Where else can the d20 "core" mechanic stretch / drift?

[innerdude]

The "D&D Off-ramp" thread presented an interesting take on something I've been ruminating on recently, namely, are there still mechanical places to explore in the core d20 mechanic that haven't been looked at?

To be honest, I haven't read either 13th Age or Numenera, so I don't know how those mechanics compare vs. stock 3.5 SRD, Pathfinder, etc. In the d20 space I own Arcana Evolved and Fantasy Craft. I don't own but have extensively read through Castles and Crusades, True20, Star Wars Saga, the DCC beta/demo, and d20 Modern. Though I haven't looked at them extensively, I've also explored Mutants and Masterminds and Monte Cook's World of Darkness.

What I'm wondering is, are there any "spaces" in which the core d20 mechanic can continue to grow?

I ask because over the last couple of years I've found that I'm not particularly keen on a lot of the core "D&D experience" that its mechanics seem to take for granted. As much as I think Fantasy Craft is a fantastic rendition of the d20 system . . . I'm not sure I'm really interested in playing the d20 system at all. It seems to me the reason to choose to play d20 is that you're looking for a "heroic" style game with character "plot protection" in the form of escalating hit points. The rest of it is mostly in the setting and genre details.

So I'm wondering---is this really part and parcel with the d20 system, and so I should just continue to look elsewhere? Or are there still places the core d20 mechanic can go that it hasn't been yet that might offer some dramatically different experiences?

 

[Ahnehnois]

It seems to me the reason to choose to play d20 is that you're looking for a "heroic" style game with character "plot protection" in the form of escalating hit points. The rest of it is mostly in the setting and genre details.

This, oddly enough, is the main exception to how the system works; i.e. your hit points and their escalation do not involve the d20. That seems like an obvious place where the core mechanic could go; making a d20-based health system.

That said, there's almost nothing that someone hasn't taken a hack at, d20-wise. To me, nonlinear advancement (say, replacing static bonuses with a second die), rerolls, tiered skills, point buy characters, and a variety of other things are worth exploring. Some have tried, but I think there's room to do more and to do better.

 

[pemerton]

This, oddly enough, is the main exception to how the system works; i.e. your hit points and their escalation do not involve the d20. That seems like an obvious place where the core mechanic could go; making a d20-based health system.

Doesn't M&M do this?

 

[innerdude]

This, oddly enough, is the main exception to how the system works; i.e. your hit points and their escalation do not involve the d20. That seems like an obvious place where the core mechanic could go; making a d20-based health system.

That said, there's almost nothing that someone hasn't taken a hack at, d20-wise. To me, nonlinear advancement (say, replacing static bonuses with a second die), rerolls, tiered skills, point buy characters, and a variety of other things are worth exploring. Some have tried, but I think there's room to do more and to do better.

True20 is one of the few d20 variants I've seen that dispenses with "hit points" entirely. All injuries are mechanically resolved with a constitution check, so there's that one.

I wonder, though, if there's some innate hesitancy on game designers' part to really "drift" the core of d20 too far from its D&D roots--if you're going for some types of genre emulation, there's better things going on with other basic resolution types. For instance, in concept I really like Burning Wheel's multi-tiered approach, where you apply both a certain number of dice to a pool, but the target number each die must reach can vary situationally.

d20 maintains a healthy popularity because it's easy to grasp mathematically, and for the most part elegant--use a single die type + bonuses to hit a target number. But having played other systems now, what it gains in elegance it loses a great deal in nuance, at least in its most "classic" presentation.

 

[Bluenose]

Well, hit points have been done in a number of different ways - the simple escalating hit points of D&D itself, the Vitality/Stamina points system used in T20/SciFi20 mixing some actual physical wounds and some "exhaustion", M&M dispensing with them altogether in favour of resistance rolls, the condition track from SAGA. Armour has been done as damage resistance, several systems have added to character defences as they level up (4e, Conan D20 and Star Wars), I've seen a system where damage was based primarily on the class/level of the character making the attack rather than the weapon type, BAB has been discarded in favour of weapon bonuses as skills. If I understand it correctly M&M doesn't exactly keep classes and levels. I don't think there's been a lack of experimentation, but I'm also not convinced that some of the systems that have used the D20 logo were really doing so for a better reason than that logo being popular at the time - M&M would be a good example. The early 00s craze for slapping the D20 logo on conversions of other systems didn't give particularly good results in many cases, creating games that didn't play anything like the parent system - see Traveller T20, Swashbuckling Adventures, or the D20 iteration of Rokugan.

 

[Ratskinner]

Doesn't M&M do this?

Yes, M&M and Blue Rose/True20 all use what amounts to basically a resistance save....where I think they fall down a bit is always making it based on Con. I'd like it to be closer to Dungeon World's Defy Danger move, and utilize whatever is narratively appropriate. The fact that no one moves when taking damage from a fireball has always bugged me...

 

[Ratskinner]

The "D&D Off-ramp" thread presented an interesting take on something I've been ruminating on recently, namely, are there still mechanical places to explore in the core d20 mechanic that haven't been looked at?

To be honest, I haven't read either 13th Age or Numenera, so I don't know how those mechanics compare vs. stock 3.5 SRD, Pathfinder, etc. In the d20 space I own Arcana Evolved and Fantasy Craft. I don't own but have extensively read through Castles and Crusades, True20, Star Wars Saga, the DCC beta/demo, and d20 Modern. Though I haven't looked at them extensively, I've also explored Mutants and Masterminds and Monte Cook's World of Darkness.

What I'm wondering is, are there any "spaces" in which the core d20 mechanic can continue to grow?

Mechanically...I dunno. I'd find it hard to believe that just about every significant variation hasn't been tried. I feel fairly similar for genre/setting material as well (although its impossible to cover everything.)

I ask because over the last couple of years I've found that I'm not particularly keen on a lot of the core "D&D experience" that its mechanics seem to take for granted. As much as I think Fantasy Craft is a fantastic rendition of the d20 system . . . I'm not sure I'm really interested in playing the d20 system at all. It seems to me the reason to choose to play d20 is that you're looking for a "heroic" style game with character "plot protection" in the form of escalating hit points. The rest of it is mostly in the setting and genre details.

So I'm wondering---is this really part and parcel with the d20 system, and so I should just continue to look elsewhere? Or are there still places the core d20 mechanic can go that it hasn't been yet that might offer some dramatically different experiences?

I too have grown very weary of the d20 system. To my eyes, its an engine designed to make an unending stream of little fiddly bits (feats, skills, powers, etc) possible, if not necessary, for play, and tends to fall very flat without them. The whole purpose seems to be to incentivise a player to pour over splat, hoping for something that will either provide some kind of edge or system permission to realize a character concept reasonably within the system. I've kinda gotten bored with that. Just give me the math and let's keep it very simple and flexible. It seems to me that the reason to choose to play d20 is that you've got some friends who all know how to play it but can't agree on anything better. I certainly haven't noted that the engine itself produces anything particularly "heroic" (although some implementations shoot for that). Rather, it seems more particularly suited to provide the "treadmill" type of experience, where you level and gain incremental bits of power (to go with all that splat.) Whether that experience is "heroic" or not seems to depend on the surrounding rules and setting, not the core d20 architectures. (If that's the kind of experience your after, its great, though.)

 

[darjr]

d20 Call of Cthulu where your characters are not big hero's. In fact fighting the monsters may be their last mistake.

 

[pemerton]

I too have grown very weary of the d20 system. To my eyes, its an engine designed to make an unending stream of little fiddly bits (feats, skills, powers, etc) possible, if not necessary, for play, and tends to fall very flat without them. The whole purpose seems to be to incentivise a player to pour over splat, hoping for something that will either provide some kind of edge or system permission to realize a character concept reasonably within the system.

I agree that PC build is a big part of 4e (and presumably 3E). I don't know that I'd say that's the whole purpose - more below.

I certainly haven't noted that the engine itself produces anything particularly "heroic" (although some implementations shoot for that). Rather, it seems more particularly suited to provide the "treadmill" type of experience, where you level and gain incremental bits of power (to go with all that splat.) Whether that experience is "heroic" or not seems to depend on the surrounding rules and setting, not the core d20 architectures.

I agree that "heroic" depends on the surrounding setting, though the core architecture of no death spiral is a handy default starting point for a gonzo combat-oriented game.

I don't know that I agree with the "treadmill" experience, which is linked to eking out power. I think the "character concept" notion is true to my experience. And it linkes fiddly PC build to fiddly action resolution - choosing the different parts of PC build isn't necessarily, even primarily, about powering up (though it can be), but rather about choosing which minutiae of action resolution the PC will interact with, and to what degree. And rationing these at PC build time is an element of rationing them during actual play.

The closest that classic D&D play gets to this, I think, is the wizard. But the wizard's spells interacted less with minutia of action resolution, and were changed often enough (via memorisation) that they didn't really contribute to a "concept". D20 generalises build choices across all PCs, makes them more fiddly and technical (and does the same to action resolution) in pursuit of consistency and balance, and by making them central to build rather than changeable at will, contributes to the idea of "concept".

At least, that's some of my thoughts on it.

 

[Ratskinner]

I agree that PC build is a big part of 4e (and presumably 3E). I don't know that I'd say that's the whole purpose - more below.

Let's call it a convenient side-effect, then...

I agree that "heroic" depends on the surrounding setting, though the core architecture of no death spiral is a handy default starting point for a gonzo combat-oriented game.

Sure, but then the permissions-based remainder works against it. The naive "I want to <heroic stunt>!" is so often met with "You can't until/unless you have <a feat, spell, magic item, power, class ability, racial ability, sufficient skill ranks, etc.>" 4e (I think) tries to ameliorate this a bit with p42, but it still seems a bit like "permission-with-an-escape-clause." I contrast this with games like FATE or MHRP, which aren't so much about permission as they are about definition/description (IMO).

I don't know that I agree with the "treadmill" experience, which is linked to eking out power. I think the "character concept" notion is true to my experience. And it linkes fiddly PC build to fiddly action resolution - choosing the different parts of PC build isn't necessarily, even primarily, about powering up (though it can be), but rather about choosing which minutiae of action resolution the PC will interact with, and to what degree. And rationing these at PC build time is an element of rationing them during actual play.

Fair enough, although (IME) you're just talking about difference in which carrot the system is dangling in front the player. Whether its for a more intense or accurate reflection of a character concept or about MOAR POWRZ! (or often both). The solution is the same...go get some more XP. A few games here an there attempt to break this...but I can't say I thought they succeeded. The tight conflation of power and concept makes it "unfair" for a GM to allow Player A to have more build units (character points, levels etc.) than Player B.

D20 generalises build choices across all PCs, makes them more fiddly and technical (and does the same to action resolution) in pursuit of consistency and balance, and by making them central to build rather than changeable at will, contributes to the idea of "concept".

I don't think anyone can argue against the idea that D20 makes things fiddly and technical (of course, there are other systems even more so). Consistent?....perhaps, I would say less from PC build choices and more from unified DC charts and resolution mechanics. Balanced?...the system that gave us terms like CoDzilla? Diplomancer? I don't think so. 4e manages something close to balance, but does so by wrapping the D20 core with the AEDU system and Skill Challenges that create a mathematical "corral" by which they restrained the earlier system in order to contain its natural imbalance tendencies!