[RPGs] d20 Modern

Cafe Society
1

Woohoo! At long last the d20 Modern book is out!

(Note to those who don’t know what this is: WOTC’s 3rd edition of Dungeons and Dragons uses a “generic” ruleset called the d20 system. This book is that ruleset adapted for modern-era play - vehicles, firearms, modern skills, etc. It’s a big step in establishing the adaptability of th d20 system. It’s also been promised for what seems like ages.)

Now, the first thing I’d like to do with this puppy is get moving on my Fallout d20 project. But I have some other ideas in mind.

I’m posting about this not because I have much to say about the book itself - I’ve only had time to flip through it so far, though I can tell you it’s very well done, with nice layout and artwork. Nor do I think this thread is going to get many replies. The main thing is just to let people who are interested know that it’s out. Since it’s not D&D, Magic, or Pokemon, there’s absolutely no news about its release on the WOTC website - not even on the d20 Modern page. Apparently it’s a lot to ask these days for WOTC to give half a damn about their own products. So I just wanted to give people a heads up that it’s finally available.

2

Woot! I feel the urge to try a Watchmen campaign…

3

Oh, I spose I should link to the d20 Modern page at WOTC.

4

You have it, eh? The links on the site weren’t all that great and I couldn’t tell if’n I could order it yet or not. I’m rather excited. Lots of guns. Can’t beat that.

And your game looks cool too, Lego.

5

Thanks for the heads up Lego. I´ll certainly take a look at it when it gets to the stores around here.

6

I’m looking forward to it showing up around here as well (Friday was the release date I heard from the local hobby-shop guy). Personally, I want to use it to hash together a homegrown d20 version of Shadowrun (I love the atmosphere of the FASA version but hate the game mechanics).

7

Screw all that. Let’s get started on our Straight Dope RPG. What’s the stats for a 15th level Legomancer?

8

15th level? But he only has 1810 experience points! That’s only enough for 2nd level!

9

True, but he’s the only one and he’s deceptively powerful.

Besides, I think the post count is in thousands, not in units of 1, so that’s 1,810,000 xp.

10

Legomancer is a prestige class.

11

I havn’t played any D&D for the last several years, and never read the 3rd-Ed rules, so I don’t know if my opinion counts, but… I dunno. D&D was kinda believable for fantasy stuff, but it just seems like it would be completely out for modern stuff. Unless you’re just aiming for action-movie style play, in which case the high-level tanking might be excusable (I thought it bad enough when a high-level character can take dozens more arrows than a low-level character… But .45s??)

However, maybe it will get more people interested in more modern campaigns. Most people I’ve met only want to do medieval-era fantasy campaigns. Took forever to get the idea of a modern or sci-fi campaign to catch on. I don’t have anything against fantasy, but there’s more than that…

12

I’ve looked at the book a little more and I can give some more information. I’m assuming you’re familiar with 3e rules (which, Phoenix Dragon, are pretty different from previous rules.)

First, I noticed that money has been abstracted, which I think is good. It appears that your character has a wealth class that acts almost like a skill. Items have a Purchase DC, and so trying to get an item is basically a skill check against your Wealth rating. I’ve seen systems like this before and it’s a lot nicer than having to tally up each individual gold piece, in addition to reducing the attention on those gold pieces.

There are six “classes” (people who’ve seen the ‘Shadow Chasers’ mini game in Dungeon/Polyhedron magazine are familiar with this already), one for each trait. So you have Strong Hero, Fast Hero, Charismatic Hero, etc. When you level, you are free to pick one of these. They all have their own advantages and abilities, but it’s very close to classless, and the focus is more on developing you character rather than his or her profession. (Also, as was demonstrated in the ‘Omega World’ mini-game in Dungeon/Polyhedron mag, it’s not hard to adapt to strictly classless.)

There are three packaged “Campaign Models” included. ‘Shadow Chasers’, which is a search-and-replace on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ‘Agents of PSI’ (psionic super-spies), and ‘Urban Arcana’ (seems to be ‘Shadow Chasers’ again - not sure what the difference is). As you can see, all three of these still employ Magic and/or Monsters - it would have been nice for one of these to have been a straight up modern setting.

The book itself looks really nice. Things seem well laid out (except the Enemies and Foes section, in which creature stats are all crammed together) and the artwork is very nice. It’s about 400 jam-packed pages, so there’s good bang for the buck.

I admit when the d20 system first premiered I was skeptical about its ability to be used outside of D&D, but that skepticism is starting to fade (even though I haven’t had a chance to play anything other than D&D using it yet). It seems like they’re on their way towards a more generic system.

13

After looking at it more closely I realized that the ‘Urban Arcana’ game is not exactly Shadow Chasers again. It’s Shadowrun.

Still would have been nice to have a non “Magic in the Modern World” campaign setting example.

14

This is actually a lot more plausible than most folks think. Not completely plausible, but more so. With most sorts of wounds (including gunshots), death ends up being eventually caused by blood loss. A grizzled combat veteran has gotten to be good at things like quickly bunching up his shirt to improvise a bandage, or tensing muscles in such a way that that part bleeds less, and sheer determination can keep a person from passing out, for a little while at least (giving time for post-combat first aid). Plus, more experienced folks are better able to handle pain, which is also a large part of the “damage”.

15

I’ve given a cursory look to the d20 system, reading the free donwloads mostly. It clearly can be generic, most systems can if presented that way to start, but if one already has books for a generic gaming system what advantage does d20 have that would make it worth getting into?

Also are their presteige classes in d20 Modern?

16

Well, presumably, if you already have GURPS or Hero and are using them the way you want, I don’t suppose there’s any advantage to it. I personally don’t care for either of those two as a generic system, so for me the advantage is a different system to work with.

Additionally, there are a lot of folks who only play D&D - being able to go from D&D to Call of Cthulhu, Star Wars, or your own home-brew game without a major change in rules is nice.

Basically, the advantages are the same as the advantages to any generic system. And if you’ve already got one you like, I can’t really tell you what to do. I liked the system for 3e D&D, so I’m pleased to see that system extended to something I can use.

As for prestige classes, they have them for the three included campaign models. For example, in the “Shadow Chasers” game, there are two prestige classes that are, essentially, “Slayer” and “Watcher”.

17

Now this is what makes me sceptical about these d20 systems.I play D&D and its fine for high fantasy stuff but i’m not convived about its application for other genres.

The 2 main problems that i can see are

  1. The fact that its built around a D20 roll means that luck plays a large part in your success in skill use.Which again is fine for Fantasy but what about more ‘realistic games’ where someone with a high skill can make a lousy roll and fail at a really easy task, or a complete novice can roll natural 20’s and do something only an expert could do.

  2. Massive Hp’s. Again fine for High fantasy but looks damn perculiar if your playing say Call of Cthuluh, where the whole point is to avoid trouble because you are so vulnerable to damage.Likely to end up dead with only 1 or 2 hits.

18

Now this is what makes me sceptical about these d20 systems.I play D&D and its fine for high fantasy stuff but i’m not convived about its application for other genres.

The 2 main problems that i can see are

  1. The fact that its built around a D20 roll means that luck plays a large part in your success in skill use.Which again is fine for Fantasy but what about more ‘realistic’ genres. With the D20 system someone with a high skill can make a lousy roll and fail at a really easy task, or a complete novice can roll natural 20’s and do something only an expert could do.

  2. Massive Hp’s. Again fine for High fantasy but looks damn perculiar if your playing say Call of Cthuluh, where the whole point is to avoid trouble because you are so vulnerable to damage.Likely to end up dead with only 1 or 2 hits.

19

Then play a diceless game. The game has dice in it. I’m sorry if the propect of failing a roll doesn’t sit well with you. We know that in real life nobody who is good at anything EVER fails at it. I’m sorry if I sound harsh, but I’m tired of people hauling out the old dice=luck=bad when talking about games that have dice in them.

I believe I may be in error here, but CoC d20 doesn’t use hit points that way. there is a subset of d20 rules that uses a Vitality/Wounds system rather than straight-up hit points, and it takes your complaint here into account. Star Wars d20 uses it and I believe CoC does as well. I haven’t had time to read the d20 Modern book yet to see if this system is given as an alternate method. I also haven’t played either of these games yet, so I’m not sure how well it works.

20

Your missing my 1st point.I don’t hate failing rolls.I’m saying that basing it on a d20 roll makes for a very large element of luck.There’s a large variation. Thats fine for High Fantasy or Space opera. Novices can rise to the occasion.Great heros can fail.But this is going to happen frequently . Which is not appropriate if your playing some gritty ‘realistic’ game set say in a hi tech future where someone skilled should be reliably so.For something like that you need a less variable result . 3d6 rather than d20 might be more appropriate (just as an example and using the same basic target number system). Same average but the 3d6 roll will be much less susceptible to chance.

As to my second point i haven't actually read the new CoC so you may be right about the wounds /vitality stuff. But this shows what i'm saying , even the designers have seen that the standard d20 rules on Hp's are not suitable for certain types of game.