The beauty of the OGL is that you can pick and choose whatever you want to use out of either SRD (D&D or Modern), or any other OGL product’s open content for that matter. Since you are inclined to make up your own classes anyway, much of the distinction will be largely semantic. The differences between the two SRDs are pretty minimal: class names and features, talent trees from Modern, Massive Damage Save from Modern, etc.
As a technical matter, we won’t be able to use the d20 logo. You can only use the logo if you don’t include character creation or experience application rules, which you will probably want to do. We would also need to include, on the cover, text that the game “Requires the use of the d20 Modern Role-Playing Game published by Wizards of the Coast, Inc.” Also something we probably aren’t keen on doing.
So, my advice for your brainstorming would be to hunt around in both SRDs (and any 3rd-party products you think might be cool) for mechanical nuggets you think are worth using. Important: Make sure you note where you got any nuggets from, as we will need to include their Section 15 in our copy of the OGL.
Same holds for True20. The license GR offers is to use their True20 logo, which we wouldn’t want to do anyway. You can use any of the open content in True20 you want, which IIRC is pretty much all of the mechanical stuff anyway.
As for marketing, I think we will market the game on its own merits, touting it’s awesome d20-story-game system with specific details. Not D&D, not d20 Modern, but a crazy new creation using the best of everything we find. This will also proof us against D&D4. We’re not in competition with them in terms of system, setting, or scale; so we shouldn’t pretend to be in our marketing.
As for additional thoughts about the game: Since the PCs start scattered (right?), we’ll need to come up with an organized way to rotate scenes, control, etc. So, maybe when one player’s PC is the “primary”, the player to his left “GMs”, i.e., controls the adversary, and the player(s) to the right control secondary characters ala Galactic. End of scene, “primary” player rotates, so does the GM (as opposed to the fixed GM in Galactic), etc.
Thoughts on the “ultimate purpose”: Maybe there’s a neat S-G way of building toward some defined, climactic endgame, where this gets narrated out. Maybe the players start with one secret detail each, something about what their character “brings to the table”. During the course of play, upon a specified event details get added secretly. These events could be in-game (e.g., PCs discover a new star system) or out-of-game (e.g., player rolls a natural “20″). Then, when the endgame conditions are reached, the secret details are revealed and the group (or “winning” player?) gets to narrate the epilogue using the accrued details as his guides.
As for specific antagonists, were you thinking something concrete (e.g., enemy alien species) or metaphysical (e.g., the Creator, laws of physics, etc.)?
Justin
