D20 Modern seems to be self-destructive

[archangel.arcanis]

PL E20 is still in development. It is also being guided by the fan base, so it should reflect what people want in such a game. For me it seems too close to 4e for my tastes but that doesn't mean the system is that bad, though it could be we will see once it is actually out.

I haven't found anything on P20 but have seen it mentioned before..

[PhoneLobster]

e20 is apparently written by a guy who was one of the writers of Star Wars Saga Edition.

The forgettable edition of the d20 star wars franchise that no one plays and that was pointed at as some sort of commercial play test of moving d20 towards 4e mechanics.

Now Saga edition was terrible and poorly written. So is it any surprise when looking at the text of the "sample" talents of e20 that they are unclear, ugly, dull, have really poor (if any) fluff and are generally poorly written.

I mean this IS the guy who wrote an RPG where one of the expensive high tier talents of an advanced class was the ability to cut off a limb IF the attack that cut it off killed or KOed the target anyway (because, you know, you need a class ability to butcher the dead and unconscious, or alternately to look cool while landing a killing blow, a class ability you trade actual combat power for).

As for community contributions, well, there are problems with that. Primarily if you read those lite rules and think "Kick ass! I want to be part of THAT project!" I don't really want to see the rules you are likely to produce. Or if I do its not a good kind of curiosity on my part.

Further if you read those sample rules and think, I want to be part of that, and PAY to be part of the process, and indeed pay MORE to be MORE part of the process, which seems to be the e20 set up. Then I REALLY don't like the sound of that.

Anyway, for the full e20 rules to be good they will not only have to provide actual lists of Talents and Enhancements, they will have to actively rewrite about half of what has appeared so far in the lite rules.

My prediction is they will be a direct extension of the bad samples already revealed. If the extended rules ever really appear at all.

So yeah e20, not exactly rocking my boat.
 

[shesheyan]

P20 info:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2080655001/game-design-p20-modern-roleplaying-game?ref=email

Project headed by Owen K.C. Stephens, Stan! and R. Hyrum Savage

[jacemachine]

Two things can and should hamper a pc and his limitless gear; Weight Carrying Capacity and the GM.

GM, as stated prior, has to moderate pc bullshit. Time & availability must be taken into account.

And a van full of gear is useless the moment its pc leaves it to explore caves, sewers, or an office building.

My two cents.

[PhoneLobster]

GM, as stated prior, has to moderate pc bullshit.

Thats nice and all but really considering the abstract Wealth mechanic doesn't really DO much else it should really be doing that FOR the GM, either that or as a mechanic it is worthless and should never have been written.

The fact that it exists and makes that very act both more frequent and harder for the GM, rather than the opposite, makes it a bad rule.

Remember kids, it is the job of the rules to make the game BETTER, not make the GM work harder.

Time & availability must be taken into account.

Unfortunately the rules account for this in really stupid ways discussed earlier.

And a van full of gear is useless the moment its pc leaves it to explore caves, sewers, or an office building.

Leaving aside infinite wealth, because an adventuring modern PC band SHOULD be able to have a van full of gear to some degree...

No.

It IS and should be useful to have a van full of gear every time you do specialist activities you cannot bring the van itself into.

Van full of gear provides a selection of specialist equipment, as it should. So.

Explore Caves - Get flashlights, climbing gear, hard hats, etc...
Explore Sewers - Same stuff, maybe some diving gear, boots, raincoats etc...
Explore Office Building - Nice business suits, office worker disguises, surveillance equipment, concealable weapons, tool kits and lock picking tools, etc...

Van full of gear is only useless in a scenario where you either leave it AND have no idea what to expect, or when the GM petulantly takes your Van away from you.

[trappedslider]

e20 is apparently written by a guy who was one of the writers of Star Wars Saga Edition.

The forgettable edition of the d20 star wars franchise that no one plays and that was pointed at as some sort of commercial play test of moving d20 towards 4e mechanics.

No one plays SWSE..   clearly you haven't been to the WotC forums for it and seen how many folks appearently don't play it....never mind the fact its been called one of the best systems for Star Wars by a number of folks who've been playing SW since the WEG game...so yeah no one plays it

out of curiousity,what game system do you use?

[PhoneLobster]

Say what you like about literally the most biased sample group you can find in the entire world. But the official forum of the minority of Saga Edition fan boys means nothing. Saga edition IS a smaller edition than the prior one, if for no other reason than that the entire star wars franchise is somewhat floundering when it comes to related merchandise.

The d20 edition (including revised) of star wars was itself incredibly bad, on a similar level to d20 modern and for surprisingly similar reasons. But importantly saga edition didn't actually fix that. It just made it even more boring.

But people in my region PLAYED the d20 edition. Then Saga came out. They tried it for a couple of games... and then they just quietly stopped playing star wars.

Now if you want some more anecdotal WOTC related "evidence"...

Interestingly I recall hilariously that when Saga Edition came out it's (drooling) fans, on the WOTC forums in the best environment imaginable started a thread for a project to convert d20 D&D over to the "superior" and "popular" Saga edition rules.

And surrounded by fan boys rather unjustifiably excited about Saga Edition rules they got all of about 4 active contributors and lasted about a week and maybe 3 pages of posts. The "peak" of their project was suggesting that talents, you know those things that sometimes give you stuff like "+very small number to something stupid like aid another actions" should in some case grant entire D&D spell caster levels.

THAT is the quality, and quantity of the WOTC fan base for Saga edition.

[trappedslider]

since you seemed to have ignored my question in favor os point out that no none around you likes playing SWSE...I ask once more the following:

out of curiousity,what game system do you use?

[PhoneLobster]

What? Really that's the more interesting point? You don't care for actually discussing your claim that Saga edition is a very popular edition? Even my hilarious "Hey guyz lets make D&D Saga Edition!" story doesn't pique a jot of interest?

OK, whatever.

I mostly play what is still the most widely played version of D&D, 3.x with a ton of house rules. Like pretty much everyone else does.

Failing that I run Paranoia XP, Cthulhu (d20 edition with VERY heavy house ruling, and no d20 modern content, or the actual Chaosium stuff) and of course the odd bit of pure home brew.

Much like any GM with more than a decade of experience "What do you run?' is not an especially easy, informative or even interesting question to answer. Since after all the answer is basically "the same wide range of junk everyone else does".

[trappedslider]

What? Really that's the more interesting point? You don't care for actually discussing your claim that Saga edition is a very popular edition? Even my hilarious "Hey guyz lets make D&D Saga Edition!" story doesn't pique a jot of interest?

No it didn't pique my interest,because I already knew about it and when it started I wasn't interested. Maybe I should have put YMMV on SWSE being a popular edition? oddly enough... I haven't seen one any go "hey lets make 3.x rules fit the Star wars universe"......

I find it an interesting question because it helps me understand your view point in these types of dicussions. At frist I had you pegged as a GURPS player, not a D&D player. Oddly enough I play the following without any house rules : d20 modern, D&D 3.5,GURPS and SWSE. My players all enjoy them and so do I and it helps my further understanding of what elses is out there that I could give a shot....heck i'm currently thinking about getting the new Doctor Who RPG..

[PhoneLobster]

I haven't seen one any go "hey lets make 3.x rules fit the Star wars universe"......

Er, dude. WOTC themselves went and "said" that. Then they went and made not one but TWO editions of 3.x rules for the star wars universe.

Now those rules sucked, and as I said in ways VERY similar to the ways d20 modern sucks (stupid class balance, poorly hacked numbers pulled out of core d20 and then messed with without consideration for impact, weak tea techy classes, etc...).

But they existed. And they rode the back of the d20 RPG bubble and the general exuberance of Star Wars fanaticism before the prequels made Star Wars fans become all sullen and secretive. And that made them somewhat more of a big thing compared to the post d20, post prequel pseudo 4E boring trash fest that Saga edition is. Or should I say WAS because it is DEAD. Already.

[trappedslider]

yes i'm not going to argue with you about your thoughts on the issues so get over it and move on. You seem to have some very deep issues with any game that isn't something you like or its simpley with WotC....and why do you only post here once a year (which you stated in earlier post in this very thread) I mean theres more to this whole forum than this little section,which i helped with getting it created.

[PhoneLobster]

You guys rarely talk about anything interesting.

For all the big talk forum title wise there is little in the way of "Gameology" here. Much less actual "Brilliance".

I mean I don't want to sound so harsh but really, your community was founded on the wrong name, "Fairly narrow and typical small internet gaming community" would have been more appropriate.

I've been part of enough of those not to find, say, someone's discussion of some KOOL characters they whipped up in Mutants and Masterminds especially exciting.

[trappedslider]

You guys rarely talk about anything interesting.

For all the big talk forum title wise there is little in the way of "Gameology" here. Much less actual "Brilliance".

I mean I don't want to sound so harsh but really, your community was founded on the wrong name, "Fairly narrow and typical small internet gaming community" would have been more appropriate.

I've been part of enough of those not to find, say, someone's discussion of some KOOL characters they whipped up in Mutants and Masterminds especially exciting.

mind you most of this community is about min/maxing since it was born out of the ashes of the old C.D and C.O forums from the WotC forums,this section here the d20 forum was created out of a fear of the d20 modern fanbase losing our forums at WotC. I myself have no need for min/max so i don't vist the rest of the forums here.

[Bozwevial]

You guys rarely talk about anything interesting.

For all the big talk forum title wise there is little in the way of "Gameology" here. Much less actual "Brilliance".

I mean I don't want to sound so harsh but really, your community was founded on the wrong name, "Fairly narrow and typical small internet gaming community" would have been more appropriate.

I've been part of enough of those not to find, say, someone's discussion of some KOOL characters they whipped up in Mutants and Masterminds especially exciting.

Luckily, both my enjoyment of these forums and feeling of self-worth do not depend on your approval.

[PhoneLobster]

mind you most of this community is about min/maxing since it was born out of the ashes of the old C.D and C.O forums from the WotC forums

I am well aware of that and frankly wasn't interested in that community BEFORE, as a 4E promotional event, it broke into small pieces some of which came here.

I myself have no need for min/max so i don't vist the rest of the forums here.

Similarly I am much more interested in the discussion of what a rule does and how to change it than I am in discussion of how to min-max it. Min maxing is not bad, hell I will even say it's GOOD, but it IS largely a trivial and uninteresting affair.

Sudden declaration of self worth

Er... why did you just interrupt this conversation to insert that?

I mean I wouldn't actually have questioned your feeling of self worth, but when you go around behaving all insecure what with the sudden unprovoked public declarations of self validation... well...

[Bozwevial]

Er... why did you just interrupt this conversation to insert that?

I mean I wouldn't actually have questioned your feeling of self worth, but when you go around behaving all insecure what with the sudden unprovoked public declarations of self validation... well...

Cute. Because declaring the entire community "narrow" and uninteresting isn't a sudden unprovoked remark. It strikes me as odd how you're somehow startled that someone took offense to your remarks.

Also, kindly use my username the next time you feel like misquoting me.

[PhoneLobster]

It strikes me as odd how you're somehow startled that someone took offense to your remarks.

It strikes me as hilarious that someone who said he was utterly secure in his enjoyment of his community and in his sense of self worth takes openly offense so lightly.

Let's try a quick shorter summary to add comedic value...
TrappedSlider : "Why don't you post around here?"
Phonelobster : "It's boring here."
Bozwevial : "I feel good about this place and myself as a person regardless of what you say!"
Phonelobster : "That sounds insecure."
Bozwevial : "You attacked my community unprovoked! I am taking offense! YOU DIDN'T SAY MY NAME, SAY IT! SAY IT!"

Yeah... you know what the response of a person secure with their enjoyment of the community would be? Not to bother commenting that's what.

That I feel your community is narrow and uninteresting is not automatically an insult, and only an insecure person would respond to it as such.

[trappedslider]

It strikes me as odd how you're somehow startled that someone took offense to your remarks.

It strikes me as hilarious that someone who said he was utterly secure in his enjoyment of his community and in his sense of self worth takes openly offense so lightly.

Let's try a quick shorter summary to add comedic value...
TrappedSlider : "Why don't you post around here?"
Phonelobster : "It's boring here."
Bozwevial : "I feel good about this place and myself as a person regardless of what you say!"
Phonelobster : "That sounds insecure."
Bozwevial : "You attacked my community unprovoked! I am taking offense! YOU DIDN'T SAY MY NAME, SAY IT! SAY IT!"

Yeah... you know what the response of a person secure with their enjoyment of the community would be? Not to bother commenting that's what.

That I feel your community is narrow and uninteresting is not automatically an insult, and only an insecure person would respond to it as such.

yet you still post around here

[veekie]

Coz we keep feeding the troll is why.