Rebuilding d20 Modern for YotZ: Reloaded

[Vigilance]

I humbly suggest you mine Modern20- I might have done some of the work for you.

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/50695/Modern20?manufacturers_id=33

 

[Wolv0rine]

That said, I echo the sentiment that a new layout is going to be king. The old YotZ was very scattershot in its presentation of what rules to use and where they were located. Also, I heard some arguments that the old game was too lethal - I could not disagree more. That high degree of lethality is a key point of a YotZ game, and it needs to be spotlighted, not shied away from.

Yeah, when YotZ was first being published we had no control over - or real input on - layout. And dear gods it shows. It was atrocious, just painfully atrocious. We'll almost certainly end up doing that job ourselves too, taking lessons learned from our brief foray in putting together a magazine a handful of years back.

And it's nice to hear that some people understood, and agreed with, the necessary lethality. :}

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

We'll have sidebars for slightly less lethal stuff, but at the same time AP will be really important. Got bit? Blow an AP to avoid the infection (you still take hp damage tho) so that the zombie just bit your clothing.

 

[Wolv0rine]

We'll have sidebars for slightly less lethal stuff, but at the same time AP will be really important. Got bit? Blow an AP to avoid the infection (you still take hp damage tho) so that the zombie just bit your clothing.

Lord yes, APs were so amazingly useful in a ton of ways I think Ralts was making up on the spot in the old playtests. Every time I read any AP rules afterward I was constantly wondering where the Useful version we had used was.

[edit: I think, for example, we used to have it where if you made an attack roll and didn't think it was enough, you could call out using an AP before the GM declared the result to re-roll the attack. We burned APs like they grew on trees.]

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

I humbly suggest you mine Modern20- I might have done some of the work for you.

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/50695/Modern20?manufacturers_id=33

I'll definitely have to check. I hate reinventing the wheel. I'll probably have to check out some of the stuff you did for Blood & Guts 2.0 too.

Lord yes, APs were so amazingly useful in a ton of ways I think Ralts was making up on the spot in the old playtests. Every time I read any AP rules afterward I was constantly wondering where the Useful version we had used was.

Yeah. I kind of houseruled a LOT of stuff to make them more useful. As they stood they were easily forgettable and didn't really add that much to the campaign.

I liked the idea of being able to use them to make sure you hit, that you hit the zombie in the face, avoided the bite, managed to dodge most of the debris when the vehicle exploded.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Fun things you can do with AP out of combat:

• Jury-Rig a vehicle
• Find something overlooked even in a stripped place like a gas station or National Park restroom
• Get an automatic Stealth success as a zombie mob passes by
• Diagnose a disease
• Get a success (or a critical success) on a surgery roll
• Fix an EMP disabled vehicle
• Find a vehicle in a parkinglot that will run in only a few minutes instead of car by car guesswork
• Upgrade the condition of a piece of equipment without any repair checks (Wiping off the grime, finding a blown fuse, discovering the on/off switch was jammed)
• Improve someone's attitude toward you.
• Make a breakdown of a vehicle less severe
• Give someone else a 'Resist Disease Check' even after a failed one, or help them make the roll with bonuses

Kind of weird we're expanding AP's out beyond combat, but it seems to really be working.

One thing Wolvorine and I agree on is increasing player agency and ability to do things.

That means fix some rules.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Well, we've been looking at skills first. Looks like we're going to roll Parkour into Acrobatics since that's really an important thing in an urban YotZ game. Treat Injury is going to be important because field medic work is all most groups will have available. I'm for adding Jury-Rig but Wolvorine kind of wants to roll it into Repair. We don't really have to add skills, although due to popular demand we might put in a tracking skill, mainly because of the Walking Dead's Darrell having a cool effect on a lot of our playtesters.

Next week I'll be seeing what the modern contents of ambulances, State Patrol, County Sheriff, and local police cars have, as well as non-OPSEC contents of various military vehicles. I'm hoping for a tour of the County Disaster/Emergency Response Mobile Command Center, but I won't hold my breath on that front. We'll have a sidebar with each of the vehicles to show what might be in them.

We're definitely going to abstract resources for the game. While the GM might saw "The truck has a blown tire and damaged brakes" it won't take much more than 1 vehicle resource to fix that. Of course a blown head gasket and shot drive train is going to take about 4 vehicle resources. But we'll see how that works in playtest. Some people are going to want extensive resource management and won't mind writing down "1982 Dodge Pickup Engine: 1; Chevy Sedan Tranny 1992: 2" and stuff like that on an inventory sheet because hey, some people are into that.

Zombies are being redone. There will still be the basic types but they'll have more of a 'package' feel and we'll probably do a handful of each types stat-blocks in the book and on a reference page for easy use.

But, Wolvorine and I are still messing with skills while I put an early eye on feats.

Oh, Gods above and below, feats.