D&D 5E Expected Additions to SRD 1.2

[BryonD]

Under Sorcerous Origin it lists "Wild Magic", so it seems that clearly allows you to reference it.
Without getting into the murky "play nice" issues, you can easily reconstruct anything that is missing, so long as you work around names which are not available.

I think you could produce a "complete book of subraces" and include renamed subraces for the missing ones. (with some care on wording)
You could even do a "left behind subraces" which was purely clones of the missing stuff. (Certainly straying from "playing nice")

Obviously reprinting the "Wild Magic Surge" table is out of bounds for now.
Sitting down and rephrasing the whole thing would be allowable, but on the "not playing nice" list.
Referencing "Wild Magic" as part of new mechanics would be perfectly ok (again, without reprinting non-SRD stuff)
A Wild Mage NPC could easily exist, it just wouldn't be self-contained in the 3PP product. Which is fine.
A product called 10,000 Wild Magic Effects which replaced the Surge table would be easy to do, and I suspect WotC wouldn't blink over that (assuming a truly honest new list)

I don't claim to be an expert and obviously I don't know exactly why WotC went this way. Happy to be corrected.

 

[DEFCON 1]

For the most part, missing sub-classes aren't a big deal. A 3pp player-focused product should be about adding new options, new classes, new sub-classes, etc, not old ones. But, a few sub-classes have unique mechanics that could have other uses, and could have been a better choice for inclusion. Going with Champion rather than Battlemaster, for instance, means CS dice and maneuvers are out of bounds. Which is too bad, they had a lot of potential to 'build off,' either to add more meaningful options for the Battlemaster at higher level, or to expand into more interesting martial classes. The last UA used variations on CS dice in two fighter sub-classes, for instance. A 3pp couldn't do anything similar, with just the Champion to work from. Same goes for Wild Magic, it's only found in the missing Sorcerer sub-class, but it has a lot of potential uses - magic items, artifacts, magical accidents, chaos zones or whatnot - D&D magic is usually very dependable and predictable, locking away the best example of the opposite we have in 5e is unduly limiting. I suppose the Wand of Wonder could always be an alternate starting point for that though.

Backgrounds, OTOH, don't seem like a problem. Can't use the Soldier background? Substitute an Officer or Legionnaire or Mercenary or Militia background.

I wouldn't be surprised actually if they intentionally left out the sub-classes for whom they themselves actually would prefer to make "new stuff" for. That was one of the original issues we say in the 3E era... all kinds of things WotC might've wanted to publish books about further down the line had already been done many times over by other third-party publishers.

But as it stands now... only they get to make new 'Battlemaster Maneuvers' (mentioned as such). Only they get to make new 'Totem Warrior' animal styles. Only they get to expand on the 'Wild Surge' table. Only they get to make new animals which can be specifically mentioned as being compatible to the 'Circle of the Moon' druid for wildshaping, and the 'Beastmaster' ranger for companions.

I have to think that was probably intentional-- keeping some 5E design space open for themselves to play in that others can't. Everybody else has free reign to go in any other direction... but these few popular things are still theirs.

 

[Beleriphon]

I was a bit surprised by only the Grappler feat being included, but then it hit me. It is included as an example, and as a format so that when somebody wants to include feats in their product they don't have to skirt around what exactly they do how they interact with other rules. The SRD is now exactly what it should be, a reference document for people to make their own content, rather than what amounts to a complete game.

 

[delericho]

Under Sorcerous Origin it lists "Wild Magic", so it seems that clearly allows you to reference it.

Ah. A poorly chosen example. Sorry.

But substitute Battlemaster maneuvers for Wild Surges, and I think the logic still holds - I don't think (though I may be wrong) that WotC particularly wanted to block people from referencing those for splatbook purposes, but not opening the names has that effect. So if they were to open up those names, that would certainly be a nice-to-have.

But, again, I'm cool with them keeping it closed if that really was their intent.

 

[Awesome Adam]

I don't think it is. If they'd wanted to force people doing, say, splatbooks to use the DMguild, they wouldn't have bothered with the OGL at all. As it is, they're clearly relaxed about people publishing stuff outwith their appstore.

I can certainly understand them wanting to keep the mechanics of, say, Wild Mages locked up so people can't use them. But I suspect locking up the names and so making things like splatbooks that much harder may well be an unintended side-effect.

Game mechanics are not protected under copyright but names can be.

If "Wild Mage" were in the SRD, then by OGL you could publish your own "Wild Mage" rules.

The OGL and DMguild serve simialr but different purposes.
The OGL lets you do your own thing, that's compatible with D&D, but may or may not fit into the established D&D universe
The DMguild let's you make things for the established D&D universe, in a slightly more official manner.

D&D already has Wild Mage rules, as a subclass, in the official setting. They don't need, or want, you to write new ones, and they don't want you using Wild Mages in your own, not D&D, RPGs that you may publish under the OGL.

Anything they include in the SRD is free for you to plunder in your own RPG.

PATHFINDER is D&D's biggest rival in the RPG market and they allowed it by creating the OGL and SRD, and this time around they are being more selective about what makes it into the SRD.

 

[BryonD]

Ah. A poorly chosen example. Sorry.

But substitute Battlemaster maneuvers for Wild Surges, and I think the logic still holds - I don't think (though I may be wrong) that WotC particularly wanted to block people from referencing those for splatbook purposes, but not opening the names has that effect. So if they were to open up those names, that would certainly be a nice-to-have.

But, again, I'm cool with them keeping it closed if that really was their intent.

Yeah, and I'm onboard with your position.
Though with the caveat that since you can't truly close the content, closign the names seems odd.

But I also don't want to come across as negative. This is all great news. WotC are the good guys here.

But their good will and intent may be one thing and the OGL realities yet another.
Welcome to the internet. Someone will do everything just because they feel like they have been told not to. And WotC knows that.

 

[delericho]

But I also don't want to come across as negative. This is all great news. WotC are the good guys here.

Quoted because it's worth repeating...

 

[empireofchaos]

So let's say you're designing something that falls between a new setting and a new game (though closer to the former). It has nothing to do with FR or any other setting that Wizards (or TSR before it) have ever published, it has its own cosmology (planes, deities) and social set-up, generally a unique catalog of races, creatures and magic items, but it largely draws on the basic rules (abilities, combat, classes, level progression, spells) as the rules/SRD. What would be the best strategy to incorporate some of the existing classes and paths if you don't want to run afoul of the OGL? Changing names is a minor issue (easy to do, but doesn't solve the underlying problem), and it would not be an issue of reprinting/plagiarizing/stealing material, but simply indicating that this class, e.g., exists in the setting?

 

[I'm A Banana]

I don't particularly agree with this. Pushing the envelope is a good thing, since that's how we got stuff like OSRIC, which lead to an Old School Renaissance that, in turn, helped to shape attitudes that themselves helped to shape 5E.

Well, I did say that the safest thing is not to go there. Pushing the envelope is by definition, not the safest thing.

In all honesty, I don't think that's the key question at all. In fact, I find that to be the least important question that could possibly be asked. It implies that there needs to be some sort of good reason to do something. Maybe when you're cloning dinosaurs you should be more concerned with if you should than if you could, but I don't find any similar sort of impetus for wondering about whether or not something should be tried when it comes to pushing the limits of the OGL (so long as you don't violate the terms of the license, of course).

I mean, if you're going to push the limits of the OGL, I'm pretty sure the reasons why would be pretty important. There needs to be a good reason to do anything in life.

Again, I disagree with this. The proliferation of "almost-like's" when trying to recreate something that isn't Open strikes me as something that causes more confusion than anything else, since you have instances of something that's very similar to what's in the PHB but technically using different rules, which are easily forgotten and lead to questions of "wait, are we using what's in the PHB, or this?" Far better to just recreate the original material if that can be done within the bounds of what's Open Game Content.

Speaking as a consumer, page count that is spent re-hashing what's in the PHB is wasted page count. That's time and money and effort that could be spent doing something more useful and valuable.

 

[delericho]

So let's say you're designing something that falls between a new setting and a new game (though closer to the former). It has nothing to do with FR or any other setting that Wizards (or TSR before it) have ever published, it has its own cosmology (planes, deities) and social set-up, generally a unique catalog of races, creatures and magic items, but it largely draws on the basic rules (abilities, combat, classes, level progression, spells) as the rules/SRD.

Okay...

What would be the best strategy to incorporate some of the existing classes and paths if you don't want to run afoul of the OGL? Changing names is a minor issue (easy to do, but doesn't solve the underlying problem), and it would not be an issue of reprinting/plagiarizing/stealing material, but simply indicating that this class, e.g., exists in the setting?

Honestly, you're probably best not doing so at all. That way, a DM who wants to run your setting can choose to allow a Battlerager, or not, as he sees fit. It also has the advantage that when the edition updates (or the DM moves to another game entirely) the book remains more compatible - there are fewer mechanic to become obsolete.

The one place where you might previously have had to do that was NPC stat-blocks, where perhaps Caesar is best represented as a level 10 Warlord. However, since 5e doesn't use PC-style stat-blocks for NPCs anyway, there's no reason to do this - he may well have powers similar to those granted by that level of that class, but he's best statted up as a monster anyway, so you don't need that word.

I guess the point where it becomes tricky is where you need some race (or subrace) that isn't opened - perhaps you need Forest Gnomes* in your setting. In which case I would suggest either considering whether you really need them, or generating a near-clone that is open (Woodland Gnomes!) and using that instead.

(Also, bear in mind that since this is the same OGL as has been around for years, there's a whole library of open content that you can use with impunity. So chances are someone has already published an open version of whatever you need.)

* Of course, Forest Gnomes aren't a great example either, since the name isn't really something WotC can claim with any great authority. But I needed an example, so there it is.

Important note: I am not a lawyer. If you're serious about publishing, you'll want to consult one.