Vaxalon said:
In order for any industry to grow, a common standard has to develop. It happened with vinyl records (33 1/3) and with videotapes (VHS) and with computer operating systems (DOS/Windows) and with cell phones and pagers and the internet.
It's no surprise that it's developing in roleplaying games. In fact, what's surprising is that it has taken so long.
God, I hope not. That's like saying there needs to be a common standard for art, so everybody has to use watercolors - or for music, so the only music you can buy will be rap.
See, the thing is that to play a record or a tape or use software, you need to drop a couple of hundred bucks to a couple of thouand bucks on a machine to use it.
To play a new RPG, you need to drop $30 or so. That's on the level of the software or the music or the video. There's no huge investment to be able to use the new RPG like there is for a new way of playing music. So there's no need for a 'standard'.
I love seeing new games and new rules systems,
if they do a good job of evoking the setting or genre. I'd rather have Pelgrane's
Dying Earth RPG than I would
d20 Dying Earth, because the default assumptions and mechanics of D&D would actively get in the way of the feel of Vance's work. I could come up with a half a dozen other examples from my bookshelf as well.
d20 is great as a baseline, but I sincerely hope it never becomes the
only choice.
J
