D&D Updates Core Rules, Sticks With CC License (arstechnica.com) 35
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Wizards of the Coast has released the System Reference Document, the heart of the three core rule books that constitute Dungeons & Dragons' 2024 gameplay, under a Creative Commons license. This means the company cannot alter the deal further, like it almost did in early 2023, leading to considerable pushback and, eventually, a retreat. It was a long quest, but the lawful good party has earned some long-term rewards, including a new, similarly licensed reference book. [...] Version 5.2 of the SRD, all 360-plus pages of it, has now been released under the same Creative Commons license. The major change is that it includes more 2024 5th edition (i.e., D&D One) rules and content, while version 5.1 focused on 2014 rules. Legally, you can now design and publish campaigns under the 2024 5th edition rule set. More importantly, more aspects of the newest D&D rule books are available under a free license:
- "Rhythm of Play" and "Exploration" documentation
- More character origins and backgrounds, including criminal, sage, soldier, and the goliath and orc species.
- 16 feats, including archery, great weapon fighting, and seven boons
- Five bits of equipment, 20 spells, 15 magic items, and 17 monsters, including the hippopotamus
There are some aspects of D&D you still can't really touch without bumping up against copyrights. Certain monsters from the Monster Manual, like the Kraken, are in the public domain, but their specific stats in the D&D rulebook are copyrighted. Iconic creatures and species like the Beholder, Displacer Beast, Illithid, Githyanki, Yuan-Ti, and others remain the property of WotC (and thereby Hasbro). As a creator, you'll still need to do some History (or is it Arcana?) checks before you publish and sell.
- "Rhythm of Play" and "Exploration" documentation
- More character origins and backgrounds, including criminal, sage, soldier, and the goliath and orc species.
- 16 feats, including archery, great weapon fighting, and seven boons
- Five bits of equipment, 20 spells, 15 magic items, and 17 monsters, including the hippopotamus
There are some aspects of D&D you still can't really touch without bumping up against copyrights. Certain monsters from the Monster Manual, like the Kraken, are in the public domain, but their specific stats in the D&D rulebook are copyrighted. Iconic creatures and species like the Beholder, Displacer Beast, Illithid, Githyanki, Yuan-Ti, and others remain the property of WotC (and thereby Hasbro). As a creator, you'll still need to do some History (or is it Arcana?) checks before you publish and sell.
Wow.. (Score:2)
Re: TSR needs to buy D&D back. (Score:3)
TSR was a wholly owned (and dissolved) subsidiary of Wizards of the Coast, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hasbro.
It was Lorraine Williams of TSR that originally ran D&D into the ground so hard that it got scooped up by a collectible card game company.
WotC were stewards over the original open gaming license, which is responsible for the success of tabletop RPGs to this day.
I agree the Hasbro deal was terrible for D&D, but so was TSR. WotC were always the gamer geek stewards D&D needed.
Unfortunately, they didn't use CC-BY-SA (Score:3, Interesting)
The Open Gaming License is a superior license for anyone who wants to make use of the open gaming content that already exists, including all the materials Wizards has released using that license (which includes most of the 5th Edition) because it is a share-alike license. Wizards has chosen not to use the Share Alike version of the Creative Commons license and has thus created the very bad situation where people can take from the community of open game content published by anyone who chooses to use that fork then make the resulting work closed so that whatever they do with it does not convey the same rights & freedoms.
Re:Unfortunately, they didn't use CC-BY-SA (Score:4, Interesting)
IANAL but I don't see anything in the CC license that prevents content creators in the community from publishing their own stuff with a share-alike license.
Re: Unfortunately, they didn't use CC-BY-SA (Score:3)
Correct. They've been playing this game for years now where they pretend their license is giving you the right to publish compatible game material, which you already have a right to do without their license.
The license helps delineate trademarks and such from rules which are not subject to copyright, so it's not of no value.
The reality is they poison pilled themselves in 3e with a real open source license and ever since they've been unsuccessfully trying to claw that back. First with the failure that was 4e
Re: (Score:2)
The beauty of Paizo is that all of the rules are 100% free, and online at 2e Archives of Nethys [aonprd.com]. As are the full rule set for PF1E and StarFinder 1E! These are just the mechanics of the system, so pretty light on the Lore of Golarion [aonprd.com], their default setting.
But wi
you are being attracted by an patent troll! (Score:5, Funny)
you are being attracted by an patent troll!
Re: (Score:3)
you are being attracted by an patent troll!
... carrying an absurdly expensive set of cookbooks with one hand, speed-dialing the Eastern District of Texas courthouse with the other, and wearing a sticker on his lapel that reads "Hello, my name is Nathan and I am not a patent troll".
Don't be misled (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't be misled by the summary quote that implies that monster stat blocks are copyrighted. While the presentation of a stat blocks can be copyrighted, the rules of a game are not subject to copyright. Publishing the exact same rules with your own wording and presentation is fine. Game rules can be patented, but D&D is not covered by any patents I know of. Names can be trademarked, and that's why you won't see a "beholder" in third party materials. But you can take the beholder stats, reskin it as land squid with tentacle powers and you're good to go.
Re: (Score:2)
No.
Generically the rules of a game are not subject to copyright.
Specifically the rules of this game are not subject to patent either.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh man. KOL. That's something I haven't heard in decades. Glad to see its still around in some form.
We Had Dragons And Dungeons (Score:1)
Long before this game was a twinkle in anyone's eye. Fuck copyright.
Here's a secret (Score:5, Insightful)
The basic concept can't be controlled, and the fewer rulebooks you have the better the game gets.
It's storytelling. You need a main storyteller who can allow some randomness via dice to affect the details of the story. You need players, who are basically subordinate storytellers who are responsible for individual characters... and they can also have dice to add some random factors.
Ultimately, you will have far more fun improvising your characters while the DM keeps things on hidden rails than you will spending hours rolling dice and checking rulebooks. When you're remembering gaming sessions after the fact, you're not going to remember those item tables you poured through, you're going to remember that awesome heroic stunt your character pulled that saved the party from the demon.
Put down the rulebooks. Have fun.
Re: (Score:2)
Once I was capable of following the complexities of rulebooks the structure they provided made everything more fun. This is the reason I stopped playing rule bookless "pretend" as I did when I was a child but picked up table top RPGs.
As long as it's a well thought out rule set and the design is strong the more content the better if you ask me. Makes for a bigger sandbox for my imagination to play in.
Re: Here's a secret (Score:2)
This.
Original d&d (little brown books) was what, maybe 30 pages total?
Original Traveller (little BLACK books) was similar.
Original Runequest 88 pages
And those typically included spells, monsters, setting, equipment... Everything.
All of their current iterations run into the hundreds of not thousands of pages when you include ancillary monster manuals, gear books, spell books, mythos books, etc.
And I don't believe they're better.
Creative Commons is chaotic good not lawful good. (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Not to split hairs but it says this is a win for lawful goodâ¦
Mmm...lawful gouda...
Re: Creative Commons is chaotic good not lawful go (Score:2)
Chaotic good creators push their content out to public domain. Lawful good creators attach a legal document describing your rights.
Re: (Score:2)
"Lawful" means 'Follows the laws, tempered with a strong sense of morality,' not 'takes utilitarianism to an unhealthy degree.'
I'd say 'neutral good' would actually be more in line with utilitarianism.
Oh, great... (Score:2)
I have to buy my niece more books?
She refuses to play Avatar* with me, and it's 'free'.
* - Avatar, originally a game on NovaNET, a PLATO derived platform. Now can be found on Cyber1. My current characters are over 22 years old, the ones on PLATO were a little less than 10 years old. Ages are IRL. You will find it retro, rudimentary, or pointless. You have been warned.
D&D is overrated. Here are some alternatives: (Score:4, Interesting)
Forbidden Lands [freeleaguepublishing.com] || Symbaroum [freeleaguepublishing.com] || Index Card RPG [www.runehammer.online] || Fate [fate-srd.com] || Coriolis [freeleaguepublishing.com] || Shadowrun [shadowrun6.de] || Death in Space [deathinspace.com] || CY_Borg [freeleaguepublishing.com] || Blades in the Dark [bladesinthedark.com] || Interface Zero Fate [angelscitadel.com] || Eclipse Phase Fate [drivethrurpg.com] || Over the Edge [atlas-games.com] || Everway [everwaygame.com] || Trinity [wikipedia.org] || Skyrealms of Jorune [wikipedia.org] || Into the Odd [freeleaguepublishing.com] || Mutant Year Zero [freeleaguepublishing.com] || Torg [ulisses-us.com] || The Dark Eye [ulisses-us.com] || Savage Worlds [peginc.com]
I could go on with this, but you'll find the very best of contemporary high quality RPGs in the list above. Enjoy.
Do people play 1st edition? (Score:2)
I'm reading over some of the 5.2 and from the perspective of someone who played 1st edition Advanced D&D in the early 80's a lot of it seems like complicating fluff that would make the game less fun. Are there groups that stick to a previous edition, even perhaps 1st edition? I still have my 1st edition Player's Handbook, DM Guide, Monster Manual, a bunch of modules, a smooshed World of Greyhawk box set, and a pile of Dragon Magazines.
Re: (Score:3)
WOTC / Hasbro and Trust (Score:1)
The only reason WOTC went to the any CC approved license was because they clearly demonstrated they were not to be trusted if they were the sole trustee of the license themselves. If they had their way, they'd probably not be using the CC at all.
Displacer Beast is *debatably* WotC property (Score:2)
,..because its original name is the Coeurl, from the novella The Black Destroyer by A E van Vogt (it showed up later in The Voyage of the Space Beagle, which was ripped off for Alien). There's no specific public record I can find of van Vogt or his estate providing an exclusive license (or ANY license) to TSR or WotC for them to claim ownership of something derived from the Coeurl.
WotC and CC: roll for litgation check (Score:2)
WotC has released its core D&D rules under a Creative Commons license. After all, if you're going to win IP battles in court, why not start with a quick victory in the court of public opinion?
The D&D faithful are celebrating—but given WotC’s litigious history, and a decade-long pattern of corporate shell games and IP hoarding—you’d think fans might be more skeptical. It’s a PR feint—genuflecting toward open source ideals while quietly setting the stage for their n