D&D 5E Lots of 5E SRD projects

[Morrus]

Lots of online SRD projects for 5E right now (well, OK, three that I know of, and probably more that I don't). I'll wait see which ends up most useful. None of them will have the feats and archetypes though, or all the spells, so I'm not sure how useful the 5E iteration can be as an online rules reference. Maybe if they rewrite the archetypes and feats and stuff, but that makes them intrinsically interpreted rather than canon.

 

[wizardoest]

https://github.com/amazingrando/fifth-edition-srd

I'm working on one of the SRD projects, a universally useful version in markdown. If you aren't familiar with markdown, it is a text format that is easy to read and convert into whatever format you need.

The project is hosted at Github. This means that the text will always be available for download and there will be a full changelog. You could even fork the repo and work your own magic on it!

The project is taking on volunteers. (There is a lot of content.) Knowing markdown is helpful but if you don't know it, I can show you in ten minutes. (Knowing Github is optional, I'll walk you through those parts.)

 

[CapnZapp]

Lots of online SRD projects for 5E right now (well, OK, three that I know of, and probably more that I don't). I'll wait see which ends up most useful. None of them will have the feats and archetypes though, or all the spells, so I'm not sure how useful the 5E iteration can be as an online rules reference. Maybe if they rewrite the archetypes and feats and stuff, but that makes them intrinsically interpreted rather than canon.

I think it's a two-step process.

First, make a fast stable useful SRD site. This is what you need to stay in the race and not to be outdone by the competition.

Second, designate add-on content as such (just like PF does). To be truly useful, you would need to "reinterpret" the missing PHB content as uncontroversially and neutrally as possible. This is what I feel is needed to actually WIN the race.

By "uncontroversially and neutrally" I mean you need to be able to trust the content to provide equivalent results as using the PHB, resisting the temptation to "improve" or "fix" things. Obviously without hewing so close to the PHB language that WotC shuts you down. I think it's inevitable this content must be marked as "non-core" somehow. Yet, it needs to be subtly apparent that it isn't "true third party" either.

I think having your own brand of "SRD enhanced content" would work best.

What the winning SRD will have to have is simply a complete rules reference, just like for d20 or PF. It would just have to be split in three parts: "core", "enhanced" and "optional". Core being the uncontroversial stuff directly lifted from WotC SRD/OGL. Optional being clearly marked 3PP stuff (lots of people, me included, will want an easy way of filtering out this stuff). And then the cannily marked "in house 3PP stuff" which in reality is the missing PHB stuff.

Anything less, and you should probably consider the race to be still on.

 

[Morrus]

Yeah. It's convcing people that that third category is reliable that's the trick. Totally doable, of course. But that'll be a longer term word of mouth reputation.

 

[Morrus]

On a non-SRD front, of course, the D&D Basic Rules are available as a website:

http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop/players-basic-rules

I wonder if that will ever get expanded? It has material not in the SRD; and the SRD has material not on there. I could see them adding the SRD material to it.