat. I have to make up all of my own feats.

And the only background that I am legally allowed to use for my monotheistic setting, is the Acolyte background that says the character is a polytheist who is especially dedicated to a ‘pantheon’ of gods. Heh, how annoying is that!

All of the classic D&D spells are in the SRD, yet I look at the Elemental adventure spells that I like that I cannot use. I will have to design my own elemental spells.

In order to make my monotheistic campaign happen, I have to build mostly everything from scratch, honoring the same legal conditions that indy publishers have to comply with.

At this time, it is not my plan to become an indy designer. I just want to play some D&D. Any effort that do towards this play, I want to freely share with others.

This is an overwhelming investment, just to play a game.

I just want a campaign setting that has nothing to do with gods. And it is really is hard to do.


I have to rewrite the entire set of rules from scratch.