d20 Hatred near you?

[Altalazar]

I love CoC - I played an earlier incarnation of it and had so much fun with it.

I have gotten the d20 version, but haven't had the chance to play it.

I am surprised to find out there is a 6th edition, non-d20 version as well. I really don't care which version would be used - I like the concept of it.

I guess if you don't like the d20 version, you have options, then. Which is only a good thing.

 

[evildmguy]

That's not my point at all.

My point is that I think it's bogus when people state that "d20 does foo" or "OGL does bar" (e.g., d20 makes people eschew other systems, the OGL is some sort of sinister corporate plot to undermine copyrights, etc.).

d20 doesn't "do" anything.

d20 sits on a shelf.

d20 doesn't sprout from pods implanted in your bedroom by aliens. It doesn't make all your WoD books spontaneously burst into flame. It isn't forcing companies to convert your favorite game to their system. It doesn't make your players show up late or welch out of paying for the pizza.

What does "do" is the market. The market has overwhelmingly asked for d20 product. The market has said to companies who are adapting d20 to different genres: "This is cool. Please do more of it."

And you know what else the market has done? Buoyed by all the fat cash d20 is bringing in, it's adapted to those gamers who who like variety, or who don't like D&D/d20 (a perpetual minority--sorry), and provided more quality "alternative" product than ever before. Don't like d20? No problem. There's always WoD, Dark Ages WoD, Exalted, InSpectres, HERO, Savage Worlds, Action!, TriStat, GURPS, Riddle of Steel, FUDGE, Godlike, HeroQuest, Rifts, Buffy, LOTR, Sorcerer, Call of Cthulhu, Ars Magica, etc, ad nauseam, ad infinitum, and the 37,506,277 free RPGs you can d/l off the Web.

This is how I see things at least. And it's why I can't, for the life of me, comprehend how anyone can be so p.o.'ed about d20 that they make it their life's mission to attribute to it all the evils of the world... just like they did to the editions of D&D prior to it, and will continue to do to any set of rules published by whomever they have deemed the Evil Corporate Empire(tm).

This doesn't negate valid critcism of the system, nor dismiss the issue of taste... because say what you want about tomatoes, it usually all comes down to taste. At some point, though, you just need to move on. Some people may think they're puttin' it to the Man by wearing their d20 hate on their sleeve, but really, the Man wouldn't know a d12 from a Dee Snyder. The Man thinks we're all stupid dorks.

Hmmm.

A mostly tongue-in-cheek response but possibly valid.

"Maybe people are playing d20 for the same reason that eskimos eat blubber. It's the only thing on the arctic buffet!" (With thanks to Dennis Miller.)

Seriously, one of the reasons d20 is good is that it is easy. A simple die mechanic of always wanting high. Skills and checks are d20 + modifier. With new players, the DM has to worry about the modifier. With "old players", they usually figure out the modifier. The system "helps" players in their character definition by providing classes, ready templates for a character concept.

3E has brought a lot of casual gamers into role playing who might not be playing otherwise. Once they have played and find they enjoy role playing, usually which rules they are playing doesn't matter to them. In fact, some might want to try another game because it is based on their favorite show or movie, and there still are a few out there that aren't d20!

For that reason, it could be that d20 is "forcing other companies" to use it, because of its recognition. Why else would "established" companies, older than four or five years, be creating and selling d20 products? If all it takes is an extra week to have d20 and another system information and that extra week will increase sales by 42%, what company wouldn't do that?

I know this gets into a subjective area. However, it seems to me that the popularity of DND as well as how d20 was marketed did have an impact of how d20 is perceived in the market place. There are few small companies trying to do their own RPG. There are many small d20 companies. Therefore, can anyone say for certain that the market asked for d20? Or is it that d20 has pushed the market its way? A slight, but very important difference, in how d20 is perceived.

Again, mostly a (long) tongue in cheek response. I am personally not against d20 but I don't think it is the best system for me. I am for anything that helps my game be more fun, regardless of its source or from where it came.

Good discussion! Thanks!

edg

 

[Henry]

...the only Dee Snyder i can recall wrote some nasty punk rock lyrics. and a few books....like Wake Me Up & F*** Me. back in the 80's.

He also runs the retro-80's radio show "House of Hair" in syndication. *

*

d20 doesn't... make all your WoD books spontaneously burst into flame.

Actually, White Wolf can do that competently all by themselves. (See the TIme of Judgment.)

 

[diaglo]

He also runs the retro-80's radio show "House of Hair" in syndication. *

*

isn't that Dee Snider....note spelling of Twisted Sister fame.

the Dee Snyder i was talking about is a woman.

 

[jessemock]

My point is that I think it's bogus when people state that "d20 does foo" or "OGL does bar" (e.g., d20 makes people eschew other systems, the OGL is some sort of sinister corporate plot to undermine copyrights, etc.).

d20 doesn't "do" anything.*

d20 sits on a shelf.

This is because you’re reading as if you’re some kind of robot—and you’re not even doing that very well, because, if you’d like to inflict an overly–literal interpretation on such statements as “d20 is destroying the RPG industry”, you can’t do it by concretising the word for your own part.

In other words, d20 does not sit on a shelf, because it is a system; a particular book may incorporate parts of d20, but no particular book is ever d20 itself. D20 can’t sit on a shelf.

But, of course, it would be ridiculous to make such an argument, just as it is ridiculous for you to say that d20 doesn’t do anything.

When someone says that d20 is plaguing the industry (or whatever), it’s clear what is meant: the proliferation of the d20 system is bad.

What does "do" is the market. The market has overwhelmingly asked for d20 product. The market has said to companies who are adapting d20 to different genres: "This is cool. Please do more of it."

Actually, according to your own roboticism, the market would not be capable of speech. ‘Consumers’ is a nicer word, for this purpose.

But, again, this doesn’t disagree with the haters; I mean: isn’t this exactly the point that many of them are making? Are they not saying that people have begun to slurp up d20 products like crazy and that this is Bad News?

And you know what else the market has done? Buoyed by all the fat cash d20 is bringing in, it's adapted to those gamers who who like variety, or who don't like D&D/d20 (a perpetual minority--sorry), and provided more quality "alternative" product than ever before.

Now, this is an actual, arguable statement. And it’s precisely what many people disagree with. Their point is that—how to phrase it?—consumers have, by their consumption, begun to convince producers that it is in their (the producers) best financial interest to produce less diversity, rather than more, i.e. that they can make more money by using d20 for their game systems, rather than another system—which (other system) may, after all, be much more appropriate to the particular game.

Yes; it is reasonable to suggest that this crowd make its opinion known directly through the dollar. It is unreasonable to suggest, however, that there’s no point to complaining about the influence of d20.

 

[buzz]

isn't that Dee Snider....note spelling of Twisted Sister fame.

the Dee Snyder i was talking about is a woman.

Google says that said Twister Sister alumus' name is "Dee Snyder". Assuming you can trust Google...

 

[evildmguy]

Actually, White Wolf can do that competently all by themselves. (See the TIme of Judgment.)

LOL!

That's funny!

Thanks for the laugh! Have a good one!

edg

 

[der_kluge]

I think the most amazing thing that I learned from this thread is that the ISCA BBS is still around. WOW! I used to haunt that place in college (92-95). Amazing.

 

[buzz]

This is because you’re reading as if you’re some kind of robot—and you’re not even doing that very well...

"Ease down, you're just grinding metal."
--Hicks, Aliens

Now, this is an actual, arguable statement. And it’s precisely what many people disagree with. Their point is that—how to phrase it?—consumers have, by their consumption, begun to convince producers that it is in their (the producers) best financial interest to produce less diversity, rather than more, i.e. that they can make more money by using d20 for their game systems, rather than another system—which (other system) may, after all, be much more appropriate to the particular game.

Which (other system) may, after all, be no more appropriate than d20 to the particular game.

I think "begun to convince" is inaccurate. That it's usually more profitable to print d20 products is something that was probably obvious from the moment d20 was announced. It also doesn't follow that demand for d20 product equates to a demand for "less diversity." This is zero-sum thinking, and markets don't work that way. The d20 boom has revitalized the hobby as a whole, and there are plenty of other systems seeing boosted sales becuase of this (HERO), or are suppotred by the income generated from their creator's d20 lines (Atlas Games, White Wolf). The success of D&D is directly tied to the success of the industry.

Frankly, even if there has been a "diversity decline", I would argue (purely anecdotally) that all we've really lost are a lot of badly-designed near-D&D's. The designers who know what they're doing are still putting out the systems they love. And there's still demand for them. (The aforementioned HERO system has seen a massive resurgence, now selling roughly as much as GURPS books tend to.)

(Which points to another anecdotal refutation: I totally love d20, but I also buy everything Hero Games puts out. No demand for "less diversity" here. And I am not alone.)

Yes; it is reasonable to suggest that this crowd make its opinion known directly through the dollar. It is unreasonable to suggest, however, that there’s no point to complaining about the influence of d20.

Then I guess we disagree. I think complaining about the influence of d20 is a total waste of time, as I have yet to hear any coherent arguments proving that there's anything to complain about.

 

[WizarDru]

Google says that said Twister Sister alumus' name is "Dee Snyder". Assuming you can trust Google...

Well, according to his home page, it's Snider. Apparently, Twisted Sister is on tour in Madrid right now. Go figure.

Yes; it is reasonable to suggest that this crowd make its opinion known directly through the dollar. It is unreasonable to suggest, however, that there’s no point to complaining about the influence of d20.

Unreasonable? Yes. Useful? I'm not so sure. Because ultimately, publishers don't care what you say, only what you actually do. More than a few game companies have gone under, thinking that they would pull the gamers to them with a superior system. And more than a few recognized that they might be catering to a niche of a niche audience. I mean, Hol may have been an incredibly innovative RPG...I don't know, because I didn't buy it. Very few other people did, as well. That doesn't make it a bad game (though I'm led to believe it was more parody than game)...but it does mean that it didn't appeal to the mainstream or for some reason failed to connect with a larger audience. Lack of exposure or marketing may have been a key reason.

The same applies beyond the RPG market. I hear that "The Gun" was an impressive series on ABC that nobody watched. I understand that virtually no one bought "Beyond Good and Evil", even though it's one of the best video games of last year. Untold numbers of good books go unread. And on and on.

If the complaint is that the d20 system is bad for being popular, well then I'm not sure what more I can say. I don't see it as stifling competition...quite the opposite, in fact. I plan on getting Mutants and Masterminds this weekend, and I've bought quite a lot of material in the past three years that I never would have bought without the OGL. That's not material I would have spent on a different game...that's money I wouldn't have spent on RPGs AT ALL without the OGL being in place. The d20 system did no less than bring my RPG hobby back from the dead, and brought 10 other people in my immediate acquaintence with me. We weren't playing Vampire, we weren't playing D&D, and the little GURPS we were playing was once a month of so, at best.

Folks are entitled to think that d20 system is stifiling innovation and competition, but as far as I can tell, the RPG industry was in a downward spiral before d20 arrived. As I recall, pre-3e the discussion was how CCGs had destroyed the RPG market. Quite a difference a few years make.