d20 Dark*Matter

[Friadoc]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/d20m/107697200

It's Official!

Ya know, just when I thought I wasn't planning on buying another d20 Modern book, they had to go and take advantage of my weakness.

 

[Remus Lupin]

Interesting cover art. Here's hoping that they de-dorkify some of the changes that they made to the D*M material in d20 Modern.

 

[Friadoc]

I'm thinking that it's pretty likely; since Wolfgang and Monte's names are still on it, I'm betting that a lot of it is just rules mechanics updates/changes with their original work still there.

They've also already got a nice backorder of fiction that they can re-release, propbably, or sell old stocks off to give it a boost, too.

It's pretty good stuff, between Monte Cook and Don BassingWaithe, they give you a nice feel for the setting.

Here's to hoping it rocks!

 

[Sir Brennen]

Here's another article on it:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20modern/article/20060606a

I never played the original Dark Matter. If one wanted to drop a Cthulhu mythos adventure into this setting, would it work well? Are the psychic powers of PCs of the "just able to learn enough to get in trouble" or gritty-but-almost-low-power-superhero style?

 

[Ranger REG]

*Yawns*

Yeah, old news.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=164667

I might pre-order this from Borders.

 

[arscott]

Here's another article on it:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20modern/article/20060606a

I never played the original Dark Matter. If one wanted to drop a Cthulhu mythos adventure into this setting, would it work well? Are the psychic powers of PCs of the "just able to learn enough to get in trouble" or gritty-but-almost-low-power-superhero style?

Neither, really. Alternity Dark•Matter FX were definately not superpowerful in the D&D vein (nor even in the d20 Modern: Urban Arcana vein). But they also didn't have the "dabbling in forces you don't understand aspect--A low-level psychic isn't going to be able to use his mind powers to take over the city, but they won't slowly drive him insane either.

In terms of the d20 revision, it depends a bit--The Shades of grey article used the occultist plus some PrCs for magic, but used the relatively powerful telepath AdC for psychic characters. Since then, the mesmerist, a psionic character more on par with the occultist, was introduced in d20 past. It remains to be seen which class the new Dark•Matter book will use.

 

[Friadoc]

You can easily fit the Cthulhu mythos into it, in fact we did it several, subtle times in our campaign, so it works out well enough.

It can really depend on the players and the DM, too, but it's easy to do so, in my opinion.

As for the psychic/psionic powers, it's somewhere in-between, since you start out (at least in the alternity version) relatively low powered, but you can get potent as time goes on.

 

[arscott]

Also, In the alternity version, a major limit is the limited variety of powers. Because there are no Mindwalkers, you're limited to only two psionic powers total (or four with a perk), and you can't use any mindwalking skills untrained.

 

[wingsandsword]

You can easily fit the Cthulhu mythos into it, in fact we did it several, subtle times in our campaign, so it works out well enough.

It can really depend on the players and the DM, too, but it's easy to do so, in my opinion.

As for the psychic/psionic powers, it's somewhere in-between, since you start out (at least in the alternity version) relatively low powered, but you can get potent as time goes on.

I believe Monte Cook has said that Dark*Matter grew out of and was inspired by an in-house Call of Cthuhlu campaign played at TSR in the mid to late 90's, so fitting the Cthuhlu Mythos into it is actually kind of appropriate, and something they probably would have done themselves if not for copyright and licensing issues.

Personally Dark*Matter was my favorite modern-day type setting. I painstakingly converted it over to d20 Modern long before the Menace Manual did most of the monsters for me, and I ran a year-long d20 Modern Dark*Matter campaign that I loved to run. I strongly hope that it's pretty much the same flavor and style of original Dark*Matter, with just a rules update, and it doesn't try to shoehorn Dark*Matter into d20 Modern (like replacing the Hoffman Institute with Department 7, using the existing classes for FX like mage and acolyte, or replacing the tide of dark matter with "shadow" or anything like that).

I'd say it would be a good chance to introduce a Skills & Feats type FX system into d20 modern, since that's pretty much how the original system worked, and since spellcasters and psychics were pretty limited in what they could do. Although the Occultist and Mesmerist classes would be passable substitutes, I guess, classes specifically fitted to the setting, like one for each FX type, would be the best.

Between a new version of Dark*Matter and a new edition of Star Wars, WotC is getting me to buy RPG books again, just when I'd gotten burned out on buying yet more D&D manuals.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I strongly hope that it's pretty much the same flavor and style of original Dark*Matter, with just a rules update, and it doesn't try to shoehorn Dark*Matter into d20 Modern (like replacing the Hoffman Institute with Department 7, using the existing classes for FX like mage and acolyte, or replacing the tide of dark matter with "shadow" or anything like that).

I'd say it would be a good chance to introduce a Skills & Feats type FX system into d20 modern, since that's pretty much how the original system worked, and since spellcasters and psychics were pretty limited in what they could do. Although the Occultist and Mesmerist classes would be passable substitutes, I guess, classes specifically fitted to the setting, like one for each FX type, would be the best.

I'm almost positive, after reading the ToC, that they're just going to, at most, make a few suggestions as to spells to be taken for Mage/Acolyte AdCs in order to fit the "flavor" of the occult magics in D*M, and then leave the other things up to a handfull of Prestige Classes. Major changes are seriously doubtful at this point.

But luckily there are other sources for things like that.

>.>

<.<

--fje