Dreams & Machines Is Modiphius' New Age of Roleplaying

Modiphius has announced a new roleplaying game world, a 'far flung outpost of humanity' once dominated by mechs and future tech, now in ruins after a war with the machines. Ths new world is arriving on August 3rd this year, the first day of Gen Con. There's not much information available yet, but you can see some more art and sign up to the mailing list at the official website.

Dreams and Machines is a world cut off from earth. a far flung outpost of humanity, where mechs and futuristic tech dominated society.

The world is in ruins after a war with the machines. now, mechs lay dormant but when they activate, these ‘wakers’ bring destruction.

Factions like the archivists and dreamers are rebuilding the world in their own way. growing and trading what they can with other everan communities.

The shadowy spectre of the dark city skulks around and the malevolent corrupted ai known as ‘the builder’ is plotting against humanity.

DREAMS AND MACHINES

www.dreamsandmachines.com

 

[Fenris-77]

If only if were one less d20....

 

[darjr]

I downloaded the quick start and it is indeed a 2d20 system. I didn’t have a good experience with 2d20 recently at free rpg day….but the system still intrigued me. Also it’s the system Star Trek Adventures uses!

Dreams and Machines uses twenty-sided dice (called d20s). Ideally, it’s best to have at least two d20s per person. If your dice supplies are limited, the group can make do by sharing dice, you’ll never need to roll more than five d20s at once.

 

[aramis erak]

It's a form of 2d20, albeit stripped down and streamlined, from what I've heard.

Looking at the fastplay character sheets.
4 atts (6 to 11), 7 skills (1 to 4, looks like array choice [4, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1] or [4, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1,]), 4 other numeric ratings.
1-2 origin benefits, 1 talent, 3 psychological short answers..

Checking the module itself...
Looks right in the same complexity space as STA and Dune; like Dune, no effect dice. (I like effect dice, but can live without them.)

 

[GMMichael]

Is this a similar idea to the computer game Horizon: Zero Dawn?

What, just because Aloy is on the promo art?

It reads just like H:ZD to me. Did the publisher not want to do any licensing? I love the theme, but Guerilla fell just short of nailing it. Let's hope Modiphius fills the gap.

 

[Anon Adderlan]

It reads just like H:ZD to me. Did the publisher not want to do any licensing?

My bet is they tried, missed, filed the serial numbers off, and went with what they had.

 

[smiteworks]

I'm running Modiphius' Fallout roleplaying game which is based on the video game franchise of the same name. Combat is.....not exciting. In a nutshell, it's too abstract for tactical play and a little too dull for narrative play. If I can't figure out what to do to make the game more exciting, I'll probably cut bait and ask if they want to switch to something else.

Sorry for the thread necro, but what sort of problems are you experiencing with the combat? I've been running a Fallout 2d20 game locally and although it took some adjustments, my players seem to be enjoying it a lot. I find balance to be hard with it because some combinations are overpowered, but I have so far managed to handle that okay with strategic use of NPCs, weapon choices for those enemies, and pumping them up with various performance enhancing subjects that my players are more afraid to delve into for obvious reasons.

 

[MGibster]

Sorry for the thread necro, but what sort of problems are you experiencing with the combat? I've been running a Fallout 2d20 game locally and although it took some adjustments, my players seem to be enjoying it a lot.

Mostly it just felt a bit bland, but after a few more sessions we got into the swing of things and were sold on the system. We particularly like how momentum works and it was nice seeing players encourage one another to use it.

 

[smiteworks]

I may have missed out on momentum. Do you recall where that is mentioned in the books? I may need to read up on that.

I was concerned once one of my characters got a suit of power armor that he would be basically invincible. The first 2 rounds of the last combat had bullets bouncing off, but then I had a boss pump extra AP into damage dice for a grenade and it damaged his right arm pretty good. The rest of the enemies started focusing attacks on the arm and it actually put a little fear back into him.

I have one player that is a stealth monkey that throws daggers and tomahawks and he just murders things in 1 round whenever he is hidden.

A couple players are decent snipers that always go for head shots and one player is a menace with a bladed baseball bat that ends up piling on bleed damage that takes out even tough enemies in a few rounds due to the bleed.

I mostly find that I have to throw waves of enemies at them to keep them on their toes. One fear I have as a GM is that I won't be able to use hordes of lower level enemies to threaten them anymore. Those low-level enemies just can't punch through armor.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I may have missed out on momentum. Do you recall where that is mentioned in the books? I may need to read up on that.

It's the system's player metacurrency. Conan 2d20 called it Doom and Momentum.

If you're looking at the 2d20 SRD, then it's in "2D20 SRD Ch1 Core Rules v1.0.docx".

Like a lot of metacurrencies, it's kind of a divisive mechanic.