D&D 5E D&D Next "genre books" replace d20 Modern

[avin]

Yeah....but it does have the advantage of not being GURPS.

It's a disadvantage then

 

[mkill]

It's GURPS.

No, it's d20 all over again It wasn't by WotC, but pretty much all of the above was covered.

 

[Bobbum Man]

It's a disadvantage then

On the contrary...anything that keeps me from having to interact with GURPS players is aces in my book.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Wizards is doing their darnedest just to reclaim past-editioners.

d20 Modern could be considered a past edition of D&D.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

To be honest, I don't feel that the world needs another generic system. D&D did all that with the D20 system, and it's a really low priority for me at least. There are other systems that do the whole multigenre thing better than D20, and really what I'm after is a more focussed product that captures the fantasy genre alone (although still generic).

My understanding is that D&D Next won't be a generic RPG. It will be the essence of D&D as a fantasy rpg.

The Genre Books would then use exactly the same rules as D&D Next. They would be D&D Next titles, with the D&D logo on the front. It's not like the D&D Next rules would be stripped down again and rebuilt into a generic ruleset.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Yeah....but it does have the advantage of not being GURPS.

Two advantages:

1) I will be able to teach my non-gamer friends to play D&D Next, but I won't be able to teach them GURPS. (They're smart enough to learn, but it's too gearheady to be fun for them and us.)

Then, if I had the Genre Books, we could play Sci-Fi, Western, Victorian Steampunk, and so forth...without having to re-learn different rules.

GURPS, though an admirable game, doesn't have the advantage of being as accessible to non-gamers.

2) The D&D 5e player network.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Two advantages:

1) I will be able to teach my non-gamer friends to play D&D Next, but I won't be able to teach them GURPS. (They're smart enough to learn, but it's too gearheady to be fun for them and us.)

Then, if I had the Genre Books, we could play Sci-Fi, Western, Victorian Steampunk, and so forth...without having to re-learn different rules.

GURPS, though an admirable game, doesn't have the advantage of being as accessible to non-gamers.

2) The D&D 5e player network.

You sound like someone who is perfect for Savage Worlds. Its entire purpose is to be simple and quick to learn, yet cover a wide variety of genres. Its companions and various settings are essentially your genre books.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Plent of people use the phrase "playing D&D" to describe any PnP rpg and any genre.

This is already evident in the latest Gamma World rpg. It is a 4e game, with the D&D logo on the front. D&D Gamma World.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

You sound like someone who is perfect for Savage Worlds. Its entire purpose is to be simple and quick to learn, yet cover a wide variety of genres. Its companions and various settings are essentially your genre books.

I like what I've seen of Savage Worlds.

Yet I want to start a Dungeons & Dragons game with my non-gaming friends. They know that name. It's a cool name.

And I guess the 5e player base will be more extensive.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

the vary "toolkit" approach taken by "d20 Modern" is something of a weakness - the game is just too heavy for rapid prototyping, and I just don't have the time to heavily customise a game any more. So, something like "Savage Worlds" or nWoD will always get the nod ahead of it.

Actually, that's probably my biggest worry with 5e right there - a modular approach is likely to mean more work for me to tailor the game to the way I want to play, and doing that work may be more trouble than it's worth. Beyond a certain point, I'm going to abandon it in favour of sticking with 3e (despite being well aware of the faults of the latter).

I understand your concerns. I hope and suspect that the 5e designers will succeed in making a set of Core Rules that are satisfying to most people, including me.

The Genre Books would be fully compatible with these Core Rules. This was not true of d20 Modern, or the Polyhedron d20 mini-games. They were just different enough to throw a wrench into cross-genre campaigning. They were really different games, built using the d20 design principle.

What I'm proposing would be so seamless with Core D&D that any D&D party could hop dimensions and multiclass with Modern/Future/Past classes without any rules conversion whatsoever.

Fighter/Starpilot/Gunslinger
Wizard/Detective/Scientist
and so forth..