Tuesday, March 01, 2005
d20 -- when will it stop?
When D&D 3E first launched, I was quite thrilled with the new take on medieval fantasy dungeon crawling. I had long given up on AD&D 2E, and I was wary of this new version of the aging game when I first heard about it. Then I picked up the Dragon Magazine issue with the 3E preview, and I was stunned. It looked like WotC had taken everything that was wrong with the old editions of D&D/AD&D and actually fixed it. I was shocked. Flabbergasted, if you will.
When the PHB shipped, I plunked my money down on the local game shop's counter and said "gimme one." So did most of the rest of my gaming group. We started playing a D&D Greyhawk campaign shortly after all three of the core books were out. Life was good, because D&D was fun again.
More than four years later, my tolerance is wearing thin. D&D is still kind of fun, but the OGL licence for the d20 system took all the creativity out of the gaming industry (some chuckle at calling the loose collection of RPG companies an industry, but by the traditional definition, it's an industry -- or perhaps a branch of the overall publishing industry). Everything is d20 these days. Every time there's a licence up for grabs, there's a damn good chance it'll use either d20 or a bastardized version of the system. Conan, Star Wars, Judge Dredd ... even once-popular game systems are getting the d20 treatment. Paranoia XP shipped last year, and it's d20-based.
Y'know what? I'm really sick of it. I pine for the old days, when most RPG publishers not only created their own systems for whatever setting they were working with, but they also had a variety of different mechanics for the various titles they published. And few companies used competitors' mechanics. They came up with their own ideas, put them on paper, (hopefully) playtested them and then matched them with their settings.
Ah, what I wouldn't give to see some of that creativity again.
I've recently been eyeing and buying into non-d20-based games just so I have something else ... something different from the plethora of d20 titles on the shelves (far too many of which are just re-worked versions of the same old concept).
When the d20 OGL licence was released, there was a cheer from gamers and publishers (and would-be publishers). For the first while, d20 opened up a lot of possibilities. It fueled an industry that was fading, but now, more than four years later, I'm sick of it. I'm beginning to hate d20. I despise the fact that the majority of titles on my local game shop's shelves are based on the d20 engine. And I know I'm not the only one.
When the PHB shipped, I plunked my money down on the local game shop's counter and said "gimme one." So did most of the rest of my gaming group. We started playing a D&D Greyhawk campaign shortly after all three of the core books were out. Life was good, because D&D was fun again.
More than four years later, my tolerance is wearing thin. D&D is still kind of fun, but the OGL licence for the d20 system took all the creativity out of the gaming industry (some chuckle at calling the loose collection of RPG companies an industry, but by the traditional definition, it's an industry -- or perhaps a branch of the overall publishing industry). Everything is d20 these days. Every time there's a licence up for grabs, there's a damn good chance it'll use either d20 or a bastardized version of the system. Conan, Star Wars, Judge Dredd ... even once-popular game systems are getting the d20 treatment. Paranoia XP shipped last year, and it's d20-based.
Y'know what? I'm really sick of it. I pine for the old days, when most RPG publishers not only created their own systems for whatever setting they were working with, but they also had a variety of different mechanics for the various titles they published. And few companies used competitors' mechanics. They came up with their own ideas, put them on paper, (hopefully) playtested them and then matched them with their settings.
Ah, what I wouldn't give to see some of that creativity again.
I've recently been eyeing and buying into non-d20-based games just so I have something else ... something different from the plethora of d20 titles on the shelves (far too many of which are just re-worked versions of the same old concept).
When the d20 OGL licence was released, there was a cheer from gamers and publishers (and would-be publishers). For the first while, d20 opened up a lot of possibilities. It fueled an industry that was fading, but now, more than four years later, I'm sick of it. I'm beginning to hate d20. I despise the fact that the majority of titles on my local game shop's shelves are based on the d20 engine. And I know I'm not the only one.
// posted by Chris @ 9:50 AM 
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