A great time to be a Modern gamer?

The Shaman · Oct 5, 2005

My wife and I were talking about the new television season the other night, and I was struck by how many programs from the last few years would inspire great modern-fantasy game settings.

This season brings us Invasion, Surface, and Threshold in the aliens-lurking-in-the-shadows genre, the return of the monster/horror classic The Night Stalker, and new seasons of Alias, Lost, Medium, and 24. Gone but not fogotten are The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Millenium, Brimstone,, and Charmed, to name a few (and not including the many I'm forgetting at the moment).

And then there is the boatload of movies, too many to list.

Mysterious aliens, magic and psychic powers, monsters lurking in the shadows, superspies, all set against the backdrop of the contemporary world - the genre certainly seems to be thriving on screens big and small.

I admit I find it a bit puzzling that there aren't more gamers playing in the Modern genre, particularly with games like d20 Modern, Grim Tales, and Spycraft available. What do you suppose it would take for these games to become as popular among gamers as their medieval fantasy counterparts?

Crothian · Oct 5, 2005

There are a number of shows that fit the genere but many of them as they are would make bad games. Only Supernatural I think really feels like it could be an RPG

Crothian · Oct 5, 2005

and for the second part I think people are play modern games, just not modern d20 game. If I were to run a modern game I would not use anything d20 related for that.

The Shaman · Oct 5, 2005

Crothian said:
and for the second part I think people are play modern games, just not modern d20 game. If I were to run a modern game I would not use anything d20 related for that.

I mentioned those systems only because those are the three with which I'm familiar - I coulda/shoulda thrown in GURPS as well, but beyond that I don't know the games well-enough.

Modern fantasy as a genre doesn't need to be system-specific, and I didn't mean to imply that it was - quite the opposite, actually.

The Shaman · Oct 5, 2005

Crothian said:
There are a number of shows that fit the genere but many of them as they are would make bad games. Only Supernatural I think really feels like it could be an RPG

Re-reading my post, I think I gave you the wrong impression: I was thinking more of "aliens-living-under-the-ocean" rather than d20 Surface.

Rather than turning the specific programs into game-settings, I was thinking of them as inspiration for modern gamers - with that in mind, I made a slight change in the first post to reflect this difference.

Altamont Ravenard · Oct 5, 2005

Although I can't say that I follow these shows, I guess they could provide inspiration not only for modern games, but with little adaptation, for fantasy games also. So, yes, we're living in a good time for RPG's.

As for why there aren't more people playing modern games... for my part, if I want escapism, I'd rather go all the way.

AR

HeapThaumaturgist · Oct 5, 2005

Modern is my favorite genre to run, so, I'm all for the recent sort of shows. Supernatural was VERY cool, the pilot that I saw. I didn't know they're remade The Night Stalker ... I still watch the old Kolchak episodes from time to time. Each one is sort of a cheesy little d20M episode.

And I use d20M pretty much for simplicity. It does modern well, no need for learning another base system ... I like it.

I have Grim Tales, and I sort of see them as interchangable myself, as GT is sort of a "toolkit". So perhaps it's both GT and d20M that I usually use for Modern games.

I got SC 2.0 the other day and am still digesting it. It's ... sort of like the show "Made In America". There was a guy on there that had a really great product for cheap home-use hydroponics and what he WANTED to sell was a water-feature utilizing it. SC2 is sort of like that. They've done some great stuff with the system, but they complexified and in-built so much Superspy Genre Stuff into the core of it that it's not as useful as it COULD be for other things.

And, oddly, Superspies is the last Modern genre I'm interested in playing or running.

--fje

Vigilance · Oct 5, 2005

Crothian said:
There are a number of shows that fit the genere but many of them as they are would make bad games. Only Supernatural I think really feels like it could be an RPG

Umm... Buffy is THE perfect vehicle for d20 Modern.

The d20M rules as written feel like a Buffy RPG to me (and with the Shadow Chasers model it gets really obvious).

I can even watch the early seasons of Buffy and chart Willow going from Smart Hero to Mage, while Xander goes from Tough Hero to Soldier (briefly) then back to Tough.

And yes I think its a great time to be a Modern gamer, not just cause of the TV shows (there have always been a lot of those) but because now there are so many choices to emulate those shows: GURPs, d20M, d20 CoC to name just a few of the better ones.

Chuck

Crothian · Oct 5, 2005

Vigilance said:
Umm... Buffy is THE perfect vehicle for d20 Modern.

Right, but I was speaking of the new shows and did say only most make bad RPGs. Buffy made such a good RPG that Eden made a good RPG out of it. So, hard to argue against it.

Quickbeam · Oct 5, 2005

I agree. Regardless of what system you'd use to run the campaign, there are many TV shows and movies out now (and in the recent past) that would provide very interesting campaign backdrops and/or plotlines. After the initial session or two things would have to stray from the script to keep player involvement high, but the genesis of the campaign itself could easily be drawn from any number of current media. Myself, I might look to begin a Cthulhu or Modern game by drawing from Lost.

A great time to be a Modern gamer?

The Shaman

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Crothian

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The Shaman

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The Shaman

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Altamont Ravenard

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HeapThaumaturgist

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