The Rich Tapestry of d20

[DaveMage]

I guess the statement makes me wonder how much money each person spends on the game.

For example, if right now, I'm a core D&D player, but want something more gritty or low magic, do I have an infinite amount of funds to check out Conan, Black Company, Thieves World, Grim Tales, Iron Heroes or others?

No.

So if I check out something like Conan, with it's own line and support it, does that mean I have funds to continue supporting core D&D material?

At Conan's prime, in terms of product volume, that doesn't seem true, especially as they were producing some big old boxed sets for a brief period.

That would to me, be a case of splitting the core fan base. Not in a bad way as the gamers are getting what they want, but it's still a split.

If you replace the word "funds" in each of the above with the word "time" then you see another problem with all the variants.

Who has the time to learn and play all of these variants? Not me.

 

[Belen]

So yes, there are products that push the boundaries and that's as it should be, but there's also plenty out there that you can plug and play with your normal D&D game. Hell, we did entire lines like Races of Renown and Master Class that were nothing but core material. The d20 market is, in short, a rich tapestry.

You know, I do not mind that you guys provide a rich tapestry of material. My empty wallet tells me that you provide items that I want to own. In fact, my birthday list only has items from GR on it.

My beef is that 20 companies rarely support the material that is produced. The advanced bestiary is great. Some sample encounters using that material would have helped a great deal. They could have been released on the website etc.

The problem with lack of support is that I may buy a ton of d20 material, but I rarely use any of it. With D&D, I have the SRD, electronic character sheets, PDF spell sheets, tons of adventures etc. I do not have to worry about sources to make my life easier. That is not the case with 3rd party publishers.

So, while I love your books, it is almost certain that I will never use them, thus my players will never have need to buy them and it will keep sales lower. Adventures, web support such as encounters or articles, electronic media that makes using the material easier are items that would make me use the material produced.

Without those items, I may collect the books because I like to collect RPG books, but I, and my players, will never use them.

 

[Grimstaff]

If you replace the word "funds" in each of the above with the word "time" then you see another problem with all the variants.

Who has the time to learn and play all of these variants? Not me.

That's (supposedly) the good thing about d20 variants, you already know the core mechanic, the rest is just "window dressing". I think what designers have to look out for is are they following two important rules: 1) stick as close to the core mechanic as possible, and 2) keep the "flavor" coming. Two examples of great products that could have stuck a little closer to these rules and perhaps done a little better: 1)Call of Cthulu(WotC), did a great job of sticking with the core mechanic, almost too good. It came up lacking in flavor, the mechanics were too combat heavy when they should have been more cerebral, and the art and presentation were a little too bright and pleasant to get the "insanity gloom" idea across. 2)Black Company (GR) seems to be at the other end of the spectrum. All the flavor is there, in spades, I love looking through this book. The rules, otoh, drifted a bit too far from core to accommidate ease of play. d20 combat is complicated enough as is, more combat rules just bog the game down. And the magic system is nearly unplayable, unless your players dont mind going off on a beer run while Shadowclamp's player tries to figure out the DC of his "Cloud of Eye Melting" spell. Don't get me wrong, I love the flavor of the system, I just think restricting magic use to the schools of Illusion, Evocation, and Abjuration would have gotten the same general feel across and sped things up at the table.

I'm sure designers will keep trying to find ways to more finely hone this balance, which may result in a little less perceived "fragmentation". As to a slump in sales across the board in general, I've said it a thousand times: New gamers buy new books, and there will never be a lot of new gamers until someone figures out how to get D&D on the shelf at Walmart!

 

[Psion]

My beef is that 20 companies rarely support the material that is produced. The advanced bestiary is great. Some sample encounters using that material would have helped a great deal. They could have been released on the website etc.

I find contradictory you seem to have Green Ronin in your sights when you say this. Green Ronin has put web updates on their site for eroneous, incorrect, or outdated information, such as a complete XPH update for Monsters of the Mind. Many other companies I have seen tend to be "fire and forget", not showing any mention of a product after it is initially release.

So, while I love your books, it is almost certain that I will never use them, thus my players will never have need to buy them and it will keep sales lower. Adventures, web support such as encounters or articles, electronic media that makes using the material easier are items that would make me use the material produced.

Without those items, I may collect the books because I like to collect RPG books, but I, and my players, will never use them.

So, if a product does not have a featured encounter or adventure, you can't use it? I find that curious at best. I will say this much: I do appreciate that WotC puts sample characters for prestige classes in their books, it makes it easier to quickly drop them into a game. (That said, this is almost identical to Advanced Bestiary's sample templated creatures, and they are more econimical with their space than WotC is, not repeating information that appeared on the previous page.)

 

[Belen]

So, if a product does not have a featured encounter or adventure, you can't use it? I find that curious at best. I will say this much: I do appreciate that WotC puts sample characters for prestige classes in their books, it makes it easier to quickly drop them into a game. (That said, this is almost identical to Advanced Bestiary's sample templated creatures, and they are more econimical with their space than WotC is, not repeating information that appeared on the previous page.)

Pretty much. If they cannot come up with ways to present the material to make it more accesible, then I cannot use it. I have a limited amount of time to prep for a game. I do not have the time to read through an entire rulebook, understand the material, then create encounters based on it.

What many d20 companies have accomplished is to create rules that differ enough from the standard that you cannot easily port them over without having to relearn a lot of methods of doing things. If they provided adventures, encounters or electronic aids, then that would help me access their material. Otherwise, I will stick with D&D and ignore other material.

And I do not mean to pick on GR. I only have 4 companies I buy product from these days and GR is one of them; however, I do mean to mention why I am not using their material in my games and thus not exposing other people to GR material.

d20 companies may thumb their noses at adventures and other items that would support their product, but I think that may just keep their products smaller in nature and unable to translate to a crowd that has limited time to enjoy the hobby.

(Musing: I wonder is the lack of electronic aids for d20 material contributes to fewer young people joining the hobby. I am almost 30 and I use items such as Heroforge or e-tools to do a lot of prep work.)