Open D&D Campaigns

[Odhanan]

I'll explain why I'm interested by this. One of the big things that attracted me with d20 gaming is the possibility to have "truly" universal system for heroic role-playing. In the sense that you can pick a Cthulhu Old One and put it in a D&D campaign, have a Jedi crash on the plain the D&D PCs stand, whatever.

But I've grown to wonder if d20/OGL is truly that unified/compatible a system. Every d20 game has its own specificities/tweaks. It seems the compatibility isn't achieved as much as it is "possible is the DM works at it". Thoughts?

 

[I'm A Banana]

It isn't. Power varies based on the d20 tweaks made to the world assumptions and character abilities. Simple things -- like reducing the number of magic items -- have profound effects throughout the system. This makes them incompatible.

Can you do it? Heck, I had cthuloid monstrosities beseiging Faerun. It's certainly more possible than it ever was before. However, CoC d20 and FR operate on different wavelengths. For me to do that, I had to change a fundamental aspect of Faerun (how it's magic worked). That had enough profound reprocussions to basically cause the End Times of this magic-rich world. Which helped achieve that Lovecraftian sense of cosmic hoplessness. They happened to be complementary. However, this won't always be true. Mixing and Matching requires a lot of careful attention to minor details, and something, always, will have to give.