Monday, February 07, 2005
The obligatory anti-d20 rant
I was talking to The Law this morning, and both of us are getting a bit tired of the d20 scene. We both agree that what made d20 the perfect solution to give the RPG industry a boost is the same thing that is now killing it. Everybody does d20 now. At first, it opened up a lot of opportunities for new players to enter the scene, and the market got flooded with d20. Unfortunately, now even the big players have opted to work with d20. And now there are so many products for d20 that many of them are just rehashes of the same old, same old. Honestly, how many OGL books on the fighter class do we need, for example?
I think if it wasn't for starting the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil module in my D&D group, I'd be moving away from Dungeons & Dragons and d20 games altogether. That said, the only tabletop campaigns I'm involved in right now are d20-based. The D&D game continues. Mechamorphosis will begin in March. And I'm playing in The Law's Mutants & Masterminds campaign.
It's deja vu all over again. Back when I was in late high school or early college, I dragged my gaming group into Steve Jackson Games' GURPS for a year or two. By the end of it, I was GURPSed out. I've never played the game since. I haven't bought a GURPS supplement since. If I never roll 3D6 with the intention of rolling under a stat's score again, I'll be a happy man. This is what I'm starting to feel about d20.
Now The Law says he'll probably move away from d20 sometime in the future, and he'll probably move toward more crunchy (i.e. mechanically crunchy, meaning more rules) games like GURPS or the old Time Lords game.
Me, I'm looking at less crunchy. The Unisystem, found in games like All Flesh Must Be Eaten and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (amongst others), is more rules lite, and I like the way it looks. It looks fun. Heck, y'know, I'd even probably consider going toward diceless gaming (go ahead, Law, flame away in the comments), which is a style of game that I used to think of as taboo.
Now I'm thinking diceless might be the way to go for some of my gaming fun. I sincerely doubt my gaming group will go along with that, but it's something I would consider doing if there were enough interested parties.
I think if it wasn't for starting the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil module in my D&D group, I'd be moving away from Dungeons & Dragons and d20 games altogether. That said, the only tabletop campaigns I'm involved in right now are d20-based. The D&D game continues. Mechamorphosis will begin in March. And I'm playing in The Law's Mutants & Masterminds campaign.
It's deja vu all over again. Back when I was in late high school or early college, I dragged my gaming group into Steve Jackson Games' GURPS for a year or two. By the end of it, I was GURPSed out. I've never played the game since. I haven't bought a GURPS supplement since. If I never roll 3D6 with the intention of rolling under a stat's score again, I'll be a happy man. This is what I'm starting to feel about d20.
Now The Law says he'll probably move away from d20 sometime in the future, and he'll probably move toward more crunchy (i.e. mechanically crunchy, meaning more rules) games like GURPS or the old Time Lords game.
Me, I'm looking at less crunchy. The Unisystem, found in games like All Flesh Must Be Eaten and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (amongst others), is more rules lite, and I like the way it looks. It looks fun. Heck, y'know, I'd even probably consider going toward diceless gaming (go ahead, Law, flame away in the comments), which is a style of game that I used to think of as taboo.
Now I'm thinking diceless might be the way to go for some of my gaming fun. I sincerely doubt my gaming group will go along with that, but it's something I would consider doing if there were enough interested parties.
// posted by Chris @ 1:37 PM 
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