As I said earlier, there was never a specific ETA. "We're going to do this within weeks of the Monster Manual release" isn't the kind of announcement you plan a schedule by. As of now, nothing has changed. They gave a vague "within weeks" statement last May and they're still "within weeks." If they had been more specific at any point, like saying "by end of February" or "by end of Q1" it would be a different story.

As for smell tests, you're positing with a lot of certainty when you don't have internal insight. What Caerwyn describes (and Pentagruel as well) rings true for my experience on big projects.

Quote from The_Buzzard_is_Circling >>

 Considering they have been working on this since before the OGL fiasco, and the MM was finished before it was printed and distributed there is no reason the new  SRD shouldn't have been ready before the new MM was early released here on DDB,  let alone by now. Something just doesn't pass the smell test here. Especially considering the latest response being no ETA. 

It is almost certainly being gone over by legal and licensing teams to make sure they haven't accidentally released something they don't want to release. Which can, in fact, take quite a while, and people outside of the people doing the work might not have a lot of information on what's going on.

People really need to realize how slow and stupid large corporations really are.

Again, there never was an ETA. They're still comfortably inside of "within weeks." You're asserting a broken promise where none exists. They can't miss a deadline if there wasn't an actual deadline.

It's funny you invoke phantom "WotC apologists" that "come out in full force." That feels a lot like an "every accusation a confession" situation because it really describes the way a group of folks who seem to be in a perpetual state of rage at WotC blow everything out of proportion and invent malicious narratives every time WotC has any corporate fumble.

It gets to feeling very repetitive and circular when every reasonable explanation is rejected out of hand with zealous insistence that everything must be corporate malfeasance.

I think the real issue here isn’t just whether WotC has technically missed a deadline or whether “weeks” is a vague term—it’s about expectations and communication.

WotC set a clear expectation: SRD 5.2 would release “within weeks” of the 2024 Monster Manual. Now, instead of an update, we’re being told there is no ETA at all. That’s not just a minor delay—that’s a shift from “it’s coming soon” to “we have no idea when (or if) it’s coming.”

For those who say this is just “corporate processes being slow,” fine—but if that’s the case, why can’t WotC just say that? If it’s caught up in legal review, why not tell us? If it’s delayed because they’re revising it, just give an estimate. Instead, WotC has gone from promising a release “within weeks” to radio silence, which—given their history—makes people understandably skeptical.

And let’s be honest: If this were a minor issue, it wouldn’t have been promised in the first place. The SRD exists so third-party publishers can have legal certainty when making content. That’s why creators have been waiting on it—because without an updated SRD, anyone using the 2024 mechanics (like Weapon Mastery, new subclass structures, spell revisions, etc.) is operating in a legal gray area.

If we get an update in the next week or two, great! But if we don’t, that’s a big problem, and WotC needs to be held accountable for yet another unfulfilled promise. At the very least, they owe the community an update.

Other than to those who are prone to conspiracy theories, I think it is pretty obvious and established what the corporate, legal, reasons for why something like this might take some time - lots of hands, including those who are not under Wizards’ control, touch something like this.

Let us turn then to the question of non-communication.  To preface this post, I firmly believe Wizards should communicate better on this topic - and communicate better in many different aspects of the game.  I say this because certain segments of this forum confuse explaining reality as “apologizing” for it. 

The first issue is simple incompetence.  Wizards is bad at PR - they always have been.  They are slow to respond to community issues, and, when they do respond, they often miss important elements, allowing players to spin conspiracies around what is missing.  Why are they so bad at this?  That we do not really know - it could be a failing of the PR team themselves, some sort of structural issue in the approval process for announcements causing delays, failure of other departments to timely give PR the information they need to do their job, failure to even let PR know their is an issue that needs to be addressed (I wouldn’t be surprised if that was part of the problem here).  Whatever the reason, this is a long-standing issue - and, the more likely explanation than conspiracy is simply “oh, look, Wizards is acting in accordance with its nature again.”

As a secondary issue, players actively contribute to this problem by inexplicably forgetting basic literacy whenever Wizards makes a post.  This is, after all, the same community that forgot the meaning of the word “draft” and spun an entire set of conspiracy theories around the word.  Add on top of that the folks whose entire raison d’êtra seems to be attacking Wizards for whatever reason, and you have a certain segment of the population that, either through inadvertent misunderstanding or willful malice are simply not receptive to whatever folks have to say.

Finally, as this thread demonstrates, some folks are simply impatient - and setting hard deadlines is a good way to disappoint expectations (and spawn the conspiracies that follow).

Between the constant misinterpretation of what Wizards does says, the conspiracies, and the impatient refusal to accept delays happen, the player base has given Wizards reason to think no news or late news is better than rushing to the draw and saying something innocuous that inexplicably causes them trouble long-term.

Again, I am not saying I personally think Wizards is handling this well and firmly believe they should do better at communications.  But recognizing both their long-standing failings at PR and the contributory roles of players in those failings is important.  Ultimately, this is pretty clearly a case of Harlan’s Razor - “never ascribe to malice that which can be more easily be explained by incompetence.”  What, after all, is more likely?  The company that is bad at PR and conditioned to be bad at PR is bad at PR? Or there is some kind of major conspiracy?

The new SRD will be out eventually.  When you choose to build off the foundation of other people's work and success you shouldn't be surprised if you find yourself having to work at the pace they set. The other options are to build your own successful TTRPG from the ground up or maybe buy one that has an established customer base already. That all seems like a lot of work or at the very least expensive.

The part of the article people overlook

All that said, it’s important that we wait until all the books have made it into our players’ hands to release the SRD into Creative Commons.

Believe there are still delays in the APAC region which might be a factor in the srd 5.2 release - just a thought

Quote from Paradox_Traveler >>

  May 6th, 2024 is the date of the article, and they will have had a full year to resolve the SRD issues with it

 In practice that means a full year for planned schedules to slip. The further in advance an announcement is, the less reliable it is.

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

Quote from Paradox_Traveler >>

  May 6th, 2024 is the date of the article, and they will have had a full year to resolve the SRD issues with it

 In practice that means a full year for planned schedules to slip. The further in advance an announcement is, the less reliable it is.

 Also you can't hand over to the lawyers for sign off what hasn't been written yet. The fact this announcement was made a year ago doesn't change that by the sounds of things the Monster Manual was still being tweaked right up until the wire. It didn't even exist when the statement was made

I don't believe for one second the 24 MM was created in a year, nor do I believe they waited until the 3 books were finished to start on the SRD. That would require a level of incompetence that is unfathomable. 

I didn't say they created it in a year, I said that they didn't finish it until right at the end. You can judge that based on things said in interviews and the simple fact it's riddled with simple errors that hint at it not getting sufficient review time. And the SRD is a complex legal document that requires review before being released, that is not something you can do piecemeal, you need the full thing before you can start reviewing it. That's not incompetence, that's just dealing with lawyers

I will be surprised if it ever does.
I have no faith in the higher-ups to follow through with much of anything. They have already slashed and burned a good chunk of the talent that made the game the juggernaut that it is, there might not be anyone left free to compile the Creative Commons SRD.

I appreciate the response from the moderator—this is exactly the kind of basic communication that WotC should have provided weeks ago. A simple “Yes, we’re still on track, and it’s coming soon” would have avoided a lot of the frustration in this thread.

That said, I still think it’s fair to ask why WotC struggles so much with clear communication when it comes to the SRD and third-party creators. The delay itself isn’t even the biggest issue—it’s the lack of transparency that makes people skeptical. After the OGL fiasco, trust in WotC’s handling of open gaming is already shaky, and radio silence just makes it worse.

Now that we have confirmation that SRD 5.2 is still coming, I hope WotC keeps the community informed instead of making us chase answers. If there’s another delay or setback, they should just say so, instead of letting speculation run wild.

Looking forward to seeing the final release soon.

Thanks for the clarification, and I appreciate you taking the time to respond!

It’s good to hear that there haven’t actually been delays and that everything is proceeding as intended. That’s exactly the kind of update that helps keep the community informed and avoids unnecessary speculation.

I also understand that sometimes there are limits on what can be shared, but even small updates like “still on track, still happening” would go a long way in the future. WotC has had a trust problem ever since the OGL situation, and when there’s radio silence, it creates doubt—even when things are going fine behind the scenes.

Thanks again for responding, and I’m looking forward to the official release soon!

Quote from druckle9001 >>

Thanks for the clarification, and I appreciate you taking the time to respond!

It’s good to hear that there haven’t actually been delays and that everything is proceeding as intended. That’s exactly the kind of update that helps keep the community informed and avoids unnecessary speculation.

I also understand that sometimes there are limits on what can be shared, but even small updates like “still on track, still happening” would go a long way in the future. WotC has had a trust problem ever since the OGL situation, and when there’s radio silence, it creates doubt—even when things are going fine behind the scenes.

Thanks again for responding, and I’m looking forward to the official release soon!

 Is it really radio silence if you haven’t got information about something within a very small time period of when it was supposed to happen? Not saying that wizards should’ve done it: updating your community is very important, and I appreciate that weeks can be a very important matter for 3rd party creators, but that does seem a bit excessive 

I get where you’re coming from, and if this were just about waiting a little longer for something, it wouldn’t be a big deal. The problem is that WotC set an expectation—SRD 5.2 would arrive “within weeks” of the Monster Manual release. Then, when people started asking about it, we weren’t given any official update until now.

For third-party creators, the SRD isn’t just a nice bonus—it’s something we need for legal certainty when designing content using the updated 2024 rules. So when weeks passed with no word and reports came in that there was no ETA, it raised real concerns that the timeline had slipped or the plan had changed. That’s why even a small update earlier would have helped avoid all this speculation.

Thankfully, we now have confirmation that it’s still coming soon, so that’s great. Hopefully, WotC takes this as a sign that better communication, even when things are on track, is always appreciated.

Quote from druckle9001 >>

The problem is that WotC set an expectation—SRD 5.2 would arrive “within weeks” of the Monster Manual release.

 Um... "within weeks" does not mean "within a specific small number of weeks". Eight weeks (a month from now) is still comfortably "within weeks".