Goodman Games

I saw a thread on Dragonsfoot where a poster raved over the Amethyst setting. I guess it's on sale as PDF on RPGNow. When I followed the link it also mentioned Amethyst: Evolution and Amethyst: Foundation.

1. Are these all Goodman products?

2. The post indicated that Amethyst was for the d20 system. Are they all for d20? ("Evolution" sounds like a 4E thing.)

3. Can anyone tell me more about the settings?

4. Do I need all of the books to enjoy the setting?

Amethyst D20 is the d20 product and general setting book.
Amethyst: Foundations is the 4E product and general setting book.
Amethyst: Evolution is a 4E expansion.
Amethyst: Hearts of Chaos is a 4E adventure.

Amethyst: Foundations and Amethyst: Hearts of Chaos were published by Goodman Games. I don't know if they had anything to do with the print version of Amethyst D20. From my understanding Dias Ex Machina Games did the product but used Goodman to get it to print. Goodman didn't want to do an entire line so they agree to just do the main book. I don't know too much about the setting or what other products there are if any. I liked the idea but reading more about it turned me off. (I wanted the setting to use 4E races instead of having their own races. It makes sense since they were just converting the d20 setting but it decreased my interest.)

You can easily, and many people have, inject standard D&D races into the setting, we just wanted to offer something different.

The D20 book was the first publication, which got the attention of Goodman who offered to publish a 4E book. The Hearts of Chaos module is a preview module with an adventure and a set of early-stage rules. Foundations is THAT final 4E book, released in 2010. After Goodman "slowed" his 4E schedule, Amethyst continued with Evolution, the 4E expansion. This month will also see the release of our Pathfinder edition, Amethyst Renaissance.

Thanks for the info. Sounds like a fun setting and I'll be checking the 3E version out!