After many long hours of discussion, we have arrived at a process for
working with the D20 System Reference document.
I'll post some instructions first, then describe the plan in more detail for
those of you interested in the trivia.
Step 1: Send me an email message with the subject "D20SRD REQUEST". In
this email, include your name, your mailing address, and a return email
address with spamblockers and other oddities removed. If you represent a
company, please indicate your company name as well.
Step 2: I will collect these emails every day or two and forward them to
our internal R&D team. The R&D team will send you via email a copy of our
standard NDA agreement.
Step 3: You will email us a reply to that message by indicating that you
approve and accept the terms of the NDA. The reply needs to go to the
sender of the NDA message, not to me and not to the list.
Step 4: When we receive your approval, we will transmit to you the 3e PHB
manuscript. In addition, as more material is released from R&D, we will
send that material to you as well.
Step 5: We will also include instructions explaining how to use the 3e PHB
to create material that will comply with both the Open Gaming License and
the D20 System Trademark License.
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This is the only process we will be following for the release of this
material, and we are not making a public announcement about it or answering
questions for the press at this time. Due to all the craziness going on
around here right now with the release of 3e, we need to keep the amount of
administrative overhead to a minimum.
The R&D team is in the process of developing the D20 System Reference
Document. This task is taking longer than we expected. Instead of holding
up the process any longer, we have decided to go ahead with this alternate
plan.
By providing you with the 3e PHB, you will have all the rules and systems
needed to create products compatible with D20 as expressed in D&D. We will
continue to provide information on magic items and monsters over the next
few weeks to assist in that effort. In addition, we will provide
information on how to use the 3e experience point system and the concept of
monster "templates".
In parallel, we're working on the D20SRD. The D20SRD may not be finished
until the beginning of August and we want to help people who want to shoot
for a GenCon product release if we can.
We can give instructions for using the 3e materials so that you can overlap
your efforts with the D20SRD and avoid problems when the final materials are
released to the public. Those instructions may be more limiting than the
contents of the final D20SRD, but we feel it will be easier to err on the
side of caution than to have to try and clean up some problems later.
I expect that we will begin to transmit 3e materials by the end of this week
or the beginning of next week.
At the end of this week, I will close the ogf-d20-l list and remove all the
existing subscriptions. As people respond with their approvals, I will add
them to the ogf-d20-l list and the list will permit the discussion of NDA'd
materials. After August 10th, I will remove this restriction and the list
will revert to being public.
The Open Gaming License will probably not be approved for formal use until
the 10th of August; and the D20 System Trademark License may be later than
that. We are going to work on an interim solution for people who want to
put the D20 logo on their products and I will attempt to have more
information on this process ready sometime in the next two weeks.
We thank everyone for their patience, and look forward to seeing just how
creative this community can be!
Ryan
