d20/not d20 (split)

[woodelf]

A better question would be "Wherein has it worked better?"  But that sounds too much like flamebait so...

The first example that comes to my mind is Deadlands.  IMO it was (at first) a wholly original game from its system to its setting.  And although not a straight conversion, the same goes for latest Conan the Barbarian rpg.  The world of Conan is not a 'keep track of your resources' world.  D20 makes it D&D in Hyborea and the few teaks aside, that's still way off the pace and overall raw and savage feel of Conan's world.    

But some d20 games I fully endorse.  Example: Although the StarWars d6 system still has a following --me included, I was glad for the d20 conversion as it works (IMO) better overall.  And it fits Spycraft perfectly, too.  In fact, for Spycraft --again in my opinion only, d20 fits the feel of that game to the point where it seems to belong there.  It's seamless with the feeling of 'being there' (being your character) in the game.

[snip]
So, Deadlands and Conan --no.  StarWars and Spycraft --yes.

Well, i'll half agree with you. I think the general hypothesis is valid, but i'd disagree with you on the specific examples. I think Conan OGL does an excellent job of addressing exactly those points: yes, resources are still managed on the meta-game level, in such things as hit points, but it also has little gems, like the rule that you fritter away half your money every week, regardless of how much loot you acquire or how little you explicitly buy--thus forcing you to go adventuring again in short order. Similarly, i think that Star Wars D20 is merely so-so, with some significant design decisions contributing to game balance, but at the cost of fidelity to the source milieu (which is not, IMHO, balanced in combat-effectiveness, but rather in story importance, something that a game like Star Wars D20 doesn't even know how to address mechanically).  I'll agree with you on Deadlands D20--one of the poorer implementations of D20 System *and* one of the poorer reflections of the genre/setting/previous rules.

As for Spycraft: I've recently realized that i don't particularly care for action/espionage movies/TV/books. I like mysteries, i like actual spy films, but the James Bond/Mission Impossible stuff just leaves me cold. When i do like it, it's because it has blended with or shaded over into another subgenre. So, frex, Nikita i absolutely love. Because it's really a character study, and just happens to also be an espionage thriller. Or the recent Charlie's Angels, which is no more espionage/secret agent than the original series--it's really just an action/comedy with some trappings of the espionage genre. I'm also not much of a fan of crunchy systems: Storyteller is too crunchy for my taste, and D&D3E drives me batty. And i'm specifically not a fan of combat crunchy, detailed combat--the only RPG combats i've ever actually enjoyed have been narrative-style interactions done with Everway or OtE's gestalt combat option. I've also read (and own) probably all the "greats" in the action/espionage genre: Top Secret, Top Secret/SI, Millenium's End, MS&PE, James Bond 007. As clever as some of these games are, none of them has ever tempted me to play it. Despite all this, i'm dying to play a game of Spycraft. It is one of the best-crafted RPGs i've ever seen, and has me, a combat-hatin' crunch despiser  who doesn't have any particular interest in the genre, really loving it. I also think that it's one of the best implementations of crunch-heavy D20 System i've seen, with a lot of added little bits, but not the extra cumbersomeness that could've come with them (and have in other implementations of D20 System). Best skill system yet, best general-purpose feats selection yet, best psionics system yet (well, Psychic's Handbook might be as good or better, but i haven't read it closely yet). If i'm gonna play D20 System, it'd better be at least as sound as Spycraft.

As for other examples of system switching:

BESM D20 is not as good as the original. It is, nonetheless, a very sound D20 System game. And, as others have said, it was very explicitly a marketing move, hoping to tap into the D20 System fanbase, and get some more people not only giving GoO money, but hopefully looking at GoO's non-D20 System stuff. I have no idea if it's succeeded in that department, but ithink it succeeded admirably in both being true to D20 System and bringing most of the strengths of BESM [Tri-Stat] to the game.

Sovereign Stone: i agree--it was basically vanilla fantasy with some twists (orcs are civilized seafarers, dwarves are nomadic horseclansmen), a cool magic system, and an interesting dice mechanic (not unlike that of IronClaw/JadeClaw). Switch it to D20 System, and you lose the cool mechanics. They did a passable job of preserving the cool magic system, really altering it only insofar as level had to become a significant element, rather than just skill. But the setting's still pretty vanilla. It might be worth picking it up if you want a less reliable magic system for your game--but then there's also Wheel of Time D20, CoC D20, Everquest D20, and probably some others i'm forgetting about, not to mention copious such systems available as D&D "retrofits", in both print and PDF. But the setting's just 'eh'--the twists aren't sufficient to be compelling, or more than you could trivially do on your own at home. Reminds me of the setting someone tried to push on me at GenCon: "it's really original--in most settings, orcs and other humanoids are the main badguys; here, it's lizard men." Might've been really original, but if that's the best selling point you can give me, i'm never going to find out. Oh, on the practical side, IIRC, they sold more of Sovereign Stone D20 in the first year than they had of the original up to that point (~3yrs, i think).

Fading Suns D20 & Legend of the Five Rings D20: I'm lumping these together, because they had very similar strategies, and apparently similar results. In both cases, they came out with a D20 System version of the game, and then went to dual-statting the supplements from then on out. In both cases, they didn't gain much in the way of D20 System fans, and lost some original-system fans. From what i've heard, sounds like Fading Suns came out ahead, but just barely, while L5R lost, significantly. As near as i can tell, Fading Suns is still doing ok, but they've dropped any D20 System stats from future projects; L5R is pretty much dead, and everyone seems to think D20 System is what killed it.

CoC D20: I'm not sure why this one doesn't seem to be the same as the above two. It's generally considered to be a very good conversion, and it was never intended to replace the original. It has some vocal detractors, but som eequally-vocal supporters. It seems like the main difference is that Chaosium dropped the ball--apparently there were several D20 System or dual-stat supplements supposed to come out shortly after it did, and they were for one reason or another pushed way back.

Silver Age Sentinels: this one's really interesting. Guardians of Order again. This time, the D20 System and Tri-Stat versions were released at more-or-less the same time, and it was built from the ground up for both systems at once. I haven't heard squat about it in terms of sales or further support, so all i know about it is that it got roundly roasted in the D20 System forums for "not being D20 System". Apparently, whatever they did to make the game violated some sort of unspoken standards of what a D20 System game must look like, though i've never really understood the complaints--nor why it's "bad" while the even-more-divergent Mutants & Masterminds is "good".

And a fringe example:
Nyambe: This was D20 System right from the get-go. However, a "Mythic Africa" game is something that Atlas had been wanting to do for years, and something fans of Ars Magica had been clamoring for for at least a decade. But Atlas never felt enough of them wanted it for it to be viable. Ditto as a stand-alone game. So it wouldn't have happened had it not been for D20 System. And, for the most part, i think it's a very reasonable fit, keeping in mind that the setting is about as true to Africa as Greyhawk is to Europe. Yes, some butchering of the setting occurred to make the game, but more in pursuit of a high-fantasy non-historical setting than in trying to make D20 System fit, IMHO. I still wish it'd been an Ars supplement and more true to the source materials, but i'd rather have what is there than no Mythic Africa game at all.

So, looking at all these examples, can anything be concluded? I'll try. First, it is not using D20 System that can cripple a game, it is sticking slavishly close to D&D3E that tends to be a problem. Second, if you have a strong fanbase, sufficient to support the game, you're not gonna win by switching, despite the theoretically-huger D20 System market. Third, if your game is struggling, or gonna die in its current incarnation, you might very well revitalize it by switching to the more-popular D20 System, at the cost of many or most of your existing fans. Unless, fourth, you change the game so much that it loses whatever appeal it had. For some games, this is almost guaranteed to happen--their appeal is in the mechanics. For others, it depends on the quality of the translation, both in how closely the new mechanics fit the existing setting/feel and how closely the new mechanics match "expected" D20 System construction. Finally, fifth, neither is D20 System a license to print money--a crappy game won't sell well, regardless of the system used. It might sell slightly less-poorly because of D20 System, but even this is not guaranteed. And if your D20 System version of a game is poorer than the original, you're gonna get roasted.

[woodelf]

Case in point: Got my hands on a copy of BESM d20 (Big Eyes Small Mouth), an anime role players guide, at GenCon (sale - buy 1 get 3 free!) and have been thumbing through it. Got through most of it tonight and my reaction to it was "Just WHAT were they smoking when they made this d20?!"
The game has a nifty point based character generation system, attribute system and some other cool little character quirks I've been exploring myself in my off time on Twilight for my NBS game (from back when). RARELY does it involve anything resembling d20 and many times the references are about how it was modified from d20 to fit this system!

Looking at the system it could really stand alone, with nothing to do with D20, which leaves me wondering: did they do it for the attention?
Which I guess supplies me with a viable publishing/lisencing question: When possessing a rather spiffy system of your own, would you forego original writing to fill in some blanks with OGL/d20 property for sake of ease and notorioty?

Yep, pretty much exactly. They had this immensely-popular RPG, and realized that they could port much of what made it so popular to a D20 System base. In theory, this would not only sell well on its own, but get D20 System gamers to notice GoO, and check out their other products, thus growing their general fanbase.

[Ron Edwards]

The above two posts were split from Ever seen d20 when it doesn't have to be d20?

Woodelf, stop posting to older threads. I do not have time to follow you around and clean up. Further posts of this sort will be considered flames regardless of content.

Best,
Ron

[efindel]

Apparently, whatever they did to make the game violated some sort of unspoken standards of what a D20 System game must look like, though i've never really understood the complaints--nor why it's "bad" while the even-more-divergent Mutants & Masterminds is "good".

Well, I honestly haven't looked at SAS d20 (Classes?  In a superhero game?  No, thank you...), but I'll point out that M&M has never claimed to be a "d20 System" game -- it doesn't use the STL, and the publishers have been up-front from the start that they didn't make it "d20" because of the limitations that that would have imposed on them as far as character creation and such go.

--Travis

[woodelf]

Apparently, whatever they did to make the game violated some sort of unspoken standards of what a D20 System game must look like, though i've never really understood the complaints--nor why it's "bad" while the even-more-divergent Mutants & Masterminds is "good".

Well, I honestly haven't looked at SAS d20 (Classes?  In a superhero game?  No, thank you...), but I'll point out that M&M has never claimed to be a "d20 System" game -- it doesn't use the STL, and the publishers have been up-front from the start that they didn't make it "d20" because of the limitations that that would have imposed on them as far as character creation and such go.

--Travis

What's interesting about the complaints from D20 System partisans was that their complaint was very precisely that SAS D20 was less "D20" than M&MM was. That is, that despite adibing by the terms of the D20STL, SAS D20 managed to diverge sufficiently from D&D3E to be "too different", while M&MM remained "sufficiently similar." And, of course, the presence or absence of the D20 System logo is a lousy test, since there is a criterion that has nothing to do with compatibility/similarity--the "no chargen/advancement" rule. So, i could clone the D&D3.5E PH, and it couldn't carry the D20 System logo, because of including chargen, despite being as similar as it is possible to be, mechanically. Long before Mongoose started trying to sell the D20 marketplace on this idea (that there is no meaningful distinction between a D20 System game with the logo and one without), there were discussions on the ogl list about this very problem and the potential for marketplace confusion. Of course, i think Mongoose has made the problem worse, since their "OGL" games are distinctly more different from baseline than their "D20" games, even when that need not be the case, and they're using a really lousy label.

Now, if only the USPTO examiners had been familiar with the RPG market, i suspect they never would've granted a trademark on "D20 System", as it's too generic, and then we'd be fine, 'cause we'd have a generic label, as well as whatever trademarkable label WotC did come up with. Ah, to dream...

But, back to the topic at hand: i think an even more interesting question than "should you scrap your system in favor of D20 System?" is "when are you changing D20 System so far from the baseline that you're no longer getting any of the benefits of using someone else's system?" That is, the benefits are two-fold: saving work, market familiarity. The former really needs to be on a case-by-case basis, and will get easier as more-divergent games emerge upon which to build, but the latter can be looked at by example. When we were working on Tech Noir, a cyberpunk/noir blend, we started with the D20SRD, and it looks like the changes have made it as far as:

[*]ditch the 3-18 stats in favor of the modifiers, since that's all that's used anyway
[*]replace the d20 with "mid20": roll 3 d20, drop the highest and lowest and read the remaining one
[*]eliminate classes
[*]minimize levels to be nothing more than an aggregate measure of power, a la M&MM
[*]ditch magic
[*]add a saving throw
[*]remove iterative attacks, and generally streamline the action system
[*]separate defensive skill and damage resistance
[*]add hero points
[*]completely rework the concept of criticals, in order to accomodate mid20
[*]introduce cyberware and hacking subsystems that were not in any way limited by "level" or other gamist concerns, but rather relied on game-world limitations to balance them.
[/list:u]

Now, except for actually telling people how to generate a character, none of that violates the D20STL outright. IOW, per the D20STL, this game is "fully compatible with D20 System". But, really, should it have a D20 System logo on the cover? I don't know. It's certainly a heck of a lot more dissimilar from the baseline than games like Conan OGL that've gotten complaints for their divergence. OTOH, it's still got more in common with D20 System games in the aggregate than it does with, say, Talislanta4, or Hero Wars, or other d20-based games. And, beyond that, is it meaningful to refer to it as "a D20 System game", even assuming making no claims as to compatibility, or trying to use the D20 System logo?

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Arguably, a number of publishers have decided to publish d20/OGL games, or most especially to convert to d20/OGL, strictly on the basis of generating distributor and retailer orders, with no particular need to consider or interest in what end-use customers want or think.

This sounds cynical, I'm sure. Perhaps it helps to acknowledge that such companies' rhetoric, to others and to themselves, is universally couched as "what the gamers want." I consider that phrase always to be self-serving, but I suppose it might act as comfortable cushion if anyone finds my initial phrasing to be too harsh.

Best,
Ron

[Vaxalon]

What it comes down to, I think, is what you're in business for.

If you are SELLING your product (rather than giving it away) to compensate yourself for time spent in service to your hobby, then maybe the best thing to do is put it out in D20.  Maybe not.  People go both ways on this issue.

If you are in business mainly because people don't value something unless they pay for it, then by all means put it in whatever system you think is best, and put whatever price tag on it you think it's worth.

I know I would not be emplopyed in this industry (and by that I mean, COMPENSATED) without D20.  No, it's not the best system for every game.  It's not even a GOOD system for every game.  But it has been a good thing for a lot of people.