D&D (2024) WotC Announces April 22 Release For 2024 System Reference Documents

The System Reference Document 5.2--the tool which helps developers create third-party content using the Dungeons & Dragons core rules engine--will be released under the Creative Commons license on April 22nd.

Additionally, Wizards of the Coast will publish a Conversion Guide for updating game content from the 2014 edition to the 2024 edition. This guide will arrive at a later date.

The Free Rules document on D&D Beyond will also be updated with new D&D Beyond Basic Rules (2024).

The older 5.1 SRD, which is based on the 2014 edition of D&D, will also remain available under both Creative Commons and the Open Game License (OGL).

More information will be available on April 22nd, when the new SRD is released.

A copy of each System Reference Document is stored independently at A5ESRD.com, which includes the 5.1 SRD, the revised 3.5 SRD, and other System Reference Documents (including the enormous A5E SRD).

 

[Alzrius]

The description in your post on that source is... wow they do NOT understand how the licenses work.

Can you expound on that? What did they do wrong? (Likewise, I'm mostly sure I provided all of the salient information, but I'm not absolutely certain I didn't leave some crucial bit out.)

 

[Nylanfs]

Can you expound on that? What did they do wrong? (Likewise, I'm mostly sure I provided all of the salient information, but I'm not absolutely certain I didn't leave some crucial bit out.)

I added a bit to my post as you were replying to it, I was just going off your original thoughts post. Once I purchased it and re-read the source, then the AON entry, and then the OGL, & ORC a couple of times.
To combine both OGC and ORC is pretty tricky to my understanding of both licenses. You have to clearly indicate which is which, either by appendix, or layout. And I have to finish my thoughts later I have a flight to catch.

 

[pemerton]

To a certain extent, what I was depending on (possibly improperly so) is what Kobold Press did with Black Flag, where the Black Flag SRD, clearly to me a derivative work of the 5.1 SRD, was released in its entirety under ORC, without any marking of what material in specific was 5.1 SRD material at all. Instead, what they did was simply put the WotC-written CC-BY 4.0 notice in the attributions on the cover page of the Black Flag SRD PDF, which includes a link to the 5.1 SRD.

I just read the ORC licence terms for the first time.

It is different from the OGL, and is reasonably close to the CC-BY in how it is drafted. It does not use an inclusive notion of OGC, and rather draws a clear distinction between the licensed material, and the adapted licensed material, and as I read it the "share alike" requirement is imposed only on the latter.

I assume those differences in the drafting are deliberate, to make integration of ORC and CC-BY more straightforward.

 

[see]

OGC material that is licensed under the OGL, can NOT be used in the ORC, under any circumstances.

Yeah, that isn't what I was suggesting at all (though with the clipped context of the precise reply chain, maybe unclear). I do know much better than that.

(I grant, why I know better than that isn't because I sat down and compared ORC and the OGL in detail. It's just because of a heuristic learned about three decades ago from dealing with open source software licenses: Two "copyleft" or "share-alike" licenses are always going to be incompatible. There's a good inherent structural reason for that . . . which is way off topic for this board, even given this tangent of this thread.)

 

[see]

I just read the ORC licence terms for the first time.

It is different from the OGL, and is reasonably close to the CC-BY in how it is drafted. It does not use an inclusive notion of OGC, and rather draws a clear distinction between the licensed material, and the adapted licensed material, and as I read it the "share alike" requirement is imposed only on the latter.

I assume those differences in the drafting are deliberate, to make integration of ORC and CC-BY more straightforward.

Could be. Could just reflect the evolution of the state of the art in "open content" licenses after the OGL was drafted.

I mean, the Open Game License was written in 2000, after all. The original Open Content License was released in 1998, and replaced by the Open Publication License in 1999. There have been five generations of CC licenses since they replaced the OPL -- 1.0 in 2002, 2.0 in 2004, 2.5 in 2005, 3.0 in 2007, and 4.0 in 2013. Those five generations involved a lot of analysis and feedback along the way. Azora Law in 2023 had far more refined models available to guide them than WotC's lawyers had in 2000.

 

[Hussar]

I'm not sure what you mean by "broken." If you mean things like having the monster's names declared PI and only their stat blocks open (what was often referred to as "crippled content") then that's unfortunate, but still usable; WotC themselves renamed OGC monsters.

If, on the other hand, you mean people violating the terms of the OGL by trying to declare OGC material PI, then that's just them violating the terms of the license.

Oh, and neither had "mountains" of material.

All of which makes you, rather ironically correct about one thing: we don't count that.

Oh, come on. That's being very disingenous. Sorry for using "broken" instead of "crippled". My bad for using the wrong jargon.

There were multiple publishers whose OGL PI section basically read, "Everything in this book other than material that is OGC by virtue of appearing in the SRD is considered PI and is closed content".

This was hardly rare. And, there's absolutely nothing stopping anyone from using the OGL this way. The idea that everything published using the OGL was 100% open all the time for everyone else to use is rewriting a lot of history.

 

[pemerton]

there's absolutely nothing stopping anyone from using the OGL this way.

Well, arguably, it's a licence violation:

1(d)"Open Game Content" means the game mechanic and includes the methods, procedures, processes and routines to the extent such content does not embody the Product Identity and is an enhancement over the prior art and any additional content clearly identified as Open Game Content by the Contributor, and means any work covered by this License, including translations and derivative works under copyright law, but specifically excludes Product Identity.

1(e) "Product Identity" means product and product line names, logos and identifying marks including trade dress; artifacts; creatures characters; stories, storylines, plots, thematic elements, dialogue, incidents, language, artwork, symbols, designs, depictions, likenesses, formats, poses, concepts, themes and graphic, photographic and other visual or audio representations; names and descriptions of characters, spells, enchantments, personalities, teams, personas, likenesses and special abilities; places, locations, environments, creatures, equipment, magical or supernatural abilities or effects, logos, symbols, or graphic designs; and any other trademark or registered trademark clearly identified as Product identity by the owner of the Product Identity, and which specifically excludes the Open Game Content;

2. The License: This License applies to any Open Game Content that contains a notice indicating that the Open Game Content may only be Used under and in terms of this License. You must affix such a notice to any Open Game Content that you Use. No terms may be added to or subtracted from this License except as described by the License itself. No other terms or conditions may be applied to any Open Game Content distributed using this License.

3. Offer and Acceptance: By Using the Open Game Content You indicate Your acceptance of the terms of this License.

4. Grant and Consideration: In consideration for agreeing to use this License, the Contributors grant You a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license with the exact terms of this License to Use, the Open Game Content.​

Designating some content as Product Identity when it is, or is a derivative work of, OGC that one is using, seems to contradict sections 2 and 4, which are binding in virtue of section 3.

But I don't think I've heard of much action being taken in respect of these sorts of licence violations.

 

[Hussar]

But I don't think I've heard of much action being taken in respect of these sorts of licence violations.

Well, to be fair, I don't think any actions were ever taken over licence violations. That was part of the problem with the OGL. It was never actually tested. And, the first time there was any actual push to test the license, everyone abandoned it.

I'm not a lawyer and I don't pretend to know the intricacies of the law here. But, I do know for a fact that there were numerous publications that used the OGL with crippled content. Heck, the fact that there is actually a term for this tells us that yes, this is something that happened and happened more than once.

 

[pemerton]

Well, to be fair, I don't think any actions were ever taken over licence violations. That was part of the problem with the OGL. It was never actually tested. And, the first time there was any actual push to test the license, everyone abandoned it.

I don't know about serious publishers - eg I assume that Paizo was able to afford proper legal advice - but among fans, there seemed to be a pretty poor understanding of the OGL.

I do know for a fact that there were numerous publications that used the OGL with crippled content.

The only prominent example I ever paid attention to was Monte Cook. I just had a look at the Book of Experimental Might product identity and OGC declarations. I think the former is on the narrow side - chapter 4 is excluded, for instance, but it seems to contain some material that looks like it should be OGC. I don't know if it would be characterised as "crippled content".

 

[Alzrius]

Oh, come on. That's being very disingenous. Sorry for using "broken" instead of "crippled". My bad for using the wrong jargon.

It's not disingenuous; I literally didn't know what you meant. I've heard plenty of people use "broken" for "unbalanced," for instance, which makes your use of that term to mean something completely different confusing.

There were multiple publishers whose OGL PI section basically read, "Everything in this book other than material that is OGC by virtue of appearing in the SRD is considered PI and is closed content".

There certainly were some publishers who did that, but in my experience they were very much in the minority. Most publishers weren't nearly so stingy with what they created.

This was hardly rare.

It was much closer to rare than it was to commonplace.

And, there's absolutely nothing stopping anyone from using the OGL this way.

And yet most publishers didn't do that, which I think is worthy of respect.

The idea that everything published using the OGL was 100% open all the time for everyone else to use is rewriting a lot of history.

No one is saying "100% open all the time," but I'll say again that the majority of publishers were very generous with the majority of the content that they created.