Flynn,
I happen to agree with nearly everything you say and T20 is the best thing to happen to Traveller since the demise of GDW. (Sorry GURPS, more people collect your stuff than play it.)
If anything thing else seemed to implied in my last posts, please blame it on poor prose on my part.
Thanks to T20, we've got oodles of new products, great adventures being published monthly (get a TA subscription if you already haven't folks, nary a clunker in the lot), and a vibrant fan base again. What's not to like?
All that follows is IMEHO:
It's just that d20 for Traveller isn't for me. That's all. It's the bee knees for other folks and more power to them. It just isn't Traveller for me that's all.
If I had a Heroic-Fantasy-Cinematic campaign going; and I'm toying with the background for one, d20 would be the ticket. That's what it was developed over thirty years for and this sudden spate of retcons and slapdash rules addendums to create M20, T20, and all the rest can't change that.
d20 isn't bad; far from it, it's damn good, but like any other RPG system it can be applied badly. By taking d20 out of its genre - no matter what tweaks you apply - you are applying d20 badly.
As a looonnngg time grognard (how does '71/'72 grab yah?) I'm baffled by folks' resistence to learn new rules. It's mind boggling. It's like trying to play blackjack but steadfastly refusing to let an ace be counted as one 'cause you learned it as eleven and don't care to learn anything else. It's parochial, it's narrow minded, and it's intellectually LAZY.
With wargames you learned new rules with nearly every purchase. There were enough commonalities between rule systems that knowing one system let you learn the next more quickly. The same holds true for RPGs, once you've played one you have a pretty good handle on the idea and can more quickly learn the others.
What I'm trying to say is 'horses for courses', 'the right tool for the right job', and 'one size does not fit all'. Different RPG genres are better handled by RPG different rules, just as in wargames different rules are used to handle different genres and different scales.
(SPI published a universal wargame in the 70s whose name escapes me. You could supposedly play out Marathon, Jutland, strategic bombing, NATO/Pact, Waterloo and all the rest with the same rules, map, and counters. Why does the name escape me? Because the game was a freakin' waste of paper and ink! By trying to be everything, it was nothing!)
I have another theory as to why people are resistant to learning new rules; latent munchkinism. You can be a munchkin with any RPG system once you learn how to 'hack' the system in question. (You can hack wargame rules too; after 30+ years AH's Afrikacorps resembles chess with players resigning in two or three moves once their opening gambit fails) d20, due to it's basic Heroic-Fantasy nature, rewards borderline munchkin behavior with levels and XPs. That makes d20 easier to 'hack'. Some folk's reticence about learning or using another system than d20 arises from the fact that they've 'hacked' that system and do not want to give up that unfair edge. They'd rather use RPG system that may be poorly suited for the genre at hand so they can continue using the 'hacks' they've already learned.
Here's one to muse over; Are all the cheat codes in every computer game the same? Why should they be?
You are right, I am griping. But am I not anti-d20 nor have I ever been. However, I am saddened to see the Windows business model come to gaming, I'm saddened to see people being too lazy to explore other systems that might suit a particular genre better, and I'm saddened to see people holding on to a poorly suited system just so they can employ the 'cheat codes' they're familiar with.
Have fun,
Bill
I happen to agree with nearly everything you say and T20 is the best thing to happen to Traveller since the demise of GDW. (Sorry GURPS, more people collect your stuff than play it.)
If anything thing else seemed to implied in my last posts, please blame it on poor prose on my part.
Thanks to T20, we've got oodles of new products, great adventures being published monthly (get a TA subscription if you already haven't folks, nary a clunker in the lot), and a vibrant fan base again. What's not to like?
All that follows is IMEHO:
It's just that d20 for Traveller isn't for me. That's all. It's the bee knees for other folks and more power to them. It just isn't Traveller for me that's all.
If I had a Heroic-Fantasy-Cinematic campaign going; and I'm toying with the background for one, d20 would be the ticket. That's what it was developed over thirty years for and this sudden spate of retcons and slapdash rules addendums to create M20, T20, and all the rest can't change that.
d20 isn't bad; far from it, it's damn good, but like any other RPG system it can be applied badly. By taking d20 out of its genre - no matter what tweaks you apply - you are applying d20 badly.
As a looonnngg time grognard (how does '71/'72 grab yah?) I'm baffled by folks' resistence to learn new rules. It's mind boggling. It's like trying to play blackjack but steadfastly refusing to let an ace be counted as one 'cause you learned it as eleven and don't care to learn anything else. It's parochial, it's narrow minded, and it's intellectually LAZY.
With wargames you learned new rules with nearly every purchase. There were enough commonalities between rule systems that knowing one system let you learn the next more quickly. The same holds true for RPGs, once you've played one you have a pretty good handle on the idea and can more quickly learn the others.
What I'm trying to say is 'horses for courses', 'the right tool for the right job', and 'one size does not fit all'. Different RPG genres are better handled by RPG different rules, just as in wargames different rules are used to handle different genres and different scales.
(SPI published a universal wargame in the 70s whose name escapes me. You could supposedly play out Marathon, Jutland, strategic bombing, NATO/Pact, Waterloo and all the rest with the same rules, map, and counters. Why does the name escape me? Because the game was a freakin' waste of paper and ink! By trying to be everything, it was nothing!)
I have another theory as to why people are resistant to learning new rules; latent munchkinism. You can be a munchkin with any RPG system once you learn how to 'hack' the system in question. (You can hack wargame rules too; after 30+ years AH's Afrikacorps resembles chess with players resigning in two or three moves once their opening gambit fails) d20, due to it's basic Heroic-Fantasy nature, rewards borderline munchkin behavior with levels and XPs. That makes d20 easier to 'hack'. Some folk's reticence about learning or using another system than d20 arises from the fact that they've 'hacked' that system and do not want to give up that unfair edge. They'd rather use RPG system that may be poorly suited for the genre at hand so they can continue using the 'hacks' they've already learned.
Here's one to muse over; Are all the cheat codes in every computer game the same? Why should they be?
You are right, I am griping. But am I not anti-d20 nor have I ever been. However, I am saddened to see the Windows business model come to gaming, I'm saddened to see people being too lazy to explore other systems that might suit a particular genre better, and I'm saddened to see people holding on to a poorly suited system just so they can employ the 'cheat codes' they're familiar with.
Have fun,
Bill
