Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Synicism" data-source="post: 423496" data-attributes="member: 489">Well, there are a couple things:1. CoC d20 came out a lot later than Deadlands d20. In that time, developers have been able to play with the system a lot more and we've seen that variations can and do work.2. The central failing of Deadlands d20 is, IMO, the same problem that turned me off to Weird Wars. A reasonably experienced character can survive a direct hit from a 88mm rocket/Gatling Gun/bundle of dynamite and walk away down about 40 HP. THAT'S why a lot of Deadlands fans didn't like the d20 version. "Stock" d20 (the D&D system) just doesn't work for it. It ruins the flavor of a harsh, gritty setting because characters are too damn hard to kill.3. I bet that a Deadlands d20 that came out with a slick hardcover like the CoC or Star Wars books, with a tweaked out system like CoC's would have done much, much better. There has been a lot of innovation out there recently.4. Someone mentioned that d20 was a lot more like Linux than Microsoft Windows. Yes and no. The Open Gaming License is a lot like the open software movement that drives Linux, and in that sense, it is. The OGL might be the single coolest thing that happened to gaming. d20, OTOH, is quite a different animal. Suddenly, there are "compatibility" issues. Books have to "follow the d20 rules," which basically means look like D&D. BIG difference, no?5. I'm a freelancer. I write because I like to. The fact that I can get paid to do it now is great. In that respect, I love d20. In my latest project, however, I ran up against the system. Certain things "HAD" to be certain ways because that was "the way d20 worked." Thankfully, it all worked out in the end, and quite well. Still, I think it would be a lot more fun to play with the OGL than get stuck in the rigid conventions of the d20 license.</blockquote>

Verification