Academic Studies Recent Edition Wars

[ggroy]

The whole thing was an example of the Tragedy of the Commons

Besides, I believe that the gaming community is better served by people making new systems, rather than staying inside the limitations of 3.5 D20

Case in point, the new Song of Ice and Fire RPG by Green Ronin is a lot more interesting with its own system than it was when it was just another Fantasy D20 game

Which other rpg games do you believe may have been ill-served by being shoehorned into a D20 "straightjacket"?

 

[AngryMojo]

Which other rpg games do you believe may have been ill-served by being shoehorned into a D20 "straightjacket"?

I'll actually chime in on this one and state Iron Kingdoms. IK is a wonderful world with an incredible amount of story potential and fun to be had, but it never really fit into d20.

 

[jdrakeh]

Which other rpg games do you believe may have been ill-served by being shoehorned into a D20 "straightjacket"?

Fading Suns and Deadlands both come to mind. Both of those d20 conversions were poor imitations of the original systems. Also, please note that I'm no huge fan of the original Deadlands mechanics, but still acknowledge that they were a better fit for an Old West RPG than the d20 mechanics were.

 

[Greg K]

Cirno, it was badwrong.

The OGL was designed to allow third parties to make supplements for D&D, not whole new games that would compete with it.

Wrong. Get your facts straight and try again

 

[Remathilis]

Which other rpg games do you believe may have been ill-served by being shoehorned into a D20 "straightjacket"?

Star Wars for starters; "level-based" advancement in such a setting doesn't feel right. And while I applaud the creators of Saga for a good system, I can't say I find it a good fit for the SW universe.

The problem comes when you have "mixed" parties of characters. Take the Phantom Menace; you have Amidala (4th level?) Anakin (first, if even), Obi-Wan (6th), Jar-Jar (1st) and Qui-Gon (14th+) on an "adventuring group" together. The level disparity from the talented kid to the Jedi Master is so vast that, in game, anything that would challenge Qui-Gon would KILL the others and anything geared for them would be slaughtered by Qui-Gon. The same could be said of the OT with Han/Chewie being high-level/experienced, Leia moderately competent, and Luke fresh off the farm hanging out with Jedi Master Obi-Wan again.

As much as I hate to say it, a level-less system (similar to WEG's d6, but with a better reigned-in Force mechanic) would probably be better to handling the wide variety of skills and experience levels that a typical SW group would possess.

And lets not get into Call of Chuthulu d20...

EDIT: ... or Rokugan...

 

[jdrakeh]

And lets not get into Call of Chuthulu d20...

I dunno. . . ever since I saw American Badass stat up Stephen Hawking in CoC d20, I was sold on the system — not as a horror game, but as unintentional comedy gold. That said, at lower levels, I think it's a very good approximation of BRP horror, but at high levels it falls into the "every character is an unstoppable combat badass" trap.

 

[Bluenose]

Which other rpg games do you believe may have been ill-served by being shoehorned into a D20 "straightjacket"?

Traveller T20 is my prime example.
Swashbuckling Adventures, the D20 version of Seventh Sea.
Mongoose's D20 Conan never did it for me.

As others have mentioned, Call of Cthulhu, Star Wars and to some degree the Oriental Adventures version of Rokugan (which didn't quite come off, but wasn't as badly suited imo). And while I never played non-d20 Deadlands or Fading Suns, but the rules always seemed to be reaching for something that wasn't there.

Some of them could I think have been done better as a variant of D20 modern, but others really didn't seem to work with class and level based mechanics.

 

[Bumbles]

The problem comes when you have "mixed" parties of characters. Take the Phantom Menace; you have Amidala (4th level?) Anakin (first, if even), Obi-Wan (6th), Jar-Jar (1st) and Qui-Gon (14th+) on an "adventuring group" together. The level disparity from the talented kid to the Jedi Master is so vast that, in game, anything that would challenge Qui-Gon would KILL the others and anything geared for them would be slaughtered by Qui-Gon.

Of course, when you check the movies, you realize that this was handled by having all the characters go off on their own. Anakin wasn't with the others when he shot down the Droid control ship, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon went off to fight the Sith on his own, and Amidala was on her own when she took on the Vice-Roy.

I'm not sure that that model is appropriate for a game, it seems like splitting the party so to speak was the default. Might work for a movie, not so good when you have 1 person doing things and the rest sitting idle.

Maybe there are people who like that style of play, but I can't say it appeals to me. No matter what the system might be.

 

[jdrakeh]

Swashbuckling Adventures, the D20 version of Seventh Sea.

I totally forgot about this and agree 100%.

 

[Greg K]

Which other rpg games do you believe may have been ill-served by being shoehorned into a D20 "straightjacket"?

In my opinion, licensed properties:
Babylon 5
Black Company
Conan
Farscape
Stargate
Starship Troopers
Star Wars
Thieves World

It's the class/level stucture with level based class bonus abilities, hit point/vitality increases, etc. that just doesn't do it for me when it comes to licensed properties based off of novels and movies.