Solasta - License to use the D&D SRD 5.1 Ruleset

Solasta: Crown of the Magister got a license to use the D&D SRD 5.1 Ruleset:

Wizards of the Coast granted us a license to use the Dungeons and Dragons SRD 5.1 Ruleset!

Great news everyone!

We've now officially received the license to use the System Reference Document 5.1 from Wizards of the Coast, further anchoring our will to make the most faithful video game adaptation with the Tabletop Ruleset to craft the game you are hoping for!

For those who may not be aware of it, SRD 5.1 is an official document with all the necessary rules to play, upon which we will be building compatible Solasta content such as Sub-classes, Backgrounds, Feats and plenty of other things!

Wishing everyone a great week-end, we're also almost up 90% funded!

Thanks henriquejr!

More information.

Great news indeed!

I believe this addresses some concerns already expressed here on RPGWatch regarding what the game can/can't use from D&D 5E.

Also, with 90% funded and 12 days still left we can pretty much say the game will meet the funding mark.

This is excellent news, and they really needed this benefit to keep their upcoming product relevant. Well done!!

Not sure how this one slipped past me until now…maybe because it's a Kickstarter and I pretty much ignore those now.

Wish it had a party of 6, but I'm always down for a faithful run at D&D. Pledged.

As far as I'm concerned, this game just lost its chance at being the greatest RPG of all time (developer's aspirations.) Tabletop does not transfer to digital well. Create your own ruleset, one that works better in the digital realm.

Originally Posted by Void000
Tabletop does not transfer to digital well. Create your own ruleset, one that works better in the digital realm.

Uh ? Do you have specific examples in mind ? Because we have tons of "made up rulesets" that simply suck…

Originally Posted by Void000
As far as I'm concerned, this game just lost its chance at being the greatest RPG of all time (developer's aspirations.) Tabletop does not transfer to digital well. Create your own ruleset, one that works better in the digital realm.

If you mean that "the digital realm is for action games", then I disagree.
I even know several board games being transferred into "the digital realm", including Carcassonne.

Yeah, KotC, to name one of several examples, is a very faithful translation of a tabletop ruleset and one of the funnest turnbased RPGs I've ever played.

Originally Posted by Void000
As far as I'm concerned, this game just lost its chance at being the greatest RPG of all time (developer's aspirations.) Tabletop does not transfer to digital well. Create your own ruleset, one that works better in the digital realm.

What? This game was always going to be D&D 5th edition.

They were originally talking about using SRD 5.0, now 5.1. Not sure why they would need anything from WotC - both 5.0 and 5.1 are under the OGL. Maybe they got permission to use some D&D IP that doesn't fall under the OGL? The update isn't clear at all about what it's actually talking about or what this means…


edit: found a thread on the Codex where people were trying to figure out what the hell this meant too. Solasta devs, from their Discord server:

yes we can't say D&D (except for the licensing agreement)

it's not a D&D product

we still can't make a game in the Forgotten Realms setting for instance

or have beholders / mind flayers, which are trademarked by WotC

it's simply that SRD works a little different for video games (compared to books), so we ensured there would be no legal complications down the line by getting a SRD license from WotC

There isn't much difference, it's just that it's now official and that we won't risk WotC knocking on our door later

and… it could mean tighter collaboration in the future

so maybe a future, official D&D 5e game by Tactical is possible

So for the most part, just a big nothingburger. They got a "license" for something they don't technically need a license for anyway. Just to be safe.

Originally Posted by Void000
As far as I'm concerned, this game just lost its chance at being the greatest RPG of all time (developer's aspirations.) Tabletop does not transfer to digital well. Create your own ruleset, one that works better in the digital realm.

Temple of Elemental Evil has its share of problems, but as far as the combat mechanics and (3.5e) rules go, it's fantastic. Aside from an annoying radial menu, the only gripe I have with the combat is the gridless battlefield sometimes makes it hard to judge distances precisely.

Knights of the Chalice is another solid implementation of the 3.5e rules.

Going back further there's the excellent Gold Box games

There's also been good CRPGs based on The Dark Eye.

Where I think CRPG developers go wrong is trying to convert a tabletop ruleset to a real-time computer combat system. But this is just my opinion as many people apparently love the combat in the Infinity Engine games and NNW 1&2. And I think they did real-time D&D about as well as you can do with those games, even if I would've preferred turn-based.

On the flipside, I cannot really think of many CRPGs which are not an adaptation of a tabletop system yet has an interesting ruleset that works as well as the best tabletop based computer games. It's fun to make characters in Arcanum but there's a lot of problems, for ex: many spells being nearly useless.

I'm playing the demo now, and it's really good for a pre-alpha. I urge anyone who likes ToEE and similar games to try it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1…_the_Magister/

I know it's difficult to tell from playing the demo, but do you know how strong this game will focus on combat? Will there be anything notable besides?
Will it be underground only?

Originally Posted by JDR13
I'm playing the demo now, and it's really good for a pre-alpha. I urge anyone who likes ToEE and similar games to try it.

I would pick up ToEE but isn't available on Steam :/

Originally Posted by Morrandir
I know it's difficult to tell from playing the demo, but do you know how strong this game will focus on combat? Will there be anything notable besides?
Will it be underground only?

I have similar concerns as well - I sure hope there will be more than just combat/dungeon crawling and feature more varied environments (not just small, cramped area so they can showcase verticality all the time). Some of these questions I raised when Myrthos was meeting up with them during the Gamescon but I think they ran out of time.

It was said that all areas, with the exception of a few outdoor terrains, will include verticality and I think all combat will take place in dungeons. I suppose it is difficult to have a feature and not use it all the time. I do hope it isn’t used too much like I feel the elemental interactions are overused in DOS, as that kind of thing could become the only possible tactic to win in battles.

Originally Posted by Morrandir
I know it's difficult to tell from playing the demo, but do you know how strong this game will focus on combat? Will there be anything notable besides?
Will it be underground only?

Since their stated goals include making the game feel as much like a tabletop game as possible, I'm hoping that the game will have more to it than dungeon crawling, combat, and the occasional dialogue since tabletop is usually much more than that.

While the dialogue in the demo just affects whether your party receives some food rations, I gather from Myrthos' preview that dialogue will play a significant part in the quests of the actual game, "...The player gets to choose one of the four available dialog options. After selecting a dialog option a D20 is rolled and a check is made against the attribute related to that dialog option. So depending on the rolled dice and the attributes of the character you can succeed or not. Failing will require the need to find another way to move on and the game has been designed in such a way that there will always be another option."

So it sounds like quests will be a bit more involved than go in this dungeon and kill the monsters / retrieve the MacGuffin they stole.

I'll suggest in the KS comments that they go into more detail of the non dungeon / non combat aspects of the game in a future update.

Oh, I've missed the preview. Thanks for the hint.

So non-combat skills are in. That's a good sign.

There is no main player character, you get to create the four characters from the start, at least in the final game.
[…]
Unlike other RPGs the dialogs are not shown as a set of options you can select from. Instead, several of the characters have the option to say one thing. What they say depends on their class, alignment, background, etc. The knight is a bit straight forward, the rogue wants to benefit himself and the cleric wants to help. The player gets to choose one of the four available dialog options.

While I must admit that the concept sounds interesting, I don't think it's my cup of tea. At least not enough for me to back the KS campaign.

Purple, and anyone else that hasn't tried it, the ToEE version from great old games works flawlessly, and is well worth acquiring. If you enjoyed the game back in the day you'll love their version.

Originally Posted by Carnifex
Purple, and anyone else that hasn't tried it, the ToEE version from great old games works flawlessly, and is well worth acquiring. If you enjoyed the game back in the day you'll love their version.

And if you really want to enjoy ToEE get the circle of eight mod pack.

I think I will have to pledge to Solasta since I've been waiting for a 5th edition D&D game.

The verticality is pretty neat, and it's showcased well in the demo. The demo itself is fairly short, but it does include a non-combat encounter that shows the dialogue system and some combat against orcs and giant spiders.

The camera is a bit finicky in its present state, but that would be my only complaint.

Originally Posted by Morrandir
I know it's difficult to tell from playing the demo, but do you know how strong this game will focus on combat? Will there be anything notable besides?
Will it be underground only?

The demo starts you out above ground, but the vast majority of it takes place underground. I've no idea what the ratio will be in the full game. I expect it to be similar to ToEE where most of your time will be spent exploring dungeons.

Try the demo, people.

Originally Posted by Morrandir
So non-combat skills are in. That's a good sign.

There are non-combat skills like sneaking. But it looked like sneaking was intended to be used to get you in a better position before the start of combat. It can be used to avoid combat, but there is no XP if you do that.