[MUD-Dev] d20

[Michael Tresca]

Travis Casey posted on Wednesday, August 15, 2001 10:17 PM

> Actually, I was thinking of Chaosium, but I was wrong -- in fact,
> *no* other companies have released a d20 RPG at this point.  Note
> that I'm saying RPG, not supplement -- plenty of people have
> released D&D supplements using the d20 STL, but no major company
> has released an actual *game*.

Submitted for your review:

  http://www.alderac.com/corporate/produpdates.html

D20 Farscape Role-Playing Game

  http://www.peginc.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=S&Product_Code=DD&Category_Code=DD

  Deadlands D20

Those aren't supplements.  They are struggling however because
players are having difficulty understanding that they have to buy
two fantasy RPG books to play a sci-fi or western RPG.

> Does anyone care about the "d20 System"?  We simply don't know yet.
> The "d20 System" materials that people are buying are D&D materials.
> We know D&D is popular and well-known, so the fact that D&D
> supplements can sell is no surprise.  Would the "d20 System" logo
> help anyone producing a *different* game, though?

See above.  Those are very different games from D&D. Early buzz is
that D20 does sell and not just for D&D.

As a role-player, I enjoyed playing games like Temple of Apshai that
allowed me to "solo" my character, then transfer them back into our
role-playing campaign.  This was great if you came into the game
late for some reason and wanted to adventure your character up to a
level similar to the other PCs (rather than just make a character
from scratch and slap a level on him).

As I see it, the question is twofold:

  1) Is D20 a brand that will draw RPGers to CRPGs?

    I believe so, if it's done in a supplement format.  Any MUD that
    wants to use the D20 system should take advantage of this
    marketing point: "Compatible with your Dungeons & Dragons
    characters!" Heck, if you're really feeling destructive you
    could have PCs bring their characters into your game with
    approval (good luck with that one).

  2) Are RPGers a large enough market that they warrant a RPG-brand
  in a CRPG?

    I doubt it.  Another interesting facet of some of the "start
    your own company" gaming seminars at Gen Con revealed that the
    amount of overlap between gaming types (card games, role-playing
    games, computer games, tabletop miniatures) has some, but not
    much, crossover.  They're not in competition for players.  And
    as some posts demonstrated awhile ago, MUDders are not RPGers
    are not card gamers are not tabletop gamers.  There's no clear
    trend between the groups.  And then there's the "barrier to
    entry" in terms of pricing: buy one CRPG and start playing or
    buy three game books for the same price (or more, $60+) and
    spend a lot of preparation just to get the game started.

Over time, as game companies become larger and begin to merge media,
we'll probably see more cross-seeding between game/entertainment
types.  Except when it comes to movies.  The Dungeons & Dragons
movie killed any hope of that.

Mike "Talien" Tresca
RetroMUD Administrator
<http://www.retromud.org/talien>


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