What makes a d20 game a d20 game?

[Cassidy]

Spurred on by the d20 Will it go the distance? (skylarking) thread, something Ozymandias said got me thinking.

There are a couple of reasons why d20 should prove to have more staying power than previous multi-genre systems such as GURPS. The first, and primary, one you've already got. It's the system behind D&D, which is by leaps and bound the most bought and most played RPG. But I don't think thats the only reason. You also have the fact that when adapting d20 to a new genre, one can re-tool any part of the system they want rather than just providing a plug-in for the already existing rule set. (ie: GURPS Supers v. Mutants & Masterminds, SASd20, or Godlike OGL) This means the system, rather than remaining a static entity which may or may not be occassional updated by the single company that owns it, the d20 system can be constantly reinterpreted and reinvented by each person utilizing it for game design.

If d20 can be constantly reinterpreted and reinvented to accomodate different genres then what components of d20 must remain for it still to be considered d20.

What precisely makes a game a d20 game other than the presence of the d20 logo on it's cover.

Is it the fact that the core resolution mechanic of all d20 games is the same? i.e. Roll d20, add some character specific bonus, apply some modifiers, beat target number. Is that the universal constant that actually makes a game a d20 game?

Is that the only common design component?

Are there any other components that a game must have to be considered a d20 game?

[xiombarg]

Are there any other components that a game must have to be considered a d20 game?

This is entirely IMHO, YMMV, void where prohibited, etc.

It's d20 if it uses the standard resolution mechanic (including approximately the same list of skills), the same attributes (even if they're determined in some different way), about the same combat system (still uses initiatiative and an attack bonus), Feats, and saving throws. To me, those are the core of d20. Not coincidentally, they're the main things that Mutants and Masterminds kept in their version of the system, while throwing the rest out.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I daresay, in my opinion, that a d20 game, first and foremost, will be any game that identifies itself as such. That is, if it has the "d20" logo on the cover or somewhere in the book, it's a d20 game. This makes life easier.

Secondarily, any game that can be judged to be using the rules for d20  even if said game pre-dates d20, or even WotC itself, then it can safely be discussed as a "d20-like" game even if it was not designed as or even in reference to d20. I don't know if there are many games like this, but if there are, I have then covered.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Well, this is the question, isn't it?

I hesitate to agree with Jack in this instance, because the presence of a logo or "cultural identification" isn't enough, I think, to identify a given game with any kind of content, use, or long-term economic presence.

It might interest people to know that, when asked if I'd consider Sorcerer D20, I said "no," because it would require - essentially - stripping out the D20 material beyond the resolution mechanic, and inserting Humanity mechanics (unchanged) and a novel reward system (again, simply from Sorcerer). The person who'd asked me seemed to think that that would still "be D20." I disagreed, and still do.

A game System, according to me anyway (ooooh!), consists of ...

1) Character creation parameters
2) Resolution mechanics
3) Reward / punishment mechanics
4) Other stuff, if it's different from #1-3, like setting-content creation parameters, distribution-of-power instructions, etc. Sometimes this stuff is implicit or assumed.

All of this may be as unified or diverse as one can imagine, but if you *change* it, for some application, well, you're playing a different system. One of the conceits of D20 marketing, I think, is to say that "Change anything you like," and still to consider that the System remains as itself. It's frankly a dodge - calling fairly minor elements of #1-3 a "system" and letting, even encouraging huge elements be customizable - and claiming generic or "universal" credits for it.

None of this "bad," particularly - but I do object to having one's cake and eating it too. Either D20 as such is "universal" (what I'd call general or generic), or it isn't. And if it is, it's either really good at it (in comparison, say, with GURPS or JAGS or Fudge) or it isn't.

Now, just how variable or customizable "as such" in the above paragraph is allowed to be, is definitely a matter of personal mileage. I do think that Mutants & Masterminds goes past my personal bar - it is, for purposes of play, vastly different from baseline-D20 in a variety of ways that lead me to think of it as a new system, inspired or based on D20 to be sure, but a "thing" of its own.

My only goal in this post is to point out that calling something D20, and using it as evidence that "D20 can do X [or anything, or whatever]" is not valid. We should focus on system elements, and regardless of one's personal bar for "too different to be D20," we should recognize that a bar does exist.

Best,
Ron

[Ted E. Childers]

What precisely makes a game a d20 game other than the presence of the d20 logo on it's cover.

Having played a variety of d20 products (Dungeons and Dragons, Star Wars, Wheel of Time, and some Mutants and Masterminds), I'd like to try and answer your question.  Note that since the 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons player's handbook was the first d20 product and is considered the "core" d20 book, I'll use it as the base of comparison.

A d20 product will typically have the core character characteristics:

> Attributes system (3d6 determine Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma) with standard +/- bonuse stats that coincide with the value
> Races (providing unique abilities and/or alterations to attributes, skills, and feats)
> Classes (occupational templates that provide a balanced set of unique abilities, skill points for buying skills, alterations to attributes/skills/feats)
> Skill system (skills with ranks and attribute bonus stat adjustments)
> Feats (a tier system of abilities that provide modifications to attributes, skills, or combat)
> Hit Point System (based off of class)

Star Wars, Wheel of Time, and Mutants and Masterminds adds more to the mix.  For now, I'll point out how they differ:

- Star Wars only differs in these core aspects by tweaking the hit point system with a Vitality and Wound system.  Vitality is a vague number that measures luck and endurance.  It functions the same as DnD hit points (they increase each level based on class).   Once Vitality is depleted, Wound Points are reduced (which is based off of constitution and can only increase in value by feats).  Wound Points are actual flesh wounds and can cause a character to pass out which effected as well as die when depleted.  

- Mutants and Masterminds is probably the farthest from the Dungeons and  Dragons players handbook while still remaining d20.  It retains the attribute system, skill system, and feat system.  It scraps the class and hit point system.  Instead of classes, it uses a point base system for building a character.  Instead of hit points, it creates a new damage saving throw and uses damage levels.  Ironically enough, Mutants and Masterminds is the only d20 product that exclusively uses the d20. ;)

- Wheel of Time characters are usually human, so for races it breaks down human in to various regions.  Each regional human has a list of special feats, skill tweaks, and equipment.

A d20 product will also have the same basic combat resolution.  Initiative, to hit, damage, etc are all very uniform.  The saving throw system is also uniform (3 saving throw categories: Will, Reflex, Fortitude).

This is all based off my own observation.  If anyone thinks I may have made any mistakes in my analysis, please let me know.

- Ted

[Jack Spencer Jr]

...One of the conceits of D20 marketing, I think, is to say that "Change anything you like," and still to consider that the System remains as itself. It's frankly a dodge - ...

None of this "bad," particularly - but I do object to having one's cake and eating it too. Either D20 as such is "universal" (what I'd call general or generic), or it isn't. ...

Oh, I agree here. I used the logo as a benchmark since it did, as I last understood it in any case, have certain requirements for a game to be able to use the d20 trademarked logo and these requirement could be, more or less, taken as what d20 is. But it's been a while since I've done much with d20 or looked into that whole mess, so I may be wrong.

If whole parts of it can be completely customized to the point where it's unrecognizable even with the d20 logo still legally on the cover, then what we have here is the FUDGE debate again, which has had this same debate over how much can you change before it's no longer FUDGE. However, FUDGE has always been "some assembly required" while d20 presents itself as a complete system that may or may not be customized to your taste.

[Cassidy]

<< loads of stuff >>

Thanks everyone, and thanks particularly to Ted for taking the time to pick out the common elements that comprise a d20 game from the d20 games that are in print.

I'm off on holiday tomorrow, but thanks again for everyones input and have a great christmas.

[M. J. Young]

Like Jack, I find that I have been disinterested in the subject for long enough that I've forgotten many of the details.

But, like Ron, I've had people ask me and even pressure me about creating a D20 version of Multiverser. Someone even floated it as a D20 news item to try to stir up interest in it. And, like Ron, I've maintained that it can't really be done. A version of Multiverser built to be D20 would probably not conform to the OGL, and probably would not be sufficiently like Multiverser to carry the name. The all-important and pervasive bias mechanic is too subtle for the system. The complex use of attributes in both skill and non-skill areas would be difficult to support. Character improvement without reference to experience is completely outside the D20 system as I understand it. Improving damage value (hit points) is a very difficult task in Multiverser, and would have to be rewritten for D20 so as to be independent of levels. And the D20 resolution mechanic has that annoying tendency to shift from wildly fortune to strongly karma as characters improve. Multiverser has limits on all things--this powerful, and no more. D20 is open-ended, very difficult to quantify in probability terms.

One day I'll take a closer look at the D20 engine; but I'm far more likely to do conversions of D20 games (where bias is implicit in setting and can be accounted for in fixed values instead of set up as a system) than to attempt to do a D20 conversion of Multiverser.

Jack is almost right about the logo. After all, I recall Ryan Dancey saying that there were a lot of license violations and there were going to be lawsuits. A game can call itself D20 if under the terms of the OGL it meets the D20 requirements.

--M. J. Young

[Eric J.]

Here's what  think:

Jack is right in his statement that to be D20 you have to be titled D20.  This is becuase, regardless on what your system is, it will still be copywrited D20.  What if the system didn't even use a D20?  Well, it would still be okay.  Calling a system a D20 system doesn't mean that you modelled your system off of it.  It just means that it is considered, by you the writer and the government, to be a D20 system.

Does this definition make it usefull for discussion?  No.  Not at all.  Not even if you try to use this definition where it makes any kind of sense whatsoever.  To have a definition that is usefull for discussion the word "D20-like" or phrase "based off of 3rd ed AD&D" would be better.  A definition of D20 for discussion purposes would mean to be like D20 on important aspects.

[Valamir]

...One of the conceits of D20 marketing, I think, is to say that "Change anything you like," and still to consider that the System remains as itself. It's frankly a dodge - ...

None of this "bad," particularly - but I do object to having one's cake and eating it too. Either D20 as such is "universal" (what I'd call general or generic), or it isn't. ...

It has been a while since I was up on my license knowledge, but at one time I knew the d20 license and the OGL fairly thoroughly and I believe this is an essentially incorrect statement.  As I recall one is fairly restricted in what one is allowed to change and still meet the terms of the d20 logo.  It certainly does not say "Change anything you like".  This is why M&M is clearly NOT a d20 product.  It wouldn't be allowed to be under the terms of the d20 license.

The OGL is a different animal.  The OGL doesn't really say "Change anything you like" either, it more or less says "Take and use anything you like" (anything that's been declared open, that is).

In a sense the OGL is rather unnecessary, since game mechanics can't really be copyrighted one has a pretty wide degree of latitude to take and use anything one like's anyway.  About the only thing is you'd have to call it something different.  But what the OGL does do is take a lot of the ambiguity away.  Instead of wondering "hmmm....I THINK I can lift this mechanic without violating anything but I'm not sure", the OGL allows you to be very clear...this is open, this is not.

Quite simply all the OGL really did is increase the transparancy of the legal situation.  Freed from the constraints of having to wonder if a team of hostile lawyers will be serving you papers it lets you pick and choose and mix and match among stuff that has been declared open.  A key benefit to it is that it does save alot of time reinventing the wheel.  Lets face facts...as much as I love unique systems...most of them suck.  If someone wants to design a game and they have no talent for mechanics...why not use FUDGE or d20 and spare everyone the torture of their broken rules set.  Another key benefit is that a large amount of the open material has been extensively playtested and reports on what works and what doesn't work can be found with just a little search time somewhere on the internet.  Another great time saver.  And, of course, while a game like M&M does have some very different rules from D&D 3E that one COULD consider it a different system altogether...it absolutely does have enough in common with D&D3E that a 3E player could jump into a M&M game and not have to learn anything very new.  The vastly different system of damage is in the end nothing more than a new type of saving throw which they already know how to make.

The OGL is really nothing more than a big toy box of ideas that can be turned into functional if hardly bleeding edge games fairly quickly and painlessly.

[Ozymandias]

It has been a while since I was up on my license knowledge, but at one time I knew the d20 license and the OGL fairly thoroughly and I believe this is an essentially incorrect statement.  As I recall one is fairly restricted in what one is allowed to change and still meet the terms of the d20 logo.  It certainly does not say "Change anything you like".  This is why M&M is clearly NOT a d20 product.  It wouldn't be allowed to be under the terms of the d20 license.

That's actually not quite right. You can actually make some relatively radical changes to the system and still retain the d20 logo. The only things you can't do (as per version 3.0 of the d20 System Guide):


No Covered Product may contain rules or instructions of any kind that:

•Describe a process for Creating a Character
•Describe a process for Applying the Effects of Experience to a Character

No Covered Product may change or extend the definition of any Defined Game Term as enumerated in this Guide.

No Covered Product may include "Miniatures".

No Covered Product may use the term "Core Book" on its cover, title, advertising, or self-reference.


Now I can create new races or new classes or say that my game has "backgrounds" instead of races (ie: Spycraft), and I even could go so far as to add new attributes/saving throws/whatever. I just can't give explicit instructions say pick and race then a class.

In terms of the defined terms listed in the guide, this really isn't a big deal b/c I could create an entirely alternate combat system for example add new terminology and I can still slap that d20 logo on there.

You can actually have an OGL game that is more closely compatible with the basic d20 rules than one with the actual d20 logo on the cover.

The real disadvantage that comes with the logo is that you can't really have a complete game. The inability to include character creation or rules for applying XP means that someone will have to have a copy of the PHB in order to play your game.

Now, just how variable or customizable "as such" in the above paragraph is allowed to be, is definitely a matter of personal mileage. I do think that Mutants & Masterminds goes past my personal bar - it is, for purposes of play, vastly different from baseline-D20 in a variety of ways that lead me to think of it as a new system, inspired or based on D20 to be sure, but a "thing" of its own.

The question I think though that most designers are really asking is this: What does the d20 community consider close enough to d20 to still be d20? Or rather how much can I change this and still be able to successfully market it as d20/OGL?

Based on the feedback seen on sites like Enworld (which is exclusively d20 related) , the reaction to Mutants and Masterminds seems to be pretty universally positive with everyone regarding the rules differences as minimal (as well as good for the genre) and the game "in play" feeling very much like d20. So in terms of market reception, there appears to be a fairly good bit of leeway.

I would actually wonder if the "modular" approach and making slight alterations to the system to fit each genre, doesn't actually render it a better "universal" system than the past approach of taking a system and then forcing various genres into the constraints of that system.

[Ron Edwards]

Guys, guys ...

I don't see this thread topic as having anything to do with the OGL. I, at least, am not talking about whether a product "can" be published as D20 or not. I am talking about whether the game content/experience is experientially identifiable with D20. I'm talking about System Does Matter.

Ted's breakdown is very, very useful for these purposes. It also shows me that Mutants & Masterminds is a good example of a non-D20 game that is published as D20.

The OGL has presented quite a moving target during its brief history. I don't think this is going to help our discussion, and I don't really care whether Mutants & Masterminds conforms to it or not (I imagine it does).

As a final point: the term game is used, unfortunately, for two distinct things in our hobby - (1) the experience of play, i.e., people interacting with one another via the System; and (2) the book/boxed product, or object, which by itself does absolutely nothing. It's a very good idea, in discussing D20 especially, to be clear about which one we mean, and to recognize that they are not and cannot be the same thing.

Best,
Ron

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I don't see this thread topic as having anything to do with the OGL.

Quite right. Unless I'm completely wrong, I think we're getting two completely different documents confuse with each other, which is not helping any. Here's how I understand it:

The Open Gaming License or OGL is just a way that Wizards has made d20 "open source" like some software, such as GNU (I guess. Someone here *undoubtably* knows more about this than I do) Which means that certain portions of the games rules are "open" and can be used freely without charge or fear of entanglement from Wizards. Someone could take said open material from d20 and use it to make a game and that's it. No logo, no contact even made with Wizards, no one may even notice it's using rulkes concepts from d20

The d20 Trademark License, on the other hand, is Wizard's way of defining what can or cannot identify itself as a d20 game or not. Adhering to the criteria outlined in the license will enable the pulisher to identify the product as a "d20" game with the trademarked d20 logo.

(Actually, looking at Wizards' site, there's the d20 System License which outlines the license for use the d20 logo and what will happen if you violate it and the d20 System Guide which outlines what the d20 system really is as per the license)

Admittedly, the Trademark license is fairly open, with only a few things being hard and fast and other things being label "do what you want" more-or-less.

This, of course, means that what is or is not d20 in terms of mechanics and play experience is not solid. Now I am all for "game content/experience is experientially identifiable with D20" and "System Does Matter" and all of that, but what qualifies a game for being d20? d20 has hit points. Mutants & Mastermins does not have hit points. Is it no longer a d20 game, then? (And for the record, as I understand it, M&M does not have the d20 logo on it so is not identifying itself as a d20 product. They decided to use the OGL but not the d20SL IIUC) You see, this sort of trhing is a vaslue judgement and very much a matter of an eye of the beholder. One has to draw a line in the sand but this only begs the question: Who the hell are you to draw that line in the sand and who's to say your line is better than my line or his line or her line over there?

Wizards drew a line in the sand with their legal mumbo-jumbo. It's a sketchy line but a line nevertheless and since games as judged by various lines in the sand can be regarded as "not d20" in spite of a logo on the book, I then suggest that sand lines are not valid except for the individual. I believe that gross changes in the rules and play/feel is going to be a part of the d20 experience and pretty much always has been a part of the D&D experience, as anyone who has joined a game only to find that the group they had joined uses exstensive house rules that are very different from the exstensive house rules their old group used can tell you.

Granted, this is probably a very crappy definition for our purposes since it leaves little that is solid and able to be discussed, but what are you going to do?

Otherwise it becomes a pointless discussion, like how certain people complain that Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones are not Star Wars. (shouting) The title of the blanking movies are "Star Wars Episode (roman numeral)! You had best get over it, Jack! You don't have to like or even watch the blanking movies but they are very much Star Wars whether you blanking like it or not!(/shouting)

[Valamir]

Actually far from clouding the issue, talking about one without the other is completely meaningless.

d20 is not a game, it is not a game system.  It is a brand it is nothing...absolutely nothing, more than a brand.

Those who have said any game that calls itself d20 is d20 are dead on 100% accurate (assuming they're actually following the terms of the license) and those who've pooh-pooh'd that answer are missing the point.

Every game created as d20 uses the OGL.  You use the OGL to build your game, and IF you adhere to the additional restrictions listed in the d20 licence you can ALSO slap the d20 label on it.   If you choose not to adhere to those additional restrictions you can use the d20 label...which amounts to nothing more than not being able to associate yourself with the brand.

The two are inextricably tied together...you can have OGL without D20 but you cannot have d20 without OGL.

Note to Ozy:  I am well aware of the d20 restrictions you list by my standards those are extremely significant standards.  Character creation, character improvement and term labels and definitions are the bulk of the core game.  The ability to add classes or races pale in comparison.

At any rate the title of this thread is fairly restrictive and quite unnecessary.

Quite simply the only true answer to what makes a d20 game a d20 game is spelled out in black and white in the d20 license agreement.  It is in fact that simple.  

The only meaningful question (and far more interesting one) is what makes a game recognizeably LIKE a d20 game.  Those are the components that people have been listing above...and those are clearly OGL issues NOT d20 issues.

So sorry, Ron and Jack, I beg to differ but the answer to what makes a d20 game a d20 game is not one open for discussion.  Its already been decided...by many lawyers.

[Seth L. Blumberg]

The OGL is misnamed. In terms of computer software, it is more analogous to the Sun Community Source License than it is to any Open Source license.

It is certainly nothing whatsoever like the GNU General Public License. If it were, no one would be able to sell any game containing Open Game Content for money.