Roll20 uses cookies to improve your experience on our site. Cookies enable you to enjoy certain features, social sharing functionality, and tailor message and display ads to your interests on our site and others. They also help us understand how our site is being used. By continuing to use our site, you consent to our use of cookies. Update your cookie preferences .
×
Create a free account
This post has been closed. You can still view previous posts, but you can't post any new replies.

If there is an Open Gaming License (OGL), we need a System Reference Document (SRD)

The tabletop RPG industry is really coming into its own with the introduction of the OGL and accompanying SRDs. A number of publishers have an OGL, many of which have an already-developed character sheet to be used with Roll20. Let me cut to the chase... If there is an Open Gaming License (OGL), we need a System Reference Document (SRD) for Roll20 . The OGL games become unarguably more playable with an SRD. Hours of GM prep time vanish into the ether. Players have direct reference at their disposal. Potential GMs will have a much better starting-out point if they want to start running FATE, Dresden Files, Mutants & Masterminds and others. Many of us have seen what the SRDs have done for Pathfinder and D&D 5e. They have changed our games dramatically for the better. It is no secret that Fantasy Grounds has the official license for many of these game systems, but with an SRD it does not matter . Roll20 users can have just as good an experience without the shortcomings (and there are some). Is this easy? No. Will it happen quickly? No. Does it need to happen? Absolutely. Automation in any industry increases efficiency, and that is what we need: a more efficient delivery for Roll20. Thanks for reading.
This idea is critical for R20 to keep up!  
1465937471
Ziechael
Forum Champion
Sheet Author
API Scripter
I totally support this suggestion... the good news is that I'm certain the dev team too (based on things i've read). I believe that once the 5e SRD has been fully implemented to satisfaction and all of the bugs ironed out of that particular instance the plan is to expand to other OGL systems and even custom SRDs!! As you rightly say, it's not easy and it's not quick but I'm certain it is in the pipeline somewhere along the way :) (disclaimer: this is my opinion and not reflective of that of the dev team in any way)
1465958113
Gold
Forum Champion
Here is the Roll20 Compendium main page, currently linking to the existing Roll20 Compendiums started for D&D 5E, and for Pathfinder, so far: <a href="https://roll20.net/compendium" rel="nofollow">https://roll20.net/compendium</a> Here is a recent post from the Dev Team, with a statement about intent to add other OGL-licensed game systems, <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/2877778/update-1" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/2877778/update-1</a>... What about other games and rule systems? What about [Pathfinder, 13th Age, FATE, etc.] We already have a Pathfinder compendium started, here: <a href="https://app.roll20.net/compendium/pathfinder" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/compendium/pathfinder</a> . There's a lot more content, though, and not as much of it is structured in a way that makes it easy to automatically import, so it will take a while to get it to be as complete as the 5E SRD. Our intent is to absolutely add other game systems as well that are OGL-licensed as we're able to.
Thanks for the info, Gold. I just want to pool as much support as possible so that the SRDs move to the top of the priority list. In my mind the missing SRDs are an obstacle for GMs wanting to run games. I feel the SRDs alone will reduce the number of LFGs and LFGM posts, which are overwhelming when compared to the number of LFPs posted.
Thanks for the suggestion! After 30 days, Suggestions and Ideas with fewer than 10 votes are closed and the votes are refunded to promote freshness. Your suggestion didn't build the right momentum this time, but feel free to submit it again! We find that the best suggestions describe the problem you are having, and the solution you want. You can learn more about the process of making suggestions on the Roll20 Wiki! More details can be found here .