D&D (2024) WotC Announces April 22 Release For 2024 System Reference Documents

The System Reference Document 5.2--the tool which helps developers create third-party content using the Dungeons & Dragons core rules engine--will be released under the Creative Commons license on April 22nd.

Additionally, Wizards of the Coast will publish a Conversion Guide for updating game content from the 2014 edition to the 2024 edition. This guide will arrive at a later date.

The Free Rules document on D&D Beyond will also be updated with new D&D Beyond Basic Rules (2024).

The older 5.1 SRD, which is based on the 2014 edition of D&D, will also remain available under both Creative Commons and the Open Game License (OGL).

More information will be available on April 22nd, when the new SRD is released.

A copy of each System Reference Document is stored independently at A5ESRD.com, which includes the 5.1 SRD, the revised 3.5 SRD, and other System Reference Documents (including the enormous A5E SRD).

 

[Morrus]

It sounds like they're clarifying that they never said they'd actually do it (which certainly seems true), which is often the sort of clarification you make when you're expecting pushback on future actions.

That’s not what it says.

It says they’d review the content to remove IP like ‘Tiamat’, not that they’d review whether or not they’d do it at all.

 

[J.Quondam]

They can’t revoke the OGL They couldn’t then, and they can’t now.

That's good to know. I know they backtracked when they brought it up, but it wasn't clear to me how much of that was "legal reasons" versus "bad PR."

 

[Reynard]

It sounds like they're clarifying that they never said they'd actually do it (which certainly seems true), which is often the sort of clarification you make when you're expecting pushback on future actions.

Imagine be 10 years old and you remind your dad that he promised you were going to McDonald's for dinner. "I said I would think about it," he replies, reaching into the cabinet for the lima beans...

 

[Micah Sweet]

That’s not what it says.

It says they’d review the content to remove IP like ‘Tiamat’, not that they’d review whether or not they’d do it at all.

View attachment 402600

That seems to me to leave wiggle room on actually putting them in the CC, upon review.

 

[Art Waring]

From the first Community Update we put out, we said we would review them. Future Community Updates gave a somewhat more defined timeline (after Core Rulebook and SRD 5.2 releases), but that's always been what we've said.

Appreciate the update, but for those of us who have been following this closely, we have been waiting since Kyle Brink announced that wotc would release the 3.0/3.5 SRD into the CC, back in December of 2023. He said that there was no reason that it wouldn't be released in 2024.

Over a year later, we are still waiting for wotc to fulfill their promise to the community.

Here is an interview with Kyle Brink, timestamped to the relevant part of the conversation.

I do understand your position, but I also think that this is taking a step back, rather than a step forward.

"But that's always been what we've said" is false. Those who have followed the events of the OGL crisis have seen wotc change their stance so many times that this simply cannot be true.

Furthermore, what is left to review? I am very familiar with the 3rd Edition SRD's, and there are no traces of any of wotc's intellectual property (you removed everything from beholders to displacer beasts from the SRD. Using the OGL license even forbids you from using real world historic terms like Hades, Arcadia, Elysium, and so on), as I am pretty certain that wotc hired copyright lawyers to go over this over two decades ago when the SRD was first released to the public.

If there was anything in the 3rd Edition SRD's that could have threatened wotc's IP, they could have made their move to revoke the OGL sooner, rather than over 24 years later. Not to mention that for those of us who have been using the SRD for this long, we are fully aware of the D20 STL revocation (you revoked it, doing significant damage to the publishers using that license, also doing significant harm to LGS' at the time many went out of business).

We also watched as wotc released the 4th edition GSL (the worst poison-pill license, up until the release of the 1.1 OGL). From the perspective of someone who has been watching this behavior from wotc decades, this is nothing new. If you want to get back on the same page as the publishers that have supported you for 24 years, I think it would be productive to not treat us like we have no memory of wotc's previous actions towards the publishing community.

The 1.1 OGL was not the first time, nor will it likely be the last that this will happen. And many of us remember, because we were personally affected by wotc's policies.

 

[Morrus]

That seems to me to leave wiggle room on actually putting them in the CC, upon review.

It sounds like you’re creating the wiggle room.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It sounds like you’re creating the wiggle room.

Maybe you're right. I guess we'll just have to see what happens.

 

[Reynard]

Appreciate the update, but for those of us who have been following this closely, we have been waiting since Kyle Brink announced that wotc would release the 3.0/3.5 SRD into the CC, back in December of 2023. He said that there was no reason that it wouldn't be released in 2024.

Over a year later, we are still waiting for wotc to fulfill their promise to the community.

Here is an interview with Kyle Brink, timestamped to the relevant part of the conversation.

I do understand your position, but I also think that this is taking a step back, rather than a step forward.

"But that's always been what we've said" is false. Those who have followed the events of the OGL crisis have seen wotc change their stance so many times that this simply cannot be true.

Furthermore, what is left to review? I am very familiar with the 3rd Edition SRD's, and there are no traces of any of wotc's intellectual property (you removed everything from beholders to displacer beasts from the SRD. Using the OGL license even forbids you from using real world historic terms like Hades, Arcadia, Elysium, and so on), as I am pretty certain that wotc hired copyright lawyers to go over this over two decades ago when the SRD was first released to the public.

If there was anything in the 3rd Edition SRD's that could have threatened wotc's IP, they could have made their move to revoke the OGL sooner, rather than over 24 years later. Not to mention that for those of us who have been using the SRD for this long, we are fully aware of the D20 STL revocation (you revoked it, doing significant damage to the publishers using that license, also doing significant harm to LGS' at the time many went out of business).

We also watched as wotc released the 4th edition GSL (the worst poison-pill license, up until the release of the 1.1 OGL). From the perspective of someone who has been watching this behavior from wotc decades, this is nothing new. If you want to get back on the same page as the publishers that have supported you for 24 years, I think it would be productive to not treat us like we have no memory of wotc's previous actions towards the publishing community.

The 1.1 OGL was not the first time, nor will it likely be the last that this will happen. And many of us remember, because we were personally affected by wotc's policies.

Huzzah.

 

[mamba]

But would that include even 4e D&D?

there is no older SRD for 4e, so based on how it is phrased, I'd say no

 

[mamba]

I could have swore that back when they announced the SRDs being moved to CC they were going to release all previous editions with their own SRDs to it as well.

no, they said they were thinking about releasing the old SRDs under CC and maybe that they would consider new SRDs for old editions (forgot the exact wording), but they certainly never promised more than a 'look into it'