{"id":5339,"date":"2004-04-05T08:15:56","date_gmt":"2004-04-05T15:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2004\/04\/05\/amber-thoughts.html"},"modified":"2004-04-05T08:15:56","modified_gmt":"2004-04-05T15:15:56","slug":"amber_thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/04\/05\/amber_thoughts.html","title":{"rendered":"Amber thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Via Doyce<\/a>, posts on 20×20 <\/a>about the GoO\/ADRPG deal, and the Unspeakable Horror That Is a D20 Amber Monstrosity.<\/p>\n

Jeez, guys, give it a rest. The level of D20 animus out there is way out of proportion.<\/p>\n

So D20 is not the be-all and end-all of RPGs. I accept that, and, in fact, agree with it. But when I read the comments of a bunch of folks basically saying “D20 sux! ADRPG roolz! And never the twain shall meet!” the contrarian in me gets a bit irked. <\/p>\n

As GURPS has demonstrated, you can make a rules-heavy dense-mechanics system work with just about anything. And D20 is a lot less crunchy than GURPS. You may lose in D20 the carefree flexibility that seems to work so well with ADRPG — but that’s a flavor question, not a realm-of-possibility question (and is not necessarily less canonical to the books <\/i>than ADRPG).<\/p>\n

D20 is not the Antichrist. It’s not the End Times. It’s not a plot by the Elder Gods. It’s a game system. A commercially successful and fairly flexible and playable game system. Getting all religious about D20 strikes me akin to debates about Windows vs Mac vs Linux. Find what you enjoy, and be happy, but don’t turn it into the central ideology of your life, or part of some Great Manichaean Struggle. GoO issuing a D20 Amber version (particularly in parallel <\/i>to a new edition of ADRPG) is a commercial judgment, just like the decision to publish a particular game for Windows (or the Mac); the Amber Police aren’t going to pry your worn copies of the original rules out of your fingers to throw on a bonfire somewhere, and if it juices up interest in the setting or the game itself, that’s only a good thing, right?<\/p>\n

I don’t mind reasoned arguments as to the suitability or flavor of different systems and how they would support a given setting or set of tales (Doyce’s suggestion of using Trollbabe <\/a><\/i>is an interesting one). But knee-jerk universal judgments about these sorts of things strike me as — well, silly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Via Doyce, posts on 20×20 about the GoO\/ADRPG deal, and the Unspeakable Horror That Is a D20 Amber Monstrosity. Jeez, guys, give it a rest. The level of D20 animus…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gaming"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5688,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/01\/23\/pithy.html","url_meta":{"origin":5339,"position":0},"title":"Pithy","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 23-Jan-04 8:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"This week's Game WISH: Sum up one or more games that you GM or play in 10 words or less. (Three is best, but not everybody is that pithy.) Don\u2019t...","rel":"","context":"In "Gaming"","block_context":{"text":"Gaming","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gaming"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3349,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/12\/16\/fan_service_of.html","url_meta":{"origin":5339,"position":1},"title":"Fan Service of Gor","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 16-Dec-02 2:11pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Yikes. There's a D20 Sourcebook coming out based on Jon Norman's Gor series? Yeesh. 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Role Playing...","rel":"","context":"In "Gaming"","block_context":{"text":"Gaming","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gaming"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6065,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/06\/01\/appreciative_au.html","url_meta":{"origin":5339,"position":4},"title":"Appreciative Audience","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 1-Jun-04 6:06am","format":false,"excerpt":"My folks, who were in town for the holiday weekend (and Katherine's birthday), sat in on part of my game on Sunday. And, amazingly, seem to have enjoyed it, or...","rel":"","context":"In "Gaming"","block_context":{"text":"Gaming","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gaming"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7291,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/04\/05\/return_to_amber.html","url_meta":{"origin":5339,"position":5},"title":"Return to Amber","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 5-Apr-05 11:07pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Ambercon forum on where GoO is taking Amber Diceless Role-Playing. Sounds like a labor of love, struggling against economic realities and the possibility that time has finally passed ADRPG (as...","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}