Why, Oh Why d20

[rpgstarwizard]

Ok, I guess I understand, but I aint goin, can't make me. LOL Though I think d20 is fine, and way better than that new edition, <cough, gag, weez>. Do you really think d20 i the best way to go. I love the system from TRI TAC, and I pick and choose.

[Wasahbe Green]

Because the fanbase likes d20 enough to do the conversions and playtest and send Richard manuscripts.  It's bringing new business for the rest of the line, too.  

Me, I've played everything from 1st edition to d20 3.5.  I've DMed most of them and bought the books for 4th ed.  Then I switched over to Savage Worlds and am writing up characters for Richard and myself for a Slipstream game this Sunday.  

[roadford01]

I have always been an advocate for the D20 system.  To me it has enough crunchy bits, and customizable bits to make any one happy.

[BruceSheffer]

Ok, I guess I understand, but I aint goin, can't make me. LOL Though I think d20 is fine, and way better than that new edition, <cough, gag, weez>. Do you really think d20 i the best way to go. I love the system from TRI TAC, and I pick and choose.

Outside of its own system, Tri Tac has always been system agnostic.  D20 Modern was the best fit regarding popularity and having enough crunchy bits to let the players create the characters they wanted.  I've heard good things about Savage worlds, but I didn't think it had enough of a fan base to help us bring in new players.  I've heard now that someone is doing a savage worlds conversion.  Couldn't be happier.

[orkybrothers]

I personally do not like the d20 system. Granted there are some games out there that a greatly improved by D20. But I do not believe the tri tac systems are such. I foresee a large surge then a drop when the novelty wears off. Here is the reasoning.

In the tri tac system there are no "classes" You get to Choose your skills and the like.

In the d20 system if you don't take the "fast track" and build a character exactly as the book tells you. You get screwed in the system at higher levels. I was a play tester for a few of the modules that came out for d20.

I.E.
In order to cover our group should a squad mate go down after being smacked by a monster I cross trained my thief. This course proved to be a wise one. However, when we came across a lock that proved to be very difficult to open. The DM snidely quipped, "Thats why you fast track your character skills."

I would rather play a game with SET difficulties and a choice of what skills I wish to put in my characters. Rather than a game that tells you how what skills you are LIMITED to and how far you can advance in them. Lastly the D20 games seem to be geared for the poor DM sliding difficulty scale grudge monster crowd so to speak.

I seem to remember having this discussion with Mr. Sheffer somewhere way back in 86 to 89. Our college group was playing Stalking, FTL, and Fringeworthy just about every day.

In closing I am very glad to Tri tac coming back. But I don't see the D20 surge lasting all that long.

[orkybrothers]

Sorry It was between 94 to 97. Our college group was playing Stalking, FTL, and Fringeworthy just about every day. I miss those days.

Every game group we went to we introduced Tri tac Games. Then after a while we could not find the books. Now that every thing is back I will persevere and keep advertising tri tac to all the gamers I can find.

But as I said. Look where the D20 is now. I can get the entire d20 group of books downloaded for free now. Thats all of them.

It is easier to convert to Tri tac than to convert from tri tac. Because you lose so much that makes tri tac so good.

[Wasahbe Green]

From what I understand, new editions of Tri Tac games will either be system agnostic or Savaged.  Richard will probably publish d20 versions of games if the conversions are worked up and play tested elsewhere and handed to him, as were B13d20 and FWd20.  But he doesn't play d20 and has no interest in learning the system. 

[orkybrothers]

I did not wish to disrespect anyone in the boards when I posted my comments.

In the 8 groups of gamers we have had we found that there were a fair number of bad DM's.
They fell in love with their story, were very inconsistent with difficulty ratings and chastised players and/or the entire group when a solution was found that circumvented there game.

A good DM can roll with this and make the game very exciting for the players. A poor dm plays as an adversary and launches grudge monsters. A friend of mine says she is suffering a dm like this in her husbands group.

We have played D20 call of cathulu, Darwin's world, D&D, sorcery and steel, Starship Troopers and A lot of others. The play and outcomes have been pretty consistent. We only purchase the games for source material.

I have yet to see B13D20 OR FWD20. For I like to read how things are set up to make an informed comment.

Thank you all for putting up with me.

[BruceSheffer]

I personally do not like the d20 system. Granted there are some games out there that a greatly improved by D20. But I do not believe the tri tac systems are such. I foresee a large surge then a drop when the novelty wears off. Here is the reasoning.

In the tri tac system there are no "classes" You get to Choose your skills and the like.

In the d20 system if you don't take the "fast track" and build a character exactly as the book tells you. You get screwed in the system at higher levels. I was a play tester for a few of the modules that came out for d20.

I.E.
In order to cover our group should a squad mate go down after being smacked by a monster I cross trained my thief. This course proved to be a wise one. However, when we came across a lock that proved to be very difficult to open. The DM snidely quipped, "Thats why you fast track your character skills."

I would rather play a game with SET difficulties and a choice of what skills I wish to put in my characters. Rather than a game that tells you how what skills you are LIMITED to and how far you can advance in them. Lastly the D20 games seem to be geared for the poor DM sliding difficulty scale grudge monster crowd so to speak.

I seem to remember having this discussion with Mr. Sheffer somewhere way back in 86 to 89. Our college group was playing Stalking, FTL, and Fringeworthy just about every day.

In closing I am very glad to Tri tac coming back. But I don't see the D20 surge lasting all that long.

Hi there.  Nice to hear from you.

so at what levels are you speaking of this happening?  I've run a lot of sessions at 6-8 level and it's worked great.  Granted, the only way to start off a d20 game as an expert is to start off at higher level.  That is a limitation of any class/level based systems.

The biggest difficulty we had with d20 was not letting the players start with the advanced class of Explorer.  We handled that by providing package called IDET Training that gifted the characters with a number of essential feats and made a bunch of skills permanent skills that would not be treated as cross class again.  This boon boosted the effective character level (ECL) by +2.  So a 6th level character would be treated as an 8th level for experience, threat, etc.  The result was that the characters were grounded in the essential skills and feats of an explorer and could wait a few levels to qualify for the actual explorer advanced class.

note that in d20 you are never limited in what skills you can have, just what levels of skills you can have.  D20 Modern (not vanilla d20), which is the system you are supposed to use, has a lot of class and general feats that boost the effective level of your skills, so that a character with a 1 in a skill could have an effective level of 10+ once you add in stat bonus + skill emphasis + general feat + masterwork equipment bonus + other assisting + etc.

little known fact (just joking).  Level 1 in skill means that if you roll 11+ to assist provides +2 to anothers skill check (for each person making the assist - reasonability issues decided by GM).

So work that system, whatever you use.

[trav13369]

The d20 system, for me, is great for this universe of TriTac games, because when you go out on the Fringepaths, or requisition something from Bangor-Maine, there are SO MANY third party books that you can draw from.  Also, there are a multitude of game settings, from modern to fantasy to post-apocalyptic to space, that adventure ideas surround you.  In the case of agents of whatever agency your PC's are involved in (the Bureau, ISCO, or IDET), there's so much you can augment your agents with, from the plethora of d20 publications.

I determined that Bureau 13 is PL 7, which means you can get PL 8 tech as "cutting-edge" prototypes that are a bit more expensive.  Also, the now-defunct Perpetrated Press put out two books for technomagic, Arsenal (for technomagic weaponry and armor), and Factory (for TM computers, bionics- called dweoware, robots, and powered armor). Agents with dweoware can be just as powerful, if not MORESO, than cyber-agents.

Also, the Second World Sourcebook is fabulous for integrating D&D and D20 Modern, thereby making cross-genre adventures.  The author allows his concepts to be open, and some of his concepts have been included in Bureau 13 d20.  I use the Second World (the fantasy parallel of Earth in the SWB) as a place Bureau agents can go to, and, with its prohibition to above-clockwork level tech, and certain powers one can gain in the Second World, you could feasibly have modern day tech in a fantasy world (imagine a modern-day black ops team, with dweoware, doing a dungeon crawl).

The d20 system is nearly limitless in what can be done in a game.  You just have to watch HOW much you put in, that is the job of the GM/DM.