Modern Campaign Resources?

Ace32 · Jun 23, 2006

Hey folks,

I've been putting together a game for my players to run in d20 modern (specifically, its a post-apoc game that is trying to toss in as many rules from d20 future as I can - the group is diverse and we want to play around with the rules.. but it features the chars as themselves statted up in d20 modern.. anyways) and I'm having trouble finding some good inspiration.

The game will be including cybertech, aliens, mutations, mecha, and other fun - I'm just having a hard time tying it all together and figuring out how to get them motivated from 'bystanders' to heroes.

Any suggestions?

Likewise, what are some good 3rd party sites to check out for crunchy things?

C. Baize · Jun 23, 2006

Depending on the level of and TYPE of post apoc, I would recommend Darwin's World 2 (actually... it doesn't matter what level of post apoc... if you're running D20 Modern post apoc, DW2 is the product to get... plenty of support... some ongoing support... adventures... It's what Gamma World should have aspired to... Darwin's World 2 set the bar so high, though, that it's pretty doubtful anything's going to top it).
If you're including zombies... Year of the Zombie is the best product for that. Again... it seriously set the bar REALLY high for the modern zombie apocalypse genre.
This one also has plenty of supplements and ongoing support. Just be forewarned that the books are pretty grim. They deal with post apoc societies in a very realistic and brutal manner.

TresGeek · Jun 23, 2006

The Post Apocalyptic Forge is probably the best place for the 'crunchy things' you seek. In particular check out the 'Masters of the Earth' campaign under 'Featured RPGs' in the left-hand menu. In my recently started d20M PA PBP game I scraped the d20F mutations list in leiu of theirs. Not sure about cybertech, aliens, or mecha as I'm not including those, but I will let you know if I run across anything.

As for inspiration, let us know what style or flavor of PA you're going with -- seems that you've hinted at an 'alien invasion' -- and we'll toss some ideas your way. Check out the 'PA Plotseeds' document listed under 'GM Resources' on PAForge, as well as the rest of the site. There are even some full blown adventures hidden in the various 'Featured RPGs' subcategories.

My game is a garden variety 'After the Bomb' style of game, where the characters are just emerging from 'the vault' some twenty years after a wide spread nuclear attack, so the focus will likely be them figuring out what happened and what's left, but it's up to them as the players to determine where the game will go. Otherwise I'll be drawing from the classic PA movies, the Fallout computer games, and my previous experiences with other PA roleplaying games like Gamma World and maybe a little bit of Paranoia. The nice thing about PBP is that it allows me to do very little prep up front and flesh out the details as the story develops.

Stormborn · Jun 23, 2006

So, if the players are stating up themselves as PCs does that mean you are starting from a baseline of "now" and having the apocolypse occur during or just before the game begins?

If so you may have some trouble explaining some of the various things that you want to include. However, I have some suggestions on the nature of the apocolypse:

- Reality Storm: pieces of divergent earths emerge all over the world triggering an almost instant apocolypse. The PCs inital adventures are just survival, but they soon realize that there is a force out there, maybe the ones responcible (at least unintintionally) for the Storm are hunting them down. Specifically them. Seems that their counterparts in one or more alternate realities are cosmically important (for whatever reasons you see fit). You may complciate things by having the PCs be from similar but slightly different realities, and not tell them that up front. The ones hunting them down might even be their dooplegangers from various earths.

-Failed Alien Invasion: Two Groups of Aliens locked in battle coming screaming out of hyperspace and hit the planet resulting in ecological devistation followed by further destruction as the surviors of the two groups continue fighting, with human millitary forces fighting for and against one or both in different areas. When an alien force takes the shelter where the PCs are staying they are allowed to escape by an alien that wants them to act as a go between with the other forces - nominally to broker a cease fire but with mosre sinister plans in the works.

- Technology X goes on a rampage: Somewhere in the world bleeding edge tech goes haywire, unleashing a mutating technological plague onthe earth. The PCs take shelter in what appears to be an old National Guard base, but hides a secret bunker with high tech black ops gear. Do the PCs rise to the challange the gear represents? Or do they merelly try and survive?

Post -Apoc stuff can go lots of ways, depending on the resources you give the PCs and their own motivation. If they want to by bystanders and paly in a pure survival game let them. OVerall, though, the best thing to do is find out what the Players expect to happen and what kind of game they want. Otherwise you may experiance your very own apocolypse.

Ace32 · Jun 23, 2006

Well, as far as the type of apocalypse, I had hinted that the majority of the damage came in the form of falling meteors (which marked the start of the game), along with the effects of such an occurance. I planned to explain the meteors as a side effect of an alien group.

On that, I really really like:

-Failed Alien Invasion: Two Groups of Aliens locked in battle coming screaming out of hyperspace and hit the planet resulting in ecological devistation followed by further destruction as the surviors of the two groups continue fighting, with human millitary forces fighting for and against one or both in different areas. When an alien force takes the shelter where the PCs are staying they are allowed to escape by an alien that wants them to act as a go between with the other forces - nominally to broker a cease fire but with mosre sinister plans in the works.

And may use that as a way to explain why the planet was devastated. I know my biggest issue is going to be the scale of things I want to include, but I figure I can just toss them in bits at a time - once the players accept that 'all this stuff' is there, it will already feel right to them. I just don't want to surprise them. For the time being though, I'm not too worried about that (tho I will be - hence the crunchy requests), but I want to keep them interested and moving around (getting shot at by groups X Y and Z will get repetitive if I'm not canny).

RangerWickett · Jun 24, 2006

To take a different approach, just sit on wikipedia for a while, reading about the world. For my modern game, wikipedia was immensely useful if the PCs decided to go some place I was unfamiliar with. Also, it's fun to imagine what remote places might be like after the apocalypse.

http://en.wikipedia.org

HeapThaumaturgist · Jun 24, 2006

Wikipedia is a godsend for Modern gaming.

Often I've gotten some weird and highly obscure data from Wikipedia ... it's great if you game with a laptop, as I do, as I've more than once just tapped a word in sideways while rolling dice and managed to pull up alot of juice on something a player had asked about on the sly, making it seem like I'm prepared for all eventualities.

--fje