[WW] Re: A New System and Goodbye to D20

["Robbie Corbett" <robbie@duotronics.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-weirdwars@gamerz.net 
> [mailto:owner-weirdwars@gamerz.net] On Behalf Of PEGShane@aol.com
> Sent: 20 April 2002 17:05
> To: weirdwars@gamerz.net
> Subject: Re: [WW] No more WW D20?[SHANE]

<snip>

First of all let me say that the Pinnacle Weird War II product (and
supplements) is the first (and only) experience of Pinnacle's range.

> There are many. I'll list them with as much detail as is appropriate. 
> 1) Sales: Sales on Weird Wars are no greater than anything 
> else we do (Deadlands, Hell on Earth). The initial reason to 
> use D20 was to break into a whole new sales level for us. 
> This hasn't happened. It seems most D20 players are D&D 
> players, and aren't particularly interested in switching genres.

You are competing with the likes of GURPS WWII and Godlike. I am sure
that some folk will have held off until Godlike came out so that they
could evaluate and choose between the three main WWII systems? Of the
three systems (I have bought them all, coz I've more money than sense)
GURPS is the most 'realistic', Godlike is next, and Weird War II is more
'fantasy'. In terms of 'quality' I have to give GURPS and Godlike top
marks. Weird War II however . . . is very retro 70s / 80s: average
artwork, black and white, (a cover that you can't actually see any
detail, so it doesn't leap out at you), lots and lots of white space,
huge 1.5 page chapter headings, a little 'light' on details and is quite
'buggy'. The supplements are very expensive for what you actually get
for your dollar. Same page count packed with detail = no problem. The
reality is that we get a low page count, with next to nothing in it. :-(
Pinnacle is not synonymous with quality in my group of friends.

As a 'fun' system I have to give it top marks though. I love it.

> That said, Deadlands D20 and the upcoming Hell on Earth D20 
> *have* done very well for us. They've gotten a new crop of 
> people to look at those games, which helps us sell the 
> immense amount of backstock we have for those games. If DL 
> D20 and HOE D20 were brand new games, sales would have been 
> *much lower* than the initial DL and HOE releases. I don't 
> want to spill confidential sales numbers, but in the first 
> year of DL's release (in '96), we sold over 30,000 copies. 
> Deadlands D20 looks like it'll sell about 8,000 copies in one 
> year. Far fewer, but still a healthy dose of new players into 
> the game (though I estimate about half of those are regular 
> DL players who just wanted to see what we'd done with the system).

I agree. Weird Wars and Deadlands D20 is competing in a market swamped
with products. The Deadlands setting, I gather, was rather unique, Weird
War II is not. Although as stated, the 'style' of Weird War II is rather
unique in the context of cinematic role-play.

> 2) The System: I don't hate D20, but neither am I its 
> greatest fan. 

Nor am I. In fact I prefer a d100 system as per RuneQuest or Call of
Cthulhu. Unfortunately there are really only two successful mainstream
generic systems: d20 and GURPS. We would not have bought Weird War II
had it NOT been d20!

> While playing in Jason Nichols' Russian Front 
> WW campaign, it became painfully obvious that D20 is not cut 
> out for battles with even 10 characters per side. The first 
> thing every GM did (in both Hopler's West Front campaign and 
> Jason's Russian game) was to kill off all the allied NPCs so 
> we didn't have to deal with. "You're crossing the street and 
> a MG42 opens up. (Fakes rolling dice.) Oh, no! Everyone in 
> the squad is cut down except for you five!" Right.

Er??? I'd put that down to a lack of imagination / preparation on the
part of the WM. Sorry. Preparation is the key to mass combat in ANY
system. Have a simple cheat sheet with the relevant stats for each of
the ten protagonists and as their HP are reduced, mark them down. 

> Without modification, D20 is really goofy about not awarding 
> experience for *avoiding* fights, good roleplaying, 
> etc.--something you really need to do often in Weird Wars games.

I don't see how it matters what system you are playing: the GM/WM should
decide on the experience points, and, of course, the 'quality' of the
role-playing is down to many factors. The actual system, I would say,
has less to do with the role-playing and more to do with mechanics.

> 3) Perception is Reality: D20 works best for melee combat. 
> When you hit someone with a .50 cal, they should die. In D20, 
> they take 2d10 damage. It just doesn't *feel* right, and we 
> got more than a few eye-rollings, groans, or sighs from 
> convention-players, particularly "gun guys" who know what 
> should happen when a .50 bullet hits flesh.

Then they should NOT be playing in cinematic role-playing system, whose
mechanics allows you to reinact the 'reality' grounded in Hollywood and
not in real life. You should be playing GURPS WWII, Shane, not Weird War
II. :-)

> 4) D20 Modern: Recently, WOTC announced the release of D20 
> Modern. This will be the new *official* rules for modern D20 
> games. I'm on a special list, and know some of the designers 
> personally, and what they're doing with D20 sounds pretty 
> decent--but it's still D20. Since it isn't coming out until 
> November, it also means Weird Wars won't be using what gamers 
> everywhere will consider the "official" rules for D20 games 
> with guns. Where does that leave us? I have no idea, but I 
> can't see it as a positive thing. If WOTC had designed a game 
> that was built for other genres from the beginning--as I feel 
> they should have given the OGL--the field wouldn't be such a 
> mess right now.

Can't comment, as I know nothing about it.

> 5) There is better: This is the subject of the next email. 

PUNCHLINE: What d20 give me is an opportunity to play/run a game in a
number of genres that I like: Star Wars, Traveller (shortly), Call of
Cthulhu, Weird Wars II and, yes, D&D. I can meet a few people at a
convention as play any one of these systems or, as in my group, we can
alternate between a number of genres without allowing the mechanics to
really get in the way - after all we know them.

What you are saying is that you are going to take what I perceived to be
a cinematic system and give it deadly combat - as this, apart from poor
sales(!), is the only area which you seem to find lacking? Ummmmm.

I suspect that we won't be using your new system - since we can't be
bothered to learn yet ANOTHER new system.

Best of luck with it, though. Weird War II has been the most enjoyable
of my role-playing experiences in recent years and for that I thank you.
I think by pulling the plug on the system you might be missing what my
group believe is wrong with it - and it's not the d20 mechanics.

Robbie