Status of Development

[pvoce]

Is DD still under development, and what is the reaction to the attempt to cancel the OGL?

[waysoftheearth]

Hey there pvoce,
Thanks for your interest in DD and welcome to the forum

A couple of brief answers for you:

Yes, DD5 is still in development albeit it has been slowed mightily by life circumstances. That is: I'm just a regular guy, getting slain every day at my day job, raising a family, and trying to study too. It is still happening though, and one way or another V5 will get done. The most recent, modest steps include quotations and samples from a letterpress printer, continuing art production, and discussions around supplement development with a couple of interested writers. So... stuff is still quietly happening, but not in a hurry.

Regarding the OGL/licensing. Yes, that is a big deal. The torpedoing of trust in the OGL means that OSR products like DD are more or less forced to republish under alternative arrangements. So, DD5 will be published under alternative arrangements. What will those arrangements be? Truth is, I'm not 100% committed yet. I have been waiting to see if a suitable license would appear under Piazo's black flag initiative, but that hasn't happened yet. There are a couple of other options, including the no license option, to consider. But end of the day, I haven't decided which way to jump yet. Happy to hear about options in that space...

I hope that helps!

[pvoce]

Trust me, I know all about work and study.

I am happy just know that the ODL fiasco has not killed off DD in any sense.

[ehiker133]

... and discussions around supplement development with a couple of interested writers...

Um, what? Any chance I can help out a bit with this?

I like writing...

[BlindAudelay]

Delving Deeper v4a from Lulu has been a wonderful gateway to 0e for me. I'll be first in line for V5 whenever it drops!

[waysoftheearth]

Thanks for the feedback BlindAudelay, much appreciated. And welcome to the forum.

Absolutely ehiker! That was a little while back, but send me an email and I'll catch us both up

[dlsellers]

Count me among those v4a fans eagerly waiting for v5 to drop!

[waysoftheearth]

Thanks dlsellers, and welcome to these boards.

Nice to know there's interest out there

[dlsellers]

Thanks! Great to be here! As someone who completely missed out on the "early days" of the hobby and only got into it through Basic Fantasy about 4-5 years ago, then went on to buy and read about 20-30 other games over the years in search of the elusive "perfect game," it turns out that you can't really improve on the original, and your take on it is simply the freshest and most inspired one I've encountered. Hopefully that encouragement adds some wind to your sails to finish up v5, but I'm very content with the v4 Rules Compendium I've got!

[waysoftheearth]

Right O. Seems like an opportune moment to post an update on Vol 2 (Delving & Exploration) progress.

98% of the text has been written for years now. It is mostly lying around in a bunch of individual text files. The remaining challenge is: how to organise the text in a manner that best respects the original and is also somewhat more practical to use. I've had a long-term case of analysis paralysis in this department, for sure.

The issue is that OD&D's volume 3 (Underworld & Wilderness Adventures) is essentially organised around a stream of consciousness. The content is all over the place, including some in the other two volumes.

I have recently tried (once again) to get a handle on how I am going to organise DD5 Vol2.
I started by (once again) printing a physical copy of the 3LBBs and manually cutting it up into sections, and re-organising all the sections on a paste-board into something that might be a DD5 layout. My principles in this exercise were to:
1. Separate player and referee material more clearly (moving player stuff into DD Vol1 and referee stuff into DD Vol2)
Then, within Vol2,
2. Separate the referee material into:
a) Preparation (building content before play) versus: Moderating play (running the game), while also separating:
b) Campaign, Town, Wilderness, and Dungeon material.

This is not as straight forward as may sound. The source material often addresses the player and the ref simultaneously, or mixes phrases relevant to either together in a single sentence or para. There are also gaps (i.e., town and wilderness content generation, combat); repetition; material required in more than one context (i.e., monster tables, reactions); and material that's a bit less relevant to the contemporary, character-based concept of D&D (i.e., ship to ship battles).

Most of the gaps can be filled from other sources (esp. Dave Arneson's FFC for wilderness content; GD&D, CM and/or WoM for combat), but how much additional material should be dragged in? My thinking is "not much", and that any extra material should go in the appendices.

The other big deal is that by re-arranging the material into anything "more sensible" implies a sense of structure and wholeness that simply isn't there in the original. This is really the main issue. How to maintain the original's sense of explosive, unstructured creativity, while at the same time trying to put some semblance of structure around it? These two objectives don't easily fit together

For all that hand-wringing, I am currently, more-or-less, sitting on this for the DD5 Vol2 layout:

Ref's Intro
Preparing for Campaign
--Town
--Wilderness
--Underworld
Moderating the Campaign
--Time
--PCs
--NPCs
--End Game
----Baronies
----Artifacts
Moderating the Adventure
--Monster Reactions
--Underworld
--Wilderness
----Aerial/Naval exploration
Appendices
--Combat (GD&D, CM, MM/UWA)
----Aerial combat, ship boarding (UWA)
--Wilderness generation (OS, FFC)
--Ship-to-Ship Combat (UWA)

I am also considering pushing all the Appendices into a separate "Vol 4" so that those who just want Vols 1--3 can have them without the additional pollution of unwanted appendices.

Happy to hear any thoughts on the above... there is plenty of time