TROLL POLL #1: d20 Golden Era or Glut?

[Psion]

Not according to the portion of your post that I chose to quote.

The only thing you said was if I replaced BAB with weapon skills, the game would be FUZION. It seems to me that it is you who is ignoring a lot; I am just taking your statement at face value.

I was just responding to the weapon skill idea. (IMO, virtually everything else is pretty darn close. Remember, the d20 mechanic is ripped wholesale from FUZION: roll+skill+stat vs. DC...)

Yeah... that was ripped right from FUZION... if you ignore the game that did the precise same thing back in the 70s. (Classic Traveller, anyone?). And many games since before FUZION. D&D didn't "rip" and more (or less) than FUZION did.

 

[Arnwyn]

The only thing you said was if I replaced BAB with weapon skills, the game would be FUZION. It seems to me that it is you who is ignoring a lot; I am just taking your statement at face value.

Sorry that you misunderstood - I guess I should have been more clear.

Yeah... that was ripped right from FUZION... if you ignore the game that did the precise same thing back in the 70s. (Classic Traveller, anyone?). And many games since before FUZION. D&D didn't "rip" and more (or less) than FUZION did.

Again, I apologize for my mangling of words/phrases (I'm at work, so I get a bit lazy in my posts - sorry 'bout that). When I said "ripped from FUZION", I was referring to the similarity (to a game that is still, um, "active") - not that it was blatantly copied or anything like that.

 

[JeffB]

[/i]


So, what companies are those?

For me those two companies are Necromancer & Kenzer (Kalamar line). I do buy SOME WOTC items, like the FR line books, but the last "core" product I bought was BoVD, and before that it was MotP. I don't own any of the splats, or other core supplemental books (hard or softcover) except for the LGG. I will be picking up the revised books, the DLCS and MAYBE the FR Underdark book.

I've found Fantasy Flight Games to be the closest to how I game, but Mongoose, Bastion, AEG, Green Ronin, MEG, and so many others still do great products. The problems is finding them.

I've skimmed some of the FFG books, and I purchased that $4.95 doo-hickey. I think they do a pretty good job as well. I just haven't found enough utility out of their hardcovers . In FFG's case it's not quality but quantity. Same w/ Green Ronin & Malhavoc whom I also consider among the "cream of the crop". I also have OSM from FDP: IMO the best low level D20/3E module available and I'm looking forward to the sequels, but I have not been as enamored of FDP's other stuff..again in that case not a quality issue, but just not useful to me.

Although I have not been impressed w/ the few Troll Lord games purchases I've made, they are starting to put out some stuff for Necromancer, so I'll likely take a look at those items before I dismiss them outright.

I've found Necromancer's adventures as well as the entire Kalamar line much more to my liking and the majority of content very useable (in my homebrew, FR, GH, or the few times I've run a Kalamar game). Both company's products just "click" with me, whereas only small sections of a book here or there from other publishers do... call me crazy

 

[baseballfury]

While I do like choice, there's just way too much stuff coming out. I also think that D&D/d20 fans need to be more critical than they often are. People seem to embrace a lot of mediocrity, and defend crappy books by saying, "I got some good ideas of it" (shorthand for, "This book is terrible, but once I took a wrench to it a small part of it became useable"; that's not why we pay for game books, imho).

Folks should remember they are voting with their dollars. If you buy a crappy book, you're only encouraging that publisher to put out another one. Meanwhile, some of the good stuff is being lost in the crowd. If we lose even one good publisher because of the sheer amount of dross on the shelves, that'll be one too many.

 

[drowdude]

Entirely too much stuff to try and sort through these days. If it isnt WotC, Green Ronin, Privateer, or Malhavoc I generally dont even bother giving it a look.

 

[Nightfall]

Just hope someone will be kind and go out and buy a few of the Player's Guide from S&SS. (At least the ones that list me as an author! )

 

[DMauricio]

Sausages

Milk? Why not Sausages.
Everyone needs sausages!

vegie sausages, curried sausages, chicke, lamb... I'm sure an enterprising enough soul could even make sausages out of cheese!


Maybe I shouldn't post while on a sugar rush?

 

[Kahuna Burger]

So, what you seem to be saying here is that it works if you jimmy around the rest of the system to accomodate it. Well, that may be the case, but the necessity to do so is a problem with the options. If the systems were well written, they would dovetail with the existing rules.

not quite. I think that there are already good reasons to use the "total XP aquired/spent" model to begin with, so my use of that approach does not constitute a 'jimmy' for the new rules, its a jimmy to account for the prior rules. Thus I see the new rules as less of a big deal.

If you have a wizard who is strongly focused on item creation feats, he may lag behind the rest of the group in terms of level, due to the loss of xp. But if he's spending that XP largely on items for himself that directly enhance his abilities, why should he be given an XP boost to 'catch up' if his power level is really staying fairly consistant? To use an even more extreme example, what about the high level wizard who gets his Wish spell. So he builds up a huge amount of XP, but instead of leveling, he uses it to create 5 scrolls of Wish and use them all at the same time for a +5 inherant boost to his intelligence. Now he's even more "behind" the party in terms of level, but does he really deserve catchup XP?

My point is that the "level = power" model is flawed to begin with, so I don't worry about new rules disrupting it. They fit with what I do anyway to balance alternate power aquisition methods...

Kahuna Burger