I’m wondering if anyone has a grasp of how Wizards decided what the SRD includes and excludes.
The narrative used to be that the "special sauce" intellectual property is excluded, though that seems not to be the main factor, as far as I can tell. For example, the Mordenkainen’s Sword spell from the PHB is renamed Arcane Sword in the SRD, so the IP name is stripped out but the content is still there. On D&D Beyond, we do see the spell under its non-SRD name though, which is technically a breach of the SRD (DnDB is owned by Wizards so they can break their own rules as much as they want, obviously…).
Other content, however, is inexplicably missing. For example, the Blade Ward cantrip is in the PHB but not in the SRD, and in this case DnDB does not breach the rules. You need to pay for the PHB to access it.
So… while the IP stuff used to be the explanation for what is in or out, as far as older editions of the SRD were concerned, that explanation is detached from reality in 5e.
There is also a wide variance in terms of the proportion of content included. For example, the SRD includes only a single subclass per class, and only 4 backgrounds out of the PHB’s 16. And the rationale there seems to be that you need just a single concrete example to plug the holes of the abstraction in order to make the game playable… which, ok, fine. But in terms of spells, they’re almost all included, except some odd exclusions here and there, as mentioned above. So if we can play the game fine with a quarter of the subclasses and backgrounds, why do we get 15 out of 20 Wizard cantrips?
Wizards can do whatever they want, obviously. I don’t intend to debate that. I’m just trying to figure out if there’s a logic to the madness. The inclusion/exclusion looks somewhat random.
I find this a bit problematic in terms of creating homebrew content that references SRD content, since every single thing needs to be looked up. There is no easy rule like "obviously Mordenkainen’s stuff is off-limits and obviously a vulgar generic cantrip is included" since, as I pointed out above, this is not true.
Please let me know if you understand this better than I do. I’d love to hear about it!
This is a question only WoTC could really answers but you may find some answers in SRD Frequently Asked Questions. Closest i could find is;
Why are some of the names of [spells, items, monsters] different from the names in the Core Rulebooks?
We’ve renamed some of the content so that it can be freely used by creators without worrying about infringing Wizards’ IP. The functionality of that content remains the same.
Why is [class, spell, monster, etc.] not in SRD 5.2?
SRD 5.2 includes a wide range of content from the 2024 core rulebooks, but some classes (such as the Artificer), species (like Aasimar), and monsters (including the Beholder) have been excluded. These exclusions are based on brand identity protection, licensing strategy, and intellectual property rights.
Further, in SRD 5.1 there was confusion around whether any named monsters, items, etc. that appeared in descriptions but not as stat blocks were part of the actual content of the SRD, so we’ve taken steps to ensure that there’s no further confusion there. Names like Strahd, Orcus, and Tiamat won’t appear in SRD 5.2.
SRD 5.2 is designed to give creators a strong foundation for building original material, not to replicate every element of the D&D brand or setting. Where content is omitted, creators are encouraged to design and name their own equivalents.
The goal of the SRD is to provide content creators with enough information that they can produce third-party content, without them being able to say "and here is a third-party book that just recreates everything in an official Wizards product, so you can just pay me without giving money to Wizards." You mention subclasses and Wizard spells and the disparity between the two of those - that is pretty easy to explain when you look at what third-party content creators need.
For subclases, they really do not need any, since they likely are making their own and sublcasses are a major sales point for Wizards. Wizards gives out one so there is the minimum possible for playing (which could be useful in a "here's how to play the game" third-party content product). For Wizard spells, however, you need a lot more in the SRD - Wizard spells are a common thing to add to, say, a third-party Cleric subclass, or a background, or a feat - giving players a lot of options on these spells ensures players can make a lot of content, without having to make up spells on their own as well. Certain spells are still excluded to ensure you still have to buy Wizards' products, but they want to give a pretty wide range of spells while also not including anything overly sensitive in terms of intellectual property (such as specific character names).
You mention that you pay a lot of attention to the SRD when making your own homebrew content - unless you are planning on publishing that (either commercial or not), it really is not applicable as you are not intending to publish your content and thus not in a situation where you are really implicating either the Creative Common License or copyright. If you intend to publish, then, yes - you will need to look at the SRD for each thing to make sure it is correct. Your best bet is not to start with the spells (or whatever rule you are looking at) and then checking to see if it is SRD compatible, but to start with the SRD and then only work off that document when deciding what official content to include.
(Also, just an aside, this "D&D Beyond, we do see the spell under its non-SRD name though, which is technically a breach of the SRD" is factually incorrect on two points. First, you cannot have "a breach of the SRD" since the SRD is just a list of information. You can breach the Creative Commons license if you use SRD content outside the scope of the license, and you can breach copyright law if you use non-SRD content in an impermissible way, but the SRD is not the instrument being breached. Second D&D Beyond cannot "technical . . . breach" the SRD because Wizards owns the intellectual property and does not need a license to use their own property.)
I get you are afraid they are going to try to pull a TSR (the going after Free hombrew posted on forums or Zines part) on us, but i am pretty sure they can't, so unless you are doing this to sell in a paid module, use whatever you like.
As for actual logic of inclusion or exclusion, i can only hypothesize. They might be giving away as little as possible to make their own mechanics feel distinct in an attempt to retain some draw for first party material.
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The goal of the SRD is to provide content creators with enough information that they can produce third-party content, without them being able to say "and here is a third-party book that just recreates everything in an official Wizards product, so you can just pay me without giving money to Wizards." You mention subclasses and Wizard spells and the disparity between the two of those - that is pretty easy to explain when you look at what third-party content creators need.
For subclases, they really do not need any, since they likely are making their own and sublcasses are a major sales point for Wizards. Wizards gives out one so there is the minimum possible for playing (which could be useful in a "here's how to play the game" third-party content product). For Wizard spells, however, you need a lot more in the SRD - Wizard spells are a common thing to add to, say, a third-party Cleric subclass, or a background, or a feat - giving players a lot of options on these spells ensures players can make a lot of content, without having to make up spells on their own as well. Certain spells are still excluded to ensure you still have to buy Wizards' products, but they want to give a pretty wide range of spells while also not including anything overly sensitive in terms of intellectual property (such as specific character names).
You mention that you pay a lot of attention to the SRD when making your own homebrew content - unless you are planning on publishing that (either commercial or not), it really is not applicable as you are not intending to publish your content and thus not in a situation where you are really implicating either the Creative Common License or copyright. If you intend to publish, then, yes - you will need to look at the SRD for each thing to make sure it is correct. Your best bet is not to start with the spells (or whatever rule you are looking at) and then checking to see if it is SRD compatible, but to start with the SRD and then only work off that document when deciding what official content to include.
(Also, just an aside, this "D&D Beyond, we do see the spell under its non-SRD name though, which is technically a breach of the SRD" is factually incorrect on two points. First, you cannot have "a breach of the SRD" since the SRD is just a list of information. You can breach the Creative Commons license if you use SRD content outside the scope of the license, and you can breach copyright law if you use non-SRD content in an impermissible way, but the SRD is not the instrument being breached. Second D&D Beyond cannot "technical . . . breach" the SRD because Wizards owns the intellectual property and does not need a license to use their own property.)
In addition to all this it’s worth bearing in mind the purpose of the SRD: it’s not generosity, it’s not even to facilitate the creation of third party products (although that’s the end result) it’s to get people to buy WotC’s own products. Letting third party publishers have access to every subclass or every race doesn’t do that, as Caerwyn says the third party publishers will be creating their own subclasses anyway, but having those new subclasses all reference existing spells will result in anyone using the third party product having a need to look up those spells. Yes they could plough through the SRD themselves but it’s a very unwieldy document and the majority will just buy the PHB resulting in sales for WotC
This is a question only WoTC could really answers but you may find some answers in SRD Frequently Asked Questions. Closest i could find is;
Why are some of the names of [spells, items, monsters] different from the names in the Core Rulebooks?
We’ve renamed some of the content so that it can be freely used by creators without worrying about infringing Wizards’ IP. The functionality of that content remains the same.
Why is [class, spell, monster, etc.] not in SRD 5.2?
SRD 5.2 includes a wide range of content from the 2024 core rulebooks, but some classes (such as the Artificer), species (like Aasimar), and monsters (including the Beholder) have been excluded. These exclusions are based on brand identity protection, licensing strategy, and intellectual property rights.
Further, in SRD 5.1 there was confusion around whether any named monsters, items, etc. that appeared in descriptions but not as stat blocks were part of the actual content of the SRD, so we’ve taken steps to ensure that there’s no further confusion there. Names like Strahd, Orcus, and Tiamat won’t appear in SRD 5.2.
SRD 5.2 is designed to give creators a strong foundation for building original material, not to replicate every element of the D&D brand or setting. Where content is omitted, creators are encouraged to design and name their own equivalents.
Yes I saw that, but it does not seem particularly sincere. It is more of a corpo-talk diversion.
If anything is an element of the "D&D brand or setting", it’s got to be the named spells, but those have been quite easily renamed into generic alternatives. So there’s nothing to see here. As for the stuff which is missing, it’s not setting-specific in any meaningful way.
I tend to lean more towards the explanations given by @CunningSmile and others… the SRD as it stands is the offspring of one of the company’s lawyer having an affair with some bean counter from the go to market team. I’m sure there were some factors leading to the decisions that were made, but those are not published in the FAQ, nor do they take players or 3PPs into account…
the SRD as it stands is the offspring of one of the company’s lawyer having an affair with some bean counter from the go to market team. I’m sure there were some factors leading the decisions that were made, but those are not published in the FAQ, nor do they take players or 3PPs into account…
I think this is more than a little dismissive and unfair. Yes, Wizards has a vested interest in making money, and the SRD is one very effective method to do so. And, yes, obviously legal and marketing are going to look over such a powerful document. But saying they do not take players or 3PPs into account in drafting is an clearly wrong.
For the SRD to be successful, it needs to contain things people actually want - which means they are going to put a considerable degree of thought into what players actually want when drafting it. Heck, even you yourself have provided strong evidence Wizards is thinking about players when crafting this document - a number of popular spells that have lore-specific names Wizards does not want released in Creative Commons get revised names specifically to give players something they want, without giving up the IP rights Wizards cannot really put in a common license.
Multiple editions of D&D have shown that licensed content like the SRD ends up being a win-win for everyone - Wizards, players, and third party publishers alike. Part of that success is because Wizards does take others into account - and in doing so delivers content folks actually want to use, while still protecting their own interests. Not really anything to complain about here.
the SRD as it stands is the offspring of one of the company’s lawyer having an affair with some bean counter from the go to market team. I’m sure there were some factors leading the decisions that were made, but those are not published in the FAQ, nor do they take players or 3PPs into account…
I think this is more than a little dismissive and unfair. Yes, Wizards has a vested interest in making money, and the SRD is one very effective method to do so. And, yes, obviously legal and marketing are going to look over such a powerful document. But saying they do not take players or 3PPs into account in drafting is an clearly wrong.
For the SRD to be successful, it needs to contain things people actually want - which means they are going to put a considerable degree of thought into what players actually want when drafting it. Heck, even you yourself have provided strong evidence Wizards is thinking about players when crafting this document - a number of popular spells that have lore-specific names Wizards does not want released in Creative Commons get revised names specifically to give players something they want, without giving up the IP rights Wizards cannot really put in a common license.
Multiple editions of D&D have shown that licensed content like the SRD ends up being a win-win for everyone - Wizards, players, and third party publishers alike. Part of that success is because Wizards does take others into account - and in doing so delivers content folks actually want to use, while still protecting their own interests. Not really anything to complain about here.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend. We may be in violent agreement here, as I too am a big booster of the SRD.
It is precisely because I think it is such a good idea and such a bold move that I have high hopes and expectations for it.
That being said, I am coming from a background of having played quite a bit of 2e and 3.5e. In 2e there was no SRD and in 3/3.5 there was. I saw the world of difference it made to introduce this. But also, I remember that back when we played 3.5, a website with 100% legal content (d20srd dot whatever, I think, but maybe it was another one) was extremely useful. We could actually benefit from it to quickly look up references to what we needed.
Fast forward to 5e 2014/2024, and I unfortunately cannot say the same. I favor wiki sites that I know to be legal, and they often miss the stuff I’m looking for. And then I end up looking at "less reputable" sites because there is no other way to be a good reference without that.
Mind you, I own all the books. I’m not trying to access content I didn’t pay for.
Mind you, I own all the books. I’m not trying to access content I didn’t pay for.
You are, in fact, trying to access content you did not pay for. When you purchase a physical book, you are only buying access to that physical content. You are not buying digital content, which is a different product entirely. Essentially, you are saying “I just bought a new novel, I should be allowed to google and get it online also.”
The SRD exists to make things easier for third party content creators… it does not exist to make your abusing it to disrespect Wizards’ intellectual property slightly easier. Kind of takes the credibility out of your entire thread when you betray your real concern stems from your engaging in IP theft.
Mind you, I own all the books. I’m not trying to access content I didn’t pay for.
You are, in fact, trying to access content you did not pay for. When you purchase a physical book, you are only buying access to that physical content. You are not buying digital content, which is a different product entirely. Essentially, you are saying “I just bought a new novel, I should be allowed to google and get it online also.”
The SRD exists to make things easier for third party content creators… it does not exist to make your abusing it to disrespect Wizards’ intellectual property slightly easier. Kind of takes the credibility out of your entire thread when you betray your real concern stems from your engaging in IP theft.
I appreciate the enthusiasm, and the fervor to seek justice. I really do. But I fear there is a misunderstanding.
I have given more money to WotC than most people. I bought several editions of each book, and several translations of several books too. On top of that, my DM and I have both paid for digital licenses of many of the books we purchased physically, in order to use VTT software.
I have no qualms about wanting to have an efficient experience of looking up rules. I prefer the touch and feel of paper, hence why I buy that, but if I’m researching for a build or something else, I want quick access and I reach for digital tools.
The real problem is not, as you mistakenly claim, that I attempt to do IP theft (I forgive you for your mistake, no worries). The problem is that the digital tools I’ve tried (and paid for) so far are not very good, and the better / less bad ones don’t have all the content. Add to that the fact that WotC set up a set of bi-lateral business deals where digital purchases are locked into whichever platform you bought them in, and not transferable, and you get the current mess.
So yeah, I’m still looking for a good tool. It’s 2026, and I sure hope I’ll find a decent one before 7e…
Wrapping the violation of a creator’s rights in false moralism and victim blaming does not make you any more right. I even agree that D&D Beyond has a pretty bad UI - their search is terrible, their filters are lacking, some tools are not fully up to date, and it is a step down from even what Wizards produced in their fairly great 4e tools. But to say “the UI is bad, therefore I will turn to violating the rights of content creators?” Can’t say I’ve heard that particular category of fair use in my own forays into IP law as part of my legal practice.
I am disappointed. I actually thought this was an interesting thread, where there could be some fascinating discussion on what is or is not included in the SRD, and what that might mean for third party content creators. It is a shame to learn this entire thread seem to be motivated by your confusion as to why it is not easier to rip off Wizards and their staff.
Leaving it at that and unfollowing this thread. I do hope you think about your position and perhaps realize how reprehensible it is to put yourself over the rights over the people who worked hard to make the content you profess to enjoy.
I'm really surprised to hear people say that the digital tools for 5e that are legally available are "not good". I don't use digital tools myself most of the time, but the few times I have used stuff like DnD Beyond, I noted what a huge improvement it is over the stuff we got over the last few decades. I suppose I'm showing my age a bit but I have been around since 1st edition, and I think the tools today are the best that I ever seen or used.
That said, I do think that digital tools as a marketable product has a very limited shelf life. We are entering the era of interface-less utility with A.I.'s. It took me all of 25 minutes to build an agent into Gemini that uses the complete SRD as a datasource and setup up keyword for prompts to do look ups. With that, I can look up any rule with 100% accuracy in the time it takes for me to type a word which is at least 500% faster than clicking around in the DnD Beyond engine. I could then quickly create a art infused stat block, for example for a monster with a digital .png for a token.
There is no way I could create using DnD Beyond as fast as I did it with A.I.
I recognize that at this stage this sort of usage of AI is still "skill based", but I think this sort of setup is going to become something everyone knows how to do and tools like this one will really not have much value as alreay today, AI is at least as usefull as DnD beyond and its certainly faster.
This is a question only WoTC could really answers but you may find some answers in SRD Frequently Asked Questions. Closest i could find is;
Why are some of the names of [spells, items, monsters] different from the names in the Core Rulebooks?
We’ve renamed some of the content so that it can be freely used by creators without worrying about infringing Wizards’ IP. The functionality of that content remains the same.
Why is [class, spell, monster, etc.] not in SRD 5.2?
SRD 5.2 includes a wide range of content from the 2024 core rulebooks, but some classes (such as the Artificer), species (like Aasimar), and monsters (including the Beholder) have been excluded. These exclusions are based on brand identity protection, licensing strategy, and intellectual property rights.
Further, in SRD 5.1 there was confusion around whether any named monsters, items, etc. that appeared in descriptions but not as stat blocks were part of the actual content of the SRD, so we’ve taken steps to ensure that there’s no further confusion there. Names like Strahd, Orcus, and Tiamat won’t appear in SRD 5.2.
SRD 5.2 is designed to give creators a strong foundation for building original material, not to replicate every element of the D&D brand or setting. Where content is omitted, creators are encouraged to design and name their own equivalents.
Yes I saw that, but it does not seem particularly sincere. It is more of a corpo-talk diversion.
If anything is an element of the "D&D brand or setting", it’s got to be the named spells, but those have been quite easily renamed into generic alternatives. So there’s nothing to see here. As for the stuff which is missing, it’s not setting-specific in any meaningful way.
I tend to lean more towards the explanations given by @CunningSmile and others… the SRD as it stands is the offspring of one of the company’s lawyer having an affair with some bean counter from the go to market team. I’m sure there were some factors leading to the decisions that were made, but those are not published in the FAQ, nor do they take players or 3PPs into account…
WoTC decides what they put in their SRD and what they say about it. And the FAQ is what they opted for as the only source of information on it.
If you would like more insight you can always try to write them directly and ask them. I wish you good luck with that as i don't think you will get the answers you're hoping for.
It's stated on the SRD v5.2.1 information page which is linked from the bottom of basically every page on D&D Beyond:
The purpose of the SRD is to provide a foundation of Dungeons & Dragons content on which third-party publishers can build their products. It allows creators to reference and use the base game rules of Dungeons & Dragons in their products without the need to pay a licensing fee to Wizards of the Coast.
The intent is to provide enough resources for third parties to design and publish content compatible with D&D. They don't need the entire IP to do that, hence why the SRD is limited in its scope
From what I've read, Pathfinder 1e basically took all of D&D 3.5 and just added some stuff to it. It's understandable that WotC have limitations in place to prevent that from happening again. That being said, I do think they're making a mistake by not including the artificer in the SRD. It is a class that I think could really benefit from third party subclasses.
Wrapping the violation of a creator’s rights in false moralism and victim blaming does not make you any more right. I even agree that D&D Beyond has a pretty bad UI - their search is terrible, their filters are lacking, some tools are not fully up to date, and it is a step down from even what Wizards produced in their fairly great 4e tools. But to say “the UI is bad, therefore I will turn to violating the rights of content creators?” Can’t say I’ve heard that particular category of fair use in my own forays into IP law as part of my legal practice.
I am disappointed. I actually thought this was an interesting thread, where there could be some fascinating discussion on what is or is not included in the SRD, and what that might mean for third party content creators. It is a shame to learn this entire thread seem to be motivated by your confusion as to why it is not easier to rip off Wizards and their staff.
Leaving it at that and unfollowing this thread. I do hope you think about your position and perhaps realize how reprehensible it is to put yourself over the rights over the people who worked hard to make the content you profess to enjoy.
You again ascribe bad intents to me, for some reason. I will refrain from reciprocating that, and I will continue to presume you are doing this out of mistake rather than out of malice. I hope this is true, but I do not know for certain.
What I have said, but which you have seemingly brushed aside, is that I have gone out of my way to pay for D&D content in a myriad ways, including paying WotC directly by buying their books, and even in some cases buying more than one copy of each book (to get translations) AND I have also paid them indirectly by buying digital content from some of their partners. After that, to say that my intent is to grift, scam, steal, whatever you want to call it… I think that’s a dishonest argument. But again, I’ll refrain from assuming dishonesty on your part. I’m sure there is a more charitable interpretation. I assume you simply skimmed my posts, cherry-picked a word or turn of phrase that rubbed you the wrong way, and built an edifice of indignance on top of it. It’s fine, I’m moving on. Let’s try to pivot to a more positive discussion…
Opening up the gaming system and core content to third parties is great for (at least) two reasons:
1. It provides a framework for writing third party content. That part I think is clear to everyone in the thread.
2. It provides an opportunity for tools developers to help improve the experience of the game. That last part seems not well understood in the thread so far.
Like I said, back in the 3.5e days, d20srd was a fantastic site to quickly lookup rules. We knew the splatbooks were not included in it, and that’s fine, but having an effective UI for searching and navigating the core was still incredibly valuable. And there were many such sites. I liked d20srd because it was clean and simple, but I would say that it became great because there were many good options to choose from and they competed.
Back then, IP/brand related stuff was truly the only thing missing from the SRD compared to the core books. You just needed to know that if you were looking for a Mordenkainen spell, you needed simply swap out that name for "Mage" and off you went.
In 5e, the non-IP based content filtering in the SRD makes it hard for simple tools to be built by the community. Now even for the core stuff you need to shell out a digital license of the PHB. And that, in turn, means you’re locked into whatever platform you bought the digital content in. If you bought digital content for some 3rd party VTT, you don’t have access to that same digital content on D&D Beyond.
The end result is that there is less pressure for tools to compete with one another. They can sit on their laurels since users are locked in, and most people don’t want to pay duplicate digital licenses just to try out whether another platform works better.
Solving the problem of digital license lock-in and interop is not that complicated from a technical standpoint. But the business and legal stakeholders of the company need to have sufficient vision to be willing to invest in that. Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening yet, and therefore we have these balkanized solutions that don’t benefit from free market dynamics, which ultimately penalizes the consumer.
I'm really surprised to hear people say that the digital tools for 5e that are legally available are "not good". I don't use digital tools myself most of the time, but the few times I have used stuff like DnD Beyond, I noted what a huge improvement it is over the stuff we got over the last few decades. I suppose I'm showing my age a bit but I have been around since 1st edition, and I think the tools today are the best that I ever seen or used.
To elaborate some, the character builder on Beyond is probably the best character builder Wizards has ever made - 4e’s builder was pretty solid, and, in many ways, was better in its functionality - such as the ability to make meaningful searches within the builder for content - but its reliance on Microsoft Silverlight made it run slowly, even by the standards of the internet 15 years ago. But here are the current failings in Beyond:
- The encounter builder used to be the best iteration of an encounter builder… until D&D Beyond decided they could not be bothered to update it to the 2024 encounter design rules. Still runs fine, but has a fundamental failing Beyond is too lazy to address.
- The search function is terrible - you only get a single page of results, cannot filter within other than a single category, and it does not search third party content, even if owned.
- The individual compendium (such as the spells category) are likewise flawed in their search systems. Namely, you can’t do things like search within the actual text. So, for example, Beyond has no meaningful way to search for spells with certain terms, including things like specific damage types. There also is no exclusion option, so if you want to exclude a certain book, you have to specifically include every book other than that one. Finally, it has no way of setting some default terms, which is kind of annoying if you want to include things like third party content, which you have to click multiple buttons in order to include. This lack of basic search functionality - all of which was present in the 4e Digital Compendium - is a pretty obvious failing in basic database design.
These are all things Beyond should be working on. The first is something it is embarrassing - and frankly insulting to those who adopted the new system - has not been updated yet. The second two it is fairly embarrassing were not included from the start - though that embarrassment falls on the company that actually made Beyond. Given that Beyond has some stability problems every time they try to fix anything big (likely due to changing hands a few times leaving an unstable pile of spaghetti code), I expect the task of fixing the terrible search tools might be quite difficult, even if it would drastically improve the user experience and functionality of the site.
Of course, none of this excuses OP’s decision to utilize sites that engage in blatant IP theft, and thus support those who engage in IP theft through page views, as continues to be their position on this thread.
The second two it is fairly embarrassing were not included from the start - though that embarrassment falls on the company that actually made Beyond. Given that Beyond has some stability problems every time they try to fix anything big (likely due to changing hands a few times leaving an unstable pile of spaghetti code), I expect the task of fixing the terrible search tools might be quite difficult, even if it would drastically improve the user experience and functionality of the site.
Fixing search shouldn't affect the general stability of the site, because it's not connected to the big pile of mess. (the character builder/sheet) They can rip out the search engine and it won't touch the builder at all, unless they did some extremely weird stuff in building the site. (And doing that would've been more work, while DDB's architectural problems feel like they rushed it on the design end, leading to too much stuff being hard-coded.)
And, to be fair, good search is hard. (And not my area of expertise.) But it feels like they should be able to do better. (Though, frankly, most web sites have abysmal search.) I suspect better metadata would be the easiest solution, but that's a lot of labor.
That said, I do think that digital tools as a marketable product has a very limited shelf life. We are entering the era of interface-less utility with A.I.'s. It took me all of 25 minutes to build an agent into Gemini that uses the complete SRD as a datasource and setup up keyword for prompts to do look ups. With that, I can look up any rule with 100% accuracy in the time it takes for me to type a word which is at least 500% faster than clicking around in the DnD Beyond engine. I could then quickly create a art infused stat block, for example for a monster with a digital .png for a token.
There is no way I could create using DnD Beyond as fast as I did it with A.I.
I recognize that at this stage this sort of usage of AI is still "skill based", but I think this sort of setup is going to become something everyone knows how to do and tools like this one will really not have much value as alreay today, AI is at least as usefull as DnD beyond and its certainly faster.
I believe you're going to find that LLMs are not going to prove as useful as you believe*, and people are always going to want a tool where they can adjust stuff by hand.
* But discussion of the failings of LLMs is off-topic for this thread.
Wrapping the violation of a creator’s rights in false moralism and victim blaming does not make you any more right. I even agree that D&D Beyond has a pretty bad UI - their search is terrible, their filters are lacking, some tools are not fully up to date, and it is a step down from even what Wizards produced in their fairly great 4e tools. But to say “the UI is bad, therefore I will turn to violating the rights of content creators?” Can’t say I’ve heard that particular category of fair use in my own forays into IP law as part of my legal practice.
I am disappointed. I actually thought this was an interesting thread, where there could be some fascinating discussion on what is or is not included in the SRD, and what that might mean for third party content creators. It is a shame to learn this entire thread seem to be motivated by your confusion as to why it is not easier to rip off Wizards and their staff.
Leaving it at that and unfollowing this thread. I do hope you think about your position and perhaps realize how reprehensible it is to put yourself over the rights over the people who worked hard to make the content you profess to enjoy.
You again ascribe bad intents to me, for some reason. I will refrain from reciprocating that, and I will continue to presume you are doing this out of mistake rather than out of malice. I hope this is true, but I do not know for certain.
What I have said, but which you have seemingly brushed aside, is that I have gone out of my way to pay for D&D content in a myriad ways, including paying WotC directly by buying their books, and even in some cases buying more than one copy of each book (to get translations) AND I have also paid them indirectly by buying digital content from some of their partners. After that, to say that my intent is to grift, scam, steal, whatever you want to call it… I think that’s a dishonest argument. But again, I’ll refrain from assuming dishonesty on your part. I’m sure there is a more charitable interpretation. I assume you simply skimmed my posts, cherry-picked a word or turn of phrase that rubbed you the wrong way, and built an edifice of indignance on top of it. It’s fine, I’m moving on. Let’s try to pivot to a more positive discussion…
Opening up the gaming system and core content to third parties is great for (at least) two reasons:
1. It provides a framework for writing third party content. That part I think is clear to everyone in the thread.
2. It provides an opportunity for tools developers to help improve the experience of the game. That last part seems not well understood in the thread so far.
Like I said, back in the 3.5e days, d20srd was a fantastic site to quickly lookup rules. We knew the splatbooks were not included in it, and that’s fine, but having an effective UI for searching and navigating the core was still incredibly valuable. And there were many such sites. I liked d20srd because it was clean and simple, but I would say that it became great because there were many good options to choose from and they competed.
Back then, IP/brand related stuff was truly the only thing missing from the SRD compared to the core books. You just needed to know that if you were looking for a Mordenkainen spell, you needed simply swap out that name for "Mage" and off you went.
In 5e, the non-IP based content filtering in the SRD makes it hard for simple tools to be built by the community. Now even for the core stuff you need to shell out a digital license of the PHB. And that, in turn, means you’re locked into whatever platform you bought the digital content in. If you bought digital content for some 3rd party VTT, you don’t have access to that same digital content on D&D Beyond.
The end result is that there is less pressure for tools to compete with one another. They can sit on their laurels since users are locked in, and most people don’t want to pay duplicate digital licenses just to try out whether another platform works better.
Solving the problem of digital license lock-in and interop is not that complicated from a technical standpoint. But the business and legal stakeholders of the company need to have sufficient vision to be willing to invest in that. Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening yet, and therefore we have these balkanized solutions that don’t benefit from free market dynamics, which ultimately penalizes the consumer.
Considering that there is by an order of magnitude more third party stuff for 5e than there was for 3e I’d say that whatever problem you think is being caused by the SRD is a you problem rather than one being experienced by everyone.
Also unless I’m mistaken d20srd wasn’t official so the only reason it exists and a 5e equivalent doesn’t exist is because someone hasn’t made it. It’s not a problem you can level at WotC considering they weren’t involved in the old site
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Hi,
I’m wondering if anyone has a grasp of how Wizards decided what the SRD includes and excludes.
The narrative used to be that the "special sauce" intellectual property is excluded, though that seems not to be the main factor, as far as I can tell. For example, the Mordenkainen’s Sword spell from the PHB is renamed Arcane Sword in the SRD, so the IP name is stripped out but the content is still there. On D&D Beyond, we do see the spell under its non-SRD name though, which is technically a breach of the SRD (DnDB is owned by Wizards so they can break their own rules as much as they want, obviously…).
Other content, however, is inexplicably missing. For example, the Blade Ward cantrip is in the PHB but not in the SRD, and in this case DnDB does not breach the rules. You need to pay for the PHB to access it.
So… while the IP stuff used to be the explanation for what is in or out, as far as older editions of the SRD were concerned, that explanation is detached from reality in 5e.
There is also a wide variance in terms of the proportion of content included. For example, the SRD includes only a single subclass per class, and only 4 backgrounds out of the PHB’s 16. And the rationale there seems to be that you need just a single concrete example to plug the holes of the abstraction in order to make the game playable… which, ok, fine. But in terms of spells, they’re almost all included, except some odd exclusions here and there, as mentioned above. So if we can play the game fine with a quarter of the subclasses and backgrounds, why do we get 15 out of 20 Wizard cantrips?
Wizards can do whatever they want, obviously. I don’t intend to debate that. I’m just trying to figure out if there’s a logic to the madness. The inclusion/exclusion looks somewhat random.
I find this a bit problematic in terms of creating homebrew content that references SRD content, since every single thing needs to be looked up. There is no easy rule like "obviously Mordenkainen’s stuff is off-limits and obviously a vulgar generic cantrip is included" since, as I pointed out above, this is not true.
Please let me know if you understand this better than I do. I’d love to hear about it!
Thanks!
This is a question only WoTC could really answers but you may find some answers in SRD Frequently Asked Questions. Closest i could find is;
To me, it seems like some of the more exotic spells are excluded, like Phantasmal Force, likely to give an additional reason to buy the book.
The goal of the SRD is to provide content creators with enough information that they can produce third-party content, without them being able to say "and here is a third-party book that just recreates everything in an official Wizards product, so you can just pay me without giving money to Wizards." You mention subclasses and Wizard spells and the disparity between the two of those - that is pretty easy to explain when you look at what third-party content creators need.
For subclases, they really do not need any, since they likely are making their own and sublcasses are a major sales point for Wizards. Wizards gives out one so there is the minimum possible for playing (which could be useful in a "here's how to play the game" third-party content product). For Wizard spells, however, you need a lot more in the SRD - Wizard spells are a common thing to add to, say, a third-party Cleric subclass, or a background, or a feat - giving players a lot of options on these spells ensures players can make a lot of content, without having to make up spells on their own as well. Certain spells are still excluded to ensure you still have to buy Wizards' products, but they want to give a pretty wide range of spells while also not including anything overly sensitive in terms of intellectual property (such as specific character names).
You mention that you pay a lot of attention to the SRD when making your own homebrew content - unless you are planning on publishing that (either commercial or not), it really is not applicable as you are not intending to publish your content and thus not in a situation where you are really implicating either the Creative Common License or copyright. If you intend to publish, then, yes - you will need to look at the SRD for each thing to make sure it is correct. Your best bet is not to start with the spells (or whatever rule you are looking at) and then checking to see if it is SRD compatible, but to start with the SRD and then only work off that document when deciding what official content to include.
(Also, just an aside, this "D&D Beyond, we do see the spell under its non-SRD name though, which is technically a breach of the SRD" is factually incorrect on two points. First, you cannot have "a breach of the SRD" since the SRD is just a list of information. You can breach the Creative Commons license if you use SRD content outside the scope of the license, and you can breach copyright law if you use non-SRD content in an impermissible way, but the SRD is not the instrument being breached. Second D&D Beyond cannot "technical . . . breach" the SRD because Wizards owns the intellectual property and does not need a license to use their own property.)
I get you are afraid they are going to try to pull a TSR (the going after Free hombrew posted on forums or Zines part) on us, but i am pretty sure they can't, so unless you are doing this to sell in a paid module, use whatever you like.
As for actual logic of inclusion or exclusion, i can only hypothesize. They might be giving away as little as possible to make their own mechanics feel distinct in an attempt to retain some draw for first party material.
He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player.
The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call
To rise up in triumph should we all unite
The spark for change is yours to ignite."
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In addition to all this it’s worth bearing in mind the purpose of the SRD: it’s not generosity, it’s not even to facilitate the creation of third party products (although that’s the end result) it’s to get people to buy WotC’s own products. Letting third party publishers have access to every subclass or every race doesn’t do that, as Caerwyn says the third party publishers will be creating their own subclasses anyway, but having those new subclasses all reference existing spells will result in anyone using the third party product having a need to look up those spells. Yes they could plough through the SRD themselves but it’s a very unwieldy document and the majority will just buy the PHB resulting in sales for WotC
Yes I saw that, but it does not seem particularly sincere. It is more of a corpo-talk diversion.
If anything is an element of the "D&D brand or setting", it’s got to be the named spells, but those have been quite easily renamed into generic alternatives. So there’s nothing to see here. As for the stuff which is missing, it’s not setting-specific in any meaningful way.
I tend to lean more towards the explanations given by @CunningSmile and others… the SRD as it stands is the offspring of one of the company’s lawyer having an affair with some bean counter from the go to market team. I’m sure there were some factors leading to the decisions that were made, but those are not published in the FAQ, nor do they take players or 3PPs into account…
I think this is more than a little dismissive and unfair. Yes, Wizards has a vested interest in making money, and the SRD is one very effective method to do so. And, yes, obviously legal and marketing are going to look over such a powerful document. But saying they do not take players or 3PPs into account in drafting is an clearly wrong.
For the SRD to be successful, it needs to contain things people actually want - which means they are going to put a considerable degree of thought into what players actually want when drafting it. Heck, even you yourself have provided strong evidence Wizards is thinking about players when crafting this document - a number of popular spells that have lore-specific names Wizards does not want released in Creative Commons get revised names specifically to give players something they want, without giving up the IP rights Wizards cannot really put in a common license.
Multiple editions of D&D have shown that licensed content like the SRD ends up being a win-win for everyone - Wizards, players, and third party publishers alike. Part of that success is because Wizards does take others into account - and in doing so delivers content folks actually want to use, while still protecting their own interests. Not really anything to complain about here.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend. We may be in violent agreement here, as I too am a big booster of the SRD.
It is precisely because I think it is such a good idea and such a bold move that I have high hopes and expectations for it.
That being said, I am coming from a background of having played quite a bit of 2e and 3.5e. In 2e there was no SRD and in 3/3.5 there was. I saw the world of difference it made to introduce this. But also, I remember that back when we played 3.5, a website with 100% legal content (d20srd dot whatever, I think, but maybe it was another one) was extremely useful. We could actually benefit from it to quickly look up references to what we needed.
Fast forward to 5e 2014/2024, and I unfortunately cannot say the same. I favor wiki sites that I know to be legal, and they often miss the stuff I’m looking for. And then I end up looking at "less reputable" sites because there is no other way to be a good reference without that.
Mind you, I own all the books. I’m not trying to access content I didn’t pay for.
You are, in fact, trying to access content you did not pay for. When you purchase a physical book, you are only buying access to that physical content. You are not buying digital content, which is a different product entirely. Essentially, you are saying “I just bought a new novel, I should be allowed to google and get it online also.”
The SRD exists to make things easier for third party content creators… it does not exist to make your abusing it to disrespect Wizards’ intellectual property slightly easier. Kind of takes the credibility out of your entire thread when you betray your real concern stems from your engaging in IP theft.
I appreciate the enthusiasm, and the fervor to seek justice. I really do. But I fear there is a misunderstanding.
I have given more money to WotC than most people. I bought several editions of each book, and several translations of several books too. On top of that, my DM and I have both paid for digital licenses of many of the books we purchased physically, in order to use VTT software.
I have no qualms about wanting to have an efficient experience of looking up rules. I prefer the touch and feel of paper, hence why I buy that, but if I’m researching for a build or something else, I want quick access and I reach for digital tools.
The real problem is not, as you mistakenly claim, that I attempt to do IP theft (I forgive you for your mistake, no worries). The problem is that the digital tools I’ve tried (and paid for) so far are not very good, and the better / less bad ones don’t have all the content. Add to that the fact that WotC set up a set of bi-lateral business deals where digital purchases are locked into whichever platform you bought them in, and not transferable, and you get the current mess.
So yeah, I’m still looking for a good tool. It’s 2026, and I sure hope I’ll find a decent one before 7e…
Wrapping the violation of a creator’s rights in false moralism and victim blaming does not make you any more right. I even agree that D&D Beyond has a pretty bad UI - their search is terrible, their filters are lacking, some tools are not fully up to date, and it is a step down from even what Wizards produced in their fairly great 4e tools. But to say “the UI is bad, therefore I will turn to violating the rights of content creators?” Can’t say I’ve heard that particular category of fair use in my own forays into IP law as part of my legal practice.
I am disappointed. I actually thought this was an interesting thread, where there could be some fascinating discussion on what is or is not included in the SRD, and what that might mean for third party content creators. It is a shame to learn this entire thread seem to be motivated by your confusion as to why it is not easier to rip off Wizards and their staff.
Leaving it at that and unfollowing this thread. I do hope you think about your position and perhaps realize how reprehensible it is to put yourself over the rights over the people who worked hard to make the content you profess to enjoy.
I'm really surprised to hear people say that the digital tools for 5e that are legally available are "not good". I don't use digital tools myself most of the time, but the few times I have used stuff like DnD Beyond, I noted what a huge improvement it is over the stuff we got over the last few decades. I suppose I'm showing my age a bit but I have been around since 1st edition, and I think the tools today are the best that I ever seen or used.
That said, I do think that digital tools as a marketable product has a very limited shelf life. We are entering the era of interface-less utility with A.I.'s. It took me all of 25 minutes to build an agent into Gemini that uses the complete SRD as a datasource and setup up keyword for prompts to do look ups. With that, I can look up any rule with 100% accuracy in the time it takes for me to type a word which is at least 500% faster than clicking around in the DnD Beyond engine. I could then quickly create a art infused stat block, for example for a monster with a digital .png for a token.
There is no way I could create using DnD Beyond as fast as I did it with A.I.
I recognize that at this stage this sort of usage of AI is still "skill based", but I think this sort of setup is going to become something everyone knows how to do and tools like this one will really not have much value as alreay today, AI is at least as usefull as DnD beyond and its certainly faster.
WoTC decides what they put in their SRD and what they say about it. And the FAQ is what they opted for as the only source of information on it.
If you would like more insight you can always try to write them directly and ask them. I wish you good luck with that as i don't think you will get the answers you're hoping for.
It's stated on the SRD v5.2.1 information page which is linked from the bottom of basically every page on D&D Beyond:
The intent is to provide enough resources for third parties to design and publish content compatible with D&D. They don't need the entire IP to do that, hence why the SRD is limited in its scope
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
From what I've read, Pathfinder 1e basically took all of D&D 3.5 and just added some stuff to it. It's understandable that WotC have limitations in place to prevent that from happening again. That being said, I do think they're making a mistake by not including the artificer in the SRD. It is a class that I think could really benefit from third party subclasses.
You again ascribe bad intents to me, for some reason. I will refrain from reciprocating that, and I will continue to presume you are doing this out of mistake rather than out of malice. I hope this is true, but I do not know for certain.
What I have said, but which you have seemingly brushed aside, is that I have gone out of my way to pay for D&D content in a myriad ways, including paying WotC directly by buying their books, and even in some cases buying more than one copy of each book (to get translations) AND I have also paid them indirectly by buying digital content from some of their partners. After that, to say that my intent is to grift, scam, steal, whatever you want to call it… I think that’s a dishonest argument. But again, I’ll refrain from assuming dishonesty on your part. I’m sure there is a more charitable interpretation. I assume you simply skimmed my posts, cherry-picked a word or turn of phrase that rubbed you the wrong way, and built an edifice of indignance on top of it. It’s fine, I’m moving on. Let’s try to pivot to a more positive discussion…
Opening up the gaming system and core content to third parties is great for (at least) two reasons:
1. It provides a framework for writing third party content. That part I think is clear to everyone in the thread.
2. It provides an opportunity for tools developers to help improve the experience of the game. That last part seems not well understood in the thread so far.
Like I said, back in the 3.5e days, d20srd was a fantastic site to quickly lookup rules. We knew the splatbooks were not included in it, and that’s fine, but having an effective UI for searching and navigating the core was still incredibly valuable. And there were many such sites. I liked d20srd because it was clean and simple, but I would say that it became great because there were many good options to choose from and they competed.
Back then, IP/brand related stuff was truly the only thing missing from the SRD compared to the core books. You just needed to know that if you were looking for a Mordenkainen spell, you needed simply swap out that name for "Mage" and off you went.
In 5e, the non-IP based content filtering in the SRD makes it hard for simple tools to be built by the community. Now even for the core stuff you need to shell out a digital license of the PHB. And that, in turn, means you’re locked into whatever platform you bought the digital content in. If you bought digital content for some 3rd party VTT, you don’t have access to that same digital content on D&D Beyond.
The end result is that there is less pressure for tools to compete with one another. They can sit on their laurels since users are locked in, and most people don’t want to pay duplicate digital licenses just to try out whether another platform works better.
Solving the problem of digital license lock-in and interop is not that complicated from a technical standpoint. But the business and legal stakeholders of the company need to have sufficient vision to be willing to invest in that. Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening yet, and therefore we have these balkanized solutions that don’t benefit from free market dynamics, which ultimately penalizes the consumer.
To elaborate some, the character builder on Beyond is probably the best character builder Wizards has ever made - 4e’s builder was pretty solid, and, in many ways, was better in its functionality - such as the ability to make meaningful searches within the builder for content - but its reliance on Microsoft Silverlight made it run slowly, even by the standards of the internet 15 years ago. But here are the current failings in Beyond:
- The encounter builder used to be the best iteration of an encounter builder… until D&D Beyond decided they could not be bothered to update it to the 2024 encounter design rules. Still runs fine, but has a fundamental failing Beyond is too lazy to address.
- The search function is terrible - you only get a single page of results, cannot filter within other than a single category, and it does not search third party content, even if owned.
- The individual compendium (such as the spells category) are likewise flawed in their search systems. Namely, you can’t do things like search within the actual text. So, for example, Beyond has no meaningful way to search for spells with certain terms, including things like specific damage types. There also is no exclusion option, so if you want to exclude a certain book, you have to specifically include every book other than that one. Finally, it has no way of setting some default terms, which is kind of annoying if you want to include things like third party content, which you have to click multiple buttons in order to include. This lack of basic search functionality - all of which was present in the 4e Digital Compendium - is a pretty obvious failing in basic database design.
These are all things Beyond should be working on. The first is something it is embarrassing - and frankly insulting to those who adopted the new system - has not been updated yet. The second two it is fairly embarrassing were not included from the start - though that embarrassment falls on the company that actually made Beyond. Given that Beyond has some stability problems every time they try to fix anything big (likely due to changing hands a few times leaving an unstable pile of spaghetti code), I expect the task of fixing the terrible search tools might be quite difficult, even if it would drastically improve the user experience and functionality of the site.
Of course, none of this excuses OP’s decision to utilize sites that engage in blatant IP theft, and thus support those who engage in IP theft through page views, as continues to be their position on this thread.
Fixing search shouldn't affect the general stability of the site, because it's not connected to the big pile of mess. (the character builder/sheet) They can rip out the search engine and it won't touch the builder at all, unless they did some extremely weird stuff in building the site. (And doing that would've been more work, while DDB's architectural problems feel like they rushed it on the design end, leading to too much stuff being hard-coded.)
And, to be fair, good search is hard. (And not my area of expertise.) But it feels like they should be able to do better. (Though, frankly, most web sites have abysmal search.) I suspect better metadata would be the easiest solution, but that's a lot of labor.
I believe you're going to find that LLMs are not going to prove as useful as you believe*, and people are always going to want a tool where they can adjust stuff by hand.
* But discussion of the failings of LLMs is off-topic for this thread.
Considering that there is by an order of magnitude more third party stuff for 5e than there was for 3e I’d say that whatever problem you think is being caused by the SRD is a you problem rather than one being experienced by everyone.
Also unless I’m mistaken d20srd wasn’t official so the only reason it exists and a 5e equivalent doesn’t exist is because someone hasn’t made it. It’s not a problem you can level at WotC considering they weren’t involved in the old site