for d20 Lovers, what in your opinion would be an evolutionary step in d20 games?

[Dannyalcatraz]

Well, I think the OGL that opened up the D20 system for other designers to fiddle around in did a world of good. Not only did we get the really nice 3Ed/3.5 system (and other WotC products), we got:

Pathfinder
True20
Fantasy Craft
Midnight
Spycraft
Mutants & Masterminds/Warriors & Warlocks
Arcana Unearthed/Arcana Evolved
Second World

And many other quality games, I'm sure.

Each has its unique spin on the system, which will, in turn, create other innovations as each company takes their game in their own direction.

IOW, there won't be one evolution, there will be many.

As for issues?

My main ones are:

1) Designers getting too cute with their language. I'm an attorney who sees this at the professional level: the more convoluted your language, the more likely it is that either you or your intended audience will make mistakes.

In 3.X, that led to a LOT of those RAW vs. spirit debates.

2) A lack of controls on game design that led to some seriously flawed or overpowered spells, feats, powers, base classes and PrCls. Sometimes it seemed as if the people who brought us new stuff were not familiar with the old stuff.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Evolution doesn't move in definable steps. It's doesn't always move "forward". It doesn't always move in one direction. And sometimes it doesn't really need to move.

So semantics out of the way here are the steps I'd like to see (they don't need to be taken all together, they don't need to be taken individually, and they don't all have to be taken by the same branch of the evolutionary tree):
* Away from resource management.
* Away from having so many fiddly bits.
* Away from levels.
* Away from archetypes like class.
* Away from combat.
* Away from the need for "improvement" to mean "getting more powerful".

Yes, a lot of different ideas. Which is why I think we should not be thinking about just one step but many branching ones. Because sometimes you need one system for one kind of game, and another system for another kind of game. We should be supporting both.

EDIT: One change I would take as an evolutionary step, that would be included in all systems, is away from genericness. I can adapt a product to any setting just fine, I don't need that made easy. What I need are new ideas to adapt something to.

 

[Vigilance]

This thread seems to imply that d20 hasn't been evolving all along, which I would take issue with.

I see books like Grim Tales, Mutants and Masterminds, True20 and Spycraft 2.0 to be pretty strong evolutionary steps.

In fact, I think d20's evolution has been much faster and much stronger than Wizards expected or wanted and is the cause of the current regime's ambivalence toward d20.

Chuck

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

This thread seems to imply that d20 hasn't been evolving all along, which I would take issue with.

I see books like Grim Tales, Mutants and Masterminds, True20 and Spycraft 2.0 to be pretty strong evolutionary steps.

In fact, I think d20's evolution has been much faster and much stronger than Wizards expected or wanted and is the cause of the current regime's ambivalence toward d20.

Chuck

Yea totallly true, and that's my fault with how I put the question, which I didn't realize until a couple days after it posted... I should have asked the question I was meaning to ask differently. My fault.

 

[ruemere]

D&D, to me, is about heroic deeds, development of character's personality and personal strength, and changing the world for the better.
While all of these are most certainly possible under rules of all incarnations of the system, I long for days when building a character did not involve consulting charts, sifting through class abilities and purchasing items.

However, I bear immense dislike toward the old days because of system inflexibility - your characters were constrained by the rules. You could have played something nonstandard, of course, it's just that it often brought a large helping of issues to the table.

In my opinion, next evolutionary step for D20 would be to try to achieve the following:
- classes balanced against each other in a similar manner races are balanced in StarCraft - different approaches, multiple options, great opportunities for everyone.
- no limits to things one can learn, limited number of options available during encounter (something like spells known vs spells readied concept from Arcana Unearthed/Evolved), so that putting together high level characters or making decisions or resource management would not be so time consuming
- gentler power curve

Regards,
Ruemere

 

[Aus_Snow]

what do many of you think would be an real evolutionary step in d20 game design for a future d20/OGL release that would make the game better and more streamlined?

M&M 3rd edition.

M&M, to me, is a logical extension of that beast that is d20. Not quite the endpoint, however. That's where a new edition would come in.

Also, rebadged and multigenre/multistyle in the one book.

That is if I wanted a total d20gasm in the first place, natch. Elsewise, there are plenty of other (valid) directions to go in.

 

[booboo]

e20 never heard of it

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

M&M 3rd edition.

M&M, to me, is a logical extension of that beast that is d20. Not quite the endpoint, however. That's where a new edition would come in.

Of course good luck selling that. The fanbase has already spoken on the official game boards.

(Though personally I'd be all over it.)

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This thread seems to imply that d20 hasn't been evolving all along, which I would take issue with.

I see books like Grim Tales, Mutants and Masterminds, True20 and Spycraft 2.0 to be pretty strong evolutionary steps.

In fact, I think d20's evolution has been much faster and much stronger than Wizards expected or wanted and is the cause of the current regime's ambivalence toward d20.

Chuck

D&D 4 is just another "evolution" of the d20 System, ultimately. It just happens to be outside the scope of the OGL. But if something like True20 or Mutants & Mastermind are evolutions of the d20 System, the concepts of D&D 4 still fit.

If we think about "evolution" - what is the result of evolution? Evolution is a selective process - things that work survive, things that don't work die out. The results can be different - sometimes we find highly specialized organisms that excel only in a very small niche, and sometimes we get organisms highly capable of surviving in many environments. The latter can't really compete with the former in its niche, but since it can also survive outside it, it prevails.

So, the evolution of the d20 System can lead us in many directions:
- Highly specialized games. A perfect superhero game, perhaps, or the ideal Lord of the Ring game.
- Highly combat focused games with a complex resource management system
- Highly "realistic" games, "simulating" injuries, hit locations in combat and modelling human learning processes and social interactions outside it (probably omitting class systems, and level based attack bonus or saving throws...)
- Generic games, able to cover a lot of genres with good detail.
- Fast, streamlined system, maybe specialized, maybe generic.

I guess what the "real" evolution of the d20 System will be depends entirely on the demands we have for it.