Dungeons and Dragons in 3rd edition really opened up the options for publishers. There are a ton of games based off of the D20 rule set. The goal of this post is to share as many of those different systems as possible, with a bit of commentary from yours truly.
Base Rules
D20 SRD: The base rules upon which all others are based. I still have problems with many areas of the rules after having played 3.5 for a number of years, but I think the OGL is an amazing idea. I just wish it was easier to make a character that didn’t suck, particularly when you play with a bunch of min-maxers, which I did.
D20 Modern: I won’t go into much of the D20 Modern offshoots here, but as it is a bit of variant of D20, I thought I should include it here. I’m still not convinced d20 is the way to do Modern gaming, but I do like the idea of using a rule system that everyone is familiar with.
Extensions (otherwise known as the inheritors of 3.5)
Trailblazer: An amazing analysis of the math behind 3.5. It looks at the “spine of D&D”, the numbers that run the system from level 1 to level 20, and then attempts to fix the places that are broken. It’s an amazing read and for only 5 bucks totally worth it, even if you don’t end up using it in a game, just to understand how the math behind a game system affects the balance.
Pathfinder: Paizo, much loved in the RPG community, created this system to be backwards compatible with 3.5, so didn’t go as far as Trailblazer in fixing some of the problems of 3.5. It looks like a great system, and I’ve enjoyed looking over the SRD and seeing some of the ways they have modified 3.5 classes to make them work better and be more balanced.
E6: E6 is an interesting revision to the 3.5 rules. You only play to 6th level, and then gain feats in place of levels after that. There is a long discussion of E6 over at enworld, where people discuss their own adaptions of the idea and rules to their own games. I think this is an interesting idea and one I like, mainly because I could never be one of those people who plans out their characters from 1 to 20th level.
Complete Revisions
True20: True20 is an interesting revision to the d20 rules. It’s meant to simplify much of the d20 system. In fact, you only need a d20 to play true20. It also attempts to get rid of much of the accounting in the game. You no longer have hit points, instead, anytime you get hit, you make a toughness saving throw. It also gets rid of levels. I really think this might be a better system for Modern style games than d20 Modern.
Microlite20: I’m a big fan of this. I think my favorite part is that it has the barebones, and I can add as much onto it as I want.
Castles and Crusades: I really liked some of the aspects of this game, like the SIEGE Engine, but this system never seemed to really get the interest of the gaming public at large.
Kuunari 
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