Morte wrote:
"It seems to me that you're not objecting to T20 having Feats, an on/off mechanic that works alongside the variable Abilties and Skills (different tools for a different jobs). Rather, it seems that you object to what it used them for -- you think they're too hi-falutin' and melodramatic."
Mr. Morte,
Exactly! If only I could have explained it so succinctly then a lot of bandwidth would have been conserved.
"If I read you right, then your objection finally makes sense to me."
After reading your response, I'd say you are reading me correctly.
"So, assuming we're on the same wavelength... I can see why you got that impression, but I don't think it's actually quite as bad as you paint it."
Okay. Let's examine your examples...
"Uh, that one (the minions and followers feat - LEW) is entirely left out of the feat list Player's Handbook and put in the Dungeon Master's Guide as an option."
That feat is precisely the one discussed here at CotI. The original poster wanted to know how to apply it to the Traveller setting. When he was told it had no place in the Traveller setting; even Mr. Hunter Gordon agreed, the poster still wanted ideas about how to fit it into the Traveller setting.
Option or no, in the Player's Handbook or the DM's Guide, people will use it because it is part of the d20 rules set. The GM who decides to 'house rule' it out of effect will be forced to explain that to the PCs who want to use it. Even with the release of T20, the d20 system still requires the GM tweaks before her group can play Traveller in its original style.
"You'd have to rebalance it (various d20 feats - LEW) for T20 though. In D&D it's balanced against other feats because you get lower level followers and they take XP. Level is hugely important in D&D but it counts for less in T20."
But levels and feats are still there, imperfectly recast in different roles despite a valiant effort by the T20 authors and still carrying loads of play style baggage from d20. d20 is a superb set of rules, but d20 was never meant to be a generic set of rules. Rather than having a play style neutral system; as GURPS purports to be, that is then tweaked to handle various settings and styles, d20 is a specific play style system that is tweaked in an attempt to handle different play styles.
It's a clunky analogy, but I'll use foodstuffs to try and illustrate my point. A generic RPG system is tofu; it designed to have no specific 'taste'. The GM than 'flavors' it to create the 'taste' she requires; tweaking the generic system to produce a cinematic Flash Gordon on Mongo RPG session or a nitty-gritty cyberpunk setting. GURPS and FUDGE were designed from the ground up to be 'tofu'. (whether they succeeded or not is beyond the scope of this thread.)
Unlike FUDGE or GURPS, d20 was never designed to be tofu. It has a very distinct 'flavor' all its own. When a GM uses d20 to create another 'flavor', she must first remove the original d20 flavor and then impart the flavor she is trying to achieve. The two stage process that the faux-generic d20 requires; removing and adding instead of merely adding, is far more clunky and far less certain than the simple additive process that an actual generic system uses.
When using the faux-generic d20 and its offspring; T20, M20, etc., various bits and pieces remain despite the GM's flavoring attempts. It may be a Traveller setting, but 'minions and followers' can still be tasted! That is what I'm striving to explain, despite the best of intentions and the best of efforts, IMEHO there is still far too much of d20's flavor in the T20 style of play. I don't think that d20 can be changed at so deep a level, it is what it is. If this isn't true than questions about XP harvests or minions & followers would not have appeared on these fora.
Sincerely,
Larsen
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