Why so little D20 Modern Support?
- Thread starter The Overlord
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I really have no problem with anyone involved. 
Ralts Bloodthorne
First Post
Well, sadly, it looks like Overlord has made up his mind.
On a second shot, Overlord, allow me to intorduce myself...
Timothy Willard, writer and developer for The Brood, loudmouth arrogant jerk, and opinionated megalomaniac.
That having been said, let me say a bit more here regarding 3rd party products and PDF's in general, and print products.
Having bought multiple print products, from companies such as T$R, Palladium, FASA and many others, many times I found myself holding onto an inferior product that I was not able to preview due to shrinkwrap. Many books had bad errors and typos in them (Palladium Press: Coalition War Book, damage listed as 3d6x100 MDC on a weapon, leading to many people arguing that it should stand, despite being an obvious typo) where you either bought a new book, or the company that produced the product ignored the type.
Many books feel apart quickly (2E DMG for example, often fell apart within several weeks of use) and the layout was often poor at best.
Nowdays, it has not gotten much better, in many products. I can point to numberous examples in print products where a table that should have been in one spot was in a totally irrelevant area, where a critical bit of information was buried in the middle of a paragraph on a page in a section that had very little to do with that information.
While PDF's still suffer the same problem, as far as errors go, PDF's often are updated and fixed by the publishers in order to stay current, and a notice put out to thier customers.
With PDF's, you often recieve a "Print Friendly" version, to lessen the amount of ink used by your printer, and if a page is damaged by drinks, kids, scrawling, what have you, you can easily run off another page to replace it with a minimum of fuss.
That being said, I kind of wish to add the following statement...
d20 Future is going to come up, and it's more of a supplement to d20 Modern rather than a complete rebuild of the system. Already people are refusing to support it, refusing to write for it, mostly claiming that it is going to fail.
I saw the same thing with "The market for adventures is not a viable market."
"d20 Modern Will Fail"
and on and on.
Some of us will support it, others will not.
This lack of support from publishers is WHY Top Secret did so poorly, Gamma World did so poorly in the later editions, and more than a few games have fallen flat on thier faces.
Overlord has made up his mind. He refuses to by PDF products, having personal reasons to dislike them. Personally, if he chooses to sell his Modern d20 books, I'll be more than happy to purchase them from him.
I don't agree with Overlord's decision, and believe that he is cutting himself off from many quality products, but at the same time, I'm not going to grab him by the throat and try to yank him over to PDF products.
As to the answer to his question, one that a lot of people have ignored, I'll do my best to answer it.
Overlord: The bigger companies do not want to put money in a print run, which can easily run $2000, until they are sure that it will sell well. They could put the same money into a D&D book, which they know will at least earn them thier money back.
That leaves the smaller, 3rd party or independant companies to pick up the slack. Most 3rd party companies are a few friends brainstorming over a bottle, or meeting in a chat room, who have little, if any experience in creating a manuscript.
Meanwhile, the bigboys watch the market, perfectly willing to let the little guys build the foundation for the game, until they feel they can get the money out of it.
The 3rd party groups usually start off with very little capital, usually what's left over from thier paychecks, if anything at all. They cannot afford a print run, and a common practice is to sell a product in PDF form in order to raise the money to do a PoD run through RPGNow.
So, you refuse to purchase PDF's, are you going to RPGNow to find out what books are available in PoD? Print on Demand products are getting more and more frequent, as many small time publishers (like myself) are able to put thier products out in print.
PDF products could be looked at as a "Grass Roots Support" for d20 Modern, and there are many products available, more than enough.
But, on another note, Overlord, I would like to hear what you would like to see. You say: No support. But what kind of support are you looking for?
Adventures? They're out there.
Weapons Books? Out there too.
Class Options and Abilities? Out there.
Creatures and Threats? Out there.
Campaign Settings? Out there.
And there are print products of all of those. I can understand your desire to pay the $6-$20 markup for a print product, since it is easier for you.
PDF has changed, and we're getting better at our layout and everything else. If you aren't aware of that, and instead, are thinking of the PDF products we had to produce with Adobe Acrobat 4.x or just Word Perfect, you are definately missing out.
Sorry you aren't interested in PDF's, and Modern d20 in general. If you want to ditch your books, get ahold of me via email at Tim@brood-d20.com and I'll be glad to take them off of your hands.
--Tim Willard
----Resident Sociopath
On a second shot, Overlord, allow me to intorduce myself...
Timothy Willard, writer and developer for The Brood, loudmouth arrogant jerk, and opinionated megalomaniac.
That having been said, let me say a bit more here regarding 3rd party products and PDF's in general, and print products.
Having bought multiple print products, from companies such as T$R, Palladium, FASA and many others, many times I found myself holding onto an inferior product that I was not able to preview due to shrinkwrap. Many books had bad errors and typos in them (Palladium Press: Coalition War Book, damage listed as 3d6x100 MDC on a weapon, leading to many people arguing that it should stand, despite being an obvious typo) where you either bought a new book, or the company that produced the product ignored the type.
Many books feel apart quickly (2E DMG for example, often fell apart within several weeks of use) and the layout was often poor at best.
Nowdays, it has not gotten much better, in many products. I can point to numberous examples in print products where a table that should have been in one spot was in a totally irrelevant area, where a critical bit of information was buried in the middle of a paragraph on a page in a section that had very little to do with that information.
While PDF's still suffer the same problem, as far as errors go, PDF's often are updated and fixed by the publishers in order to stay current, and a notice put out to thier customers.
With PDF's, you often recieve a "Print Friendly" version, to lessen the amount of ink used by your printer, and if a page is damaged by drinks, kids, scrawling, what have you, you can easily run off another page to replace it with a minimum of fuss.
That being said, I kind of wish to add the following statement...
d20 Future is going to come up, and it's more of a supplement to d20 Modern rather than a complete rebuild of the system. Already people are refusing to support it, refusing to write for it, mostly claiming that it is going to fail.
I saw the same thing with "The market for adventures is not a viable market."
"d20 Modern Will Fail"
and on and on.
Some of us will support it, others will not.
This lack of support from publishers is WHY Top Secret did so poorly, Gamma World did so poorly in the later editions, and more than a few games have fallen flat on thier faces.
Overlord has made up his mind. He refuses to by PDF products, having personal reasons to dislike them. Personally, if he chooses to sell his Modern d20 books, I'll be more than happy to purchase them from him.
I don't agree with Overlord's decision, and believe that he is cutting himself off from many quality products, but at the same time, I'm not going to grab him by the throat and try to yank him over to PDF products.
As to the answer to his question, one that a lot of people have ignored, I'll do my best to answer it.
Overlord: The bigger companies do not want to put money in a print run, which can easily run $2000, until they are sure that it will sell well. They could put the same money into a D&D book, which they know will at least earn them thier money back.
That leaves the smaller, 3rd party or independant companies to pick up the slack. Most 3rd party companies are a few friends brainstorming over a bottle, or meeting in a chat room, who have little, if any experience in creating a manuscript.
Meanwhile, the bigboys watch the market, perfectly willing to let the little guys build the foundation for the game, until they feel they can get the money out of it.
The 3rd party groups usually start off with very little capital, usually what's left over from thier paychecks, if anything at all. They cannot afford a print run, and a common practice is to sell a product in PDF form in order to raise the money to do a PoD run through RPGNow.
So, you refuse to purchase PDF's, are you going to RPGNow to find out what books are available in PoD? Print on Demand products are getting more and more frequent, as many small time publishers (like myself) are able to put thier products out in print.
PDF products could be looked at as a "Grass Roots Support" for d20 Modern, and there are many products available, more than enough.
But, on another note, Overlord, I would like to hear what you would like to see. You say: No support. But what kind of support are you looking for?
Adventures? They're out there.
Weapons Books? Out there too.
Class Options and Abilities? Out there.
Creatures and Threats? Out there.
Campaign Settings? Out there.
And there are print products of all of those. I can understand your desire to pay the $6-$20 markup for a print product, since it is easier for you.
PDF has changed, and we're getting better at our layout and everything else. If you aren't aware of that, and instead, are thinking of the PDF products we had to produce with Adobe Acrobat 4.x or just Word Perfect, you are definately missing out.
Sorry you aren't interested in PDF's, and Modern d20 in general. If you want to ditch your books, get ahold of me via email at Tim@brood-d20.com and I'll be glad to take them off of your hands.
--Tim Willard
----Resident Sociopath
Last edited:
baileyrecords
First Post
Moridin said:
So, Rodney, is d20 Future basically a non-specific space themed game? I look forward to it regardless!
- Stratos
btw: you coming up on Saturday for the party?
(Psi)SeveredHead
Adventurer
Warlord Ralts said:
Well, this thread got me to finally activate my credit card, now that I know there's a bunch of D20 Modern adventures out there. Now, if someone who's more competent at searching RPGNow and other such sites could create a few more custom lists (I did download Dana's pointers, thanks)...
Not interested.
Hard to say. If these abilities are feats or talents and not bad AdCs/PrCs (eg cyborg class ... bad idea!) then I'm sold.
Non-FX? I'm interested.
And I've got a very good list of those from this thread (and pimped them at WotC's board).
Now, some sample NPCs would be nice, too. (I'd love to see three or so different takes on a 6th-level lawyer.
)
BrooklynKnight
First Post
sleeep deprivd.jaerdaph said:Charles Ryan
RodneyThompson
Explorer
baileyrecords said:
Not so much. It's basically a non-specific science fiction toolkit, which can be used for all manner of scifi, including (but not limited to) space-faring games.
Unfortunately, I'm having to bow out. I've got an obligation in town here. Check your e-mail for more.
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JoeCrow
Explorer
Is d20 future gonna be SRDed on publication, or is there gonna another X-month wait? Because I'm chomping at the bit waiting for this one, and I'd like to know when I can start developing stuff for it. Or are they planning to do the UA thing, with a book-internal OGC declaration, so's to keep folks from just working from the SRD?
JoeCrow said:
Since I've seen a rough printout of the mostly-finished book, I'd say it's a fair guess that Andy "TheAndy" Smith, the keeper of the SRD, has a copy as well. And knowing Andy's efficiency, I suspect he is planning for a "Future SRD" that will be available, if not when d20 Future releases, then soon after.
Ranger REG
Explorer
Personally, I don't think it was horribly planned. Mind you, I was once a gamer who bought Star Trek Core Rulebooks for each series (TNG Core Rulebook, DS9 Core Rulebook, TOS Core Rulebook etc.) And while each of the core products offers new material that distinguish from one another, the fundamental core rules are the same (character creation, combat, traits, etc.) but reprinted in each of the book. For every $35 I spend for each of the core rulebook I have, it was unnecessary to have wasted $10 per book beyond the first because of the same reprinted core rules.PosterBoy said:
The same would apply here. d20 Future would have the same fundamental core rules as d20 Modern, which if you use the abridged version, would probably crammed two-third of the book's total content, leaving you with a one-third to give us new material to run a futuristic game, albeit limited one or two aspects of sci-fi's broad genre.
So they chose the toolkit supplement approach. The basic core rules have already been covered in d20 Modern leaving this d20 Future book to cram additional rules material for running a futuristic game of your own choosing: from hard to soft, from semi-real to fantasy ... like with Blood & Space (albeit compatible with d20).
Perhaps from a publisher's perspective this is unacceptable, but WotC has to cater to their fanbase. And as part of that fanbase, I want to get d20 Future as soon as it hit the store.
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