‘Level Up’ A5E Launches a New SRD Full of Feats, Archetypes, & More
Level Up has launched a new System Reference Document for Advanced 5th Edition, making a more fully featured 5E ruleset freely available.
It seems the race is on to get an RPG’s engines out there in the open. This past week, EN Publishing announced a new System Reference Document for their Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition.
Designated the A5E System Reference Document, or A5ESRD, the new project will take Advanced 5th Edition out from under the OGL 1.0a. But it’s more than just the basic rules, A5ESRD adds a “fully-featured” experience to the 5th Edition rules. With feats, class archetypes, and more, being published under the new document.
The A5E SRD – A Full Featured, De-OGL-ify’d 5E
Per their announcement, EN Publishing’s new SRD will be a “fully open, non-rescindable, freely available, perpetual, fully-featured SRD” aimed at helping other creators publish material for both Advanced 5th Edition and the original 5E games without relying on the OGL.
Of course, WotC’s 5.1 SRD is already in Creative Commons, EN Publishing’s new license promises a more fully-featured, fully open, independent 5E ruleset:
Our goal is to publish a fully open, non-rescindable, freely available, perpetual, fully-featured SRD, enabling other creators to legally publish materials for Level Up (A5E) and for the original 5E (O5E) games. We will release this SRD under an open, non-revocable license.
Because we have already published our Level Up: Advanced 5E (A5E) game, which rewrites all the text from the original 5E SRD (and adds much more) we are already well-positioned to do this. The bulk of the work has already been done, making it possible for us to ‘de-OGL-ify’ the text under legal advice.
They go on to explain that their intention is to include “the entire game system in this SRD,” ensuring that a 5E ruleset is permanently and irrevocably available to all.
Key differences in the forthcoming SRD make it “significantly more complete” with more than twice as much content as the existing 5E SRD. As to why EN Publishing explains:
We believe that a fully-featured, safe, irrevocable 5E SRD is essential to the Open Gaming community. Additionally, it is vital that we provide our own third party creator community with a reliable and safe way to produce content for Level Up.
EN Publishing is currently considering both the ORC license and Creative Commons, with a decision coming once the ORC license has been debuted for all to see.
For more details, check out the full announcement.
Happy adventuring!
