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The d20 concept isn't necessarily a bad one: take the structure of the oldest and best known role-playing game, Dungeons and Dragons, and use that as the generic backbone for any number of games. It's a great idea but it does fall somewhat short in reality.

First, the trappings of D&D tend to follow the d20 system. If you decide to create a science-fiction game using d20 concepts, you end up creating what feels like D&D with a sci-fi overlay. Your races may be alien instead of magical and you may have psychic powers instead of spells but, when all is said and done, you are often just playing a Dungeons and Dragons game with a new paint job.

Second, there are concepts in other genres that don't get translated well from D&D (or the d20 system). When dealing fighting space pirates with laser guns, you can pretty easily use the same concepts when fighting some orcs with crossbows (just without having to worry about reloading every round). However, if I want to chase that space pirate's ship with my armored space cruiser, there isn't a decent parallel. (Sure, you can think of flying mounts in D&D but it doesn't hold up. In most space opera, you are dealing with a flight crew and ship capabilities versus the crew and capabilities of the enemy. With a flying mount, there isn't quite the same multiplayer combination. Besides, what happens when the ships hit hyperspace?)

Third, some aspects of the d20 system are inflexible. The six stats, classes, levels, etc. are a great framework but can be constricting from a design standpoint. I've been playing RPGs for around 30 years which has given me opportunities to see a wide variety of gaming systems: some using only d6s, some point-based systems, some games where combats were resolved using Rock, Paper & Scissors instead of dice. I've seen systems so flexible that they lacked all cohesion and systems so rigid that there was no choice in gameplay.

All in all, I'd have to say that d20, as a generic system, ends up being too rigid. Not drastically so, but enough that if you want to write a game using a d20 backbone that is more than a genre-hopping version of D&D, you have to make so many changes that it no longer seems to be a d20 game.

On the other hand, it should be known that for three decades I have played D&D. I've dallied with other systems but D&D remains my first love and is the one I always come back to. I may gripe about some game mechanics, but I always end up back at the table the next week (not begrudgingly, I really want to come to the game). A system with that kind of draw will continue to attract players even if you are simply doing a dungeon crawl with a facelift.

Learn more about this author, Steven Laskoske.
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