Legal Advice

So, with this open playtest, would it be okay to offer others the little rules modules I made for 5E/Next or am I treading on dangerous copyright grounds?

I am using the 3.5E ruleset and made Next - Spells.mod (for example) to store spell powers in for quick addition to character sheets and the like. I am more than happy to share the files, but certainly don't want to unintentionally break any copyright laws or such.

Speaking of which, I love the 4E system on FG2 but found it to be less than copecetic in conjunction with Next, so am using 3.5E instead. But that's got it's own issues, too. Mostly, it came down to the vanican spellcasting system that's so hard to replcate in 4E, despite how wonderfully easy it is to control all the details of each individual power.

Nope, you can't distribute anything based on the DnD Next FAQ:

https://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article....ews/dndnextfaq

See the "Am I allowed to make copies of the playtest materials or publish parts of them on my blog?" entry, which states:

Quote:

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you must agree to our playtesting terms... which prohibits copying, excerpting, redistributing and the misuse of playtest materials

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Also, anyone who participates in any DnD next playtest *must* have signed up to the playtest terms and conditions.

Of course, the last item (all players signed up to the terms and conditions) is impossible to police. But, the first part - distributing any DnD Next playtest material could cause issues for you and the FG community.

So, if you create any modules - create them as common.xml modules. So that the players can download the modules during play but they won't have access to it afterward.

Yeah. They are all in the playtest, but I kind of figured there was something like that out there (obviously, I don't spend enough time reading EULAs and FAQs :P).

Oh well

Yep, that's what I'm doing common.xml and db.xml. If someone wanted me to share, I might do so after using the old password method of page, line, and word; though I'm not sure if I would risk sharing it anyway.

What I found interesting about the playtest was how they originally banned online play and then allowed it due to playtesters requesting it. They said they had no idea how many people used VTTs. I'm a bit hopeful we will eventually have a better license for 5E, since they cancelled development on GameTable.

Back on topic, I'm don't build any modules for anything other than monsters. I let the players copy and paste or type their abilities/spells into the character sheet themselves. This time around I'll use the 4E ruleset instead of the 3.5 one. The 5E monsters are closer to the 3.5 ones, but its sad the players can't roll their crits and I could just feel the deflation after a crit they couldn't roll. :(

yeah. Crits are missed here, too.

But Spells jumped out at me the most when it came to having a "book" for it. Because Clerics can swap out their spells on a daily basis, depending on need, I didn't want to have to wait mid-session or session-start for them to go through the careful cut-n-paste process every time.

I really hope they are more open in 5E than in 4E (which I do enjoy). 3E+ was wonderfully inviting to 3rd-Party enthusiasts.