Black Flag Kobold Press' Black Flag System Reference Document Released

The System Reference Document--called the Black Flag Reference Document or BFRD--for Kobold Press' Black Flag roleplaying game system--launched as a reaction to the Open Gaming License crisis caused by Wizards of the Coast in 2022/2023--has been released under the Open RPG Creative (ORC) License, a viral share-alike license designed to replace the Open Gaming License.

A System Reference Document is a tool for third party developers, and contains the rules text that those creators are permitted to use, along with examples of how certain rules elements--such as subclasses--work.

The document includes lineages, heritages, classes, spells, monsters, and more.

The BFRD is the second major third-party 'alternate 5E' SRD to be released, following the Level Up: Advanced 5E SRD (A5ESRD) from EN Publishing.

Wizards of the Coast announced this week that the 2024 core rules of Dungeon & Dragons would be added to their own System Reference Document in 2025.

 

[GrimCo]

Interesting. It sounds like folks likely wouldn't be paying for it even sans an SRD, just pirating it instead. So why would the publisher even considerbthat market in making decisions?

It's market of more than 200 milion people, decent amount of it is in EU, purchasing power is rising. People are willing to pay for products. Just not for a product that is available for free. If you have decent srd as a tech demo which shows good side of your game, people will buy it.

It's pshychological thing and off topic.

 

[Shardstone]

PF2E is available for free and it gets bought a lot. Several other games have otherwise entire free rules and do well. Its all a matter of publisher preference.

 

[Weiley31]

Well if any of you peeps backed Tales of the Valiant, the PDFs for em (Players Guide and Monster Book) are currently out. Check your Kobold Press account and the Coupons section to redeem.

Spoiler

Toad became the new Bear Totem for the Wild Fury Barbarian subclass.

 

[Reynard]

Well if any of you peeps backed Tales of the Valiant, the PDFs for em (Players Guide and Monster Book) are currently out. Check your Kobold Press account and the Coupons section to redeem.

Spoiler

Toad became the new Bear Totem for the Wild Fury Barbarian subclass.

So what isn't in the SRD? Is it just the subclasses, or are there actual rules subsystems that are held back?

 

[Shardstone]

I'm still parsing through it.

I love some of the class redesigns, especially the Fighter. Very clever stuff there.

I think the Barbarian and Monk are far worse then the 5.2/OneD&D versions. I think Barbarian keeping brutal critical and the Monk keeping both the same number of "technique points" AND making everything draw from those technique points both just flatout bad design. They were bad design in 2014 (now acknowledged by WotC), and are bad design now. It really makes me scratch my head seeing these two things here while the Fighter has so many lovely upgrades.

Will give more thoughts as I continue to read.

 

[Afroconan]

I think the Barbarian and Monk are far worse then the 5.2/OneD&D versions. I think Barbarian keeping brutal critical and the Monk keeping both the same number of "technique points" AND making everything draw from those technique points both just flatout bad design. They were bad design in 2014 (now acknowledged by WotC), and are bad design now. It really makes me scratch my head seeing these two things here while the Fighter has so many lovely upgrades.

The good thing is that if D&D 2024's purported backwards compatibility pans out, you'll be able to grab the barbarian and monk directly from the 5.2 SRD and port them over to your ToV game.

 

[Weiley31]

The good thing is that if D&D 2024's purported backwards compatibility pans out, you'll be able to grab the barbarian and monk directly from the 5.2 SRD and port them over to your ToV game.

Or just stick to the UA version.

What's your DM gonna do, ban you from life from the table or something?

Gets shot by the table DM

DM: Dang entitled players!

 

[Remathilis]

I'm still parsing through it.

I love some of the class redesigns, especially the Fighter. Very clever stuff there.

I think the Barbarian and Monk are far worse then the 5.2/OneD&D versions. I think Barbarian keeping brutal critical and the Monk keeping both the same number of "technique points" AND making everything draw from those technique points both just flatout bad design. They were bad design in 2014 (now acknowledged by WotC), and are bad design now. It really makes me scratch my head seeing these two things here while the Fighter has so many lovely upgrades.

Will give more thoughts as I continue to read.

That's the problem with designing your ruleset concurrently with WotC's playtest; they didn't address the same issues because WotC hadn't finished getting all their survey info yet. When the TotV monk was written, WotC hadn't finished its superior 2nd draft in UA yet and KP hadn't come to the same conclusion independently.

A far wiser action would have been to wait until 5.2 SRD was released and then tweak that to make TotV. But I get wanting to get a 5e clone to market while anti-WotC sentiment was high and the future of D&D was uncertain.

 

[Afroconan]

Or just stick to the UA version.

What's your DM gonna do, ban you from life from the table or something?

Gets shot by the table DM

DM: Dang entitled players!

That's definitely an option, I'm just supposing the final product will be better than the UA.

 

[Morrus]

I'm not saying they don't have value for everybody. They have.

Yes, they make money on books. But full free version of game is eating into the profits. And how much they make on dead tree products is more and more questionable, even for big companies,with rising cost of transportation and logistics. Question is, how much would full free game in srd eat into the sales of core books and is Kobold press big enough to afford it?

If they could shift from dead tree model to online subscription model, companies would jump to it. And they will eventually, when prime target demographic becomes generation that grew up on streaming platforms.

I mean, I can answer those questions. Suffice it to say I have, and we put our entire game out on A5e.tools.

Maybe that will have to change over time. But right now, it works.