Why we love D&D but hate d20

[MerricB]

A good "generic" system allows you to use the rules in any genre without changing them. You can take a PC from one campaign and it could conceivably work in another.

Hmm. Whenever I've seen GURPS try to do heroic fantasy, it has failed utterly.

I don't think it's as generic as you make it out to be.

Cheers!

 

[barsoomcore]

I mean, just take a look at the statistics. Probably 80% of d20 products are "sword & sorcery" type worlds while 20% are sci-fi/modern. I think this is telling us that d20 (err . . . D&D) is only "truly" suitable for medieval fantasy.

I'm reasonably confident that if you investigated all RPG products you'd probably find a spread of genres close to that percentage ANYWAY -- most RPG products are fantasy because -- Dungeons and Dragons.

I mean, this makes sense too because GURPs was specifically designed to be generic. As opposed to d20 that was designed from a fantasy medieval system.

I'm unaware of d20 ever being advertised as a generic system. Not sure why you keep on this point. It's not a generic system. Nobody involved in producing it ever called it that.

The fact that it works for CoC, Traveller, Superheroes, Star Wars, pirates, steampunk, Modern, Spycraft et al suggests that maybe your position isn't as well defended as you think. You're not convincing me, for example that it's only suitable for fantasy. You'll have to first of all convince me that my Skull & Bones campaign isn't fun.

 

[barsoomcore]

Here's a very straightforward truth:

All game systems model reality. Any modelling of reality is going to involve making certain assumptions about the way reality works. Those assumptions are going to some degree colour the manner in which reality is presented in the game system. Certain ways of presenting reality are more suitable to some genres than others.

There is no "generic" game system. The idea is silly. All games have some sort of "take" on reality and so will be more suited to some sorts of stories than others.

One of the interesting things about d20 is how malleable the system is, so that it becomes very straightforward to introduce custom mechanics to handle genre-specific issues (Sanity, Action Points, classes, yada yada yada). dead's position seems to be that introducing such mechanics "proves" that d20 isn't a "generic" system -- a point I'll happily concede.

But I'm pretty sure that from now on, most of the games I run will be d20 based. It's just easier to adapt the system to what I want than it is to learn a new one.

 

[MerricB]

I'm unaware of d20 ever being advertised as a generic system. Not sure why you keep on this point. It's not a generic system. Nobody involved in producing it ever called it that.

The only time I ever see d20 called a generic system is by opponents of it, trying to "prove" that it has failed.

One of the goals of d20 is to stop the "D&D knock-offs" that really wanted to be D&D but couldn't be - so they changed several mechanics and then went from there. So you had a lot of fantasy games that were almost, but not quite, identical, but which could be quite difficult to learn - and thus split the market substantially.

I feel that another goal was to provide a consistent and simple mechanic for task resolution. The d20+skill against a DC is a huge improvement over what came before in D&D. It's more important than many people realise.

By promoting that simple mechanic, d20 allows designers to focus on things that actually make their game better, rather than overly complicating things with many different resolution systems.

Cheers!

 

[Heretic Apostate]

I can't wait for D20 GURPS and D20 RIFTS.

You laugh, but I really am looking forward to someone producing a merge of d20 and GURPS (and maybe Alternity?). I think that would be something cool.

Of course, I haven't the gumption to give it a shot, myself.

 

[d4]

I never said d20 systems all "felt like D&D". No, some d20 systems have bastardized the core rules so much that they don't feel like D&D and all you've got left is the thin thread: roll a d20 against DC that makes them "d20".

and skills, feats, the six ability scores, classes, hit points, experience, etc. not every d20 game uses every part, but they all use enough that they are all recognizably "d20". even M&M (one of the most altered) has more than a "thin thread" connecting it to the rest of the d20 continuum.

But that's the point. d20 fails as a "generic" system because you have to change it so much to get it to work (specifically science fiction).

that's not a bug; it's a feature. changing the rules to fit the genre is a good thing -- it means the designers understand the genre well enough to try to model it's basic assumptions, especially when they are different from other iterations of the d20 system. thus Sanity in CoC, superpowers in M&M, etc.

A good "generic" system allows you to use the rules in any genre without changing them. You can take a PC from one campaign and it could conceivably work in another.

no, that's a bad generic system -- because it's not taking into account the differences between genres. as a 10-year veteran of GURPS, i can tell you that one of the things that always annoyed me about the system was that GURPS fantasy felt more like GURPS sci fi than Lord of the Rings, and GURPS sci fi felt more like GURPS fantasy than Star Wars. and such. in other words, every GURPS game regardless of genre feels like a GURPS game, because the rules are the pretty much the same over multiple genres. IMO the system doesn't do a very good job of capturing the essence of the various genres it's trying to model -- it instead tries to shoehorn in every genre into the GURPS style. GURPS Supers does a poor job of emulating comic books compared to M&M, and GURPS Fantasy does a poor job of emulating fantasy novels compared to D&D and other d20 fantasy games, IMO.

d20 doesn't fall into this trap. different iterations of the d20 system feel very different because the designers took the time to modify the various systems to match the mood of the genre they were trying to emulate.

I mean, just take a look at the statistics. Probably 80% of d20 products are "sword & sorcery" type worlds while 20% are sci-fi/modern. I think this is telling us that d20 (err . . . D&D) is only "truly" suitable for medieval fantasy.

no, it's telling us that (if your made-up statistics are even true) that 80% of the RPG market likes fantasy gaming, and the remainder prefer other genres. it's the same across gaming as a whole, not just specific to d20.

On the other hand, take a look at GURPs. About 20% is medieval fantasy; 20% sci-fi; 20% modern; and 20% misc. These stats show that it is a good "generic" system because there is an even spread of genres.

firstly i again have to dispute your statistics. there's no way that 20% of GURPS books are fantasy-based; and a much larger percentage than 20% is sci fi.

but considering that a much larger than 20% slice of the gaming public as a whole wants fantasy, the fact that there's so few fantasy products in the GURPS line says to me that GURPS just isn't very good at handling fantasy.

But d20 that is not fantasy medieval? No thanks! Non-fantasy medieval d20 has to bastardize the core rules too much to work...

actually, i'm of the opposite mind -- i've pretty much given up on D&D (it just isn't to my taste any more), but i really enjoy other variations on the d20 system -- d20 Modern and Mutants & Masterminds are two of my favorite games right now. i think they work wonderfully and stand fully on their own feet. who cares that they're "bastardized" versions of D&D? they do what they need to do admirably. they took what they needed from D&D and changed what needed to be changed. the results in both cases are excellent games.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

A good "generic" system allows you to use the rules in any genre without changing them. You can take a PC from one campaign and it could conceivably work in another.

I would define that as "universal". d20 is far from universal; the basic premise of its entire scaling system is based on a default environment. However, this does not prevent the system from being "generic" enough to remove a "default" component and replacing it with a component more suitable to what you want.

Don't like Epic Magic? Make another system.

Don't like the Classes? Make new ones.

Don't like the Feats? Rewrite or replace them.

This isn't a failing of the system; in fact, it's d20's greatest strength.

 

[Gundark]

GOD....is this thread STILL going? I really get annoyed with the d20 haters complaining on a d20 board. Go away. The iron kingdoms boards are full of people like this too.

 

[dead]

Well, I'm very glad to hear that not many people have problems with d20.

Maybe when the new Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is released - which will probably continue using a d100 - they can establish a "d100" brand with an Open Gaming Licence. Then they can ask WotC if they can make d100 versions of Greyhawk, Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms.

I'M NOT A D20 HATER!

I LOVE d20 medieval fantasy products. And because this probably constitutes 80% of the d20 market I think I've got the right to voice my opinion on a "d20 board".

 

[Afrodyte]

slightly OT (sorry)

Here's a very straightforward truth:

All game systems model reality. Any modelling of reality is going to involve making certain assumptions about the way reality works. Those assumptions are going to some degree colour the manner in which reality is presented in the game system. Certain ways of presenting reality are more suitable to some genres than others.

Actually, that's not true. There are plenty of games (mostly independent) where modelling reality is not at the forefront of design. A few examples: The Pool, The Questing Beast, and Kathanaksaya (yeah, it's my game, but it's an example).