Dream products that will never see the light of day...

[Desdichado]

bushfire:
"D20 Future", not a Sci-Fi setting book but a "Core Rules" book like D20 Modern. Something that would go quickly to the SRD and allow other publishers to create D20 Sci-Fi settings.

Why would you need that, when you can just use the d20 Modern rules? Add some high tech weapons and equipment (you could probably pirate from Star Wars or Dragonstar, or T20 in a pinch anyway) and you're good to go.

 

[CRGreathouse]

What I would like is a system that allows me to generate a fully statted out, random character in the d20/D&D system complete with classes and levels and a background in much the same way.

I figure the book will need to be about 320 pages or so, include paths and die rolls that lead to all of the core races and classes. Each character should, upon completion be a fully fleshed out character that ranks it at between 1st and 3rd level or so.

This is not the sort of thing that can be done via a third party, as it would require (to be a fully fleshed out character) the rules for generating stats and applying XP. But WotC could do it. Heck, if I got the green-light, I could write it...

This sounds way too much like Jamis Buck's Generators...

 

[ColonelHardisson]

The generic SciFi d20 book also sounds like a winner. Make it a supplement for d20 Modern. Then you could do GURPS-like sourcebooks (this could be done for regular d20 now, I guess, but few besides Avalanche have tried it). Sourcebooks I'd like to see: Doc Smith's Lensmen, Larry Niven's Known Space (especially Ringworld), Honor Harrington, Bughunters, Metamorphosis Alpha, Alien, Event Horizon (really, more of a Horror/SciFi crossover than an actual Event Horizon book), 50s B-Movie SciFi, Wing Commander, Babylon 5.

I've said it many times, but I'd love to see GURPS-like sourcebooks in general done for d20.

I'd like to see TORG, Pendragon, and Shadowrun done for d20 also.

 

[Daedalus]

Dune d20

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Yes, Dune d20! I knew I forgot one.

Unrelated to Dune...I was just thinking that a 50s B-Movie ScFi book like I mentioned above could be extremely cool, and provide for some of the best of those flicks like Forbidden Planet or This Island Earth, the Saturday serials (Zombies of the Stratosphere, etc.), Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, giant bug flicks, and the real bottom of the barrel stuff (Plan 9 From Outer Space, and any one of a number of flicks given the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment).

 

[Avatar]

I will third the RIFTS d20 idea and second the Pendragon d20 idea. I grew up playing Pendragon and I miss it.

(Not to mention my dad created the honor system they used)

 

[kenjib]

I've said it many times, but I'd love to see GURPS-like sourcebooks in general done for d20.

Perhaps with d20 Modern we'll see this, but the fantasy rules just aren't generic enough to do this. There are lots of assumptions about the magic level of characters (almost every character class casts spells for example), the magic system is very quirky and doesn't fit well with most settings other than Jack Vance's Dying Earth, and there are very D&D specific classes like the ranger and monk.

The GURPS supplements are the way they are because the underlying system is generic so that most of the time they can really key in on solid background content without having to worry about creating a huge amount of rule content. Unfortunately with the D&D rules you'd pretty much have to make an entire new d20 game for each setting since you'll have to rewrite most of the classes and probably the entire magic system if you want the rules to really match the setting. The GURPS books can spend most of their time doing research whereas a d20 book will have to divert alot of that R&D time into number fiddling to get the mechanics right. I think that the Avalanche books don't really go far enough and that they seem to be trying to force square pegs into round holes without breaking out the chisel.

 

[kenjib]

I think combining AEG's rules-heavy approach (stuff like Rokugan, Spycraft, and Swashbuckling Adventures) with GURPS' research heavy approach would be the only way to get solid supplements for different pre-modern genres.

I guess that is my line of dream products -- I think they would require very good writers though and would be rather thick and expensive because they have to cover twice as much ground as the GURPS books do, due to the nature of D&D.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Perhaps with d20 Modern we'll see this, but the fantasy rules just aren't generic enough to do this. There are lots of assumptions about the magic level of characters (almost every character class casts spells for example), the magic system is very quirky and doesn't fit well with most settings other than Jack Vance's Dying Earth, and there are very D&D specific classes like the ranger and monk.

The GURPS supplements are the way they are because the underlying system is generic so that most of the time they can really key in on solid background content without having to worry about creating a huge amount of rule content. Unfortunately with the D&D rules you'd pretty much have to make an entire new d20 game for each setting since you'll have to rewrite most of the classes and probably the entire magic system if you want the rules to really match the setting. The GURPS books can spend most of their time doing research whereas a d20 book will have to divert alot of that R&D time into number fiddling to get the mechanics right. I think that the Avalanche books don't really go far enough and that they seem to be trying to force square pegs into round holes without breaking out the chisel.

I think it's a matter of personal taste. It wouldn't take much, really, to modify the classes to fit a given setting, or at least it seems that way to me. GURPS sourcebooks discuss how to create setting or genre specific characters, and I don't see that much more space would have to be devoted to such discussions in a d20 sourcebook. I don't think magic would be that much of problem either, given all the different systems there are now, either from WotC (core magic, with divine and 2 types of arcane, psionics, the Force from Star Wars (drop all references to SW, and it looks like magic to me), Wheel of Time (as with Star Wars)) or the d20 publishers (see books like Occult Lore or any of a number of other books - much of which is OGC). New magci systems needn't take up a huge amount of room in GURPS-like sourcebooks.

As much as I like GURPS sourcebooks, there really is a lot of game mechanic stuff in them, by the way.

 

[Roland Delacroix]

RIFTs, hell yeah! This would be easy enough to convert. Hell, I might get Spycraft and d20 modern and make my own...

Dune would be great too, but what I really want is d20 Traveller. A generic space book to cover all those genres would rock.

I second d20 Shadowrun. Just like RIFTs it is a great setting hindered by a complicated rules system. I would preffer a 4th edition Shadowrun, but I would settle for a d20 version.