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We should add the conflict between d20 fans and anti-d20 ones.
Why? It would be rather difficult to talk about it with an NPOV.
Learn to spell Positron! Dice is plural for die! 64.26.170.157 21:29, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The d20 system is regulated by Wizards of the Coast, as demonstrated by the incident with Valar Project's "Book of Erotic Fantasy". WotC informed Valar that they could not use the d20 designation or logos, as the product did not meet with the standards that WotC developed for the d20 system. As a consequence, Valar published the book under OGL, but without any mention or logos of the d20 system.
Uh, nice bias with the edit there. Somebody needs to go weasel-hunting.
This section seems biased, but I do not want to go through altering things since I do not know everything about the subject (and I'd like to reach a consensus rather than go in editting blindly). Anyway, my opinions:
Anyway, to me as-is this section feels more like an individual's view of the history of d20 rather than an objective stance at the history of d20. (Note that this is just how the section feels, not how I feel the writer's intent was.) Thoughts? -- CronoDekar 03:04, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The die system is much older than the wiki suggests. It was first introduced in the original TSR release of Dungeons & Dragons... NOT in WotC's release after buying out TSR! 24.102.197.198 ( talk) 19:59, 6 May 2014 (UTC)Lord Tigon, DM
To get around the 'technical limitations' stated under the title, why not just call it "The d20 System", then you do not need the disclaimer beneath the title that says the title is wrong.
--Because that would alphabetize it in the wrong place. The word "The" is never put at the beginning of an article title. Vaxalon 17:58, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
Actually, because the system uses multiple dice rather than d20 exclusive, the system should be named a Multiple Dice (MD) system. Calling it a d20 system negates the possibility of someone creating a game using the d20 exclusively.
24.102.197.198 (
talk) 20:02, 6 May 2014 (UTC) Lord Tigon, DM
The Open Gaming License should either get its own article, or a mention in this one; there are at least three systems out there that use it besides D20.
Never mind. I should read before I write. Vaxalon 17:58, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
The article is incorrect: the SPECIAL system used in Fallout is based on d10 and d100 rolling and there is no "fixed" base challenge(an equivalent of "DC15" in d20) as the use of percentile dice for skills quickly makes that useless. While the systems do have things in common, the way the article is worded - "a near one-to-one game mechanics correspondence" - implies a far greater similarity than actually exists. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.40.237.72 ( talk) 08:20, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
From the article: This is generally (though not universally) considered to be superior to the first- and second- edition AD&D "THAC0" mechanic. (From a mathematical standpoint, the two are actually identical - however, the d20 System version was designed to be quicker and easier to use and to make estimating probablities a more intuitive process.)
From what I remember, the 1st ed. Thac0 table did some funky nonlinear stuff at certain points, and so aren't mathematicly equivalent. I remember reading a quote about how the 2nd ed. writers looked at the tables and despaired. ^_^ The revised tables they came up with are equivalent to the 3rd ed. system. I guess I'll edit the parenthetical comment to be more pedanticly correct.
I really think this page needs a big clean up. First off, it should be a discussion on the d20 System itself - mainly it's mechanics and rules - See how GURPS, Tri-Stat dX pages are set up for an example. About 70% of this article is complaints and commentary about the Open Game Licence which already has it's own page and some of this writing is reworded there anyway. Cyberia23 18:07, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
While 'd20 System' is the name of a role-playing system licenced by Wizards of the Coast's the term 'd20' relates only to a 20 sided die and is not a tradmark owned by them. Please use d20 System throughout the article as writing 'd20 system' or 'd20 licence' may cause confusion to people.
BTW: The correct name of the licence is the d20 System Trademark Licence (or 'd20STL' if you want to abbreviate it). Big_Mac 04:17, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
'd20' should not, in my opinion, redirect to this page as 'd20' relates to the dice used by role players rather than to Wizard of the Coasts role playing system. I think there should be a disambiguity page at d20 instead of a redirect.
This redirect is a legally sensitive issue. Some people on the OGL mailing list seem to believe that frequent use of the term 'd20' when refering to the 'd20 System' may give Wizards of the Coast some sort of excuse to make a legal claim over any roleplaying tradmarks used by other role playing companies that begin with 'd20'. Changing the redirect on the 'd20' page will stop Wikipedia getting in the middle of a potential future conflict and make sure Wikipedia remains neutral on this subject.
FYI, Wizards of the Coast uses the spelling "Roleplaying" in its d20 products. For example, they officially call their "modern" game the "d20 Modern Roleplaying Game. They likewise spell the word "roleplaying" in their D&D products and on their official website. Therefore I changed the spelling to "roleplaying" to match the company's preferred spelling (except in the category listings). Dugwiki 16:15, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
The article currently states "...the SRD is drawn from the Dungeons & Dragons books Player's Handbook v3.5, Expanded Psionics Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide v3.5, Monster Manual v3.5, Deities and Demigods v3.0, and Epic Level Handbook."
The current text implies that it is acceptable to take some content from the core rulebooks, but nothing in the core rulebooks. However, this is not actually the case. While the rules of the SRD work in an identical manner to the ones in the Core Rulebooks (PHB, DMG, MM, etc) the actual text is not the same.
WotC actually used their original source material to create their core rulebooks (which are not part of the SRD and may not be used under the OGL) and the SRD which is a totally different document (in a legal sense) and can be used under the OGL. The D&D books and SRD were published at different times, have different copyright statements and are treated as different things by the OGL. The SRD is not drawn from those books it is a paralel publication that shares a common source.
(This may sound like nit-picking, but it isn't. It is an explanation of the complex way that the SRD and core rulebooks work together for players of the D&D game, but can not be interchanged by game developers. It is a subject that continually confuses people new to game publishing and the subject continually resurfaces on the mailing list of the Open Game Foundation, where established publishers help out new designers.)
d20 System publishers can use the SRD or MSRD but can never use anything from the core rulebooks (as they "contain no Open Game Content"). The only publisher that doesn't have to obey this rule is Wizards of the Coast itself.
(Incidentally this also means that d20 System books from WotC do not need to contain the Open Game Licence but d20 System books from anyone else do need an OGL. All publishers except WotC therefore have to comply with two licences to keep using the trademark. I don't think the article currently states the two tier nature of the d20 System at this time. This should be added to the article - but should be added in a neutral way that doesn't imply that WotC are bad for creating a two tier system. You might be able to cite this as part of the reason for the complaints, but you need to come up with a source to do that.)
BTW: Any company that wants to use any other WotC material can not do it via the d20STL and things like the Ravenloft books needed a special agreement (between Wizards and the publisher). The Ravenloft product line isn't currently mentioned in this article. The Ravenloft publisher may be able to provide you with details of this agreement. (The basic facts are that the Ravenloft Campaign Setting is a TSR setting that Wizards currently don't want to use, but still own. The existance of the private agreement between Wizards and the publisher, which I think is Sword and Sorcery Studios, could provide further understanding to the reader.)
Confusion between the SRD and core rulebooks is one of the reasons why some would be d20 System publishers find difficulty starting up. The other problem being confusion about finding and removing PI hidden within OGC from non-SRD sources. I think it would be worth mentioning confusion caused by the d20 System within the article and covering these points.
Big Mac 01:27, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
I replaced the phrase "many publishers abandoning the d20 system" with "some publishers...." The reason is that currently the article only cites one example of a publisher who previously used the d20 system opting to possibly not use it any more. Thus "many" in this context is unverified and subjective (ie see Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words). So while there is citation of some publishers doing it, further external references would be needed to verify that RPG publishers are leaving the system en masse. Dugwiki 15:04, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Offsite criticism of d20 should at least be cited. Reading this article you wouldn't know a school of such thought existed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.48.44.62 ( talk • contribs) 26 July 2007
http://thedigitalfront.com/2007/09/05/episode-02-ogld20-panel-at-gen-con/ the one hour and half mp3 from the GenCon panel has someone stating that the existing d20 license for 3.x will no longer exist as well potentially the OGL for it as well under the new 4th edition licenses. someone with better hearing than me may want to listen to and update the relevant pages with the information given at this panel. shadzar| Talk| contribs 17:42, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
The fact that the "d20 Anything" is licensed and that a company has some control over its use contradicts the whole concept of OPEN. This is silly. Mingramh 11:56, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
seriously, can't there be more information about what it is / what it does instead of fifty paragraphs of philosophical discussion of the virtues and drawbacks of it's licensing? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.118.245.221 ( talk) 04:17, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
There's some critical pieces of information missing, such as (which I came here looking for) WHEN d20 was first published. It is especially striking that an article with a "History" section doesn't have a single year in the whole thing. — Quasirandom ( talk) 23:06, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Hello,
I was looking at the
category:Universal role-playing games and thought the
D20 System was missing and should be added. I see though, that in
this edit
Percy Snoodle removed the categories
Role-playing game systems and
Universal role-playing games.
Now, I can see why it was removed from Role-playing game systems, as it is in the sub-category D20 System. But I think it fits in Universal role-playing games. The D20 System supports games in multiple genres: fantasy (D&D), modern (d20 Modern), horror (d20 CoC), to name those I can think of at the moment.
Are there any arguments against adding the Universal role-playing games category back to this article?
-
TenguTech (
talk) 12:05, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
The picture with this caption shows D&D dice: d4, d8, d12, d20 and d10^2. Isn't only the d20 die used? -- megA ( talk) 18:20, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Um... wow. This article is several years out of date. It makes no mention of the rather important fact that the d20 System Trademark License was completely discontinued in 2008, and that no new products may be released under the license. It mentions under "Criticisms" the fact that the license "is revocable and is controlled by WotC", but doesn't mention that it has been revoked. Yes, I know, I could add the information myself, and I would, but (a) I'm not the most knowledgeable source about the topic, and (b) I don't have the time right now to do a good job of it. Still, if no one else has addressed the matter within the next week or so, I guess I'll take a stab at it... -- Smeazel ( talk) 03:35, 3 December 2011 (UTC)