My gaming group is looking for a new system to try. We tend to like modern fantasy, or fantasy crossed with sci-fi. So far we have tried Shadowrun (great, but too complicated), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (not bad) and Witchcraft (for some reason I find this a really difficult system to use for world-building). Other systems we have ruled out are Cyberpunk and GURPS. One of my players wants to try d20 Modern, anyone have experience with that? Any other systems worth trying?
Mutants and Masterminds version 2 (d20 variant) is very good. Very versatile, as it’s meant as a Superhero system, thus has to be able to handle various different setting types, due to the rather syncretic nature of the Superhero genre. The group I’m in has successfully used it for superheroes (a rather wide variety of character types - no badass normals, because the power level is too high, but gageteers, elementalists, super-geniuses of various stripes, energy users, magicians, etc) and a game that started as D&D, but converted halfway through the campaign (which was very good for me, as it let me set my character’s spell set much more in line with what she actually used, as well as letting her use magic more often).
I like the storytellersystem;
you get 1-5 dots for each attribute (strength, Intelligence etc…) 0-5 dots for selected skills (firearms, driving, research etc……
for skill checks you combine two stats, lets say dexterity and stealth that’s the amount of ten sided dice you get to roll for a skill check, everything above a 7 is a success, compare the number of successes against a number needed to succeed, and play out the results,
Of course our games were rule and combat light, so it worked for us…and its fun rolling lots of 10 sided die
A couple of fun games I’ve played in the past are **Feng Shui **and Over The Edge.
Feng Shui is a game of time travelling kung-fu warriors battling evil eunuch mages and half demon cyborgs. It’s inspired by Hong Kong action cinema, everything from Hard Boiled to Mr Vampire.
The premise is that there’s a realm called the Netherworld that connects at various place to different points in history. The four major connections are AD56 (run by the corrupt eunuchs), AD1850 (where a group of uber-principled monks are fighting for chinese independance), AD1986 (where the world is secretly run by a cabal of transformed animals) and AD2056 (where a totalitarian state controlls everything through a mix of science and magic).
The gameplay focuses on cinematic action, where you are encouraged to go for unexpected and OTT actions. For example “I attack the cyborg” is boring and gets you a penalty. “I say ‘hey Threepio! Interace with this!’ while I slam a fire extinguisher into it’s face” gets you a damage bonus. Hell if your character has a shotgun you even do an extra point of damage if the player mimes working the pump and goes “Ka-ChicK”.
It’s a great game with the right group, where you all try to out-do each other with stunts. You also start watching films a little differently, looking for stunts to use in your next game or realising “That’s what Chunk did to the Yakuza Last week”
Over the Edge is just wierd. It’s set on a small independant island in the mediterranian. An island run by a dictator and home to spies, aliens, ghost, psychic tyres, reincarnated former presidents of the U.S, the second coming of Christ who saw what a shit-hole the world is and decided to get stoned out of his head instead and susie the 8 year old serial killer (and these are just some of the PC’s I’ve gamed with).
It’s a game where anything can and will happen. Each character has 3 positive attributes and 1 flaw, but it’s up to the player to say what they are. For istance in most games if you wanted to play a Navy Seal, you would have to put points in a range of skills (physical attributes/guns/explosives/vehicles/unarmed and armed combat etc). In OTE you would select “Navy Seal” as one attribute, and you can use that for any action you can justify a Seal knowing.
Alternatively you could select “Navy Seal” and play as a large marine mammal that likes fish and can hold it’s breath. Of course a secondary attribute that lets you get around unnoticed would probably help, perhaps telekenesis to let you levitate and throw cars at people…
It can be a hard game to run (surprise), but it’s definitely worth looking at for the world background. There’s lots of useful ideas and cool characters you could borrow for another system. My favourite is the government law enforcement “Peace Officers”. As the book says “They are to peace, what firemen are to fires.”
d20 Modern’s not bad, especially their Urban Arcana setting, but I’m a Mutants and Masterminds evangelist when it comes to mixed genres.
If you can get your hands on Unknown Armies, do it. The setting is fantastic and the book is full of flavor. The mechanics support the setting. The skill system is a basic percentile system with small variations for matched dice (outstanding success or failure), and “flip-flopping” the dice for obsessed skills or when especially motivated by the circumstances. The sanity system is great. It’s not the “mind hit-points” system that it is in Call of Cthulhu; it’s more of a meter of how your character deals with threats of various natures (violence, supernatural, self, and two others I don’t remember off-hand). There aren’t any new releases coming and haven’t been for years, but you’ll only need the main book.
If that fails, Delta Green is my other modern favorite. It’s the Call of Cthulhu rules in the modern world with the investigators as part of a conspiracy to protect the USA from supernatural threats. Think X-Files, which debuted later the same year. DG has seen some new releases over the past couple of years due to strong fan support and a developer community that truly loves the game. The most recent iteration of the core book included D20 3E rules as well as the Basic Role Playing/Cthulhu system. Again, the main book should be all you need, but the supplements add things like international agencies that serve similar roles to DG in other countries, new threats, and scenarios.
I think the World of Darkness is a solid core. I hated the old WOD, which was such a mish mash of rules and patches, but the new version is much more consistent and actually playable as human characters. It’s my third choice.
Delta Green is so solid that skyscrapers have used it instead of rebar for foundations with no ill effects.
I’ve been looking at the Dresden Files RPG and Eclipse Phase lately.
Eclipse Phase is the one I really want to GM, but its mechanics have a lot of Shadowrun to them, and it’s pure sci-fi, so it’s probably not what Weedy is looking for.
The Dresden Files, on the other hand, definitely fits the modern fantasy bill, and it has a well-established world to start from. It’s based on a modified FATE system, which has some of the Feng Shui flavor, but is much more structured. To summarize it very roughly: the more powerful the character, the less ability the player has to manipulate the world, and the more the GM can mess with them. Combat is relatively “cinematic”–it’s not about pummeling stacks of hit points so much as maneuvering to put your opponent at a disadvantage, and lethality often takes a backseat to story.
I don’t know how the FATE system would play out in practice, and character generation looks like it could take a while, but it’s definitely interesting. It’s not what my gaming group is looking for, though, so I likely won’t be trying it anytime soon.
I may have to check out Delta Green now as well–it sounds like it might be right up my group’s alley.
I’ve played FATE. It’s pretty streamlined in play, and combat is largely freeform.
The Cortex system created by Margaret Weiss games is pretty good. Demon Hunters is a fun one in that system. Conceived of by “Dead Gentleman Productions”, the premise is that there are two human organizations affiliated with the powers that be in Heaven and Hell. It mixes sci-fi, magic, fantasy, apocalyptic fiction, and horror all with tongue firmly in cheek. For example, there are vampires and syphilitic vampires. Their stats are identical, but syphilitic vampires tend to scratch themselves a lot more, and one would be wise to avoid having sex with them.
I also enjoy the “one-pool” system or whatever it’s called that Arc Dreams publishing uses. They have a couple flavors of it. “Monsters and Other Childish Things” is a fun setting. It’s about children who control pet monsters in a symbiotic relationship. These monsters want to conquer the world, and only the children can prevent that from happening, since adults are oblivious. They also have “Kerberos Club” for that system which is a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen type setting in Victorian England.
You could always rock some Gamma World… but it seems awfully lethal, at least as the basic adventure in the game manual goes.
I’ve played Serenity, Battlestar Galactica, and Supernatural using the Cortex system…I like it quite a bit.
We’ve played d20 Modern a couple of times…it’s not bad; if your players have ever played 3E D&D, it’ll be easily recognizable.