...what were some of your favorite books?

Despite the fact that I "don't like d20" I have to admit that I had an awful lot of good times with d20 games (which probably makes my "I don't like d20" posturing that much bullshit, but oh well).

Off the top of my head the games I really enjoyed from the first half of last decade (the 00's? Why doesn't that decade have a name?):

Star Wars d20. Actually like it better than saga.

Spycraft. I vastly prefer the first edition, when it was just a cool spy/modern action game, before the designers disappeared up their own asses trying to be clever.

Wheel of time. Had enough twists on the mechanics to feel interesting while still being very D&Dish.

I enjoyed True 20. A nifty way to do it. The damage was hard for some people to grok, but I liked the customization. It really scratched my generic system itch with the familiarity of d20.

Fantasy Craft is an interesting take on d20. Some nifty things in there like items, enemy creation, and spending dice by the GM to customize genre by setting or encounter.

Absolutely LOVE some of the settings;

Arcana Evolved/Diamond Throne: so much flavor and fantasy. Loved the rituals and true name stuff.

Eberron: Made D&D exciting to me again. Does D&D in a way I can get into it (pulpy, magical technology economy, dark mysteries, super creative takes on races).

One of the best D20 books I ever read was Everstone: Blood Legacy. The best point-based version of the D20 system I ever saw.

Quote from: trechriron;554970I enjoyed True 20. A nifty way to do it. The damage was hard for some people to grok, but I liked the customization. It really scratched my generic system itch with the familiarity of d20.

Fantasy Craft is an interesting take on d20. Some nifty things in there like items, enemy creation, and spending dice by the GM to customize genre by setting or encounter.

Absolutely LOVE some of the settings;

Arcana Evolved/Diamond Throne: so much flavor and fantasy. Loved the rituals and true name stuff.

Eberron: Made D&D exciting to me again. Does D&D in a way I can get into it (pulpy, magical technology economy, dark mysteries, super creative takes on races).

I had totally forgotten about True20! I ran a really successful Iron Kingdoms game (another good d20 product) using True20.

Quote from: Piestrio;554973I had totally forgotten about True20! I ran a really successful Iron Kingdoms game (another good d20 product) using True20.

Did you use True Sorcery? I really hated that book. I thought it was a completely unusable magic system. DC levels so high as to be absurd. Not to mention grinding play to a stand-still waiting for a caster to invent a spell on the spot.

Quote from: Tetsubo;554977Did you use True Sorcery? I really hated that book. I thought it was a completely unusable magic system. DC levels so high as to be absurd. Not to mention grinding play to a stand-still waiting for a caster to invent a spell on the spot.

Never looked at true sorcery.

And I actually converted the game back to stock d20 towards the end because we felt True20 got pretty stale over the long run, especially with regards to magic items and whatnot.

I loved True20, I feel that Star Wars Saga was passable (mind you I think Jedi should been toned down a little.)

There were some awesome ideas in the D20 era, and some truly hideous ones (Gamma World d20) on the other hand Omega World IS awesome.

I have to say the only d20 product I ever used was the Rokugan one. I preferred to use custom-built systems for whichever thing came up. Honestly, never thought d20 worked very well as a universal system, but don't have a ton of empirical evidence to back that up.

I really liked True20.

I used a houseruled True20(I got rid of classes and made it sort of point based) to run a Resident Evil style game.

I really enjoyed the Necromancer Games modules from that period; they gave me a much-needed change of perspective regarding what a module needs and what it doesn't. Their reconstructed vision of "1st edition feel" was not always 100% accurate, and they soon started branching into other ideas, but it was as good a mission statement as anything.

Sword & Sorcery Studios' Scarred Lands is a setting I still like for doing something new with D&D tropes without working against them, and it is one of the great homages to Greek mythology. I must also bring up that the original Scarred Lands Gazetteer is a thing of beauty; a full world guide in 48 pages that gives you all the ideas and background you need without becoming overbearing. It is probably my favourite "top-down" setting product after Dark Sun.

Looking back at the d20 boom, it held a lot of excitement and promise when it was on its upswing. Some of the promises were never fulfilled, and I think the product channels were clogged too much and too soon - not by lackluster product per se, but established companies doing their thing. If d20 failed, it failed because it should have been more colourful, more about Some Guy With Good Ideas releasing his house setting than Mid-Tier Company X cashing in with a new product line. Nonetheless, I got a lot of enjoyment out of that period, and I think well of it. If you looked at releases critically and focused on the good stuff instead of snapping up everything in reach, you could get a lifetime's worth of goodness out of it.

I liked d20 Modern quite a bit. It was my favorite game for quite a while.

Some other mentions: Mutants & Masterminds (mostly first edition, it got way more complex after), Fantasy Craft, Star Wars (Revised Core Rulebook version).

Quote from: Endless Flight;555007I liked d20 Modern quite a bit. It was my favorite game for quite a while.

Some other mentions: Mutants & Masterminds (mostly first edition, it got way more complex after), Fantasy Craft, Star Wars (Revised Core Rulebook version).

Damn, I forgot M&M too.

Another great game that crawled up its own ass after the first edition (seems to be a trend).

Quote from: Piestrio;554964...what were some of your favorite books?

T20 Traveller20 - My first playtest experience. Definitely learned a lot out of that one.

Iron Kingdoms - One of the few sorcery & steam settings that I could actually enjoy. Didn't get into the miniatures game, but loved the setting for D&D.

Legends & Lairs from FFG - These generic books that expanded on 3.x gave me more useful ideas for my own D&D games than just about anything else. I still mine them extensively.

I like and played the heck out of D20 Modern.

Spycraft 2.0 was wicked cool.  My group never wanted to play it, though.  I'd love to take a look at Fantasy Craft, too.

I also thought d20 Modern had some good ideas.