This work includes material taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 (“SRD 5.1”) by Wizards of the Coast LLC and available at https://dnd.wizards.com/resources/systems-reference-document. The SRD 5.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.
The cc-srd5.md file in this repo is the relicensed System Reference Document 5.1 PDF converted to Markdown, then lightly edited to fix typographical errors, remove protected or trademarked terms left in the document by the publisher, and improve its navigation and accessibility as a digital document.
- Make a version of the SRD that's accessible. The PDF provided by the first-party publisher, printed to PDF from Microsoft Word without tags, is incompatible with many accessibility tools.
- Make the SRD more useful for third-party publishers. The PDF provided by the first-party publisher contains unusable trademarked terms and references, and the PDF is rendered in such a way that unnecessarily complicates searching and copying content in many PDF readers.
- Fix punctuation and formatting errors and inconsistencies from the source PDF.
- Reorganize and divide the SRD so that its modular components can be easily repurposed for people building new systems on its foundation.
- Export the content to other formats more easily, and with more features. For instance, exporting the SRD from Markdown to PDF gives us heading-level bookmarks, links, functioning search, and a table of contents that the first-party version lacks. Exporting it to single-page or chunked HTML gives us rich linking features between concepts. Exporting it to DOCX, ODT, and ICML provides an easily editable document for publishers and designers.
What this won't be:
- A compilation of all related errata, corrections, or improvements by the original publisher, or any other first-party content related to the SRD but not included in its Creative Commons relicensing of January 2023.
- A complete replacement for the roleplaying game system it references.
- A repository for third-party content.
- An advertising-supported or commercial endeavor.
This project is inspired by the stalwart Hypertext d20 SRD by Jans Carton.
WARNING: This is a work in progress, and I provide no guarantees or legal protections that it is safe or legal to use. Using this work as a source for a commercial product might expose you to liability from one of the demonstrably worst-behaving corporate owners in gaming. I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice; consult a lawyer before using this SRD.
Any terms in this document not owned by me, or are not otherwise freely available or openly licensed content compatible with the CC BY 4.0 International license, are used unintentionally from the source document. I will remove them immediately when I find them and upon request, especially if you are the person who left them in by mistake in the first place or a representative of their publisher.
Rules for the following concepts in this system were omitted from the SRD and therefore are intentionally not covered or explained. If you're using this SRD to create content, be aware that the following concepts do not have official first-party open or freely licensed content to support them. This list is not, and might never be, comprehensive.
- Domain and magic school descriptors in spells. The SRD includes only the Life domain and Evocation school. Spells in the SRD might list other domains or schools that are described in the first-party publisher's copyright-reserved system, but those domains and schools are not detailed in the SRD.
- Subclasses. As above, every class includes only one subclass. Any references to any other subclass options lack corresponding rules.
- Artifact properties. The Orb of the Wyrm artifact has random properties, but the table describing random properties and process for selecting them were not included in the first-party publisher's SRD.
- Treasure tables. The first-party publisher's SRD didn't include any random treasure tables.
- Most class options (including feats) and sub-races. Only one feat, Grappler, was included in the first-party publisher's SRD.
- Cavalier die mechanics. The cavalier's unique rules were not included in the first-party publisher's SRD.
- Shield bashes. Rules for players who use a shield as a weapon, and statistics for player shields that can be used as weapons, were not included in the first-party publisher's SRD. However, the gladiator NPC and lizardfolk creature use shields as weapons and include the minimum statistics necessary for a GM to make attacks with shields.
- Character creation mechanics. Because character creation mechanics were not included in the first-party publisher's SRD, mechanics for character traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws also were not included. However, the SRD still refers to them in the "Backgrounds", "Inspiration", "Madness", and "Sentient Magic Item" sections, and in the Cleric Acolyte background.
For differences between the OGL v1.0a-licensed SRD 5.0 and CC BY 4.0-licensed SRD 5.1, see "Changes from SRD 5.0 to 5.1".
- Update conversions.
- Fix transposed class associations for eldritch blast (Warlock sted Sorcerer) and find familiar (Wizard sted Warlock). (#4)
- Restore poison spray to the Warlock cantrip list. (#4)
- Update conversions.
- Fix transposed spell properties for acid arrow and alarm. (#3)
- Add list of changes from the source document to licensing/LICENSING.md.
- Add licensing question to README FAQ.
- Note missing rules related to character creation in README. (#1)
- Edit word list, and list exceptions and problematic terms in its README.
- Replace some print-like chapter and section references, such as "(see "Equipment")", with direct links to the most relevant headings.
- Add spellcheck word list and dictionary generation script.
- Add DOCX/ODT reference documents for Pandoc.
- Replace outdated normalize.css with sindresorhus/modern-normalize.
- Remove HTML5 printing shim for IE 9.
- Update licensing files.
- Add links for conditions, spell lists, and magic item attunement.
- Update HTML templates and CSS styles.
- Make some progress on getting DOCX styles back.
- Add content changes from SRD 5.1, and documented identified changes in "Changes from SRD 5.0 to 5.1".
- Update HTML templates and CSS styles.
- Add internal links to spells and magic items.
The SRD's first-party publisher released the entirety of the SRD 5.1 under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license on January 26, 2023. I've reactivated this repository and relicensed its contents to match, and will resume maintenance now that there's much more value to having a searchable, plain-text edition of this text.
-
To excise any potentially OGL v1.0a-licensed content, this repository's history has been rewritten to begin at this commit. I do not maintain or claim any rights to prior versions or other forks of this repository that might exist.
-
In the time since I first converted the SRD 5.0 to Markdown in 2016, several other projects have done much more with the document. Since those projects have done more work over more time to greater effect, I've removed the JSON spell and creature/monster indices and filter tools from this repository and gladly instead link to several of those projects.
Please note that these resources might include content not in the SRD 5.1 CC BY-licensed version, and might use terms that the first-party publisher has historically claimed as OGL Product Identity that might still be subject to legal claims in certain contexts regardless of their inclusion in the CC BY-licensed SRD 5.1.
- 5e-bits/5e-database effectively replaces and improves upon my attempt to convert SRD content to structured JSON, and provides the data for creating equivalent tools that many other creators have taken advantage of.
- OldManUmby/DND.SRD.Wiki goes beyond the goals of this project to incorporate errata not included in the CC BY-licensed SRD 5.1 provided by the first-party publisher, and converted content to structured formats for use in other tools.
- Improve HTML template/rendering
- Modernize CSS
- Fix DOCX and ODT tables
- Restore ePub output
Q: Why do you keep saying "the SRD's first-party publisher" instead of just naming them?
-
A: Per the "Legal Information" section of the first-party publisher's SRD PDF:
Please do not include any other attribution regarding (the first-party publisher) other than that provided above. You may, however, include a statement on your work that it is “compatible with fifth edition” or “5E compatible.”
Because of the the first-party publisher's poor corporate citizenship and openly toxic attempts to wield legal powers over the existing open license prior to this relicensing, I decline to provide them with more reasons to act against this or any project. For that matter I also decline to provide them with any more attribution to this work than is absolutely, legally necessary.
Q: If the SRD was relicensed with the Creative Commons Attribution license, why remove OGL Product Identity terms?
-
A: I'm not a lawyer, but Creative Commons licenses are copyright licenses, not trademark licenses. Thanks to the OGL Product Identity list, the first-party publisher openly identifies terms to which it wishes to reserve additional rights. Many of these terms are actively used in trademarks owned by the first-party publisher for products that are not covered by either the OGL or Creative Commons licenses.
Therefore, out of an abundance of legal caution and with the knowledge that the first-party publisher has a recent and toxic history of actively and aggressively threatening works that are adjacent to its trademark rights, this work removes or replaces those terms. The first-party publisher's Product Identity claims are broad and vague, which means this work likely still contains terms that the first-party publisher might still try to claim.
Additionally, many Product Identity terms are used in the SRD only in examples and are, at best, unnecessary. In several cases, the Product Identity terms only add confusion for people with limited or no knowledge of the copyright-reserved, trademark-protected campaign settings or accessory products, and the SRD is arguably improved by removing them.
When the first-party publisher released the SRD 5.1, its updates to the original SRD 5.0 were largely comprised of removing Product Identity terms from that original SRD. However, that update did not remove all such terms, nor did it even remove such terms with internal consistency, leaving existing Product Identity terms intact but orphaned of any context, while even adding new and unnecessary Product Identity terms without context.
By removing potentially protected terms that the first-party publisher negligently left in their openly licensed reference document, this project aims to make the rules safer to reuse in publicly distributed homebrew and hobby projects.
Q: Wasn't this repository under a different name before?
-
A: I initially converted the OGL v1.0a SRD 5.0 to Markdown in 2016. To remove all claims that the first-party publisher might attempt to make on the content as released under the potentially revocable OGL v1.0a license, I've rewritten the history of this repository to remove all prior commits, deleted the repository from this host, and recreated it under a new name using the Creative Commons Attribution license from its origin.
I do not claim any rights to, nor will I maintain or provide support for, any forks or copies of the original repository.
Q: Some of the content is wrong. Not just different, but incorrect. It's a typo, a formatting error, or a mistaken inclusion/omission. How should this be fixed?
- A: File an issue or pull request in this repository. Be as detailed as possible about both where the error is located, and where I can find the correct information in the SRD 5.1 PDF. If I can't find the error based on your description, I'll close the issue.
Q: Some of the rules in the SRD have been changed in official errata, or I think they're bad and I have an improvement, or I'm offering to provide open content for references that are missing. How can I help?
-
A: This project will not incorporate any errata, even where it makes sense to, because the first-party publisher has not explicitly released any SRD or 5E-compatible errata under the CC BY 4.0 International license, or any compatible license, except for any changes made in its updates to the SRD 5.1 compared to its SRD 5.0. If that situation ever changes, file an issue and provide specific details and links to the first-party publisher's official release of such openly licensed errata.
I know game mechanics, including the mechanical changes described by the errata, are not copyrighted, and that the errata could be rephrased or reincorporated in this work without using the copyrighted text. But the OGL exists, and this Creative Commons relicensing occurred, because of the potential liability of using even excerpts of copyrighted rules text not available under any open license, or available only under the OGL v1.0a or more restrictive copyright licenses.
Additionally, I'm not a sufficient authority on the system's rules to judge whether your proposed fix to a rule is an improvement, even if your proposed improvement is original work and you offer to freely or openly license it. Improving the rules content of the SRD is explicitly not a goal of this project. If you want to do so, fork this project and take ownership of your improvements.
Q: Wasn't the OGL dual-licensed and not relicensed?
-
A: Firstly, the terms are not exclusive. "Relicensing" means the SRD content's licensing terms changed. They have.
Secondly, upon the publication of the CC BY SRD, the SRD's contents would have remained licensed under both the OGL and CC BY even if the first-party publisher removed every copy of the OGL v1.0a SRD from their website, because the OGL SRD had already been published and an entity cannot "depublish" a published work. New OGL-licensed works derived from the OGL-licensed SRD 5.1 would still be legally possible. Likewise, if the first-party publisher decides tomorrow to remove all CC BY copies of the SRD 5.1 from its website and host only the OGL v1.0a version, or any other licensed version, or no version at all, the CC BY SRD 5.1 would still exist.
(Indeed, the first-party publisher signaling that it wanted to deauthorize the OGL, something that potentially wasn't even legally viable, is the context for the CC BY relicensing. If the OGL v1.0a had been deauthorized or otherwise revoked, this would be more relevant.)
Thirdly, simply providing an already published work under its prior license is not the act commonly referred to as "dual-licensing", which strongly and uniquely implies ongoing maintenance of a work across both licenses. For a relevant example of that, refer to FATE Core's dual-licensed OGL and CC BY SRDs, which has a history of dual-licensed maintenance from 2016 to 2020.
If the first-party publisher updates the SRD and maintains both licensed versions in step, or even with divergent updates, it'd be easier to call the SRD "dual-licensed". If the first-party publisher updates and maintains only one licensed version of the SRD, it'd be much harder to call the SRD "dual-licensed", because it demonstrably would be not only divergent in content but also in timeliness.
(One wouldn't consider an open-source product that relicenses and stops updating the older versions with new content as "dual-licensed", even if you could technically use and derive products from either version under each version's license.)
And in any of these cases, it would still be true to note that the SRD had been relicensed, because the licensing terms had changed.
Considering that the SRD's content hasn't been updated since 2016, even with the CC BY relicensing, there's no indication that the first-party publisher intends to maintain any version of the SRD going forward. So calling the SRD "dual-licensed", even if true on a highly technical technicality, still implies that there are two copies of the SRD maintained by the first-party publisher under different licenses. In reality, there are none --- only a relicensed copy of the OGL v1.0a-licensed content from 2016. (The first-party publisher's SRD FAQ plainly points people to their storefront to buy additional rules, and notes that any additions would occur only to "keep this document and its contents compatible with the latest D&D rules", in which case the publisher is already six years behind in incorporating errata and fixing omissions.)
I'd consider using the term "dual-licensed" only if the first-party publisher changes this behavior, and I'd still feel no obligation.
Finally, and more entirely my opinion, I don't see a reason for the OGL v1.0a SRD to continue to matter for any new works since being relicensed CC BY. The OGL SRD's value was solely in supporting existing OGL products that won't be updated, or which rely entirely on other OGL-licensed products. I see no benefits to using the OGL SRD in any way compared to the CC BY license, especially for works that intend to be used on any medium beyond a print document or PDF published primarily for a United States-based market. The first-party publisher all but agrees; I'd argue that the publisher makes the OGL SRD available for download solely because doing anything else would cause people to complain even more about it.
Q: Where's the Discord for this project? How can I contribute?
-
A: I don't plan on building or maintaining a community around this resource. If you want to participate in a community working on an open resource based on the 5E-compatible SRD, go to 5e-bits.
Hosting this resource costs me nothing, and accepting payment or donations is a liability that I happily decline.
Q: If you hate the publisher so much, why are you doing this?
-
A: Regardless of whether I like the publisher or these rules, this system is popular enough to be responsible for growing a hobby I've loved for decades to an extent I hardly could have ever imagined. The people I've played it with are poorly served by the corporation that owns it.
Regardless of the still questionable, market-driven motives that led the first-party publisher relicensing this content to a truly open license, its action provides an opportunity to make these rules more accessible, expand this hobby to more people and more communities in ways not driven primarily or exclusively by monetization and profit, and inspire more people to create stories, mechanics, and experiences that have a long history of exceeding anything that the first-party publisher is capable of making.
In particular, the SRD as it was originally released was insultingly poor: polluted with legal Product Identity traps, in a format pointlessly inaccessible to people with vision disabilities, poorly edited and laden with careless copy-and-paste mistakes, and missing fundamental components that made it unusable as a reference document for the system.
This mess of an SRD received all of one update months later, one that didn't even resolve all of the problems openly and publicly identified and reported at the time, and then nothing in the more than six years hence. The publisher made no attempt to host the SRD in one of the least accessible formats available to them, instead handing that work --- and all of its potential and ever-threatening liability --- to unpaid fans and opportunistic ad-supported websites.
Back in 2016, I had a player excited to create OGL-licensed 5E-compatible content who couldn't read the SRD because the first-party publisher was either too lazy or incompetent to export a tagged PDF fully compatible with contemporary screen readers. Back then, there were no reliable SRD 5.0 websites. This project tried to resolve these fundamental issues because even then this system consumed all of the attention of legions of new players, even when more accessible, less expensive, better supported, and more open systems were already thriving in a smaller marketplace. The network effects alone of the system's name, brand, and retail distribution, even with all of its historical baggage, were and still remain overwhelming.
That player is still playing and making games because they had this resource, even if both they and I have since left this system behind for ones that did more to be usable, accessible, and enjoyable. But I still do this for that player because I know that there are many players like them, and nearly seven years after the SRD's flawed release, the only official document is still the same ugly, badly edited PDF from 2016 with poor accessibility and a bunch of trademark traps.
The HTML version embeds the fonts Alegreya and Alegreya Sans (SIL Open Font License v1.10), copyright 2011 and 2013 by Juan Pablo del Peral, and sindresorhus/modern-normalize.
Conversions in this repository are generated using jgm/pandoc (MacFarlane, J., Krewinkel, A., & Rosenthal, J. Pandoc [Computer software]. https://github.com/jgm/pandoc).
See the licensing files in licensing/ for further details.