Why? What purpose would it serve? All the terminology you need is in the existing one.
They barely needed to do even a 5E one. Theees only a few new game terms in 5E — inspiration, advantage, off the top of my head. Maybe some others.
D&D (2024) The One Dnd Strategy
They barely needed to do even a 5E one. Theees only a few new game terms in 5E — inspiration, advantage, off the top of my head. Maybe some others.
J.Quondam
CR 1/8
Personally I'd hope that the SRD monsters get updated to the modernized format (eg, the proficiency bonus) and modernized traits (eg, spells-as-powers) so they match whatever appears in the new MM.
beancounter
(I/Me/Mine)
The one concern I have about a D&D Beyond VTT is that there will be no flexibility with the rules. In other words, you'll have to play by the rules that WoTC wants you to play by, and there won't be options to turn certain rules on or off, or even integrate house rules.
You don’t need an SRD to format your books for you. An SRD is a tool for third party developers. It’s a legal document. You don’t need permission to put proficiency bonus in your stat blocks.
Sure, but you know as well as any of us that the SRD is also a tool for players and that creating an accessible, complete SRD has brand value. WotC doesn't want to because it undermines their DnDBeyond mechanism, but its a little disingenuous of them.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
I think the "edition-less" nature of D&D is more real than folks are giving it credit as being.
When 3E came out, there was no question that it was a new game compared to 2E a few years ago. It was broadly compatible -- with work, and some parts were a lot more compatible than others -- but no one would be confused which edition they were reading, with two books side by side.
4E, if anything, was an even bigger break with 3E.
And then 5E broke back the other direction.
The "edition-less" D&D means they're going to stop doing that. The basic 5E chassis will remain the same for the foreseeable future, even if there are updates. But it's a system with six stats, a d20 resolution system where high is better for almost everything, NPCs are built differently than PCs and advantage/disadvantage replaces nearly all bonuses and penalties.
If they successfully manage it, being able to pick up the 2034 PHB and run Hoard of the Dragon Queen with it, without any special conversion notes, is a very big deal, both for Hasbro and for gamers in general.
When 3E came out, there was no question that it was a new game compared to 2E a few years ago. It was broadly compatible -- with work, and some parts were a lot more compatible than others -- but no one would be confused which edition they were reading, with two books side by side.
4E, if anything, was an even bigger break with 3E.
And then 5E broke back the other direction.
The "edition-less" D&D means they're going to stop doing that. The basic 5E chassis will remain the same for the foreseeable future, even if there are updates. But it's a system with six stats, a d20 resolution system where high is better for almost everything, NPCs are built differently than PCs and advantage/disadvantage replaces nearly all bonuses and penalties.
If they successfully manage it, being able to pick up the 2034 PHB and run Hoard of the Dragon Queen with it, without any special conversion notes, is a very big deal, both for Hasbro and for gamers in general.
You’re not talking about an SRD. You’re talking about a player resource. These are not the same thing. An SRD is a legal document for third party publishers which outlines what content can be reused in new products. The current SRD is a PDF and of limited use for players.
What you want is a D&D Beyond rules reference tool. Totally different thing.
Henadic Theologian
Legend
That why folks call it 5.5e and not 6e, it's a minor edition change, not major, like 4e Essentials.
darjr
I crit!
I think it may include as many or more changes than a 5.5 or even a 6e.
However if they succeed it won’t be like a 5.5 or 6e. It’ll be something different.
More like an alternate set of rules than a new edition.
If they can pull it off they’ll have done a great thing.
We are in strange territory and the verbiage of yesteryear is lacking.
However if they succeed it won’t be like a 5.5 or 6e. It’ll be something different.
More like an alternate set of rules than a new edition.
If they can pull it off they’ll have done a great thing.
We are in strange territory and the verbiage of yesteryear is lacking.
J.Quondam
CR 1/8
Yes, I understand that. My concern isn't really about individual numbers or layouts, but rather more substantive changes in the rules themselves.
For example, if the lich is updated to using MotM-style per-day powers, that would involve several lines of text changes that can't just be inserted into a 3pp adventure without permission. Similarly, the recent playtest doc suggests a number of non-trivial changes to the rules are on the way. Feats could become integral to character creation; but iirc, the existing SRD describes only one Feat, and does so only as an optional rule. The playtest doc also names Arcane, Divine, and Primal spell lists, distinctions which don't exist in the current SRD. And so forth.
Of course, all that's still on the horizon. But without an updated SRD, rules mods of that scale would mean a large divergence between "official" D&D and some subset of 3pps. I'll grant that might even be WotC's intent, in order to steer creators into DMsGuild. Which, fair enough. Personally, though, I hope they stick to precedent and provide a 5.5e SRD, just as they provided a 3.5e SRD.
tl;dr:
Either way, a definitive "Yes" or "No" on the SRD issue might help any 3pp devs trying to plan ahead a bit.
