D&D (2024) [+] Future of The SRD Speculation Thread

[Parmandur]

Apparently Chris Perkins said at the Summit, "Any mechanical changes will be brought into the SRD so you won't have to buy the new books for the mechanic changes." I wonder what they imagine when they say mechanical changes as opposed to alternatives. (For example, they might include new rules for exhaustion, but revised classes are omitted as they are simply "alternatives" to the 2014 classes.)

It seems pretty clear to me they mean there, they want to make playing easy. The selling point of the books is the art and utility at the table, not the rules. Same as the selling point of Beyond is the utility, the service.

 

[see]

I do grant that WotC never came out and explicitly said, in so many words . . .

"We're trying to patch up pubic relations after our missteps around the OGL. And, of course, we want to do that at minimal expense and effort (that's why we went with CC-BY so suddenly, after all, it was faster and cheaper than revising the OGL again). And we see some people are still worried we might, years from now, revive the de-authorization theory to go after OGL-licensed games derived from our released-in-2003 SRDs. So we're just going to assign someone, as their fifth priority or something, to check those older SRDs for anything that we wouldn't want to release under CC-BY, and when that eventually is done, then we'll license them that way.
"Of course we're not going through the 4th edition rules and producing a usable SRD for that edition. That would be much more expense and effort than reviewing the existing OGL-licensed SRDs, and it wouldn't be addressing the concerns of outsiders that we might go after existing games. That goes as well for the TSR versions of D&D, which would be even harder to make SRDs for, and since they generally have serviceable 'Open' retroclones already, based on the released-in-2003 SRDs that we're already going to CC-BY."

. . . but that's what I always understood them as saying. I'd count it lucky if pages 4-84 of the 2009 "4th Edition System Reference Document" actually got released under CC-BY.

As far as a timeline, I expect we'll see the 2003 SRDs released under CC-BY around the same time as the SRD for D&D 2024, simply because dealing with the D&D 2024 SRD naturally brings up the topic of the promised older editions review, and it'll be easy for a manager to assign the job of doing the IP reviews to a minion as a single bundle.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I do grant that WotC never came out and explicitly said, in so many words . . .

"We're trying to patch up pubic relations after our missteps around the OGL. And, of course, we want to do that at minimal expense and effort (that's why we went with CC-BY so suddenly, after all, it was faster and cheaper than revising the OGL again). And we see some people are still worried we might, years from now, revive the de-authorization theory to go after OGL-licensed games derived from our released-in-2003 SRDs. So we're just going to assign someone, as their fifth priority or something, to check those older SRDs for anything that we wouldn't want to release under CC-BY, and when that eventually is done, then we'll license them that way.
"Of course we're not going through the 4th edition rules and producing a usable SRD for that edition. That would be much more expense and effort than reviewing the existing OGL-licensed SRDs, and it wouldn't be addressing the concerns of outsiders that we might go after existing games. That goes as well for the TSR versions of D&D, which would be even harder to make SRDs for, and since they generally have serviceable 'Open' retroclones already, based on the released-in-2003 SRDs that we're already going to CC-BY."

. . . but that's what I always understood them as saying. I'd count it lucky if pages 4-84 of the 2009 "4th Edition System Reference Document" actually got released under CC-BY.

As far as a timeline, I expect we'll see the 2003 SRDs released under CC-BY around the same time as the SRD for D&D 2024, simply because dealing with the D&D 2024 SRD naturally brings up the topic of the promised older editions review, and it'll be easy for a manager to assign the job of doing the IP reviews to a minion as a single bundle.

You should get a job with WotC in public relations.

 

[mamba]

"We're trying to patch up pubic relations after our missteps around the OGL. And, of course, we want to do that at minimal expense and effort (that's why we went with CC-BY so suddenly, after all, it was faster and cheaper than revising the OGL again)

I don't think it was about price, it was about WotC having burned the OGL to the ground by then, no one was going to continue using it as the exact same thing could happen again a few years down the line with WotC making up some new BS claims about what the license text supposedly actually means.

The only question was whether they would burn the 3pps to the ground along with the OGL or release the SRD under a completely different license that WotC has no control over and that others would also rally around if WotC ever attempted the same stunt again with the new license. There aren't that many licenses around that they could have used for this, and a revised OGL is definitely not one of them.

we're just going to assign someone, as their fifth priority or something, to check those older SRDs for anything that we wouldn't want to release under CC-BY, and when that eventually is done, then we'll license them that way.
"Of course we're not going through the 4th edition rules and producing a usable SRD for that edition.

yep, they more or less said that. Kyle never promised anything, he said he (not WotC) would be in favor of it and would try to convince WotC to do so. To me this at most meant the 3.x SRDs would be released under CC, I never expected any for BX, 1e, 2e or 4e.

As far as a timeline, I expect we'll see the 2003 SRDs released under CC-BY around the same time as the SRD for D&D 2024, simply because dealing with the D&D 2024 SRD naturally brings up the topic of the promised older editions review, and it'll be easy for a manager to assign the job of doing the IP reviews to a minion as a single bundle.

I am not convinced we are going to see a 2024 SRD, they always use this vague language to dance around the subject. If past is precedent we just saw the same thing with the new MM, they always said the 50th celebration is not over by the end of 2024 and yet almost everyone expected the core books to all be released in 2024.

 

[Reynard]

As far as a timeline, I expect we'll see the 2003 SRDs released under CC-BY around the same time as the SRD for D&D 2024,

I don't think that we will ever see the 3.0/3.5 SRD released to CC. it just isn't a priority since public pressure has essentially evaporated.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm so glad so many people leapt in to play cooler and tell us to lay off that pressure and shut up because we already won and 'corp gonna corp' and all sorts of other things to guarantee zero accountability.

 

[Alzrius]

As far as a timeline, I expect we'll see the 2003 SRDs released under CC-BY around the same time as the SRD for D&D 2024, simply because dealing with the D&D 2024 SRD naturally brings up the topic of the promised older editions review, and it'll be easy for a manager to assign the job of doing the IP reviews to a minion as a single bundle.

I recall that Brink himself mentioned something to the effect of needing to review the 3.5 SRD before releasing it to CC to make sure they don't accidentally release any IP the way they did for 5.1, and it's a notation that others have echoed.

My question is, what IP? The 3.5 SRD only has Open Game Content in it, unlike how the 5.1 SRD was also apparently supposed to serve as the "basic" version of the game and so had Product Identity right there in the same document. The 3.5 SRD never did that; reviewing it should take up maybe half of someone's lunch break.

EDIT: I think there's a single instance of the word "slaad" being used somewhere (one of the summon monster tables, think?), but I'm not sure that wasn't already released into the CC via the 5.1 SRD.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I recall that Brink himself mentioned something to the effect of needing to review the 3.5 SRD before releasing it to CC to make sure they don't accidentally release any IP the way they did for 5.1, and it's a notation that others have echoed.

My question is, what IP? The 3.5 SRD only has Open Game Content in it, unlike how the 5.1 SRD was also apparently supposed to serve as the "basic" version of the game and so had Product Identity right there in the same document. The 3.5 SRD never did that; reviewing it should take up maybe half of someone's lunch break.

EDIT: I think there's a single instance of the word "slaad" being used somewhere (one of the summon monster tables, think?), but I'm not sure that wasn't already released into the CC via the 5.1 SRD.

They don't want to release the 3.5 SRD into the CC. Suggesting they planned to was intentionally misleading on their part, done for reasons of spin and damage control. They are not honest about their intentions and their policies. It's the biggest issue I have with WotC. They won't just be honest about what they're doing.

 

[mamba]

They don't want to release the 3.5 SRD into the CC. Suggesting they planned to was intentionally misleading on their part, done for reasons of spin and damage control. They are not honest about their intentions and their policies. It's the biggest issue I have with WotC. They won't just be honest about what they're doing.

to be fair, Kyle was in no position to decide on official WotC policy during those interviews. He generally was speaking for himself and saying he was in favor of it, but pointing out that there would be a process if the 3e SRD were to ever be released under CC.

If there had been an official statement by WotC saying ‘we will be releasing the 3e SRD under CC on day X’, that would have been a lie, WotC (or Kyle) never made such a statement however, it never was more than ‘we will look into it’

 

[Micah Sweet]

to be fair, Kyle was in no position to decide on official WotC policy during those interviews. He generally was speaking for himself and saying he was in favor of it, but pointing out that there would be a process if the 3e SRD were to ever be released under CC.

If there had been an official statement by WotC saying ‘we will be releasing the 3e SRD under CC on day X’, that would have been a lie, WotC (or Kyle) never made such a statement however, it never was more than ‘we will look into it’

That's why I said suggesting. Of course they covered themselves. And Kyle was speaking at the time as an official representative of WotC, not having a couple drinks at a convention with fans. Everything he said is reasonably taken as WotC's position on the subject.