Glorantha d20

From: Tim Ellis <tim_at_...>
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 15:16:53 -0000

This is my impression of what was discussed at the Gloranthacon d20 panel. I'm prepared to be shouted down by the other attendees or be proven wrong if/when the transcript appears!

D20 Glorantha would generally be a good thing - especially if we don't have to play it.

The game should be d20 Compliant to appeal to the large numbers of people intorduced or reintroduced to roleplaying by the d20 system who are not (currently) interested in looking for alternate rules systems.  It should aim to introduce them to Glorantha so that (at least) some of them will go on to become full members of the Gloranthan community.

To this end it is better that the game be a good d20 RPG in a less than perfect representation of Glorantha rather than a perfect representation of Glorantha in a RPG that no one plays - So it should be written by someone who knows/understands d20 well rather than a Gloranthan "expert" (although I don't suppose anyone would object if we can find someone who is both!). As an aside it was pointed out that although d20 compliance means adding "Requires access to the PHB" (or apparantly now "... to a d20 core rulebook" a d20 game need not be
"Just a D&D clone" - Games like Mongoose's "Judge Dredd" or
conversions like "Call of Cthulhu d20" or "Traveller D20" showing other approaches...

The market place for the d20 adaptations of "Call of Cthulhu",
"Traveller" and AEG's "Legend of the 5 Rings" - All of which still
exist in their original systems (and in Travellers case also as "GURPS Traveller") (although in L5R's case only in so much as all products are
"dual stat") shows that this approach can work to tap into the large
pool of d20 players and introduce them to another setting.

The downside/problems are, of course mainly practical. Issaries doesn't have the money or the expertise to produce the game "in house", and a "fan produced" game is unlikely to achieve the hoped-for market penetration, so the best hope would be for Issaries to license the setting to 3rd party (preferably an experienced d20 publisher!) who would produce the game (much as Chaosium did when they leicensed CoC to WotC). This assumes, of course that (a) Greg would be willing to license the world out and (b) someone would be interested in acquiring the license (and I suppose (c) some mutually agreeable deal could be agreed on)