So when should a publisher ditch d20 and develop their own system?

[tensen]

The question is not "should you try to do another system than d20?" The question is "WHY do you want to try to do a system other than d20?" If you are answer is, "Because d20 sucks!!!!", then you're not doing it for the right reason.

To some extent that is the right reason. Because if you didn't like the system, you shouldn't be designing in it.

Not that you had to love it. But by hating it outright you didn't take the time to understand it fully enough to recognize the peices that were tied together and needed restructuring when you hit upon the one piece that really pissed you off.

But on the other hand if you only hated part of the system, you got to tear down piece by piece until you reowrked the whole into what you wanted.

 

[GlassJaw]

And yet it might work quite well under True20.

Not in my opinion. I don't want to turn this into a Shadowrun d20 thread (there has been enough discussion on that already) but I'm a firm believer that the rules system influences the style of play and overall feel of the gameplay.

d20 doesn't handle degrees of success very well at all. It's a very black and white, all of nothing, mechanic. I also don't think d20 of any sort handles firearms very well either. Plus, if I'm not rolling a fistful of d6's, it's not SR.

 

[mearls]

I think your first point answers your second. In successful RPGs there are high-lethality worlds for everybody but the protagonists. In some cases, the game doesn't say so, so the players ratchet up character power until the PCs *are* that good.

Very good point. Time and time again, I've seen play accounts of high lethality games that had GMs fudging rules or lethality nerfed in passing. I hadn't really thought of it before. That's a good point.

Novelty for gamers v. casual players is also an interesting point. HALO seems a little tired to PC gamers, but it was a major step for console gaming. Compare its pop culture influence to Half Life. It's interesting to watch as PC gaming and console gaming audiences evolve.

Someone mentioned Final Fantasy, and how that compares to dungeon crawling. I was thinking more along the lines of games like Suikoden and Disgaea, but FF is an interesting beast. I think there is a market out there for RPGs that rest heavily on the GM as storyteller and the players coming along for the ride. I'm not sure how that would work, since it's easy for a GM to simply tweak results in an existing game to move his story along.

Innovation and WotC: Book of Nine Swords? Complete Mage? D&D's innovations rest within the framework of the game. They are innovative within the game, but likely not without it. It'd be foolish to monkey with the core of the game, since it's rolling along. Some things succeed (Nine Swords) some things, well, not so much (MM IV's tribes). I'd love for someone could point out a financially successful, mainstream RPG company that thrives on innovation. A lot of companies receive fan love for doing things differently, but positive Internet postings do not (yet?) pay the bills.

Besides, I have yet to see a definition of innovative in RPGs that doesn't boil down to either:
A) Stuff I like
or
B) Stuff that's vaguely different

A company like Pelgrane Press (Esoterrorists, Dying Earth), or Goodman Games (making money on D&D modules when the market for them was supposed to be dead) is innovative. The Wii is innovative. Guitar Hero is innovative. The OGL, and the PDF market that grew out of it, innovative.

A new way to roll dice, manipulate the result, and decide if you hit an orc/climbed a wall/jumped over a building/invented poetry, no, not so innovative.

 

[mearls]

Bitter? No. Sad at the current state of D&D? Yes.

If we're lucky, we'll be keeping you sad for years to come.

 

[hong]

Since people were talking about lethality in video games, I thought it was interesting how in Bioware's latest CRPGs you basically can't die. Even if reduced to zero hit points, you're just "knocked out". As long as your other party members can win the fight, you get revived at the end. Only if it's a TPK is death permanent, necessitating a reload. This is in KotoR, Jade Empire, and now NWN2 (okay, not Bioware but building on Bio's IP and engine).

 

[diaglo]

Bitter? No. Sad at the current state of D&D? Yes.

ditto

diaglo "sad about the current state of D&D since 1979" Ooi

 

[Turanil]

A thread featuring Mearls, Pramas, Hong, and Diaglo together must be archived!!

We still need Col. Pladoh and Monte comment on their own, and we will be done with this one!

 

[rgard]

If we're lucky, we'll be keeping you sad for years to come.

My first grin after reading 20+ posts, thank you!

 

[buzz]

I think there is a market out there for RPGs that rest heavily on the GM as storyteller and the players coming along for the ride.

I thought this was pretty much what most mainstream RPGs have been doing, with WoD/StoryTeller leading the charge. Ref: your own comments on 2e, specifically regarding that one supplement that derided players who didn't like using PCs with sucky stats.

 

[prosfilaes]

When their arrogance level or ego grows to the point that they firmly believe that they can 'do it better' than anyone else. Then, let them try.

So you have to be arrogant to believe that D20 is not the end-all and be-all of all RPG design? To me, it's pretty silly to think that one system, designed with a strong eye for compatibility towards 30 years of D&D could be the end-all and be-all of RPG design, or even that any one system could be the end-all and be-all of RPG design. If you want GURPS or Hero, it is better to reinvent the wheel then then to pick a truly inappropriate tool.