On April 22, Wizards of the Coast will release its new Systems Reference Document (SRD), allowing third-party designers to create Dungeons and Dragons content under a Creative Commons license. This dry rules document marks the final chapter in one the most controversial periods of fifth edition history. At least, we hope it does.
To explain, we need to go back in time two years. Fans who wanted to create and sell their own Dungeons and Dragons-compatible content could get free access to the basic rules thanks to 5.1. Exactly what they could do with these rules was dictated by the Open Gaming License (OGL), a public copyright license that ensured the third-party D&D design community could flourish without harming Wizards of the Coast’s brand too badly.
Wizards of the Coast was planning to update the DnD OGL so that it could be applied to its new 2024 core rulebooks. However, an early draft leaked to Gizmodo sparked widespread outrage, as it was revealed that Wizards planned to make hugely restrictive changes.
The backlash was explosive. If you were part of the online DnD community at the time, you would have seen critique and panic everywhere. Major competitors who had previously published work under the OGL rushed to develop their own gaming licenses, or, in the case of Kobold Press, their own imitations of fifth edition.
Wizards of the Coast was eventually pushed to walk back its plans for the new OGL. Instead, it promised to release its next SRD under a Creative Commons license.
“We’re giving the Core D&D mechanics to the community,” said former D&D executive producer Kyle Brink in 2023. “Because we don’t control the license, releasing the D&D core rules under the Creative Commons will be a decision we can never change.”
Returning to the present, the promised SRD is about to be released. A D&DBeyond blog post from April 16 explains that this will be “used by third-party publishers to build products using the Dungeons & Dragons ruleset, which creators can reference in their products without paying a licensing fee to Wizards of the Coast”. That same post says the new SRD includes “foundational content from the 2024 core rules”, such as the new rules glossary, DnD weapon mastery rules, and exploration mechanics.
A previous draft of OGL 1.2 (which was developed after Wizards walked back its more unpopular draft) suggests more rules that will likely be covered by this SRD and the Creative Commons licence:
The OGL and the SRD were never identical documents, so this isn’t a guarantee that all this information will appear. Wizards of the Coast also specifies that the new SRD won’t be an exact copy of the basic rules that are available for free on D&DBeyond. However, there will be a lot of crossover, so it’s reasonable to estimate that most of the above rules will be covered.
Wednesday’s blog post adds that SRD 5.1 will still be available, unchanged, for anyone who wants to produce content using the 2014 fifth edition rules. A conversion guide is also being produced to help creators move their content from one version of the rules to the other – though there’s no concrete release date for this yet.
Wizards of the Coast promises a fan content FAQ page, as well as regular updates to ensure that SRD 5.2 accounts for errata. This last part is a notable difference from the document’s previous version.
Wizards is keen to emphasize that its basic rules will be free for creators to use “forever”. Forever is a long time, but with the induction of the new Creative Commons license, we can hope that the community’s creative freedom is protected for the foreseeable.
For more on 5e, here’s all you need to know about DnD classes and DnD races. You can also join the Wargamer Discord to discuss the new SRD with our team.
Source: Wargamer
