GI Joe d20

[hoyagerv]

jdrakeh, morgenstern, dragonblade,

Thanks for the great ideas! My best friend and I a few years back got interested in Spycraft 1.0, but sadly never got a game together. Given that I was the best man at his wedding this weekend and we live about 4 hours apart, I find it unlikely we'll be getting one together anytime soon. Something tells me he doesn't even know about Spycraft 2.0 (I'll have to inform him once he gets back from the honeymoon).

Now, all I need to do is finish graduate school, finish the Shackled City Adventure Path campaign I've been running for a year, become familiar with Spycraft 2.0, and convince my players to play a GI Joe themed campaign, and I'm set!

By any chance has anyone caught GI Joe Sigma Six? To be honest, that is what once again spurred my interest in the idea.

 

[jdrakeh]

By any chance has anyone caught GI Joe Sigma Six? To be honest, that is what once again spurred my interest in the idea.

Yep. I like it much more than I liked the second incarnation of the cartoon (GI Joe Extreme), but it is a wee bit too... I dunno... anime for my tastes. I think that it would make a neat campaign in its own right, but it isn't the GI Joe that I grew up with.

 

[hoyagerv]

Indeed, not the same GI Joe.

On some points, though, I like what the show has done with some of the characters, including Zartan's chameleon ability, with Snake Eyes and Stormshadow's fighting skills, and attempting to mimic the voices of the original characters.

On the other hand, any movement towards making the kid Scott and his dog members of the team will doom the show, in my mind. I mean, what kind of elite special forces team lets a 10 year old join? This is where it has gotten a bit too anime for my tastes.

 

[jdrakeh]

This is where it has gotten a bit too anime for my tastes.

That bugged me, too - but what really got me was all of the Cobra baddies working together hand in hand under the rule of Cobra Commander. In the original series, all of the main Cobra baddies (Major Bludd, Dr. Mindbender, Zartan, Destro, Tomax, Xamot, etc) were all freelancers with their own goals and motivations who worked for Cobra under contract, but few of them were actually loyal to Cobra (save, perhaps, for the Baroness) - most of them were in it purely for personal gain.

Note that Destro, Zartan, and the Crimson Guard (under the leadership of Tomax and Xamot) had all made power grabs at one time or another, attempting to seize control of Cobra for themselves. This whole 'One Evil Empire United' thing that Sigma Six has going on is largely a product of common Japanese anime conventions, and strays afar from the original Joe series (both comic and television). Cobra was more a marriage of convenince than a truly united evil empire in the old comics and cartoon series.

[Addendum: Zartan has always had a chameleon ability, but I haven't seen it in Sigma Six yet - does it work differently now?]

 

[Morgenstern]

I'd like to hear any updates on Zartan also (he's really my favorite of the setting).

I have a file on my 'puter for Spycraft first ed that incudes roughed in stats for about forty Joes and two dozen corba leaders. In genral I found I was able to hapily model most named Joes at levels 6-8 (with none requiring higher than 11). Spycraft 1.0 is design to make bad-a$$ movie heros, so that worked out about right IMO. I concluded promotion to G.I.Joe status required you to be at least 6th level.

The "named" villians ussually were 7-9 in my file, they needed to be a touch higher level than joes 'cause they were in groups of 2-3 (whith a swarm of chumps around them) when the Joes showed up in packs of 5+.

In SC2.0, the feats have simpler prerequisites, origins are a bit more potent/flexible than Departments were, and the requirements to enter a PrC have all been set a level sooner (as your 5th character level instead of your 6th) so I could probably swing most Joes as levels 5-8 now. I'll see if I can't pull out that file and dust it off .

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

I have a file on my 'puter for Spycraft first ed that incudes roughed in stats for about forty Joes and two dozen corba leaders.

[fanboy]So....how'd you build Snake-Eyes?[/fanboy]

Brad

 

[D.Shaffer]

[fanboy]So....how'd you build Snake-Eyes?[/fanboy]

Brad

HAve you ever noticed that when anyone does a GI Joe conversion, Snake Eyes is almost always the first guy anyone tries to convert?

 

[frankthedm]

I still am sad that the D20 modern writers had to rip off cobra to make the Crimson scorpion group in the menace manual, rather than to just USE Cobra. Shouldn't being owned by Hasbro have some sort of fringe benefit [ok, the minis game is one of those{thank you 3rd world labor], but more would be nice]

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

HAve you ever noticed that when anyone does a GI Joe conversion, Snake Eyes is almost always the first guy anyone tries to convert?

Of course! The other character to start with is Storm Shadow.

I still am sad that the D20 modern writers had to rip off cobra to make the Crimson scorpion group in the menace manual, rather than to just USE Cobra. Shouldn't being owned by Hasbro have some sort of fringe benefit?

I'm *still* flabbergasted that there's no G.I. Joe game for d20 Modern. At the very least, it's free money.

Of course, Eberron has the Emerald Claw, which is vaguely Cobra-like*, and the Lord of Blades, who can fit the Megatron role pretty easily (especially if you've played or read Grasp of the Emerald Claw**).

* - Granted, the analogy doesn't go that far, but they've got a bunch of uniformed goons, un-alive shock troopers, and a flying base.

** -

Spoiler

Given that two of his agents are looking for the four creation schema, which combine to form a Creation Matrix, and it gets used to wake up a big huge warforged...yeah. As soon as my DM mentioned the phrase "Creation Matrix", I started giggling. "Great, they're going to build Devastator!" (later) "Oh, crap, they woke up Devastator!"

 

[jdrakeh]

Of course, Eberron has the Emerald Claw, which is vaguely Cobra-like*, and the Lord of Blades, who can fit the Megatron role pretty easily

You've stumped me. What does Megatron of Transformers have to do with GI Joe?