d20 Hatred near you?

[Henry]

Evildmguy,

Whether it's levels or "what generation are you?" it's still a measure of relative power. The higher-gen vampires gain abilities that lower 'get' cannot aspire to, including storage of blood and certain other limits (I don't have the book with me, so the chart is escaping me at the moment), but there were several attributes that generation affected. In that sense, there is a levelling mechanic; instead of XP, it's like a prestige class where killing another vampire is what gives you that power. Vamps know enough to leave a higher-gen vampire alone, because he has not only greater physcial power, but greater influence as well. It's still a "leveling" mechanic, not billed as such, but embedded firmly in the system. (However, I can't help but wonder if the World of Darkness reboot is going to get rid of "generations"...)

All I'm saying is that just because a game has levels defined as such does not mean one HAS to use XP's, the natural progression, etc. to advance in them. A d20 version of Vampire I believe could be built that came very close to capturing the spirit of the original, because there are many mechanics that some people think of as essential to d20, but really aren't.

(Then again, this is also my belief because I do not see the dice pool/number of successes as critical to Vampire's success, and actually strongly dislike the dice pool mechanics of the Storyteller system, as well as those of Shadowrun. The storyline is quite good for Vampire, as it is for Shadowrun, and would port well to most other game systems).

 

[JesterPoet]

This is the internet. I'm sure there are message boards where you can find hateful posts about iced tea. Don't worry about it.

I'm gonna go look

 

[Emiricol]

Oh? Regardless if WotC is presenting it as a "universal" system or not, the fact that other publishers are trying to do just such a thing certainly does not make it a "myth".

(And, as another poster noted, WotC's d20 Modern and d20 Future also seems to go away from the "myth" suggestion.)

D20 Modern isn't compatible with D&D directly. It's an alteration. A different system. Different SRD even. I think this specifically supports the statement from before that d20 and Storyteller are alike in that they aren't "generic" but are easily adaptable to various settings.

(Whether the adaptations that have been done are good or not is a matter of individual opinion only, so I leave that to other people to try to argue. I'm sure they will hehe)

 

[evildmguy]

Henry: Thanks for the reply! Good points!

Whether it's levels or "what generation are you?" it's still a measure of relative power. The higher-gen vampires gain abilities that lower 'get' cannot aspire to, including storage of blood and certain other limits (I don't have the book with me, so the chart is escaping me at the moment), but there were several attributes that generation affected. In that sense, there is a levelling mechanic; instead of XP, it's like a prestige class where killing another vampire is what gives you that power. Vamps know enough to leave a higher-gen vampire alone, because he has not only greater physcial power, but greater influence as well. It's still a "leveling" mechanic, not billed as such, but embedded firmly in the system. (However, I can't help but wonder if the World of Darkness reboot is going to get rid of "generations"...)

Well . . .

I do see where you are coming from in part. However, I would argue that the generation of a vampire is more their potential. Comitting diablerie doesn't give any power in and of itself; it merely increases the potential power of the character. However, it could be argued, loosely, that each generation of vampire is a class, with a specific limited potential for each generation. It could loosely be said that, in the same vein, pun very much intended, that a 1st level DND character's potential is 20th level, not using Epic levels. Perhaps each class of DND is a "generation of vampire," having different strengths and weaknesses. (It isn't exactly that, though, and the more details that were examined, the more I think this argument would be seen as not working.)

Again, it is a semantic argument that I am making. "Level" or "leveling" in terms of d20 (DND) means an increase in ability or advancement. However, generation, in V:tM, is potential, not actualized ability as a "level" is.

Good points, though!

All I'm saying is that just because a game has levels defined as such does not mean one HAS to use XP's, the natural progression, etc. to advance in them. A d20 version of Vampire I believe could be built that came very close to capturing the spirit of the original, because there are many mechanics that some people think of as essential to d20, but really aren't.

And I would agree with this. I also agree with other posters who have said that a game's mechanics heavily influences its role playing and its own style. Getting rid of the Storyteller system and using a d20 system would give the game a whole different feel.

That decision is up to each group and what they want to do. I don't know that I would use a d20 version of Vampire but I would be curious as to how it was done!

(Then again, this is also my belief because I do not see the dice pool/number of successes as critical to Vampire's success, and actually strongly dislike the dice pool mechanics of the Storyteller system, as well as those of Shadowrun. The storyline is quite good for Vampire, as it is for Shadowrun, and would port well to most other game systems).

I have not played much Vampire. Very little in fact. However, I do agree with you in saying that I don't think the game mechanics are very elegant. In some places, they are clunky at best. (Exalted, as I understand it, is potentially worse, with dice pools of "low experienced" characters going up to 47!) However, I do like the degree of success mechanic better than a make it or don't of d20. (I personally don't think that d20 can emulate degrees of success because of how the system works. I have read many options for having degrees of success but they never worked for me. That is my opinion though.) I also agree aobut Shadowrun! 1st Ed of that was terribly tough to understand and run!

Have a good one! Take care!

edg

 

[buzz]

I am saying that I do see WotC calling d20 a generic system, especially through the SRD, and I am curious as to what you think.

To the best of my knowledge, no representative of WotC, nor the oft-quoted-in-regards-to-this-point Ryan Dancey, has *ever* claimed that d20 is a "generic" or "universal" system. The system has *never* been presented by its creators as being able to handle any setting or genre out of the box (a la HERO or GURPS).

Lots of d20-bashers like to claim otherwise, though, becasue it sets up very nicely the (fairly solid) argument that d20 does not do this well at all, actually. Of course, such arguments make about as much sense as faulting Call of Cthulhu becasue it doesn't handle supers.

Now, have Dancey and WotC said that they hope that d20 will be adopted by as many peole as possible? Yes. Have they claimed that it's good for the hobby as a whole to consolidate under fewer systems? Yes.

Unfortunately, the d20-hating crowd seems to have made the illogical leap that this drive for universal acceptance (hey, they're a business) equates to a claim that d20 is a universal *system*.

d20 is an *open* system. That's it. Granted, many companies, WotC included, are taking advanage of this (and the large player base) by creating games that expand the system into various other genres and settings. This creates a large pool of *d20-based* RPGs, but in no way makes d20 "generic" or "universal."

The nearest analogue to this is Chaosium's BRP system. Sure, it's been adapted to handle all sorts of genres, but at its base it's a handful of mechanics (e.g., the resistance table, percentile skills) that needs to be heavily adapted for each specific game.

...and if it was the most popular RPG on earth, we be talking about it instead of d20.

 

[evildmguy]

buzz: Oh, okay. That makes sense. My bad, I was wrong about WotC saying it was generic or universal.

Thanks for the clarification!

edg

 

[buzz]

Oh? Regardless if WotC is presenting it as a "universal" system or not, the fact that other publishers are trying to do just such a thing certainly does not make it a "myth".

What other publishers are doing is irrelevant.

Is d20 "generic" just because BESMd20 (the only d20 product that even comes close to suiting your argument) is sort of generic? I dunno, does d20 suck for supers just because The Foundation was a lousy product? Answers to both: Of course not.

It's a myth.

 

[buzz]

Thanks for the clarification!

No sweat. I probably get too emotional about this, as I can't even count the number of times I've been on a forum where people use this kind of "apples and oranges" argument, faulting d20 for not being something it never claimed to be.

Which is probably why I tend to hang at ENWorld.

 

[barsoomcore]

evildmguy:

You seem to be conflating D&D with d20. They are very different beasts, and not liking D&D is not at all the same thing as not liking d20.

Just as an example, CoC d20 proved that you could create a classless d20 system. Mutants and Masterminds proves you can create a hit-point-free d20 system. Very little is actually critical to the d20 system -- certainly not most of the things you seem to find most problematic:

d20, though, has so many rules on so many different areas that it can be tricky for the GM to decide which to drop or not because of how they effect other aspects of the game.

d20 actually has a pretty small number of rules. Six ability scores, thirty-some-odd skills and the same number of feats. That's not so much. A half-dozen combat actions are described and a bunch of modifiers are offered.

There is a complexity to the spells (each spell does one or two things and that is it. Therefore, there are hundreds of spells to cover the most common situations an adventurer might encounter.) that makes it difficult to learn and remember them all.

See, that's D&D you're talking about, not d20. The d20 system doesn't depend on any particular set of spell descriptions (or indeed the presence of spells at all).

Another player, in trying to play a pacifist monk, had the base rules work against him.

The monk is a D&D class. Again, D&D != d20.

None of this is to say, "You MUST like d20!" It's got its foibles and it's not for everyone, definitely. I like it because it's fun to tinker with, and because there are so many new ideas on its application getting published so I can stick all sorts of wacky stuff into my campaigns. But that's not what everyone thinks is fun. Just me. But I thought it was worth pointing out -- you might be missing out on possibilities you'd discounted because you hadn't seen the variety d20 can offer.

 

[Emiricol]

As opposed to the huge number of people who enjoy the current version of the game. More, from what I've heard, than the number of people who ever played 1E. But of course, the "D20 suxxors! 1E si teh best evar!" argument is really the point of this thread, so thanks for sharing