Is anyone actually playing Modern?

[C. Baize]

Suspension of belief is based on slowly easing someone into the impossible.

[Nit]Suspension of disbelief.[/Nit]

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I was talking aout a character starting an "advanced" class at first level, representing a devotion since childhood geared toward mastering a particular class. To expand on the example I mentioned, take the fanboy interpretation of ninja... raised by a ninja clan, the ninja would be trained from a very young age to be a ninja and do ninja stuff. Such a character would not start as fast 1 or stronge 1 or dedicated 1, but as ninja 1.

There's no need to start as an Advanced class to show devotion from childhood. For your trained from birth Ninja, take either Criminal or Military as your starting occupation, go Fast 3/Infiltrator 2, and start mixing in levels of Martial Artist to suit your tastes. The Fast Hero's skill list is a pretty all-encompassing list of "ninja stuff"

I think the big problem is starting d20 Modern games at 1st level. Even using their own Starting Level and Age chart shows that an Adult with "limited experience" should be 3rd level. Since Modern, like D&D, is dedicated to heroic action, it strikes me as odd that you'd be playing a person of less than even limited experience. I generally start my games at 5th.

 

[Von Ether]

I think the big problem is starting d20 Modern games at 1st level. Even using their own Starting Level and Age chart shows that an Adult with "limited experience" should be 3rd level. Since Modern, like D&D, is dedicated to heroic action, it strikes me as odd that you'd be playing a person of less than even limited experience. I generally start my games at 5th.

LOL! I do that to with D&D. If I wanted to play a newbie combatant, I'd go out and become a merc. I play RPGs to play heroic characters, a good backstory can take care of the "early years."

On the other hand, I know a player that threatened to quit our group if we ever started a game beyond first level. He said that the early levels were too important for character development.

 

[Agamon]

I came this close to starting an X-Com d20 Modern game. Decided to go with an Exalted game instead. The X-Com game still sounds interesting though.

 

[Alcïbïades]

My group started a d20 Modern campaign this year, based on a variant of UA. I have enjoyed the style of game, particularly how most normal people (incl. local law enforcement) are unable to see the shadowkind for what they are. It tends to reduce the use of violence as an easy solution.

It can be difficult to avoid the "monster of the week" pitfall, but my GM has made an effort so that not every plot revolves around the shadowkind.

I didn't mind starting at 1st level, especially since my Military Fast Hero ended up with 4 feats (if you count Simple Weapons Proficiency). I gained a new level in each of the first couple of games, which I think is a good way to motivate new players (they are keen to play again, so that they can use whatever new ability their PC gained).

 

[D20ModernGuru]

Guys, I'm interested in hearing your experiences in finding a group to play d20 Modern. The current gaming group I'm in is playing D&D, but they're interested in trying out Gamma World (d20) in the new year. But next summer my wife and I are moving and I'm wondering if I should just dust off my D&D books or if it's realistic to think I can get some Modern action. Even comparing the traffic on this board to the D&D groups, it seems like there are FAAAAR fewer Modernites out there than D&Ders.

How few of us are there?

I had no problem finding people to play D20 Modern. I am running a game of D20 Modern: D20 Modern: FISH which is about alien investagations. My players and I are having a ball.

 

[Hodag]

I actaully prefer Spycraft for modern rules over D20 Modern with the exception of wealth vs.gadget points. However the fast, strong, smart, etc. heros are a really cool idea, and I am going to have to figure out a way to combine the two rulesets!

 

[Blastin]

I've just started a D20 Modern Darkmatter campaign in the last month (aside...December is a BAD time to start a campaign...). The characters were all converted from actual Alternity Darkmatter characters, as I just had too many issues with little things in Alternity. The game seems to be going very well so far. I'm gonna have to check out the 12 to midnight stuff above, but the link isn't working....
Blastin

 

[DMauricio]

I dunno...
I've just started a d20 modern campaign myself, and I don't really find any problems with letting the characters start at 1st level.

Sure, my games are pretty cinematic anyway. (the last session I ran was based from the movie "Dog Soldiers" with a little bit of "Pitch Black" strewn in)

Maybe I'm lucky and I've found a group that can do cinematic.
Mind you, I set out at the start stating what the campaign was going to be, and what it wasn't.

One thing I have found is that modern is much more lethal at lower levels than any other level based system (primarily if you've got guns that do on average 8hp of damage, and most players have maybe 9hp max)

And you don't even need to move it to a wp/vp system (well we didn't - though I think that the wp/vp does fit the cinematic styles a bit better)

So far, the only thing that gets me is the wealth system. Not so much at lower levels, but later on. It doesn't take into account down time (ie if there are game months between sessions, then why doesn't the wealth go back to normal or at least regenerate some?)

But then again, that's the only thing I have against modern... though its not a major peeve (seeing as I can always give wealth awards)

Other than that, its giving the players a reason to adventure that gets difficult... Though I prefer to let them mis-adventure together (mind you sometimes I feel like I'm railroading just to get the player characters to work as a team)


D.

 

[DanMcS]

One thing I have found is that modern is much more lethal at lower levels than any other level based system (primarily if you've got guns that do on average 8hp of damage, and most players have maybe 9hp max)

Yeah. Low-level modern characters are really fragile, compared to low-level D&D characters. Your average 1st-level fantasy group will consist of some heavily armed & armored badasses with magical healing and firepower, going against the equivalent of mooks. Your average 1st-level modern character will have simple weapon proficiency, be unable to afford any armor, or anything but a cheap gun that he isn't proficient with anyway, have no healing abilities to speak of, and be going up against mooks whose average damage on a hit is at or above his hit point total. Low level modern is ugly.

You can tweak out characters a bit more, such that you get firearms proficiency from your occupation, for instance, but you're still rather less competant than a 1st level fighter or rogue would be, probably.

In the game I played for, oh, 8 or 9 months, it wasn't until we hit 4th or 5th level that we began to feel our characters were approaching being competant to survive what they were doing.

And, as an aside, being a mage in modern is hard. You have to be 4th level to even get into the advanced class, at which point you're effectively a 1st level wizard versus 4th and 5th level opponents. It ended up being much more useful to enchant my gun with Magic Weapon and move on. And that was probably cheating, because we were never quite clear how Magic Weapon affected missile weapons, heh.