Does anybody still play d20 Modern/Future/Past/Apocalypse

Out of curiosity. They're all out of print, and WoTC clearly gave up on them pretty quick. There was a decent amount of 3rd party support for a while, from superheroes to Star Trek.

So have you played it? Do you still? Did it gain any traction at all?

I have played and or run about 3 games. TWo back in the day on Yahoogroups and one I am running now. WE are playing off the SRD as I never bought the books for it.

Never got a chance to play it, but I do raid it from time to time...

[sblock=Episode Summaries]



“He’s a black private d!ck who won’t let the man put him down.

*He’s* a bleach-blonde disco DJ / bicycle messenger with a canine sidekick.

**He's** an ex-con professional-wrestler-turned-priest who runs a shelter in L.A.'s Skid Row district.
Together, they fight crime!”

Episode 1: Thunder & Lightning
When former-LA-cop-turned-private d!ck Leroy “the Hawk” Hawkins got an early morning phone call for help from Russell Barnes, the kindly old owner of the “Soul Kitchen” restaurant, he knew trouble was on the menu. Donning his trademark duds – with his brown, three-quarter-length leather jacket and black, patent leather, ankle-high boots – the Hawk strutted down to the Pueblo District.

Crane Digado, bicycle courier by day, disco DJ spinmaster by night, smelled trouble when he discovered the Soul Kitchen burned to cinders en route to a morning delivery to Father Francis’ Pueblo District mission. He learned from the Soul Kitchen’s owner, old Mr. Barnes, that a local small-time street gang calling themselves the “Street Thunder” had hit him up for protection money a few weeks ago, but he refused to pay. He feared that this act of arson might be retaliation for his resistance. Crane knew all too well the wrath of organized crime, as he had lost his previous employment when Club Dy-No-Mite was burned to the ground by the Syndicate.

At the scene, the Hawk met an old LAPD colleague named Phil Watts, now a police detective investigating the fire, who told him that the Fire Marshall indeed found evidence of arson. Mr. Barnes was relieved to see the Hawk arrive, and offered him whatever payment he could muster, once the insurance check came, if he could confirm whether the Street Thunder had done this. Picking the brain of the loquacious Crane, Hawk learned that the street gang had spray painted several “tags” on buildings near Gladys Park, and he took to struttin’.

Crane gave Mr. Barnes two tickets to the new nightclub where he spun his vinyl, “21 Hollywood,” and took off for a breakfast joint around the corner from Gladys Park, where he enjoyed a sausage and egg muffin until the Hawk made his way to the gang’s turf. Crane followed the Hawk into the park, and watched him confront the gang leader, who drew his switchblade as his lackeys and their mascot, a ferocious German Shepard named “Tigre,” surrounded the lone investigator. Thinking fast, Crane lured the dog away with his breakfast sausage, and when the rest of the gang’s attention was diverted, the Hawk deftly disarmed the gang leader. The gang bangers turned and ran, leading the Hawk in a foot-chase up a tenement fire escape and across a clothesline-strewn rooftop. One of the gang members tried leaping the alley between two tenements to escape the Hawk, but misjudged, and ended up hanging for dear life from the edge of the neighboring building. The Hawk took flight and deftly perched on the neighboring building’s rooftop, where he took hold of the dangling gang member – now in a compromising position – and interrogated him Hawk-style. The gang member identified himself as Paco, and revealed that an evil pimp and heroin dealer named “King George” offered to pay the gang a whopping $100 to burn down the Soul Kitchen. They were to meet King George at midnight on the LA River Bridge to collect their bread.

Crane, now befriended by the gang’s German Shepard, whom he renamed “Tigro,” invited the Hawk to “21 Hollywood” to meet LA’s number-one know-it-all nark, “Cuddle Bug,” who was sure to have the low-down on King George. The Hawk showed up in style, as did Mr. Barnes and his young “chippie” girlfriend, the foxy “Coffee.” Cuddle Bug showed up in grand style, decked out in a purple velvet leisure suit with fox fur collar and matching feathered hat, and a foxy sequined Stella on each arm. Passing his turntable to his apprentice, Two-Tone Tommy, the gold-lamé-clad DJ Crane inquired of Cuddle Bug about King George. Cuddle revealed that George was LA’s number one kingpin, and cautioned Crane against crossing him.

Crane passed this on to Hawk, and the two made their way to the LA River Bridge for the midnight rendezvous. At the apex of the pedestrian catwalk, they found the Street Thunder gang leader, Rico, holding a fishing pole with a weight and a rubber band on the end of the line. Rico was just as confused to find the pole on the catwalk as he was shocked to see the Hawk there. Hawk told the punk to “chill,” and drop the line. When the boy complied, a well-lit yacht approached from up-river and a white-suited brother surrounded by bikini-clad foxes called up on a megaphone to Rico. The foxes fished the line out of the water, and the white-suited man, obviously the King himself, bound the bread in the rubber band for Rico to reel up. Crane called out to the ladies, and learned the name of one – “Indigo.” He then read the name of the boat as it passed under the bridge – “The Quadraphonic.”

As Rico reeled in his catch, the Hawk snatched the line, and cut it with Rico’s own switchblade, which he had relieved him of in the earlier confrontation. Folding the knife and tossing it back to Rico, the Hawk pocketed the cash – which would help relieve Mr. Barnes’ recent fiduciary loss – and warned Rico that he and his boys should tread lightly, “because the Hawk will be keeping his eye on Pueblo.”


Episode 2: Salt to Paul, Part I

HE's an omniscient, omnipresent Judeo-Christian deity who can do everything. *He's* an ex-con professional-wrestler-turned-priest who runs a shelter in L.A.'s Skid Row district. Together, they fight crime!

After dropping off a parcel at the Argentine Embassy bearing a stamp featuring former First Lady of Argentina Evita Perón – a point which was duly noted by the Ambassador’s Aid who accepted the parcel – Crane Digado collided with a hurried pedestrian while watching a foxy señorita ascend the embassy steps. The pedestrian turned out to be a bank robber in a rubber Sammy Davis, Jr. mask, who dropped his loot upon impact. His bag and Crane’s were identical, so he grabbed both and fled, noting abstrusely that he’d be laughing about this later over a “Compton Car Bomb.” Crane chased on foot, since his bike was in no condition to ride, and pursued the thief through a playground, where he caught up to him and lunged for his bag. The villain proved more agile, however, and Crane ended up tangled up in a see-saw.

Meanwhile, Father Francis of the Saint Ignacio Mission of L.A.’s Skid Row district received a visit from a fellow who had decided to give up his life of crime after hearing Father Francis’ Sunday homily the day before. A current Mission resident recognized him from the old neighborhood as “Salt,” so named for his proclivity to dump salt in the gas tanks of neighborhood police cars. “Salt” renounced his street name in favor of his Christian name of Paul Farris, and swore he was “going straight.” He asked for the sacrament of confession, which Father Francis graciously granted, and told the father in confidence that he had participated in two of the three recent bank robberies in L.A. over the past week, and that the crowd he was running with was planning a heist on a local jewelry store, the Gold Rush Bijouterie. Father Francis knew the confidentiality of the confessional prohibited him from mentioning the impending burglary to anyone, even the police. But Mr. Rushmore, one of the two owners of Gold Rush, was one of the donors whose moneys were enabling St. Ignacio to retain the Mission, and if the heist went down, the donations would undoubtedly stop, and the Church would no longer be able to afford the lease. Father Francis decided to take matters into his own praying hands.
Meanwhile, Hawk paid a visit to Crabby Joe’s Bar & Lounge, where he found Russell Barnes, owner of the Soul Kitchen, which was recently destroyed by arsonists paid by L.A. crime kingpin “King George.” Hawk gave Russell the hundred bucks he jacked from the Street Thunder street gang as a small “remuneration” for their crime, and Russell invited Hawk to the bar to watch the bartender, Willis, concoct his latest invention, the “Compton Car Bomb,” a mixed drink involving a shot of various liquors submerged in a strange, new, dark European brew called a “stout beer.” It was then that a local entrepreneur named Malcolm Wendell Frazier III came to Crabby Joe’s to find Hawk and offer him a business proposition. Spiriting Hawk away in his avocado green 1970 Cadillac Eldorado, Mr. Frazier revealed himself as the owner of a neighborhood Savings and Loan. At his office, he asked Hawk to investigate who was responsible for the recent string of bank robberies because he feared his Savings and Loan would soon be a target. He lent Hawk the “avocado Eldorado” for use in his investigation.

As Father Francis left his Mission, he was confronted by a mysterious, white-suited Caribbean man smoking a cigarillo, who exhorted the father not to accept donations from the benefactor who was helping him finance his Mission. To emphasize his point, the man called on two hulking thugs, who emerged from the alleyway and attacked Father Francis. The good father held his own against the thugs, but before they could gain the upper hand, Hawk, passing by in the avocado Eldorado, and Crane, walking his dog “Tigro,” heard the scuffle and turned down the alleyway to investigate. Father Francis made short work of one thug, whom he dumped in a dumpster, and the other fled up a fire escape to escape the yapping maw of Tigro. Crane duct taped the dumpster shut, and learned from Father Francis that he was on his way to a jewelry store, which he feared might be in imminent danger from the perpetrators of the recent crime spree.

Hawk graciously gave the father a ride to Gold Rush Bijouterie in the avocado Eldorado, and Crane and Tigro tagged along. Crane described his run in with the bank robber earlier that morning, and the three staked out the Bijouterie long after it closed, waiting for trouble. Hawk waited across the street outside a local bar called Roscoe’s Lounge. Father Francis waited at a corner bus stop bench, and Crane climbed onto the first story roof of the bijouterie. Before long, they observed four silhouetted figures with enormous heads sneak into the third story of the building. Crane recognized one as having the pompadour hairstyle of the Sammy Davis, Jr. mask he saw the bank robber wearing that morning. Crane heard shuffling coming from the air conditioning exhaust fan, and Hawk and Father Francis saw through the display windows the four silhouetted men drop from the ceiling into the first floor of the Bijouterie. One knelt down and set up a tripod upon which he affixed a rifle, and, turning it toward the glass door from which Hawk and Father Francis watched in shadows, fired a gunshot!

TO BE CONTINUED . . .

Episode 3: Salt to Paul, Part II

Hawk leapt for cover as Father Francis stood stultified by the ringing gunshot. In spite of – or perhaps because of – the careful aiming of the rifleman inside the store, neither the display windows nor the glass door suffered a scratch. Immediately after the masked rifleman fired his shot through the gate that separated the middle of the store from the front of the store, his masked cohorts spread out to the glass display cabinets from inside the gate, and opened them easily, removing the diamond-studded jewelry inside.

Meanwhile, Crane found his way into the apartment building above the bijouterie via a fire-escape window. Despite the resistance of a building resident, he found the air conditioning vent he suspected the intruders used to infiltrate the lower floor. Father Francis followed Crane into the second story window as Hawk forged his own path into the first floor. Tearing a barely bolted-down mailbox from the pavement with his brute strength, he charged toward the display window and smashed through it, holding the mailbox in front of him for cover. As the three masked thieves – wearing masks depicting members of the “Rat Pack” – retreated for the air conditioning vent from which they entered, the masked rifleman – wearing the Dean Martin mask – fired at the charging hero, and his bullet ricocheted harmlessly off the mailbox. The burglars shimmied up into the ventilator shaft and the marksman fired again, hitting Hawk’s leg and bringing him, and the mailbox, crashing to the floor. Huddled, bleeding, behind the mailbox, Hawk fired wildly over his cover, striking the marksman in the backside and the remaining burglar – wearing the Sammy Davis, Jr. mask – in the arms, bringing them both to the floor in a bleeding, whimpering heap. “Sammy” cried out in pain to his marksman partner, calling him “Jansen.” Enraged at his cohort’s slip of the tongue, the marksman turned his rifle on his prone confederate, and fired his last bullet into the forehead of the giant Sammy Davis, Jr. mask, silencing the wearer.

Alerted by the echoing footsteps of the fleeing burglars in the air shaft, Crane climbed in and pursued them, sliding into their legs in an attempt to sweep them to the floor. The air shaft gave out, however, under the force of his combined momentum and weight, and Crane came crashing down through the plaster ceiling. Undeterred, he and Father Francis scrambled into the elevator in an attempt to pursue the burglars to the next floor. Crane climbed up through the emergency hatch in the elevator roof and deftly swung across the gaping chasm of the elevator shaft into the air duct aperture. Father Francis alighted from the elevator into the third floor hallway and waited for the burglars outside the air vent. As the one in the Frank Sinatra mask descended feet-first, Fr. Francis applied his patented “pile driver-punch” maneuver that made him famous in his wrestling days, bringing the full force of the burglar’s own weight to bear on the unyielding floor, combined with the bone-crushing strike of the Father’s brass knuckles. “Frank” fell limp to the floor as the remaining burglar lost Crane in the byzantine air shafts.

After turning the captured villains over to the police, the three gathered the next morning to interrogate the thug Crane had sealed in the alley dumpster with his duct tape the day before in the Skid Row section of town, near Fr. Francis’ St. Ignacio Mission. The thug, his spirit broken from fifteen hours of confinement in the garbage-filled dumpster, revealed that King George was responsible for ordering the attack on Fr. Francis to deter the cleric from accepting the donation from Gold Rush Bijouterie that would help keep the Mission running. Although the thug spoke nothing of any robbery of the bijouterie, he disclosed that King George hoped to acquire the property from which Fr. Francis ran the St. Ignacio Mission, as he had acquired the property on which Russell Barnes’ Soul Kitchen Restaurant once stood. Placated by the thug’s revelations, they let him flee.

Hawk brought Crane and Fr. Francis to Crabby Joe’s Bar and Lounge, where Willis, the bartender, mixed them up one of his patented “Compton Car Bombs.” As the men partook in the strange, new dark beer imported from Ireland, which Fr. Francis had enjoyed since he was but a wee lad, a dark-skinned man in a bowtie entered the bar, identified himself as John Henry Shabazz, Esquire, and invited the three to his office to discuss “legal matters.” He revealed himself to be the executor of Mr. Frazier’s will, and explained that the neighborhood philanthropist died in the night of a stroke. Among the projects Frazier had worked for years to establish was the Malcolm Wendell Frazier III Foundation in Compton, which included a Criminal Investigations Branch that would provide privately funded aid to Compton residents who needed investigative help in matters in which the ever aloof LAPD seemed remiss. Most surprising was Shabazz’s revelation that Frazier had personally requested on his deathbed that the position of running the main office of the Investigations Branch – dubbed “Frazier’s Fist” – be offered to Hawk!

Episode 4: Jingle Skells (featuring Kristy McNichol as "Holly")
When Crane Digado stopped off at Father Francis’ St. Ignacio Mission, after a nearby delivery, to hear the guys from the shelter sing Christmas carols as they collected donations from passersby on a snowy December 23rd, he witnessed an 11-year-old rollerskating tomboy in a white fur coat snatch the collection pot and skate off with it! Crane and Fr. Francis caught up to the would-be thief, named “Holly,” in nearby Gladys Park, and promptly took her home, which, currently, was a dingy 8th floor apartment rented by her chain-smoking father in the run-down San Pedro Arms “Luxury Apartments” tenement. Holly, who was smitten with Crane, told Fr. Francis she’d see him again at the Christmas Eve live nativity scene to be performed at the St. Ignacio Mission the following night, just before her father inhospitably shut the door in the men’s faces.

Holly showed up, as promised, at the nativity performance the following evening. Paul Farris, neé “Salt,” played Joseph; the chain-smoking Bud Wiley played a scruffily bearded Mary; and an old, one-legged baby doll wrapped in a bed sheet served as the Christ-child. Wild-eyed Mannie Charleson, odiferous “Pig Sty” Peters, dipsomaniacal Rufus Stackpole, stammering “Tilley” and shady Joey Scivosa played the rest of the characters as Deacon George provided mellotron organ accompaniment to Father Francis’ reading of the scripture’s Christmas story. After the performance, Sisters Mary and Gertrude of the Holy Child of the Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary brought Father Francis a silver aluminum Christmas tree all the way from San Bernardino, which Holly helped decorate.

Shortly thereafter, a brutish “Santy Claus” paid a visit to the shelter, and doled out to Holly a brightly wrapped gift, which he exhorted her to place under her tree at home. Holly heeded his advice and bade farewell to her homeless friends as Father Francis walked her toward the San Pedro Arms. Not far from the shelter, as Holly skated a few paces ahead of the priest, an unseen assailant tossed an empty sack over her head from an alleyway and dragged the little girl into the darkness. Father Francis rushed to her aid to discover the attacker to be none other than the Santa Claus imposter who visited the mission only moments before. Father Francis sent the villain bleeding and fleeing for the passenger seat of a passing, purple Chevy Nova with a few well-placed wrestling maneuvers. He heard the driver refer to the Santa imposter as “Lacey” as the car sped away. Fr. Francis then brought Holly back to the mission to dry off and regale the guys at the shelter with the tale of the daring rescue.

Meanwhile, at the Express Delivery Bicycle Messenger Service, dispatcher Jules took Crane away from his poker game with his co-workers, Paulie Bantoni, the aspiring boxer; Joe Iwanowski, the madcap stoner; Alan Reisler, the level-headed intellectual; and Eileen O’Nard, the voluptuous secretary, to deliver an emergency note to Frazier’s Fist Private Investigation Agency in Compton. Crane braved the driving snow to deliver the note to his friend Hawk, who was putting snow chains on the tires of the avocado Eldorado. The note was from Superintendent Jorge of the San Pedro Arms tenement requesting Hawk’s emergency assistance, and Crane accompanied his companion to the familiar tenement. The Super took them up to the 8th floor fire escape landing where they observed, lying in the snow on the ground, the bloodied and mangled body of a man, whom Crane recognized as Holly’s father. A quick check of the tenement register revealed the man to be one Nicholas Kinnicky, whom Hawk remembered was one of three perpetrators of the famous “Highway One Heist” six years ago. Kinnicky and his cohorts, Ron Lacey and Ed LaRue, had robbed a delivery truck of a half-million dollars worth of furs. Although all three men were convicted, the furs were never found, and police believed that Kinnicky hid them, even from his coconspirators. Now Kinnicky was dead, and Hawk and Crane feared that Lacey and LaRue were attempting to track down the lost furs at all costs, and that Kinnicky’s daughter might now be in danger. Crane knew just where to find Holly, at the St. Ignacio Mission, and he and Hawk high-tailed it to the Skid Row District.

On the way, Crane and Hawk heard cries for help emanating from a nearby alleyway. Inside, they found a Salvation Army volunteer bound and gagged, wearing nothing but his long underwear. As the men freed him, he explained that he had been mugged by two thugs who stole his Santa Claus suit and mock gifts. When Crane and Hawk arrived at St. Ignacio’s, they learned that Holly’s attackers were those same two thugs. They agreed to hide Holly at Crane’s apartment until morning and attempt to track down Lacey and LaRue. On the ride to his Hollywood and Sunset Boulevard apartment, Crane broke the sad news to Holly of her father’s death.
On Christmas morning, Holly stole away to buy Crane a new bike at the pawn shop. When Crane scolded her for sneaking out without telling him, she revealed she had pawned the locket her father gave her to purchase the gift, but had kept the “key to his heart” she always kept inside the locket. Hawk, who had been staking out the apartment all night in the avocado Eldorado, and somehow missed Holly’s elusive escape, joined them inside when he saw Holly return. Hawk inspected the key and discovered an address of a storage rental facility etched on it. They picked up Father Francis at the Mission and, on the way to the storage lot, noticed they were being followed by a purple Chevy Nova. Stopping only to make a quick pay phone call to the police, they led their surreptitious pursuers to the storage lot, where Hawk’s friend, Detective Phil Watts, was waiting in his undercover muscle car. Hawk bribed the owner to open the garage Kinnicky had been renting for the past six years, and discovered trash bags full of stolen furs. Lacey and LaRue took that opportune moment to emerge from their Nova armed with handguns and take the furs by force. Instead, Hawk, Crane, Father Francis, Detective Watts and even little Holly combined their talents in a high-kicking, body-slamming melee of epic proportions which ended when Hawk took down the fleeing LaRue with the toss of a heavy bag of fur coats, which landed squarely on LaRue’s already bloodied head, knocking him to the cement.

After the perpetrators were in police custody and the furs turned over as evidence, Father Francis made a call to the San Bernardino convent of the Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and asked Sister Gertrude to help him find a home for Holly. The industrious nun tracked down Holly’s grandmother in San Francisco, one Helen Kinnicky, and, on the day of the Epiphany, the family was reunited to the St. Ignacio shelter residents’ rousing verse of “We Three Kings” . . . combined with Mannie Charleson’s trademark chorus of “Helter Skelter.”


Episode 5: Soviet Stella (or Boogie Down Six Feet Under)

At “21 Hollywood,” L.A.’s premier discothèque, Crane Digado hosted “Disco Queen Night,” a dance contest that pitted the most daring disco divas in a bid for the crown of supreme Stella. The crowd came in droves, dressed in their grooviest polyester finery, and even KDAY sent nationally syndicated disc jockey Wolfman Jack to simulcast the event on his “Midnight Special” radio show. After the men’s competition, a preliminary event to warm up the crowd, the divas came out in style to strut their stuff. The contestants included Coffee, the lovely and frequent companion of Russell Barnes; Sheba, foxy bartender of 21 Hollywood; Annette Levine, a Saucelito gal; and local fan favorite “Delta” Dawn Meyers. The fanfare of Dawn’s quick victory was even more quickly extinguished when she was, shortly after the competition, found murdered in the coat check room. Owner Ian Rubell found pills strewn around the strangulated body, and fearing the LAPD would shut down 21 Hollywood if they discovered the presence of the drugs, exhorted Crane to seek the help of his “P.I. friend,” Leroy “Hawk” Hawkins.

After picking up “the avocado Eldorado” from Ed Brown’s body shop in the East L.A. barrio, where it was attended to personally by Hawk’s Chicano amigo Chico Rodriguez, an uncharacteristically tuxedoed Hawk took his number one lady Shelly McAllister to the L.A. Music Center for her birthday, to see the Russian Ballet featuring prima ballerina Svetlana Filitalova. Shortly after the heralded arrival of the star performer, the tuxedoed and fur-coated crowd was startled by the cacophonous horn and gaudy gold-and-chrome glitter of a Rolls Royce, driven by the infamous streetwise pimp, “Cuddle Bug.” In the passenger’s seat was Crane, who was forced to tear Hawk away from his date to answer Ian’s desperate request for help investigating the Disco Queen murder. Hawk returned with Crane to 21 Hollywood, which the police had temporarily closed down for investigation, and Ian handed over to Hawk the pills he discovered on the floor of the murder scene. Hawk’s contacts at the LAPD crime lab revealed the pills to be Rohypnol, or “Roofies” and confirmed the cause of death to be manual strangulation.

Days later, while conducting the sacrament of Confession at St. Ignacio’s Church, Fr. Francis was visited by a furtive prima ballerina with a Russian accent and a less-than-masterful command of English idioms, who confessed that she wished to defect from the U.S.S.R. for religious and political reasons, and seek sanctuary at St. Ignacio’s Church. She left Fr. Francis a secret note indicating where and when she would announce her public defection, and asked Fr. Francis to be there when it happened. The chosen time was none other than the grand reopening of 21 Hollywood for the “Diva America Pageant” on Saturday night.

The Saturday morning preceding the pageant, Crane’s assistant, Two-Tone Tommy, paid him a visit to inform him of the murder of two more Disco Queens at other L.A. area discothèques, including Annette Levine, and warned him that if the “Diva America Pageant” went on, the winner would surely lose her life. Crane suggested that the pageant should go on, to lure the murderer to the club, where he, Hawk and Fr. Francis would be to capture the villain. That night, Crane, Hawk and Fr. Francis arrived at the club even before the KDAY radio personnel, and, when the crowd arrived, the pageant proceeded with yet another warm-up competition for the men. Svetlana showed up, as promised, donning her disco duds, and joined the pageant as a contestant. When the women’s competition commenced, Svetlana’s graceful moves, honed by a decade-and-a-half of hard study at the Bolshoi, combined with her natural rhythmic talent, proved her hands-down victory. The crowd raised her aloft and carried her across the dance floor, where she slipped down into the writhing mass of patrons and disappeared from the sight of her stalwart protectors. Hawk, Crane and Father Francis made their way through the throng to the ladies room, where they suspected she might be, and, after surprising a gaggle of preening divas, investigated the stalls to find Tony Tucker, the winner of the men’s competition, trying to strangle Svetlana. Using the overhead plumbing pipes like monkey bars, the ballerina slipped from her attacker’s grasp with astounding dexterity, and Crane, Hawk and Fr. Francis subdued the pompadoured serial-murderer with their distinctive mix of street fighting, disco dancing and wrestling maneuvers. By the time Svetlana’s KGB bodyguards and the State Department G-Men arrived, the situation was well under control. Svetlana thanked the heroes for their efforts, and returned willingly to the Bolshoi, figuring the United States to be too dangerous a place to which to defect.

And more on this weeks’ celebrity cameo can be found at:
www.tvland.com/shows/chico/
www.sitcomsonline.com/chicoandtheman.htm...

Episode 6: “And That’s the Way It Is…”

About a week before New Years day 1980, Hawk joined Russell Barnes, Russell’s foxy chippie “Coffee” and all the Compton gang at Crabby Joe’s Lounge for their “Last Call for 1979” bash, where Russell revealed that he and Coffee planned to go to Aruba for New Years. On the way back to his Frasier’s Fist office, Hawk saw heroin addicts everywhere, lining the streets and alleyways like detritus after a hurricane. Once inside, Hawk heard one of the kids knocking on his office door beseeching his help. Hawk joined him outside only to find Russell’s son Lamar had overdosed on heroin, packaged in a wax paper envelope labeled “RC Cola.”

In the skid row district, the guys at the St. Ignacio Mission alerted Fr. Francis to a car accident in the street outside the shelter, where the Father found Paul Farris lying in a puddle of blood by the bumper of a tan mustang stopped in the street. Paul was mortally wounded, and the driver was none other than the son of Police Commissioner Clancy Conley. In the pleather bucket seat of the mustang, Fr. Francis found wax paper envelopes labeled “RC Cola.”

Hawk and Fr. Francis met at the hospital, where they compared notes and found, to their dismay, that neither Lamar nor Paul survived. At Lamar’s funeral, as the boy was lowered into the plot next to his mother, Russell beseeched Hawk to find out who was responsible for his son’s acquiring heroin. Hawk knew that only King George could be behind this scheme, and that only one man knows where to find the King.

At 21 Hollywood’s “Disco Forever” end-of-decade bash, Crane relinquished the turntable to Two-Tone Tommy, who added to the set list a strange new song by an up-and-coming band called “Blondie,” a New Wave tune called “Heart of Glass.” Crane got Hawk and Fr. Francis an audience with Cuddle Bug, who promised to get them into the King’s castle, if they were willing to “do what it takes.” Russell arrived with Coffee to ensure with desperate pleas that Hawk was willing to “do what it takes.” Hawk agreed, and he, Crane and Father Francis met Cuddle Bug on the afternoon of New Years Eve, to prepare to crash the King’s New Year’s party, where, each year, he delivers to his street dealers the first batch of the year’s goods. Much to the chagrin of the heroes, Cuddle Bug took them to a masterful make-up artist in a studio across the street from the Mann Chinese Theater, who transformed them into lovely, if hormonal, ladies-of-the-night.

At King George’s Starlight Beach estate on Catalina Island, 22 miles off of L.A.’s coast, Hawk, Crane and Fr. Francis infiltrated the party incognito, and in heels. During the party, a cigarette boat pulled up delivering crates of the “RC Cola” heroin to the private pier at the foot of King George’s cliff-side mansion deck. At the stroke of midnight, Hawk, Crane and Fr. Francis made their move, and plowed their way through thugs and drug dealers to coronate the king with a crown of knuckles. Crane dumped a bottle of dish detergent he acquired from the kitchen into the hot tub, around which the King and his court were assembled. As if fighting in heels weren’t difficult enough, the heroes were intercepted by King George’s number one lady, Nefertiti Foxx, a high kicking Stella with an attitude and a black belt. Despite Nefertiti’s interference, Fr. Francis landed a punch that nearly split King George’s crown in two, only to find himself high-kicked through the deck railing by Nefertiti and plummeting over the cliff. As the King retreated toward his emergency getaway motorboat, Hawk pursued, batting away thugs with a deck chair and making a daring leap across the pool using the diving board. Meanwhile, Nefertiti and the foot-soldiers tried to pursue Hawk, but found themselves incapacitated by the slippery, roiling froth of suds erupting from the Jacuzzi. In a final face-off, King George shot Hawk through the shoulder, only to receive a head-butt that knocked him out and sent him plummeting from his deck into a back-breaking landing onto the deck of his idle getaway boat. The DEA helicopters arrived just in time with LA Detective Phil Watts, whom Hawk had tipped off earlier, and a pastel-clad detective from the Vice Squad of the Miami Police Department who had followed the shipment westward around the Panama Canal. Although Fr. Francis, hauled up on a stretcher, questioned the Miami Detective’s jurisdiction, there was no question that King George’s reign – and the 1970s – had come to an end.

[After a stint of many years on ABC, "They Fight Crime" reached the height of its popularity in 1979, when it was the highest-rated LA-based-crime-fighting-*male*-trio-(who-*weren't*-cops) show in television history. The actors began to pursue other ventures: Jim Kelly and Marc Singer sought to return to the big screen, and Ed Asner, a method actor, went into detox. Still, the network tried to keep the show alive, and one last season was filmed in 1980 since, as the new millenium technically doesn't begin until 2001, the new decade didn't technically begin until 1981, so the producers felt there was still some life left in the show. Since the actors were frequently off on other projects, few of the episodes featured all three at the same time. Sadly, however, although the final season produced some memorable episodes, the zeitgeist of the '70s was over, and the viewing public's interest in the show began to wane. Finally it was cancelled at the end of the 1980 viewing season. The final season is known by consensus as the season in which the show officially “jumped the shark,” a vernacular term referring to the point at which a hit television show declines significantly in quality. Etymologists argued that the origin of this phrase stems from an episode of Happy Days, in which Fonzie attempted to jump a tank of sharks on his motorcycle – the point at which Happy Days began to decline in quality. Other etymologists argue, however, that the term stems from one of the “They Fight Crime” episodes from early in the 1980 sseason, in which Evel Kneivel made a guest appearance and referred to his upcoming shark-jumping stunt. Fans of “They Fight Crime” maintain that this was the point the show began to decline in quality as it was the first episode in which Crane Digado did not appear. The few fondly remembered episodes from the final 1980 season of “They Fight Crime” are known affectionately as “the Lost Episodes”, and are summarized below: )

Episode 7: High Octane

While administering Last Rites at St. Ignacio Hospital to a hapless victim caught in the crossfire of a gangland shooting between rival drug factions fighting over the empire of recently deposed L.A. crime kingpin “King George,” Father Francis met legendary daredevil Evel Knievel, who was signing autographs in the children’s ward. Evel gave Fr. Francis 50 tickets to give to the St. Ignacio Christian Youth Organization for his upcoming Burbank performance, in which he planned to jump his motorcycle over a tank of live, man-eating sharks. Fr. Francis graciously accepted the tickets, and organized a field trip for his parish high-school students.

Meanwhile, Jarvis Burkes, owner and manager of Burkes’ Auto Rental, visited the Frazier’s Fist Private Investigation Agency in Compton, hiring Hawk to tail a pair of “regular customers” whom he suspected were using his rental cars to conduct drug deliveries. After a week of investigation, Hawk received a call from Mr. Burkes informing him that the pair had returned to rent a Honda, and Hawk followed the rented vehicle in his “avocado Eldorado” to a pier-side drug bust where they met with Columbian drug importers in a Porsche 356 Speedster, and an undercover Detective Phil Watts. The operation went awry, however, and the Columbians incapacitated Detective Watts, locking him in the front trunk of their Porsche. The street dealers, one mortally wounded, fled in their rented Honda but crashed a short distance from the scene. The Columbians fled in their Porsche, with Det. Watts still in the front trunk, and Hawk emerged from the shadows to give chase in a high-speed pursuit that led onto the L.A. Freeway, where California Highway Patrol Officer Francis Poncherello had stopped traffic to allow an 18-wheeler carrying a tanker of highly unstable liquid chlorine to enter the highway, escorted by CHiPs motorcycle officers. The Columbians careened onto the freeway shoulder, speeding past the stopped traffic and smashing through the orange cone barricade, smashing Officer Poncherello’s motorcycle in the process. Hawk kept pace as the Columbians sped toward the explosive 18-wheeler and ran one of the CHiPs escorts off the road. As Hawk and his quarry were passing the 18-wheeler, Detective Watts managed to force open the front trunk of the Porsche, blocking the view of the driver and causing him to swerve the car dangerously close to the tanker. As the Porsche began to spin out of control, Det. Watts leapt from the open trunk of the Porsche onto the ladder of the 18-wheeler’s cab, and the Columbian druglord in the passenger seat of the Porsche followed suit, landing, instead, on the hood of the truck, as his confederate lost control and spun the Porsche to a stop. The second CHiPs motorcyclist broke off his escort to apprehend the driver of the Porsche, who was abandoning his vehicle in a vain attempt to escape on foot.

The Columbian on the hood of the 18-wheeler entered the cab and overtook the driver, tossing him onto the hood of the avocado Eldorado, which slowed enough to allow the shaken truck driver to leap off relatively harmlessly. Hawk resumed the pursuit however, and caught up to the lumbering, rogue 18-wheeler just as it was approaching a school bus filled with 10^th grade field-trippers, and driven by Fr. Francis. Losing his hold on the cab’s ladder, Phil Watts handcuffed himself to one of the rungs to keep himself from falling to his death from the speeding truck. Seeing the highly explosive truck barreling toward the school bus, Hawk made a necessary sacrifice, and, throwing off his hard-top convertible roof, abandoned the speeding Eldorado and leapt across the highway, onto the ladder of the 18-wheeler’s cab, only to watch his beloved car careen off the freeway overpass and explode below. Hawk helped Phil gain a better foothold and turned toward the cab, where he struggled with the Columbian drug lord to wrest control of the vehicle from him. Fr. Francis turned over control of the school bus to resident stoner and three-time tenth-grader “Otto,” and leapt from the open bus door onto the speeding truck to assist Hawk. Climbing over the roof of the cab, Fr. Francis swung into the passenger-side door and knocked out the Columbian hijacker with one swift kick to the jaw, but not before the truck began to spin out of control into an imminently explosive jackknife. With one last desperate effort, Phil snapped the chain of his handcuffs and he, Hawk and Fr. Francis made a synchronized, death-defying leap across the highway lanes from the truck toward the school bus. None of them would have cleared the distance but for the help of the screaming 10th graders, gaping from their open bus windows, and groping for the heroes, and that of Otto, who, in a career-defining moment, sped the school bus away from the billowing, flaming mushroom cloud of exploding liquid chlorine in a stunt that would have made Evel Knievel proud.

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Ahhhh, I wish...that sounds like fun.

The guys in my group are very FRPG-centric, though.

I ran it for many years, and wrote many of those 3rd party support supplements.

It's a great system. I actually miss it, but currently have two other campaigns and not enough time for THOSE.

I ran a campaign set a hundred years in the future using D20 Modern. Brought in some standard fantasy elements such as planar travel, demons and so on. We had a blast. We'll probably go back to it at some point.

I ran it and enjoyed it, but I always felt like the core interesting feature of encouraged multiclassing was undercut by having multiclassing result in very low BABs. Players either ended up powerclassing to build someone competent or going with what felt fun and having a really hard time in combat.

I had better luck when I used it for one-shots we pregen characters that I had balanced appropriately. (Or when I house-ruled fractional BABs, so that a Smart1/Dedicated1 character had a BAB of +1 (0.5 + 0.75).)

I also loved Grim Tales' take on d20 Modern and wish there'd been more of it.

I've played it once; never ran it per se. I have taken a few rules from it. I wish that I, and other people would play it more.

There's no reason other than legacy for roleplaying to have any association with the fantasy genre. Indeed, I suspect that association inhibits its popularity. We've been waiting decades for a good rpg for contemporary settings to really make a splash. Out of many attempts, Modern is perhaps the best shot we've had, but it exposes some of the weaknesses of the d20 system and has some new weaknesses of its own. And then 4e came out and the mechanics simply weren't good enough to even think about a modern game or anything else, and now they're working on 5e and don't seem interested as of yet.

I do think that a good understanding of d20 Modern helps one understand the d20 system as a whole and it has some good ideas. And if I wanted to, perhaps I could hack a usable game out of it. But it's a shame that it was never revised and never really went anywhere. As it is, I've tried it but I tend to use CoC d20 or Cortex for modern and future settings.

I wonder if it would be worth - as a fan project perhaps - applying some of the main Pathfinder improvements to it? Not all of them, but some of the easy patches might work.

I've been compiling the SRD on the wiki for a week or two. It's coming along well! Ad a splash of third party OGC helps to make the system richer.

I still find the basic class names hard to swallow though!