Shane Hensley comments on the RPG industry

[jakal]

Mmm, we are going to have to disagree there. I think the rules in Shadowrun are at LEAST as important as the setting, and personaly I think they are probably moreso. Really, the setting isn't THAT special... as you say, it's a DnD and Cyberpunk thrown in a blender. I'm sure D20 modern will have all the rules you would need to play that. For myself, I think the shadowrun SYSTEM is special, with or without the setting, and stripping the system from Shadowrun, like stripping the Storyteller system from Exalted, leaves you with the name and idea... Not the original game, just something trying to be what it's not.

The point is that you wouldn't be the target market for d20 shadowrun. You already play shadowrun and seem to like it. There will always be a market for non-d20 games but some people can't be bothered learning a new system, like the flexability of being able to use material from a massive library of other books, or just don't like the shadowrun system. These are the people who would buy Shadowrun d20. It wouldn't have exactly the same flavor but it would be similar and people who otherwise might not play the game would be willing to give it a go.

 

[jakal]

Having just played Nobilis for the first time this raises an interesting question for d20. D20 games aren't supposed to contain "charcater creation" rules.

What about a nobilis d20 game where you create any d20 charcater you want using the d20 rules, but then, when enNobled, you basicly include all the rules of Nobilis as written. The game woudln't contain "character creation" rules as such, but the charcater you PLAY would be donw ith the additional layuerof noblilis rules and it would be diceless.

And then Nobilis could use the d20 marketing system.

Or a d20 "dreampark" type game, where you need the PHB to make your "real-life" persona, but then all other kinds of "game figure" "making" rules could be included for running your d20PC in the dreampark sub-games.

would that work in the license? Does it mean there can be NO d20 dreampark genere game?

The question is why would you want to? I know if I got a game that claimed to be d20 and used totaly different mechanics (SAS d20 anyone?) I would be pissed off.

 

[kingpaul]

Yes, according to Anthony Valterra. D20 Modern too, and something else that I can't recall...Manual of the Planes? Deities & Demigods? One of those.

Anthony said, on the OGF-L, that Deities and Demigods and ELH were on the short-list to be included into the SRD.

However, and this is just me speaking, I believe that they want to get the rest of the draft SRD made official...and then there's the d20M material that will be OGC to get in as well.

 

[Tsyr]

For the most part we will have to agree to disagree, I admit. I just wanted to respond to one point.

If the mage was a better fighter than the fighter, and had magic ability, then you need to look at class balance. The only way for a mage to be a better fighter than the fighter is for the fighter to really screw up when creating his character.

I didn't say be better at fighting. I said be better with at some aspects of fighting. That's my point. D20 has no real way to deal with being good at certain things. A fighter is a good fighter, but bad at anything else. A decker would be good at hacking, but nothing else. etc. If a mage wants to, say, get good with a pistol, but in no other way really cares about fighting, he still has to take levels of fighter or something. And taking a few levels of fighter really really hurts a mage in the long run. There is basicly no other way to do it. Yes, he could take a half-dozen feats, but that A) still cripples the mage in the long run and B) still doesn't really make him GOOD with a weapon... he just sucks less.

To illustrate what I mean, go get your copy of the Shadowrun 3E book... check suggested template for a combat mage. It suggests taking "Sword 4(6)". Then look at at sorcery... it suggests 5(7). That's on par with the 6 suggested for the street mage, street shaman, and tribal shaman. He also has Conjouring 6, same as the three above classes. He didn't spend any points on Aura Reading, but he could have very easily... dropping intimidation, for example, or halving it and taking a point off of street etiquette. And the combat mage only gives his skills priority E, too... if he was a human and had a lower race prior, that would be even easier to do. So he is still a full mage, not a multi-classed one, in D20 terms. He also just happens to be good with a sword... his sword skill is on par with the weapon skill of the any other class. Even the weapons specialist doesn't have any signifigantly higher weapon ability. The only template that does is the Adept, with a 6(8) in martial arts. So he is also very good with a sword.

What am I getting at?

Shadowrun, by virtue of not trying to force things into predefined sterotypes, allows a character to pick up one thing that he is good at, even if it doesn't fit the sterotype. In this case, for example, a mage that is also very good with a sword. He's not the all-around fighter a wep spec is, no. But in his chosen area , he is on par with them, while still being a full-fledged mage too. You can't do this, really, with classes.

That, as much as anything else, is why I love shadowrun so much.

 

[maddman75]

Just wanted to put in my $.02 as a d20 consumer.

- First, I won't buy anything that isn't d20, unless maybe it would be generally useful for any game. I'm not a system nazi or think that d20 is the One System to Rule Them All or anything, its just that my group will NEVER play anything that isn't d20. Actually, there is almost no chance that we'll play anything but D&D. We simply don't have the time.

- Second, I hate dice pools. Senseless to roll a handful of dice when one will do just fine. Just wanted to throw that in

 

[whisper_jeff]

The question is why would you want to? I know if I got a game that claimed to be d20 and used totaly different mechanics (SAS d20 anyone?) I would be pissed off.

Ok, I have no clue why I'm bothering to post to this thread, especially this subject of the thread since people have made up their minds for or against SAS d20 already and nothing I say will change that, but the above comment bugs the hell out of me. Now, it may just be a case of you using a term but applying a different definition to that term than I do. Thus, before I go off on my normal rant about this subject, let's see if it's just different definitions of a term. What do you consider "game mechanics" to be? Specificially, what are the d20 game mechanics? Specifics, please.

 

[smetzger]

To illustrate what I mean, go get your copy of the Shadowrun 3E book... check suggested template for a combat mage. It suggests taking "Sword 4(6)". Then look at at sorcery... it suggests 5(7). That's on par with the 6 suggested for the street mage, street shaman, and tribal shaman. He also has Conjouring 6, same as the three above classes. He didn't spend any points on Aura Reading, but he could have very easily... dropping intimidation, for example, or halving it and taking a point off of street etiquette. And the combat mage only gives his skills priority E, too... if he was a human and had a lower race prior, that would be even easier to do. So he is still a full mage, not a multi-classed one, in D20 terms. He also just happens to be good with a sword... his sword skill is on par with the weapon skill of the any other class. Even the weapons specialist doesn't have any signifigantly higher weapon ability. The only template that does is the Adept, with a 6(8) in martial arts. So he is also very good with a sword.

You could do the same thing with a d20 Wizard. Put highest ability in Strength, be an Elf or take Martial Weapon Proficiency and at 1st level you are almost as good as 1st level Fighter with your sword. As levels advance the fighter will overtake the wizard, but the difference at 1st level would be negligable.

 

[Cergorach]

Re: Re: Continuing This Topic Drift

First of i want to say that this thread is mighty enlightening. Many ideas/opinions that will be useful later on, thanks folks for providing them!

Of course, you eventualy reach the point where you have to stop and ask "What's the point?".

For example, say I wanted to do a d20 Shadowrun. Mind you, that's the last thing I'd want to do, but theoreticly.
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I've been a SR fan since it's first edition, i can still remember the afternoon one of my gaming friends bought this 'radical new' RPG ('89). I really liked some of it's game mechanics (such as magic, d6 system, and damage) but it also had it's cumbersome aspects (can you remember the 1st ed. autofire rules?), many 'flaws' where 'corrected' with the 2nd ed. and again with the 3rd ed. But there are still cumbersome aspects to the aspects to SR3rd, just like there are cumbersome aspects to D&D3rd. The reason that my group doesn't play SR anymore has to do more with the cumbersome aspects of SR than it's setting (which we still love). I have to agree that the basics of SR are easily understood, but the details are not, it would take a major investment of time to learn them all (the many, many tables of modifiers). The advantage of D&D/D20/OGL is that it's basics are very well known (it's details are also directly based on the basics) and a lot of people play D&D (like) campaigns as their primary games.

A problem for a lot of RPGers is that of time to play, because these days a lot of RPGers are a somewhat older crowd. They either have a lot of work to do on their studies or are already working and/or already have a family. Playing RPGs takes up a decent amount of time, it's not just the gaming session, it's also reading the rulebooks, spending time on developing a character, etc. For GMs/DMs it's evn worse, you have to spent all that time on preparing your adventure, even if you use an excisting adventure, you have a major investment of time on your hands. And as i already said, a lot of RPGers play D&D (like) campaigns as their primary game, thus spending the additional time on a radical different game isn't often welcomed by people who don't have as much time as they did in high school. Especially if they do not really know wheter they like the game or not. IMHO one of the strengths of the OGL is that it's known by a large amount of people. If you yell "Make an initiative roll!", d&d players will throw their d20 die and add their initiative modifier, SR players will throw X amount of D6s and add X amount. Basic game mechanics are 'radically' different, and will need to be explained to D&D players.

The point of making a D20/OGL SR would not be to replace SR D6, but to open it's setting to new people that wouldn't normally buy the SR D6 version because for reason X (some explained above). If you look at the SR line you will notice that only the 79xx series are really rule books (primarily rules instead of fluf), the rest are source/rule-books (71xx series), sourcebooks (72xx seriess), or adventures (73xx series). If you did a SR D20 you would probably need to do the SR main rulebook as a OGL book and could use the D20 logo for the other rulebooks (the 79xx series would need to be ported to D20/OGL and be released as a seperate line). The other game books could be done dual statted.

One might say "Why would they want to do it?". It's rather simple, MONEY, as you might have seen in this thread, D20 sells and there are many people interested in SRD20. SR D20 would mean an influx of extra money (something SR really needs), because chances are that SR D20 would sell enough to support it self or could actually make a profit. SR D20 would need only a few basic books (which could and should be developed independately from the main line) and would use the rest of the main line of SR as the 'rounding out' of it's product line. Dual statted books shouldn't neccessarily be more expensive, mostly because it's a larger print run and should therefor be cheaper to produce, thus the complaints from 'mainstream' SRers that they are paying for material that they don't use would not really be true. The question would then be, would SR D20 take something away from 'pure' SR? IMO, no, it would not be for the mainstream SR audience, it would be for the people that don't play 'mainstream' SR.

Then you come to the design aspect of things. I've spent a large amount of time thinking (mostly at times when the only thing i could do was think ;-) up ways to make SR into a D20 compatible game. I've made designs based closely on D&D and designs that where very far removed from D&D (almost simulating the results from normal SR), the thing i've realized is that for SR D20 to become a success is to make comprimises. You have to brake D&D down to it's basic aspects and then use the most important aspects to create a D20 game, sure it wouldn't be exactly like SR D6, but you wouldn't want it to be exactly like SR D6 because people would then rather want to play SR D6, thus entirely defeating the whole purpose (appealing to a larger market).

After seeing and reading Spycraft (by AEG) i've seen that SR D20 can be done compatibly with D&D and still keep the feeling of a 'modern' game. I'm really now waiting for D20 Modern to see how WotC did it and deciding which of the two i like better...

My personal conclusion is that SR D20/OGL can be done and should be done, it wouldn't detract from the gaming experience from the current fans and would open the game up to new people, and most importantly for the publisher, it would make a profit! Only problem is that Rob Boyle has already made a statement that... A well read it your self:

From the Shadorun FAQ:
Are you going to publish a Shadowrun D20 system?
No. We have no interest in diving into the flood of D20 products since we are quite happy with the game system as it is. The Shadowrun system also does not mesh well with the character-class, hit-or-miss, no-levels-of-success D20 system.

I'll attempt to write an email argumenting the advantages and we'll see what happens. On the other hand, they don't have the the sole right to publish D&D/cyberpunk like roleplaying games, i might just write my own...

 

[jakal]

Ok, I have no clue why I'm bothering to post to this thread, especially this subject of the thread since people have made up their minds for or against SAS d20 already and nothing I say will change that, but the above comment bugs the hell out of me. Now, it may just be a case of you using a term but applying a different definition to that term than I do. Thus, before I go off on my normal rant about this subject, let's see if it's just different definitions of a term. What do you consider "game mechanics" to be? Specificially, what are the d20 game mechanics? Specifics, please.

Feats; feats are a very well defined d20 mechanic that fits easily into a supers game but aren't in a standard game of d20 SAS.

Skills; Well technically that's not a mechanic but rather a set of options, but why not use the d20 standard set of skills instead of the tristat ones. I know you don't have problems with people using the d20 non-combat skills instead of the SAS ones but they should be standard, and I feel this is indicative.

I guess the way I see porting something to d20 is to try and tell the same stories in a similar style while using the d20 system, like AEG has done with L5R. I’m probably wrong about this but I feel that some ports are just trying to change their current game just enough to be able to put the d20 logo on the cover. Of course it’s possible to make a game to bland and feel like D&D with lasers or D&D in spandex or D&D with funny hats or whatever but there is a middle ground where a game can have a feel of its own while still generally sticking to d20 mechanics.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

What do you consider "game mechanics" to be? Specificially, what are the d20 game mechanics? Specifics, please.

The six basic attributes, classes, feats, skills, and d20 task resolution.

And most importantly, the mechanic of levelling up, with an attendant increase in attributes, classes, feats, skills, and bonuses to d20 task resolution.


Wulf