Ichabod said:As I knew virtually nothing about how d20 worked in practice when I started playing Conan, I built a virtually unimaginably inefficient character to where if I could have redone things at around 3rd or 4th level, I would have changed attributes, classes, skills, feats, and weapon choice.
Try finding the TSR Conan game, or its "free" implementation, ZefRS. It cannot get simpler AND more conformant to Howard!quigs said:I'd recommend Savage Worlds as well. True20 was ok but Savage Worlds just seems to fit Conan a little too well to use anything else. One of my players created a Kothian soldier using the SW rules in about 10 mins, but his background description is taking way longer. Both of those are good things in my opinion. I can see why the SW slogan is Fast, Furious Fun!
I'm really sick of d20 games actually as they are far too granular for my taste. Same thing goes for d100 games (percentile games like Runequest). I'm a busy guy, so simple and fun are my 2 selling points right now.
A grittier and as classless as d20 can get system is in d20 CoC. Grittier than d20 Conan, grittier than BRP CoC, reduced feat lists, simplified mechanics. A very nice implementation of d20 (and the only one I like and play). I toyed with the idea of a d20 CoC campaign, but I never had the time to do it.
Excellent time. Obviously he did not read all of the feats or skills, what they could do, how they could be applied and combined etc. ?
Designing a well built character will take more time, though even then, it's not playing at 1st level that's so much the issue as projecting ahead what you want the character to look like at, say, 8th level that requires thinking about what you do at 1st level.
d20 was and is the most complicated rpg system on the planet. There are pros and cons to owning that title.
kintire said:No one in our group does that. You can produce a perfectly functioning character by producing a useful 1st level and then learning from play what you want to do better and developing you character to do so.
kintire said:Most complicated on the planet?
But, I understand where you are coming from. You could do this with feats. Leave the 1st level feat blank, and then when a character needs to use a particular feat, he can choose it when he wants.
In my experience, yes. d20 games are extremely complicated if you consider the tons and tons of books that are printed as additional rules. No other game system has the word count to keep up, even those you mentioned.
kintire said:The vast majority of added rules are character classes or feats, which do not need to concern anyone that doesn't possess those classes or feats.
That sure as heck wasn't the way it was back with AD&D. Players Handbook. Dungeon Master's Guide. Unearthed Arcana. Fighter's Guide. Thief's Guide. Cleric's Guide. Etc for each class (which would include stuff that could be used for all classes, like the fighter's guid and combat). Dungeoneer's Survival Guide. Wilderness Survival Guide.
And so on.
kintire said:You still only needed to know the tiny proportion that applied to the character you had.
Also, while I realise you don't quite accept this, if you talk about "D20" people WILL assume you mean Dungeons and Dragons 3.0 or later. That is when the game was rebranded as "d20".
Had 3.0 been this huge mechanical change (say, a complete change to a percentile system, or to only using 2d6 for all throws), then I'd understand the difference. But D&D 3.0 changes D&D no more so than did AD&D from D&D.
It's the same basic game.
kintire said:Well, I don't think D&D and AD&D are that close either. That's why they put the A in... as well as some pretty significant changes by the time you got to 2nd ed.
I'm not saying how different they are: I'm just saying that if you say "d20" pretty much everyone else will assume 3rd edition. Don't be surprised when they do.
Supplement Four said:I'm not saying how different they are: I'm just saying that if you say "d20" pretty much everyone else will assume 3rd edition. Don't be surprised when they do.
It's probably an age thing. Most of the youngsters started with 3E, and that's all they know. D&D and AD&D is ancient history to them.
It's still d20, though.
Style said:Kintire is right. I know several old timers who play AD&D to this day who would be offended if you told them they play D20. It's not an "age thing." It's not a "3e is all you know" thing. It's a "D20 has an accepted definition" thing. The accepted definition is the system which was created 8 years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D20_system
Style said:No one is arguing that they are not similar. It's just the accepted definition. If I call blue cheese swiss cheese, am I wrong, or is it group think?
It's "wrong" is the greater populace doesn't refer to the system used in D&D and AD&D as the d20 system.
Just my opinion of course. I mean, why rock the boat, right?
Sounds like the result of groupthink, to me.
