So, what will be in the SRD?

[kenmarable]

What the New RD looks like it is going to be is an extensive OGC declaration for the core three books. With hopefully later "core" books getting in, but that might be wishful thinking on my part

That's what my assumption is as well. It'll look a lot more like the RPGA standards documents than the old RTFs. So it'll be a big list of "From the MM, you can use monsters X, Y..... From the PHB, all classes, races, feats, skills, talents, etc..." No content at all, just a big index of what is and is not allowed.

Although I hope some electronic version is possible (either as part of DDI - which I assume will happen), or as something a 3rd party creates, I see not having free RTFs of the rules to be a very small price to pay to have the WotC effort low enough that adding more open material is far more frequent than it was in 3.x (hard to get less frequent).

Yeah, seeing the rules for free before buying is nice, but between following the discussion here (especially after the books are out) and flipping through them in a store, it's pretty easy to get a good impression of whether you will like it or not.

 

[Delta]

Well one thing that they BETTER dang well put in the SRD is monster statblocks-- because expecting a publisher--or heck even an amateur DM-- to retype the stat block of every monster in an entire adventure they are writing is beyond ridiculous.

Well:

(1) The 3E SRD never had monster "statblocks" either, so individual writers or third parties had to type up or provide the summary stats that were published in adventures, all throughout the 3.x era (that was like, the first thing I did when I got 3E).

(2) The conference specifically mentioned something like "statblock formatting standards" so they might have an enforcable picture of what you can present for monster statblocks, and disallow anything more detailed than that.

 

[IconoclastX]

I assume WotC isn't worried about losing the zero income they get from these people!

Why do you think that companies offer "free" stuff, or greatly reduced in price stuff? They're called loss leaders that bring people in so they can buy other overpriced stuff. That's what the SRD did, I suspect, for 3.x. How many people had *only* the SRD? Few, I would think. So they didn't buy the core rules, but how many other overpriced splat books did they pick up that they maybe wouldn't have otherwise?