Nikosandros
Golden Procrastinator
IIRC, they said that they would announce licensing for fan material and/or companies in early 2015. No specifics though and no announcement about an SRD.
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The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
D&D 5E SRD5 - A Clone of Part of D&D 5E Basic
- Thread starter Sanglorian
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The post in question only mentioned fan materials.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20140529
I don't believe they've made much official statement about commercial licensing.
I seem to recall there was some kind of clarification--Mearls's Twitter feed maybe?--that commercial licensing of some kind was also in the works, but it was very short on details.
I liked srd5, I hope you or someone else does something like it again soon. I am a big believer in open content, and free distribution of material. OGL is/was an amazing thing, I love the 13th Age SRD, Pathfinder SRD, etc...
From my understanding game mechanics can not be copyrighted only proper names and such, if that is so I hope someone uses Basic 5e and comes out with a comparable game sooner rather than later.
From my understanding game mechanics can not be copyrighted only proper names and such, if that is so I hope someone uses Basic 5e and comes out with a comparable game sooner rather than later.
I don't know about any clarifications. I would be surprised if there weren't some licensing plans in the works, but I haven't seen any definitive dates.
That being said, the need to rush to get to market with new materials is somewhat overblown, IMHO. We haven't seen the PHB yet. We haven't seen the DMG. Products rushed to print now are at hefty risk of being made obsolete shortly.
Game mechanics cannot be copyrighted, but the specific text used to present those mechanics most certainly can be. You can't just copy-paste Basic D&D and call it open content. You have to rewrite everything in your own words.
Wholesale copying the names of the mechanics is something you'd want to be real careful about, too. Things like ability scores and (most) spell names are covered by the original OGL. But backgrounds, ideals, flaws, and bonds are not OGL; you're relying on "fair use" under copyright law for those.
Bottom line: The original OGL provides a safe harbor for 3E material, not 5E material. You really, really don't want to try creating "open 5E" without advice from a genuine lawyer with genuine expertise in IP law. If you just wade in on your own, you are doing the equivalent of jumping into the ring at an MMA tournament and swinging your fists around.
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Sacrosanct
Legend
I suspect that WoTC has been preemptive with knowing what they can protect, and have already secured rights on terms like "passive perception", "bonds/ideals/flaws", and maybe even "advantage/disadvantage" if those terms haven't been used previously.
kenmarable
Hero
On the bright side, now this serves as a nice example of the community self-policing in a way. So the wilds of open gaming may be a bit rough and tumble out here, but when someone goes too far, it looks like they get called out on it pretty quickly without the need of the legal hammer coming down. In hindsight, sure it was a clear example of what NOT to do, but also an example of how the open gaming community can react to correct these things rather than encourage them.
Nellisir
Hero
I'm not sure how WotC could "secure rights" on those terms, unless you mean trademarks, which would have to be registered and are usually pretty central to a core idea or premise of a product. "Forgotten Realms" is worthy of trademark status, not "flaw", which is a term in common use.
That said, I'm pretty sure all of those things already exist within the OGL milieu of games and supplements - you just need to find them and bring them together.
trancejeremy
Adventurer
Blood & Treasure used advantage/disadvantage before 5e did, and I seem to remember the author being nonplussed (its original meaning) when it showed up in 5e (somewhat different, but the same concept).
Backgrounds were in more than one OGL game, but OGL Ancients comes to mind as one of them. Also Blue Rose
Flaws was actually released as open content by Wizards themselves, in Unearthed Arcana, though not in the 5e sense (more like anti-feats) and I can't find anything like Ideals or Bonds. But the general system of Ideals/Flaws/Bonds seems to be lifted from other games.
Anyway, it's sort of amusing that it's okay for Necromancer to do this, but not some random guy on the internet? Because Necromancer is surely just doing it out of the goodness of their heart, not the tens of thousands of dollars they are raking in on their Kickstarter...following in the footsteps of the Creature Collection, which was rushed out by the same people before the Monster Manual was released.
Indeed, the Creature Collection seemed to set the tone for d20, that it was better to churn out really crappy products quickly than to produce a few quality products. It's amazing people are so eager to see history repeat itself...
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