Friday, January 15, 2016

DarkgarX: Why Do We Need Another OGL SRD?

That above headline was Darkgar X's response when I talked about D&D 5 SRD going OGL to him. He has a valid point, the D&D 3 SRD is a pretty complete document, and it nearly a complete and playable game in its own right with a couple tweaks.

Sometimes we argue about these things and it gets silly, but he brings up some good points. I took the position where the D&D 5 game is a streamlined experience where-

And then he cut me off.

"Streamline the 3.0 SRD if you want that. There's more there to start with, and you are not adding anything that will be incompatible with the product identity of the 5.0 SRD to fill in the missing parts."

And I had no real great answer to that, and a lot of great games do just that, such as Basic Fantasy. It really begs the question, do you really have to be playing D&D 5 to get the D&D experience? I took the position where I said the D&D 5 experience-

Yeah, he cut me off again.

"The 3.0 SRD, and the Pathfinder SRD are out there, well used and understood, insanely supported, and people play with those all the time. Is this something that people really need?"

Well, um yes, and he has another good point. The 5.0 SRD feels more suited for game designers than players this time around, and if you are developing a 5.0 compatible module or game, it will be of some use. It's not 100% usable since a lot of feats and spells are missing, so if you wanted to put a monster with Warlock powers (and feats) in your creation you would need to create clones of what you wanted and not really-really be 100% the D&D 5 experience.

Interesting stuff, and DarkgarX is a tough guy to argue anything with. He is firm in his game preferences and makes some great points all the time.

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