D20 Past = 96 page softcover? Now I'm depressed.

[Sebastian Ashputtle]

Here I was thinking it would be this huge voluminous tome of glossy, full-colour, hardback Steampunk/Victorian/Pulp Action/Swashbuckling goodness. Instead it's basically going to be the size of the Modern Player's Companion. Bah.

[scuttles off to cave]

 

[Mythtify]

Well, they already have a game that covers the past.

Really, is there a need for d20 past?

 

[Tsyr]

Well, they already have a game that covers the past.

Really, is there a need for d20 past?

Yes.

Pseudo-medival is not "the past".

Steampunk, victiorian era, etc, as mentioned, are also things that can be done with fantasy-past settings. Or Wild West. Or Collonial. Or the Age of Sail. Or whatever.

 

[Mythtify]

I sure hope they don't do a steam punk type book. The market is flooded with it.

As for the wild west, Sidewinder:recoilded is excellent.

Victorian would be cool, but dosnt require a big book to do.

Point is, to cover the time period, you don't need a large book. Wizards take on d20Modern has been very much a "tool box" approach. 96 pages to detail past technologies, changes to the skill system, advanced classes, and campaign models sounds just about right. There dosn't seem to be any type of new rule system they wouold have to design to emulate earth's past beyond what is in the core book.

 

[Glak]

D&D does not cover the past. It doesn't even cover standard fantasy or mythology. It covers Diablo and little more. Like many others, I am writing my own d20 Fantasy using inspiration from d20 Modern. They really should make a d20 Fantasy. I won't buy more D&D books (I only bought the 3.0 core books and used the 3.5 SRD) because I don't like Diablo. I bought perhaps a thousand dollars worth of 2e (and that would probably be 2k with today's money and paper prices)

 

[Spatula]

Hmmm, I thought WOTC was only doing hardcovers these days.

 

[Mythtify]

D&D does not cover the past. It doesn't even cover standard fantasy or mythology. It covers Diablo and little more. )

The rules in D&D can be used to emulate Historical darkages time period. There are even rules for early firearms. It would be rather easy to do an rpg set on earth in 12th century europe, or even into the 1500's.

As for D&D not being good for anything besides video-game style rpg; your entitled to your opinion. I have quite a good time with D&D, and I don't play video-game style games. The mechanics are good. Any determinded DM can go beyond hack-n-slash.

 

[Sebastian Ashputtle]

Well, they already have a game that covers the past.

Really, is there a need for d20 past?

D&D? The past? What past? Faerun's past? Mystara's past? Greyhawk's past?

D20 Past is for EARTH'S past. It's a tad different.

Your logic is like saying, "Why do we need D20 Future? We've already got Star Wars!"

 

[Mythtify]

D&D is a generic fantasy game. The rules can be used to play any type of game that you want to play. If the system wasn't able to be used beyond hack-n-slash generic fantasy, there would be no d20 market.

Besides, d20 Modern dosn't really cover our world any more than D&D covers our past. For d20 Modern to cover our earth, you would have to ditch all of the campaign models as presented, as well as all of the FX.

It would be like dropping Magic, psionics, and Demi-humans from D&D. Once you do that, you can do an "earth's past" game pretty easily.

D20 future was needed because there are lots of things in sci-fi fiction that cannot be emulated using the rules in d20Modern. They had to design systems for cyberwear, mutations, space travel, ect. There are not to many things in the time era covered in d20 past that can not be done using d20 modern. As I said earlier, a 96 page book sounds about right.

 

[C. Baize]

Really?

Okay... try this...
Run a game set in 1565 England.
That means no magic.
No elves.
No dwarves.
No races other than human.
No fantastic creatures.
Bards lose all spells.
No Wizards.
No Sorcerers.

Do that with base D&D, and see how easily it flows.

The problem is that it doesn't...
You're left with Fighters and Rogues as classes, and it was much more rich than that...
I think D20 Past is needed....
If for no other reason than D20 Modern/Future can have the FX simply ignored without caveats. To do the same with D&D would take a complete rebuilding of the system, turning it into..... D20 Past...