for d20 Lovers, what in your opinion would be an evolutionary step in d20 games?

[Stacie GmrGrl]

I'm a curious girl asking a question out of curiosity to get some feedback, not sure if this is the right forum, but figure why not ask, so here goes...

As the thread title asks, what do many of you think would be an real evolutionary step in d20 game design for a future d20/OGL release that would make the game better and more streamlined?

What are the issues with the current games, and the last ten years, that you think or have experienced that have bothered you about the game?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

For me it's always one thing -the "math". Make the increase in numbers follow a precictable model. Then you can go and tweak how you get there. Do you need ability increases, feats, spells, magical items? Does it just get handed to you by virtue of levels?

Integrate magic in this. If you want to keep stuff like "daily powers" for spellcasters vs "at-wil" for martial characters, at least create a model about "suggested resource consuming encounters per day" so you can predict when the spellcaster has the advantage and when the non-spellcaster.

A small thing I would like (and pretty much unlike the above, 4E doesn't give me) is "lateral development". With level, you grow in power. But you can gain "versatility". This could be used for learning languages or learning new spells or techniques (for non-spellcasters).

 

[scourger]

My next evolution will be to make d20 much simpler. For d20 D&D, I plan to use the D&D minis (DDM) stats for the minis that I have. If I start a new campaign, I would love to do it as DDM skirmish campaign in which the players pick a mini to be their character and then advance using the very simple Warlord class in the DDM Handbook. I would like to do a similar thing if I ever run an alternate Star Wars using my minis for that game.

The complexity of d20 was fun for a while, and at lower levels, but it just gets to be too much to sustain long-term for me. I am not sure that a simplified version is crunchy enough for players, but it sure is for me as a DM.

 

[ggroy]

A year and a half ago I thought about writing my own d20 fantasy "heartbreaker" starting from the 3.5E SRD, and overhauling the underlying engine to take on some 4E-isms such as: +level/2 mod for attacks/defenses/skills, fortitude/reflex/will as both static defenses and saving throws, simplified skills list, healing surges, etc ... After doing some basic outlines and analysis, I decided it would have been largely a waste of time.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

After looking at Trailblazer, Pathfinder, and Fantasy Craft . . . I like them all. The first two still, to me, strongly feel like 3.x. Fantasy Craft feels like an evolution to a new stage.

An evolution that heavily reduced the crutch of magic items for character power, removed Attacks of Opportunity, made Large races playable at 1st level, easily scalable monsters to any PC level.

 

[Kafen]

As the thread title asks, what do many of you think would be an real evolutionary step in d20 game design for a future d20/OGL release that would make the game better and more streamlined?

Evolution wise, I would love to see the general mood of the community towards keeping the OGL games active evolve into a real policy from the publishers. It would define a very clear shift for both the players and publishers which benefits everyone by clearly defining the market leaders for both the OGL and GSL. Hopefully, it would keep the market intact as a general collective as both lines move forward.

What are the issues with the current games, and the last ten years, that you think or have experienced that have bothered you about the game?

Current issue, the lack of real leadership - including WOTC leadership - marks the current market. Whipping out the anecdotal proverbs, I have a local game store where my fellow dnd geeks get together for small games and we talk about the current market. The top subject seems to be who is leading the market. Some people say WOTC with 4e, and some people say Pathfinder. Overall, the general opinion was... It's an essentially directionless market with publishers like WOTC and Paizo swinging erratic sales*. The store owner let us look at his books and surprised us with equal orders for both 4e books and Pathfinder books when we drafted him into our DND chat. I daresay that most forums reflect this debate with entire "news" sections going dead as the news market merely fails. When was the last time that any publisher was forced to pick between "best" sites to post his new link to a sample PDF and brag about their new product? You can tack that problem squarely on the lack of leadership issue as people literally go their different ways with no real industry shakers in the lead to generate much in the way of buzz worthy news.

The second issue that irks me? Ink quality. I do not mind paying for books, but some of the stuff we see in some current d20 books just makes me cringe.

*erratic sales going by all the previous debates with people going so far as to define the difference between secondary sellers and primary distribution outlets in varying degrees of Wall of Text Posts with made up numbers and even flame wars over things like Amazon.com links.

 

[ggroy]

Current issue, the lack of real leadership - including WOTC leadership - marks the current market. Whipping out the anecdotal proverbs, I have a local game store where my fellow dnd geeks get together for small games and we talk about the current market. The top subject seems to be who is leading the market. Some people say WOTC with 4e, and some people say Pathfinder. Overall, the general opinion was... It's an essentially directionless market with publishers like WOTC and Paizo swinging erratic sales*. The store owner let us look at his books and surprised us with equal orders for both 4e books and Pathfinder books when we drafted him into our DND chat. I daresay that most forums reflect this debate with entire "news" sections going dead as the news market merely fails. When was the last time that any publisher was forced to pick between "best" sites to post his new link to a sample PDF and brag about their new product? You can tack that problem squarely on the lack of leadership issue as people literally go their different ways with no real industry shakers in the lead to generate much in the way of buzz worthy news.

One could ask whether there was also a lack of "market leadership" and a "directionless market" back in the mid-late 1990's.

 

[Kafen]

*ponders the 1994ish years of TSR and the third party floods of 3.0 d20*

Hmm, the internal production of anything with legs versus the external production of anything with legs. I imagine that WOTC people with the full numbers could make an interesting comparison if bored.

 

[DanFor]

I think modularity would be an enormous evolutionary step. Think about it...GMs are already doing this on an individual level using house rules incorporated from other systems (e.g., Pathfinder, Trailblazer, M&M, Conan, etc.). How about a POD service that allows a GM to construct player's handbooks for his group using his rules of preference?

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted