D&D Basic Rules Website - A Handy Browseable Resource!

A decade ago, we had online System Reference Documents. Paizo has its online Pathfinder Reference Document. And now there's the brand new official D&D Basic Rules website! That's right - the 5th Edition basic rules online for free in an easily navigable web format. (Thanks to Jester Canuck for spotting it!) That's not the PDF you already have - it's browseable online resource.

I don't know how long it's been there; I assume it's brand new. You can find it right here! And it's a marvellous thing, indeed! It even appears to have a nifty mobile device format, making the D&D rules accessible at a moment's notice just like we've become accustomed to with other games.

(This post originally by Jester Canuck; promoted to article and edited by Morrus).
 

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I heard that the whole OGL is actually the result of some some "insidious" group inside the company trying to "protect D&D from the suits" even if it's to the detriment of their own employer. They wanted to "protect D&D for the gamers" and convinced WotC's decision makers that it all was just to increase sales, while it really only was to make sure that WotC could never fully take back what's once in the OGL

We saw a D20 flood, but how much it really increased WotC's profits (before Pathfinder, mind you, if we include Pathfinder it was a big loss and something that Wotc surely never wants to see repeated) is questionable.

How many of the alternate D20 systems were just played with their respective books and the SRD and never sold a PHB?

How many people, like me for example, never bought the 3.5 PHB since the 3.0 PHB + SRD was enough to have all neccesary changes?
The d20 flood was mostly good for WotC, as most accessories fed sales of the core books. Only a few lines went to the trouble of releasing their own versions of the rulebooks, so the core books still sold. And since WotC didn't need to market those side books it was free advertising for the d20 system and D&D. The 3rd Party books could also target niches D&D could not, bringing those people into the d20 fold. Plus it's easier to get people to move over to D&D when they're familiar with the game from having played a different d20 system game.

This worked after all: in the end they sold more PHBs during 3.0 than they did during 2e and 4e.

There's also the quality component.
3PP released products that WotC could look at and evaluate, allowing them to hire the best people. It was a way for them to hire trained and experienced writers familiar with the game. Mike Mearls started on 3PP.
It did have the planned result of protecting the game. Because the system could never go away any replacements for 3e had to be *better* and not just assume people would upgrade. Future systems had to win over the fans. Because of that WotC has to try harder but the end product is superior, which helps win over people on the fence.

And, in the end, it's better to have your competitors making products for your game system than their own.
 

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First, kudos to WotC for getting this out there. Now I'm going to complain about it, because I'm a gamer and that's what I do. :)

The layout is obviously optimized for viewing on a phone. Makes sense they'd do it that way, but it makes it deeply frustrating to use as a web page; too much clicking around to get to the data. I wish they'd spent a bit more time tweaking the large-sized layout to provide more data in less space. And for the love of Demogorgon, can we get rid of the animations and the zipping-around when you click on something?

Also, hyperlinks. Hyperlinks hyperlinks hyperlinks. Class names, spell names, race names, conditions, all should be linked to the appropriate spot. This is one of the great strengths of d20srd.org, and the process of setting up those hyperlinks can be mostly (though not entirely) automated.

Still, as a first release it ain't bad. I hope they find the resources to polish it instead of just leaving it as is.
 

I think they built it the way they did so you cant directly reference or link to a particular spot or rule from another website.


edit: there are a few spots that have links in the body of the text.
 
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And now it works.

How did you get the numbers to append to the link for specific locations?

Edit: never mind...I used inspect element and found them.
 




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