> Er...no. This is the point I'm trying to make. You want my money, right?
>
> I realize that's a little blunt, but after all the point of using the D20
> logo is to try and tap into the D&D market base. If you want to
> do that, you
> should be thinking first and foremost about the needs of that
> market you're
> trying to serve. The less a D20 product has to be compatible with the
> baseline, the less valuable that logo is to a prospective publisher and to
> the consumer.
But compatible means different things to different people, and any solution
which results in a 'compatibility' guide is going to need people to make
subjective evaluations of their compliance. The wrong people. They are the
wrong people because they are the designers and authors of the product,
rather than the users of the product. Their views are contaminated by the
entire design process - only the consumer can say for sure whether or not a
product is compatible, and even then if you put a dozen gamers into a room,
you're going to get a dozen different opinions of how 'compatible' it is.
Compatibility works fine for adventure modules, but once you start throwing
prestige classes, spells, monsters, magic items, combat rules, psionics, and
n-dimensional physics into the fray, compatibility becomes too subjective to
be useful.
I would argue that Dark Sun is not compatible with Greyhawk, Planescape with
Forgotten Realms, nor Spelljammer with Ravenloft, yet all of these are
undeniably D&D. This is because compatibility is more than just mechanics,
it is also about balance. Your opinion is probably slightly different than
mine, which demonstrates my point precisely.
> But if you (say) rolled all statistics on a D12, for example, then I can't
> port things between worlds without additional work, and then it's
> not useful
> to me.
Perhaps, but if the book is about weak goblinoids, then perhaps a d12 is the
appropriate range relative to their human counterparts.
> Or if instead of having just new spells, you dump the spell level
> system and
> replace it with a point system, then I can't use the spells in your system
> with any other D20 product.
Again, perhaps, perhaps not. If it used spell points but normal spells this
might work just fine.
> But I would argue that D20 branded products should be intended to
> act as accessories or add-ons to D&D and not tweak for the sake
> of tweaking.
And I would argue that d20 should represent a set of games that play in the
same way, rather than be perfectly compatible with each other.
> > Also, if they are other consumers on this list like Kevin Brennan I'd
> > love to hear your thoughts and concerns on all of this.
I've been a consumer since my gaming days began, and while I play D&D, I
have also played Top Secret, Traveler, Shadowrun, and countless others.
What *I* want from d20 is the knowledge that when I pick up that book I know
it will have familiar conventions, but not necessarily be drop-in compatible
with the D&D world. The text on the back of the book will tell me that.
Perhaps there is a neutral phrase that WotC would approve beyond the
"Requires the PHB", something like "intended for use with D&D" would be
nice, but I think the d20 will be plenty valuable as a consumer mark without
it.
-Brad
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