Fantasy Fiction and d20

[JoeGKushner]

Well, we had a thread about the books we read and I was wondering what books people would like to see done up in d20 format. We've already had quite a few licenses in the stew. One thing I like about game books over the actual books themselves is that it's often easier to find information. Not too much a problem for settings like Middle Earth where they have their own Atlases, dictionaries ando ther books, but not every author has those advantages.

I'd like to see the following hit some type of d20 transformation just for more details about the setting, or details about the setting in such a way that I can pick and chose what I'd like about them.

Farseer by Robin Hobb: I'm reading the first trilogy now and its good. Two other trilogies out there so someone must be reading these books.

Earthsea: Shorter stories that still pack a nice punch to them.

Eternal Champion: Talk about the Champion, the Companion and the Sword. Showcase how to use multiple planes and other epic feel to a campaign without the characters themselves being gods.




FICTIONAL SYSTEMS
Call of Cthulhu: Taste may vary. I liked it.

Wheel of Time: Ditto. I used their spellcasting system for Sorcrers in SL for a while to show the real differences between those touched by the Titan and those were were just sorcerers.

Dragonlords of Melnibone: Everytime I hear how great Chaosium is and how Wizards scrwed them, I point to this book to showcase that lie.

Clash of Kings: GOO has high production values so this might be a great thing to look at, but I'm worried about how easily it'll be to mesh it with standard d20 books.

Shanara: The Dragon article wasn't too bad.

Midkeima: Well, not quite d20, but I still have Carse and Tulan and heard that there was another book, Jonril out. (Showing my age here)

Thieves World: Another one not quite d20, but the first boxed set had some AD&D stuff in it in addition to numerous other systems.

Star Wars: Not quite fiction, but it has enough of it to back it up. For a while, that's all there was.

Conan: Nuff said.

Middle Earth: Nuff said. Not d20 but still out there.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

I'd really like to see China Mieville's books done up as a d20 setting, as well as Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series. Both series have given me lotsof great ideas for settings, and I'd like to see more of the inner workings of the worlds in a campaign setting type guide.

Dragonlords of Melnibone: Everytime I hear how great Chaosium is and how Wizards scrwed them, I point to this book to showcase that lie.

You can't judge the company based on this one crappy book. WotC (and TSR before them) has put out some really awful stuff as well, they just put more out overall so it gets forgotten quicker. Chaosium has put out some incredible stuff in the past, and some of their recent books rate just as highly as some of the old stuff. You don't hear many people saying "Yeah, but TSR put out The Hero Builder's Guidebook, so they suck", but lots of people judge Chaosium based on this one book since it was their first entry into d20. Three of their recent setting books (Dunwich, Arkham, and Kinsport) have all had d20 material in them, and all three were well done, IMHO.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Joel Rosenburg's Gaurdians of the Flame and Thousand Worlds series.

The Gaurdians of the Flame series is a fantasy world where gamers were "translated" into their D&D characters. The magic system is vancian, but there are a lot of permutations. It starts with The Sleeping Dragon.

The Thousand Worlds is hard-core sci-fi. The big assumption is that as mankind goes out to the stars, we won't lose our cultural backgrounds and prejudices. There's not a lot out for this setting, but Emil and the Dutchman and Not for Glory are good places to start.

Both of these would make decent d20 books. Rosenburg was a gamer and he left plenty of adventuring opportunities in both settings.

 

[JoeGKushner]

You can't judge the company based on this one crappy book. .

Just so we're on the same page, I don't. I just keep that book as a first point of reference everytime I hear how WoTC screwed them. There are many things about Chaosium I don't like (timeliness for one), but I love Call of Cthulhu as fiction (hence its listing) and many of the supplements for it.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

The Thousand Worlds is hard-core sci-fi. The big assumption is that as mankind goes out to the stars, we won't lose our cultural backgrounds and prejudices.

Sounds a lot like John Barnes' A Million Open Doors.

I wouldn't mind seeing stuff based on Brust's Vlad Taltos stuff, or Kurtz' Deryni. I have a hard time using fiction settings for games, though. I think most fiction is geared around having the protagonists being the center of attention, and the focus is (rightly) on telling a good story, not being concerned with how elements would balance out mechanically in a game. Inevitably, you end up having to set your campaign in a time or place far removed from the events in the fiction. Otherwise you have to deal with continuity problems, metagaming on the part of the PCs, or worst of all, railroading them to fit into events that are literally already written (*cough* Dragonlance *cough*)

 

[JoeGKushner]

Sounds a lot like John Barnes' A Million Open Doors.

I wouldn't mind seeing stuff based on Brust's Vlad Taltos stuff, or Kurtz' Deryni. (*cough* Dragonlance *cough*)

I believe that the people who do Fudge, are coming out with Deryni this Gen Con. I havent' read any of the Vlad Taltos material, although I did read the books before that (Hundred Years after?).

 

[Derulbaskul]

I'm not such a big fan of converting worlds from fantasy fiction into RPG settings. I would definitely make an exception for Elric done properly, otherwise, I would prefer to see influences but that's all.

One thing I really would like to see, and was hoping Eberron would be (and I like Eberron as it is: this is not a complaint about Eberron), is a decent steampunk setting. If Iron Kingdoms ever really does get published that might be the one. Anyway, keeping this on topic. I would like to see some Mieville-flavour in a world.

 

[Krieg]

I'm still holding out hope that someone will finally get ahold of the Dune license & do it right in D20 (There actually is a tiny glimmer of hope to that effect over on RPG.net).

Failing that, I would love to see WoTC update Lankhmar for 3E.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Failing that, I would love to see WoTC update Lankhmar for 3E.

Does WoTC still have the Lankhmar license? If so, I think that with the flexibility of d20, there is a good chance of this being done right for once. That last boxed set that was an introduction to AD&D was truly terrible.

 

[Whisper72]

I would love to see a d20 conversion for the world described in the Steven Erikson books (Malazan tales of the fallen). The world, history, power groups, cosmology etc. described there are absolutely amazing and could easily fill a whole series of rules / source / campaign setting books.