D&D 5E Free5e on Kickstarter

[SlyFlourish]

Dale Critchley of Wyrmworks Publishing launched the Free5e Kickstarter today:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wyrmworkspublishing/free5e-a-free-open-source-dungeons-and-dragons-alternative

The intent is to build three full core books for 5e that are 100% Creative Commons and able to be printed anywhere in the world. This significantly helps countries whose economics are far different than other countries (A D&D 2024 PHB is the equivalent of $500 in India for example).

Dale is using the funding for art, editing, layout and the rest. The Kickstarter rewards include lots of accessories since the books themselves will be released digitally for free in a huge host of formats intended to help usability and accessibility.

It looks like an absolutely fantastic project to take 5e outside of the bounds of any one publisher and get it into the hands of everyone it can.

Much of the source material for this book comes from Level Up Advanced 5e. Thanks to Morrus for releasing the largest 5e system in the CC. A bunch of my own material, also released in the CC, is in these books as well but I'm receiving no compensation for this. I'm just happy to help promote it.

Anyway, take a look.

 

[jayoungr]

This sounds like a great project. Thanks for notifying us of it.

To be clear: these books will contain a mixture of WotC-originating and third party content?

 

[Scribe]

Nice idea, but this seems like a really hard sell? If the stuff is already in CC (and it is) and it doesnt even provide books, you have to get them printed on your own?

I get the idea, but yeah, I wish them luck.

 

[Belen]

Nice idea, but this seems like a really hard sell? If the stuff is already in CC (and it is) and it doesnt even provide books, you have to get them printed on your own?

I get the idea, but yeah, I wish them luck.

The rewards should include a discount code for POD versions.

 

[Retreater]

From the Kickstarter:

"Multiple accessible formats: Accessible dyslexia-friendly PDF, ePub, digital braille (BRF), audio, markdown, plain text with CSV tables, docx, what else do you need?"

Really, this is a wonderful idea to make the hobby more accessible.
Best of luck to them.

 

[mamba]

Nice idea, but this seems like a really hard sell? If the stuff is already in CC (and it is) and it doesnt even provide books, you have to get them printed on your own?

I am surprised that there are no printed books, just ‘swag’, would have expected some book tier, maybe even standard and deluxe

I hope it takes stuff from a variety of sources / adds their own stuff rather than being 85% or so A5e

 

[Scribe]

I am surprised that there are no printed books, just ‘swag’, would have expected some book tier, maybe even standard and deluxe

I hope it takes stuff from a variety of sources / adds their own stuff rather than being 85% or so A5e

Right? I dont know.

5
5.5
LevelUp
Tales of the Valiant

I dont know. Feels like a whole lot of stuff that is really the same in tone, and obviously core material, to expect to buy in again in such a short time.

I get the idea of a 'free' from corporate version, and its a noble goal, but its not doing anything close to enough to stand out or offer a reason to support beyond that good will.

At least not at a look.

 

[SlyFlourish]

The rewards should include a discount code for POD versions.

My understanding is that they will come with the discount codes for the POD by default. That's the intent of the whole project. Make it as cheap as possible for people to play 5e worldwide.

 

[rhythmsoundmotion]

The key for me is foreign language translation.
There are very few complete and "bring to the table and play" tabletop RPGs that can be translated into any language desired.

 

[Morrus]

I am surprised that there are no printed books, just ‘swag’, would have expected some book tier, maybe even standard and deluxe

Well then it wouldn’t be free. It would just be another commercial 5E variant.

I did wonder when I heard about this how you could have a Kickstarter for something free. It’s definitely going to be harder to get people to back it when the actual product will be available for free afterwards. Good luck to them!

Of course the content is already free out there in the form of SRDs, so what they’re raising funds for is basically art and layout.