>This seems to be a common misperception. Actually, it's Wizards of
>the Coast who are doing a d20 conversion of Call of Cthulhu.
I'm not sure of the specifics but I know there is something called a "D20 Open License" with the idea that other companies e.g. Chaosium could apply the D20 system to various modules and, I suppose, their main RPG system. If WotC is doing the conversion, that is welcome news to me since the quality of the 3rd Edition material is superb.
Personally, I prefer the Runequest rules to the 3rd Edition "D20" rules for a simulationist/rules heavy system. At least when you are down to one hit point you cannot fight at 100% effectiveness. And to not even have hit locations in a simulationist system seems to be a joke. However, what does appeal to me is the idea of standards. It is like Dvorak keyboard vs. QWERTY or Unix OS vs. Windows; it is often better to have a standard even if it is not the 'best' system out there, do to the huge hassle of constantly converting one's work between systems, the confusion it causes to players, and the inability to move between games/GM's without a lot of work. Designers rarely agree with this perspective because it is their job to come up with new cool ideas. The problem is that they aren't the ones that have to spend thousands of hours converting the worlds, creatures, characters, etc. to each new system: that task falls on the GM's.
So, for me, I'll take D20 (it is perhaps 70% as good as Runequest) for my rules heavy and HW for my rules light system (FUDGE, Everway etc. being too light for my taste)--even though I think that D20 is a fairly crappy system overall, with a good GM it can be fun.
I feel that HW has two really strong aspects going for it that should allow it to stand up to the D20 boom: 1) Glorantha with all of its depth and coolness, and 2) a system that, while keeping a light/flexible feel, seems to have just the right amount of dice rolling and simulationist sense to keep it grounded and fun. I must test out HW more myself but I am hopeful that it will be able to do very well vs. D20 in the long run. As with most standards, the trick will probably be to not fight it but to figure out how to get along with it.
So, I suggested CoC for conversion to HW rules because I feel it is a great RPG and while D20 should do fine for a heavy version, a light version would be great too. I have no idea if Greg still has contacts at Chaosium but I feel that this kind of 'let's become the standard for light systems' kind of thinking could really work for HW =) Particularly because D20 is VERY heavy and will probably get heavier as more tables, charts, etc. come out for it.
A.K. Berner
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