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).

 

[Alzrius]

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.

Minor correction here, but using the OGL in and of itself does not forbid that. You can see the full text of the OGL v1.0a over here and it doesn't disallow any such terms.

Now, the 3.5 SRD (in its "Legal" file) does declare several names to be Product Identity, which include places such as "Gray Waste of Hades," "Peaceable Kingdoms of Arcadia," and "Blessed Fields of Elysium," among others. But there's nothing there which forbids simply calling a place "Arcadia," "Elysium," "Hades," etc. It's why Pathfinder can put a plane called Elysium among its own Open Game Content.

(As a tangential note, those Product Identity listings doesn't seem to be in the 3.0 SRD.)

 

[overgeeked]

ORCUS is incredibly impressive, but it isn't a retroclone in the same sense that OSRIC is, because it had to rename and re-do everything. Not only is "Tide of Iron" not in the game, there isn't a class called "Fighter". Legally, you can't do something like Tales of the Valiant or Advanced 5e with 4th edition. If you could, that might be very interesting.

Which is weird because you’re missing far more in the SRDs that you’d need to make OD&D, B/X, BECMI, AD&D, and 2E retroclones and yet they’re all out there. Recreating the old saving throw tables and race-as-class is far more iffy in regards to what’s in the SRD.

To makes a 4E clone you’d need to rework the warlock slightly and use that as the class design of everyone and you’d need combat roles for PCs and monsters…and that’s about it.

 

[see]

That they aren't going to dual-license 5.2 under the OGL is the next thing to meaningless. CC-BY 4.0 is quite permissive, and it's very easy to use material released under it with OGL material (ask your lawyer if you're vague on it). If you're used to the open source software world, it's roughly analogous to combining three-clause BSD (CC-BY 4.0) code with GPL 2.0 (OGL 1.0a) code.

(Combining CC-BY-SA and OGL would be likely impossible, for all that both licenses have basically the same share-alike goal. The fact that CC-BY does not have share-alike provisions is why it is pretty comfortably compatible with the OGL.)

Note that technically, 4e did have an SRD (for use with the GSL). I've got a copy, and you can grab it from the Internet Archive. It's just an eighty-page list of names and layout templates, but it might be nice for some people if it was dropped under CC BY 4.0. It would at least make it somewhat easier to release 4th edition adventures.

Therefore, there have been four pre-5th edition WotC SRDs made public at some point -- the original (3rd edition) SRD, the Modern SRD, the Revised (3.5) SRD, and the 4th Edition SRD. Even 3 and 3.5 would be enough to technically justify pluralizing "editions", but hoping for all four SRDs doesn't seem unreasonable.

(I wouldn't particularly hold my breath expecting WotC to go and create new SRDs based on pre-3rd editions, or expand the existing 4e SRD. They might, but . . . )

 

[Eyes of Nine]

What they say is irrelevant, what they do is what matters.

This. And applies to us all, notwithstanding the time we all spend talking here on ENW.

 

[Chaltab]

Familiarity mostly. I know the OGL, I don't know CC. I would rather stick with what I know. Also, IIRC, it is trickier to exclude things from CC than it is the OGL.

Okay but to be clear, you don't need to worry about that. For the purposes of publishing content, all you have to do is quote the citation that appears at the start of the CC SRD.

Your own content can be released under any license you want, including the OGL, ORC, or no license at all.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Yay!

Familiarity mostly. I know the OGL, I don't know CC. I would rather stick with what I know. Also, IIRC, it is trickier to exclude things from CC than it is the OGL.

it’s worth learning how CC works. CC BY is much more flexible than the OGL for downstream producers.

 

[SlyFlourish]

This. There's 25 years of stuff out there under OGL: some in active development, some abandoned; some D&D, and some completely different systems and/or genres.

You can include stuff from a CC BY released document within an OGL document. The former doesn’t exclude the latter. You can’t, however go the other way. You can’t release OGL material under a CC BY since the OGL is more restrictive.

That’s why the CC BY is a better license for downstream producers.

 

[Alzrius]

That’s why the CC BY is a better license for downstream producers.

On the other hand, if a publisher uses CC BY material to create derivative work, they're under no obligation to release that work as being itself open. If they don't, that means that producers further downstream aren't allowed to use said derivative work, even though they would have been if the same scenario had occurred under the OGL. Hence why the OGL is the better license for the RPG community.

 

[Reynard]

Hence why the OGL is the better license for the RPG community.

Well, it is why ORC is better, because share-alike is required, right? Many OGL publishers (not least monte Cook) refused to put anything original into Open Content.

 

[Alzrius]

Well, it is why ORC is better, because share-alike is required, right? Many OGL publishers (not least monte Cook) refused to put anything original into Open Content.

I remember a lot of the "crippled content" that Monte Cook released; while he withheld everything he reasonably could (e.g. the names of monsters), you could at least use things like stat blocks, so it wasn't a total loss...even if it seemed needlessly petty.

As far as the ORC License goes, I do think that its requirement that derivative content be open is an unequivocably good thing. I just wish that Paizo allowed for that with Pathfinder Infinite, instead of expressly forbidding it (which wasn't the case for OGL material released under Pathfinder Infinite).