Tired of d20 yet?

[Ranger REG]

I haven't seen any OGL games yet where i couldn't tell it was a relative of D&D or D20 games. But they are usually distinctive enough from from D&D and D20 Games (which use most to all of the D&D rules) that they deserve their own category. The fact that many others seem to understand what i mean and use the same categories as i do would indicate that i am not the only one who thinks like that. I don't consider it silly. Ranting at someone who doesn't see things as you do is whats silly.

Which ones?

Try Action! System, cousin of Fuzion.

 

[woodelf]

I haven't seen any OGL games yet where i couldn't tell it was a relative of D&D or D20 games. But they are usually distinctive enough from from D&D and D20 Games (which use most to all of the D&D rules) that they deserve their own category. The fact that many others seem to understand what i mean and use the same categories as i do would indicate that i am not the only one who thinks like that. I don't consider it silly. Ranting at someone who doesn't see things as you do is whats silly.

Yeah, i over-reacted. But this meme needs to be nipped in the bud, because it only makes things harder for non-D20 System open-content-RPG publishers. How do i tell you my game is OGL, without you presuming that that means D20 System and thus being burned when you find out it isn't? Especially since the terms of the WotC OGL don't allow me to say "it's not D20 System". This may be the first time you've said it, and/or the first time i've responded to you, but it comes up all the bloody time. So i reacted as someone who's been annoyed be imprecise nomenclature dozens or hundreds of times, over several years, not just once. Sorry.

And, you're right, you're not the only one who thinks like that--that's why i'm so adamant about countering it every time i see it. The more entrenched the imprecise language gets, the harder it is to communicate about topics that the co-opted terms aren't designed for.

Which ones? All the ones i've seen or own seem to have generally the same basic charactistics, the stats, the skills, and saves. Though i hear Castles & Crusades doesn't have skills. Haven't seen that one yet. I don't know if we'll ever see an OGL thats completely alien to D&D/D20 games, since accepting the license and not using any of the benefits would be a very strange choice.

• Action! System
• Fudge (soon)
• our own Four Colors al Fresco
• several other small-press games, which i am not currently turning up quickly with Google--i'd have to dig through my archives of the OGF lists to find the names.

When you say D&D - you know what you are getting.

When you say D20 - people know that it is going to be pretty much D&D in another genre. Or the same genre, with maybe some minor alterations to fit the setting. Like Midnight or star wars.

Or like Spycraft, which is more different from D&D3E than the vast majority of non-D20-System-logoed D20 System games (such as OGL Steampunk or Conan OGL). It could also be very close to D20 Modern, and not much like D&D3E at all.

That's part of the problem with using the nomenclature your way: from a "how compatible is it" standpoint, whether or not it bears a D20 System logo is really a fairly lousy test. There are games without the logo that are pretty much plug-n-play compatible with D&D3E (Arcana Unearthed, frex). There are games with the logo that change pretty much everything but the underlying structure of stats, skills, feats, classes, and levels (with the specific skills, feats, classes, and maybe even stats, changed). Making a distinction based solely on the presence or absence of the logo is not helpful, in many cases.

Saying OGL game instead of D20 - Lets people know (if they know of the OGL) that they may well be dealing with some radical changes to the D20 system, but that they will probably recognize some of it. Its perfectly legitimate label and helpful to a lot of people.

It's not a "perfectly legitimate" label. It's a lazy shorthand co-opted by Mongoose because they didn't want to come up with a label that specifically meant "based on the D20SRD".

So, if you're going to use "OGL" as a label that actually means "game released under the WotC OGL that is D20 System, but we're not allowed to call it that", pray tell, what easy label will you use for "game released under the WotC OGL", or "game released under the WotC OGL that is not D20 System"?

Here are the distinct categories we need labels for:

• 1: D&D3E [D&D3E PH]
• 2: based on D20SRD, WotC OGL, D20STL, D20 System logo, intended to be used with D&D3E [Ultimate Feats]
• 3: based on D20SRD, WotC OGL, D20STL, D20 System logo, not intended to be used with D&D3E [Babylon 5 D20, Spycraft]
• 4: based on D20SRD, D20 System logo, intended to be used with D&D3E [Kalamar products]
• 5: based on D20SRD, D20 System logo, not intended to be used with D&D3E [CoC D20]
• 6: based on D20SRD, WotC OGL, no D20 System logo, intended to be used with D&D3E [Book of Erotic Fantasy]
• 7: based on the D20SRD, WotC OGL, no D20 System logo, not intended to be used with D&D3E [OGL Steampunk]
• 8: not based on D20SRD, WotC OGL, no D20 System logo [Action! System]
• 9: not based on the D20SRD, uses some other ogl [Dominion Rules]

In each case, i've included an example or two of the category. (And you can repeat categories 1-5, replacing all mentions of D&D3E with D20 Modern--we'll skip that for simplicity right now.)

Now, obviously, much of the time, there is no need to distinguish between several of those categories. It depends on the discussion. The vast majority of the time, however, it breaks down in one of two ways:

• Political/ideological discussion: that which is open-content (categories 2,3,6,7,8,9) and that which is not (1,4,5). Occasionally, (9) get's further distinguished from the others in this sort of discussion, for one reason or another.
• Gaming/practical discussion: that which is compatible with or useful for my game, and that which is not. Obviously, that depends on the game, but generally, that means (1,2,4,6) vs. (3,5,7) vs. (8,9). If you're playing D&D3E, the first grouping should be compatible, the second probably won't be, and the third definitely won't be [on a mechanical level, at least].

The important thing to note here is that categories 2, 4, & 6, and 3, 5, & 7, are not functionally distinguishable--that is, it doesn't matter whether it is an OGL game, or whether it has a a D20 System logo on it, all that matters is whether it works with your game. Equally important, 7, 8, & 9 are not easily interchangeable/interactable, despite all being open-game-licensed games that don't have a D20 System logo on them. So, which is more useful: distinguishing between games with a little logo on the cover and games that don't have it, or distinguishing between games with a certain level of compatibility, and those without it? I'm suggesting that the most useful distinctions to make, generally, are exactly the ones you make: D&D-outright, D&D-compatible (or -similar), and further-removed. You've simply been lucky, so far, in finding a correlation between the logo and the degree of compatibility--not only is it not inherent to the presence of the logo, but there are already plenty of counter-examples. But if you really want to distinguish between those games that are fairly compatible, and those that aren't, "D20 System"/"OGL" ain't gonna cut it--even if we ignore my objections and the fact that there are not-even-sort-of-D20-System OGL games, it uses terms that distinguish based on a narrow legality (whether or not it includes chargen/advancement rules), rather than on overall mechanical similarity.

Now, since we're not corporate entities, but just some people having a discussion, we don't have to worry about arbirtrary (and questionable) trademark-usage restrictions. So we've already got a perfectly-serviceable set of terms for the major distinctions that you made:

• "D&D-compatible": not only D&D-branded stuff, but all that stuff out there that's explicitly intended to pretty much plug into your D&D game
• "D20 System": Something that's D20 System, but further deviated from the original games (D&D3E/D20M). Conveniently, WotC has given their system a name. Let's use it. If, for some reason, you need to distinguish between those games that have a logo, and those that don't what's wrong with distinguishing them based on the logo? "D20 System logoed" is perfectly descriptive, since the only definite difference is the presence of the logo.
• "OGL": Any game using the WotC OGL. Most often used in contrast with the above terms, so specifically non-D20 System OGL games. Again, it's simply using the label that has already been conveniently provided for us: they are games that use the WotC OGL. That's it; that's all they have in common--not necessarily a particular system.

So, in summary, i'm championing the twin radical notions that we use accurate terminology, that makes meaningful/useful distinctions.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

I'm not tired of d20. Or D&D, really. I just wish I could play for once, rather than DM, 'cause that's tiring and a headache and I'm really not that good at it. I've recently agreed to DM for a group of newbies, and made the horrible, horrible mistake of just hauling all my books over...now I've got one person wanting a hexblade, one champion of magic, a greenbond, a rogue, and a mage from EoM [R]. Stupid, stupid Ben...I'm going to have to tell them that their day making characters was wasted, and do something like core-only or WFRP v2, with its sweet, sweet randomness.

I think that in a rules-light game, there will be more GM adjudications. If there are more GM adjudications there will be more inconsistent rulings.
If something can happen in a specific instance (inconsistent ruling when ruling required), and you increase the times that instance comes up, you will increase the number of times the associated phenomenom rears its head.