Steve Jackson Games d20 Magazine!

[bolen]

I went to Mid south con and Jackson was a guest of honor. Let me first say I like GURPS. If I had my way that is the game I would play but my group likes D20 and I think so much of a game is on the quality of the GM that the system you use is secondary.

Anyway, Jackson said, "Real roleplayers don't use d20." He then joked that it was perfect for his Munchkin Game. If that comes off as arragant to you it did to me as well

It is very strange to me that he would then go and start a D20 magazine. What does that say about his magazine?

 

[ColonelHardisson]

It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. All those nice GURPS sourcebooks, d20 compatible. Hmmm....

(wipes drool off chin)

Yeah, it would be cool to have d20 material for the Prisoner or Voodoo or Reign of Steel...but I get the feeling the GURPS faithful would end up spontaneously combusting down into lumps of charcoal.

But d20 Warehouse 23 would be so...cool...

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Anyway, Jackson said, "Real roleplayers don't use d20." He then joked that it was perfect for his Munchkin Game. If that comes off as arragant to you it did to me as well

It is very strange to me that he would then go and start a D20 magazine. What does that say about his magazine?

I don't know, but we'll see. I think Jackson should consider that a lot of us...umm...fake roleplayers buy an awful lot of his stuff. I own a ton of GURPS books, and OGRE and a number of the add-ons for it, too.

 

[Psion]

I went to Mid south con and Jackson was a guest of honor.
(...)
Anyway, Jackson said, "Real roleplayers don't use d20." He then joked that it was perfect for his Munchkin Game.

Interesting... and vindicating. A while back, a flame war started because I took SJ's "Munchkin d20" game as a slam on d20 fans, and a few fanboys argued until they were blue in the face that there is no way that munchkin could be meant to be denigrating...

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Interesting... and vindicating. A while back, a flame war started because I took SJ's "Munchkin d20" game as a slam on d20 fans, and a few fanboys argued until they were blue in the face that there is no way that munchkin could be meant to be denigrating...

I remember that. I was also pretty vocal about how I thought Munchkin d20 was a slam on d20 players, and there seemed no end of people trying to rationalize why it wasn't.

 

[Vaxalon]

It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. All those nice GURPS sourcebooks, d20 compatible. Hmmm....

(wipes drool off chin)

You know, they're really not that far off the mark.

Most of what is in those books is not actually GURPS material, anyways! As much as their aficionados would like to deny it, GURPS and D20 are really not all that far apart.

 

[trancejeremy]

They have the first two chapters of d20 Munchkin up in the playtest area of that magazine site.

It's amazingly patronizing and not that original (mostly from the SRD, with some obnoxious cliches added)

 

[bolen]

I disagree that D20 and GURPS are not far apart. True they are both generic systems but that is where the similarities end.

the real essence of D20 is just that rolling a D20 to get outcomes. The distribution is flat (ie you are just as likely to roll a 2 as a 20)

GURPS uses a 3d6 roll so the distribution is that of a bell curve (a 6 or 7 is much more likely then a 18 or a 3)

Both systems gain complexity through additional rules but the basic rules are truely different and thus give a different "feel" to the game.

 

[Psion]

I disagree that D20 and GURPS are not far apart.

I think you missed the point. I think by saying that they "aren't that far off the mark," he is saying that GURPS sourcebooks are fairly generic/rules light. Which some of them are.

 

[bolen]

That is certainly true