--- woodelf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: (in response to me, unattributed)
> >Look, I'm sorry, but cries of "I >need< WOTC stuff to write my module." are > >going to fall on deaf ears with me. It's like Tom Clancy crying because > >Stephen King won't let him steal the "Dark Tower" concept. "But I > >have to have > >it." > > no, the complaint is closer to "I can't write a sequel to Dark Tower > without using the Dark Tower", analogously. WOTC won't let you use FRealms, so you can't write sequels to their idiosyncratic setting. What you can do is write "generic" DnD modules, using generic DnD creatures, and include your own monsters. (or create whole new worlds or a whole new idiosyncratic campaign world- like the Iron Kingdoms.) Insisting that the (maybe) 5% of creatures insufficiently described (and thus unusuable as-is) prevents someone from writing modules means either a.) they are without talent or b.) they simply like complaining. I refuse to swallow the claim that because Illithids (Illithi?), Gith, and a handful of other monsters are, in effect, reserved constitutes a massive barrier to their module writing. If it does, they need to be in a different business. > it's *WotC* who said "please, write lots of stuff > based on our IP, 'cause it does us good. people are complaining > because, in their opinion, WotC has made it very hard for people to > do what WotC says they want people to do. If 5% stops you from being as good writer, well, that's not WOTC's fault. I agree, it may make it more difficult to recycle modules written in years past as published products, but the majority of monsters are sufficiently described...and you should be able to make up the difference. Since well-written monsters are compatible with the core rules (tremorsense properly apllied and so forth) you should be able to craft new, interesting monsters on your own. Ignore the 5% and create more. > >Again, this business is one of creativity and originality. > > so why use D20? For the same reason I don't code my own OS and wordprocessor. I want to create, not dink around reinventing the wheel when WordPerfect and MS Word are perfectly servicible word processors. Different systems of role-playing are like different languages- you always lose something translating from one to the other. I feel that d20 has flaws- most of them due to the "sacred cows" Adkison insisted remain in 3rd Ed DnD- but the fact that I can now play Deadlands, Weird Wars, WOT, DnD, Star Wars, Fading Suns using the same "language" and borrow from each book in my own home campaign and borrow from most books in a published work means that I can do what I feel is mnost creative- craft new worlds, NPCs, plotlines, monsters- without worrying about the probability spread of 2d12 and whether that would make a better core roll than 3d6. In other words, forming new game mechanics (or a whole new game) is creative. Creating a new campaign (say, Dragonstar) is creative as well, even if they didn't craft a whole new rules set for the game. > >Isn't that better then using a 20-year old monster? > > agreed, mostly. two caveats: one, how does your argument not apply > to using the D20 System in general? two, sometimes, a new twist on > an old concept is as or more creative than a new concept. And the SRD "Monster Manual" doesn't prevent this...as my variant descriptions of "Mind Flayer" show. ===== Jasyn Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail! http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/ _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
