D&D 5E (2024) I am so torn [UPDATE: I bought it]

[mamba]

Well clearly that's not true.

sorry, you are flat out wrong, that is not a disagreement with it being more work

 

[Alzrius]

sorry, you are flat out wrong, that is not a disagreement with it being more work

When you say "who cares whether it is open under the OGL if you can use it in products alongside OGL content," that sounds an awful lot like you're saying that the issue of it being more work to use two licenses at once is irrelevant. If that's not what you meant, then be clearer in the future.

 

[TiQuinn]

Nothing to see here.

 

[Smackpixi]

While this has devolved into a license and WoTC ethics debate, I’ll take a stab at answering the OP.

I am teetering on the fence whether to break my "no money for WotC" rule and getting the 2024 core book.

You have reasons to not buy the books. The only way I’d violate those reasons, if they were mine, would be out of necessity. Or, if I gave up caring about my reasons sometime in the future.

Let’s assume, at this time, you haven’t given up those reasons. So necessity.

• You run public games at your FLGS, conventions, or any Adventurers League opportunity you might come across. You’re probably gonna need to be up on the new stuff. That means PHB and maybe MM.
• You debate rules minutia, or even want to discuss rules interpretations online, you like talking about the art, you want to talk about whatever is in the books, what spells are doing these days, whatever, you’re gonna need them to reference.

Beyond that, don’t get them.

For me, the decision was, I don’t need anything in the new books to run my game. 5.24 is the same game as O5e. Same basic structure. I’ve already tuned up my home game with replacement rules we made up, 3rd party stuff, and ideas here and from the rest of the internet. The resources in the new books are VASTLY outstripped by the piles of stuff and imagination we’ve drawn on for new ways to have fun. The core books are there for the base structure, all the details, in my game, are flexible. Want to have a Ranger that does Y instead of X, hmm, doesn’t seem OP, so go for it, done.

The new core books are the new bog standard, I’d totally get them if I was starting new, and start deviating from there. But for us, our game is already way mor interesting and fun, not gonna reset to blander. Any mechanics improvements needed are already fixed better like when I found like 5 chase rule ideas to replace and we hashed out what would make the next one less stupid and work for us.

Apparently the monster manual is gonna be improved for mechanics, but I’m pretty confident it’s not gonna get to the gold standard for common monsters, the A5e MM, which is just so fantastic for running common monsters, plus there’s an internet full of other ideas. Only thing new MM could offer would be better mechanics for IP monsters, but honestly, the internet already has them beat, and all those MM Expanded books on DMs Guild have variants covered in spades.

The magic of DnD, or any TTRPG, to me, is all the stuff groups put into the framework provided. There’s lots of romanticization of the glory days of kids on bikes, playing in basements, making up stuff to cover what they didn’t understand or didn’t care for, we did it our way. I think those days are alive and well, but instead of just having your friend group and maybe a magazine to work from, you have the ideas of all humanity available. People all the time saying “I wish WoTC would fix…” Why, already 5 good fixes being debated on Reddit, pick one.

Unless you need to play by official for reasons outlined above, or are brand new, the new books are already obsolete IMHO. I you want to reset your game with some freshness and spit and polish on O5e but not give WoTC any money, there’s a few new takes out there with different core books to build from. About the only thing WoTC has going for them compared to others is a higher art budget.

 

[mamba]

When you say "who cares whether it is open under the OGL if you can use it in products alongside OGL content," that sounds an awful lot like you're saying that the issue of it being more work to use two licenses at once is irrelevant. If that's not what you meant, then be clearer in the future.

If you use the OGL, you better know what you are doing and have checked with a lawyer. If you use CC on top of that, invest the hour with a lawyer to find out about that as well.

I very much doubt that there will be anything in the 2024 SRD that someone using the OGL would actually need. So to me this is a complete non-issue. Doesn’t mean that I would object to it getting released under the OGL in parallel

 

[Alzrius]

If you use the OGL, you better know what you are doing and have checked with a lawyer. If you use CC on top of that, invest the hour with a lawyer to find out about that as well.

And if you're using both, then you're going to need to use a lawyer that much more, which costs that much more. Which is a disincentive. So saying "who cares whether it is open under the OGL if you can use it in products alongside OGL content" is a question with a built-in answer: the people who want to use content that's been arbitrarily released under one license but not another care.

I very much doubt that there will be anything in the 2024 SRD that someone using the OGL would actually need.

"Need" is a pointless term when it comes to recreational media; nothing about entertainment is "needed."

So to me this is a complete non-issue.

Which doesn't matter, since we're talking about the community as a whole, rather than just you.

Doesn’t mean that I would object to it getting released under the OGL in parallel

Good; let's hope that it is.

 

[mamba]

And if you're using both, then you're going to need to use a lawyer that much more, which costs that much more.

hence the 'invest the hour'

o saying "who cares whether it is open under the OGL if you can use it in products alongside OGL content" is a question with a built-in answer: the people who want to use content that's been arbitrarily released under one license but not another care.

which is basically no one when it comes to the 2024 SRD, and for the others there is an OGL version, so yet again no one. If you want me to see a case here, you will have to make it

Good; let's hope that it is.

could not care less either way, I would not get my hopes up though if I were you

 

[Alzrius]

hence the 'invest the hour'

And if you're using more than one license, it's likely to be more than one hour. Hence the disincentive.

which is basically no one when it comes to the 2024 SRD, and for the others there is an OGL version, so yet again no one. If you want me to see a case here, you will have to make it

"Basically no one" is you making a dismissal, which means that you don't want to see a case. The entire point of making things as easy as possible for the community as a whole is to facilitate things for the people, few they may be, whom you so casually dismiss as "basically no one."

could not care less either way, I would not get my hopes up though if I were you

Why would anyone get their hopes up when it comes to WotC? Though for someone who says they don't care either way, you seem very committed to this topic.

 

[mamba]

And if you're using more than one license, it's likely to be more than one hour. Hence the disincentive.

additional hour...

"Basically no one" is you making a dismissal, which means that you don't want to see a case.

no, it's more that I do not think there is one. I did notice that you did not make one either, even though I asked for one...

Why would anyone get their hopes up when it comes to WotC?

on this we agree

Though for someone who says they don't care either way, you seem very committed to this topic.

not really, this seems to have started out from a misunderstanding in the first place. Right now I am only curious about the case you did not yet represent for why having 2024 in OGL actually matters

 

[Alzrius]

additional hour...

Your certitude that a lawyer would only need one or two hours is quite unwarranted.

no, it's more that I do not think there is one. I did notice that you did not make one either, even though I asked for one...

I already made one quite a ways back, and repeated it to you several times: that someone wants to use 5E 2024 SRD material, but back-converted to an SRD only found under the OGL. I notice that you ignored this, despite it having been raised more than once...

on this we agree

Cool.

not really, this seems to have started out from a misunderstanding in the first place, right now I am only curious about the case you did not yet represent for why having 2024 in OGL actually matters

I'm curious why you seem to have selectively forgotten the case that I already made more than once. Of course, I suspect that's what you meant when you said "basically no one," since that seems like the very scenario you were dismissing since it didn't concern you personally.