D&D 5E Rebooting d20 Modern With Everyday Heroes

Evil Genius Productions is rebooting 2002's d20 Modern in the form of a tabletop RPG called Everyday Heroes based on the 5E ruleset.

Our first tabletop role-playing game is Everyday Heroes™ - a roleplaying universe set in the modern era. Inspired by D20 Modern, Everyday Heroes™ provides a complete rulebook on running campaigns in the current day or the near future. The book covers everything you will need to run a modern-day campaign. This includes modern new character classes that fit within the modern-day theme. It also includes professions (e.g., Fireman, CIA operative, Chef) and backgrounds (e.g., rich kid, military brat, gang member) to help flesh out your character. firearms and equipment, modern adversaries, and revised rules on car and foot chases.

The game includes 6 new classes (the Strong Hero, the Smart Hero, etc., inspired directly by the classes in d20 Modern), 18 subclasses (such as Marksman, Scientist, Commando), along with a ton of backgrounds, feats, and firearms and chase rules.

The team includes some of the original d20 Modern designers -- the company says:

"The core elements of Everyday Heroes™ are based on the Open Gaming License (OGL) for d20 Modern. Released in the 2002. d20 Modern was the first role-playing game set in the modern era. The core rulebook was quickly followed up by a series of expansions including d20 Future, d20 Past, and d20 Apocalypse. The rules were expanded with a series of sourcebooks including Urban Arcana, Weapons Locker, Menace Manual, and Future Tech. Have you ever written something and read it again a few years later? You might say to yourself. 'Man, I would have probably done that differently.' Well, there is no coincidence that many of the designers of Everyday Heroes™ are the same designers who created d20 Modern. This is their shot to take the work that they love and make it even better."

The team includes Jeff Grubb, Stan!, and Steve Miller (formerly of WotC).

Everyday Heroes is coming to Kickstarter in Spring.

Evil Genius Games

Evil Genius Productions creates tabletop roleplaying and board games. Everyday Heroes™, based on d20 Modern, is a 5e TTRPG for the modern world. Officially licensed games for The Crow, Pacific Rim, Kong Skull Island, Highlander, Universal Soldier, Total Recall, Rambo, and Escape From New York.

www.evilgeniusgaming.com

 

[sigfried]

You know, by combing this with regular Dungeons and Dragon's 5th Edition, we already have Urban Arcana for 5E now.

Hey there Weiley,

While that is not one of our design goals, I'll say that our system changes are subtle enough that you absolutely could do a crossover without too much effort, and so far as I'm concerned, that's a good thing!

 

[sigfried]

Welcome, and thanks for taking the time to respond!

I think what bothers me about the images is that the game is named "Everyday", but the eclectic group shown is anything but that. I don't know about others, but when I run modern games I tend to imagine the heroes looking in a manner as if they had been pulled off the street - or could easily blend into a street scene without standing out too much. The displayed group, while striking are a bit "too out there" - no need to use Investigation or Perception to find these the folks in a crowd!

My pleasure Stormonu!

I just want to say upfront, all critiques we get are helpful in that we want to know early on how people react so we can think about the final product. Everyone here's been respectful and constructive so that's all good stuff for us.

Everyone on the team just kind of loved the Everyday Heroes name. But... of course, it doesn't really sum up everything we want to do in the game itself. We are inspired by the breadth of action cinema, and well, a lot of those characters are larger than life. So I think we are going to have some natural disconnect there. Ultimately, art that pops and gets people's attention and imagination running is the direction we will lean in, and I hope "Everyday" doesn't just evoke an image of the mundane. In our vision, it means everyone can be as fantastic a hero as they want to be!

But you know, if there is enough demand for it, we could do a "Stop, or my mom will shoot." supplement.
Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot - Wikipedia <-- for those not in the know.

 

[sigfried]

speaking of which sigfried does the game allow for Street Fighter type martial arts, stunts and powers?
how far does it go into weird tech, supers, psionics/magic?

Thanks for the question Tonguez

As for martial arts and unarmed combat, we currently have three unarmed focused characters. One is an MMA-style fighter, another is a more Bruce Lee style, and the last more a Kung Fu wise master-styled archetype. None of them are throwing ki-balls or the like, but the last does have an element of mysticism about them.

Typically, we leave exactly what they are doing for their attacks up to the imagination of the players and GM, but the names for their class features are evocative of various movie tropes and traditions along with some real-world analogs (because I love doing that kind of research).

Generally speaking, we don't have any future tech, psionics, urban magic, or superpowers in our core game. That said, we are leaving the door open for those elements in the future as genre-themed expansions. We do have some classes that push some boundaries, but I'm going to keep mum on those for the moment. We want to have some of the cool and unique elements of the game in our back pocket to hopefully intrigue you all as we march up to our Kickstarter.

 

[sigfried]

There is a sex worker and her pimp, not sure why the marionette.

View attachment 151226
I like this 2nd picture better. There is undercover police guy forced to deal with the yellow tape, Sexy ambulance girl with a laundry problem of shrinking clothes and sexy fireman that rushes out to calls so fast he forgets his shirt.

Howdy Aco175,

I'm a lead designer on Everyday Heroes. We appreciate the feedback and I'm much amused by your commentary in a good way.

The marionette girl is one of our Iconic characters for the "Manipulator" subclass, a charming hero that plays with people's emotions and perceptions to get them to do what they want. Miho there is dressed for her job as it were. The fellow next to her is a gumshoe-type (still without a name) representing our "Sleuth" subclass. He's insightful enough to spot that Miho is nothing but trouble!

As to our three first responders there. I don't know who they are so much, but if it helps, you could imagine they are from one of those "party performances" businesses. Entertainers by night, heroes by daylight!

 

[Davies]

This sounds and looks utterly brilliant. I await the kickstarter with bated breath.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Welcome, and thanks for taking the time to respond!

I think what bothers me about the images is that the game is named "Everyday", but the eclectic group shown is anything but that. I don't know about others, but when I run modern games I tend to imagine the heroes looking in a manner as if they had been pulled off the street - or could easily blend into a street scene without standing out too much. The displayed group, while striking are a bit "too out there" - no need to use Investigation or Perception to find these the folks in a crowd!

I feel very young, reading this!

 

[Ghost2020]

As for using the moniker "d20 Modern," yes. But there is at least one 5e modern style game, Ultramodern 5e, which got an expanded edition last year from Dias Ex Machina Games.

I think the thing that hurt the pre-expanded version, which was put out around 2016, was the lack of supernatural classes be it magic, divine, or psionics. Not even guidelines to use 5e magic classes. Strange hill to die on considering their audience. The expanded version ad copy says it offers up technomagic.

The PDFs of both 5e editions are Mithral sellers.

They had done the same for 4e as well but only reached Gold with that one.

Amazing Adventures 5e does this, magic, divine and psionics, plus expanded weapon rules for guns.

Hopefully Everyday Heroes will have expansion books for rituals, supernatural items, etc. I lean towards action and horror with modern games. This should be able to hit most notes.

Menace Manual in the works? ( or a book like it?) Yes i'm aware my six monster books are already useful, but Menace Manual was a special book it had great NPCs, monsters, organizations, cults, etc.

 

[Tonguez]

Howdy Aco175,

I'm a lead designer on Everyday Heroes. We appreciate the feedback and I'm much amused by your commentary in a good way.

The marionette girl is one of our Iconic characters for the "Manipulator" subclass, a charming hero that plays with people's emotions and perceptions to get them to do what they want. Miho there is dressed for her job as it were. The fellow next to her is a gumshoe-type (still without a name) representing our "Sleuth" subclass. He's insightful enough to spot that Miho is nothing but trouble!

As to our three first responders there. I don't know who they are so much, but if it helps, you could imagine they are from one of those "party performances" businesses. Entertainers by night, heroes by daylight!

Its Detective Randy, Cindy Nurse and Fire Chief Blast Cannon your Heroic Strippers - please remain calm and stay behind the barrier, our heroes will work hard to get your hearts racing and then they‘ll hose you all down

roll Con v Sweat damage baby

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I guess WotC would like to create the ultimate d20 system, easy to be learnt, and universal, for all genres and not only fantasy, but also modern age.

The enemy nPCs are too powerful when they use firearms to keep the same challenge-rating/XPs reward. A gobling with only an axed and a shield isn't like other with the same monster stats, but firing with a sniper-rifle from a window or the roof of a building. In some shooter videogames with a survival touch the PCs have to worry about to save enough ammo for the bosses, but others are more about Battlefield/Call of Duty and PCs can spend all the bullets they wanted. Always they can gather collect from fallen enemies. Other times the game is focused into investigation, or zones without heavy weapons, and here the martial arts may be more useful. And even in the same time but in a different nation to get and use firearms aren't the same. For example in Switzerland there are a lot of firearms in the hands by the civilians, but in Japan not even the Yakuza use firearms for most of their murders.

And we can't forget the FXs(supernatural powers, like magic or psionic). It may be broken if these can be used when nobody can notice, for example using teletransporting to send poison against that wine cup, or the killer can be discovered too soon thanks the esper or spellcaster PC.

 

[Von Ether]

I guess WotC would like to create the ultimate d20 system, easy to be learnt, and universal, for all genres and not only fantasy, but also modern age.

This is a third party publisher product. The closest link are the designers who are ex-WotC employees but the company is not involved.

And in the years I've been running a highly compatible sci-fi 5e engine that assumes firearms use, it turns out to be pretty even when both sides have access to the same level of weaponry.