If I ran an RPG company I would make_________.

[am181d]

Well, two things:

1) A monster book that provides alternate takes on DnD staples like dragons, trolls, orcs, etc. Does every universe have to have chromatic dragons and snout-nosed orcs?

2) Partially inspired by the Monsternomicon: A monster book that comes in two parts, one being a handout "Monster Hunter's Guide" that you can give to players, full of lore and rumor (with "artist's depictions" of the creatures) and hopefully with the look and feel of an ancient tome, and then the actual rules guide that the DM holds onto. That's the sort of thing that could ultimately serve as a monster book AND the foundation of a campaign. ("We're going to hunt down every one of the creatures that Uncle Skeever wrote about in his Monster Hunter's Guide, even if it kills us like it killed him.")

 

[Wombat]

I would make games that very few people would probably want... just my style...

Ultimately, however, I would love to write up a Renaissance musketeers-n-magic game where the magic in use is based on the magic believed to be available during that period, based on real-world grimoires. Flashing steel, summoning demons, deep politics. It couldn't be D20, of course, because I feel that rules should be fit to settings, rather than settings crammed into rules.

I would love to play in this world, but I do not kid myself to consider it wildly popular to gamers at large.

 

[Crothian]

2) Partially inspired by the Monsternomicon: A monster book that comes in two parts, one being a handout "Monster Hunter's Guide" that you can give to players, full of lore and rumor (with "artist's depictions" of the creatures) and hopefully with the look and feel of an ancient tome, and then the actual rules guide that the DM holds onto. That's the sort of thing that could ultimately serve as a monster book AND the foundation of a campaign. ("We're going to hunt down every one of the creatures that Uncle Skeever wrote about in his Monster Hunter's Guide, even if it kills us like it killed him.")

Oddly enough this exists...or did, I don't know if the company is still around. I picked it up at Marcon (local convention) about 5 years ago.

It's called Field Guide to Monsters, it is written for modern times for an x-files type game I guess. I was not a big book, more of a multi paged pamphlet costing a few bucks. It was made by Hex Games.

But I'd love to see a better version for any system. Theirs was good quality in the writing, but it is small and just needs to be more.

 

[thundershot]

Yup.

Also, and I've said this a million times over the years, I'd make a big book of nothing but stat blocks. Stat blocks of not just monsters, but of archetypal NPCs (city guards, adventurers, merchants, etc.). No background flavor, no plot hooks, no nothin' besides the stat blocks. Well-formatted stat blocks sans any extraneous material make my job as a DM so much easier. It seems, though, that just about everyone who has done an NPC book simply cannot resist giving us fluff.

Yes! I'd buy this in a second! Especially if it had standard possessions listed, rather than just the weapons.

My needs are simple. d20 Modern adventures, Epic Level adventures, and adventures for d20 Minigames like Spellslinger, Virtual, and Redline...

I'm a DM who simply doesn't have TIME to write adventures. I rely on adventures (granted, they get modified, but that's good enough for me!).



Chris

 

[Pants]

What would I make...

- d20 Fantasy Toolset - A rulebook that takes all of the sacred cows of DnD (paladins, monks, really specific classes, vanican magic) and kicks them in the butt and throws them to the curb. A book of nothing but a small number (possibly 4 or 5) generic classes that could be tweaked and changed to fit any archetype. Throw in several variant magic systems and voila! There's my book.

 

[MusedFable]

In a way I want what Pants wants, but more extreme. I want the Core d20 book. I don’t want any fluff what so ever. I want rules for making rules. I want all the mechanics ideas plucked from the writer’s heads and plopped down in one book. I want to be able to make a game with 4 skills no stats and only d20’s rolled. I also want a complex system of attributes, skills, feats, classes, races, prestige classes (how to make them), templates, ect. I want the ability to make both of those games and everything in between. If no one else thinks it is possible then I’ll make it. In the 7 years it takes me all by my self the d20 phase will be over and no one will care. But, I will have made it. Mwahahaha

You don’t think I’m doing it do you. Only 6 ½ more years to go.

 

[fourthmensch]

I would love to have a meta-rulebook. How to design prestige classes, how to design spells, how to design monsters, how to design spells, etc ad nauseam. There are plainly tons of gamers who already do this stuff at home, and the designers suggestions on how to do so in a balanced fashion would be invaluable.

I want locations ready to go. Cities, towns, and villages with NPCs, locations, and brewing plots. Not just dungeons; whole communities of various sizes, in various climates, representing all sorts of real and fantasy cultures.

I want a book of "random" encounters that can be thrown into any game. Like wandering monsters, but with forethought and even mini-plots to make it more interesting. Something like the 2e Book(s) of Lairs.

And I heartily second the idea for a Players Book of Monsters. My players would love finding something liket this!

 

[BrooklynKnight]

Sounds like the DMG.

Anyway if someone came out with a book that gave credible advice on how to make prestige classes and stuff then the rest of us would be out of buisness cause they wouldnt need us anymore.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Way of the Drenai Epic fighters and legendary assassins work to overcome incompetent politics and devistating treachery at the hands of those they love. Based on David Gemmels novels with a comprehensive timeline, maps, major stats for characters, bestiary, adventure seeds, two sample adventures. 260 b & w pages. (Hey, if they can make books on R. A. Salvatore's mediocre Demon Wars... I can dream...)

Definitely with you on that one! A while since I read any, but those were great... particularly the Morningstar plotline with the skulls and vampires - great ideas need to be 'recycled'!

Something based on 'Perdido Street station' and 'The Scar' by China Meiville. Liked that book and thought it could be fun.

Having just picked up the Council of Wyrms and Planescape on the cheap. Boxed sets! With several books and purty maps!

Some more adventures (possibly planar based?) stuffed full of interesting 'out of this world' locations to use.

 

[Ibram]

First I'd have my homebrew world published.

then I'd create historical source books like China, Japan, India, Persia, Europe (From around the fall of Rome to the end of the middle ages), Egypt, Persia, Babylon/Sumer and the like. Source books that were more guides to creating campaigns in those settings then actual campaign settings (and allowed for different levels of magic)