Grade the Modiphius 2d20 System

[Yora]

Yeah, it's that metacurrency and math-play stuff that I really don't like in any RPGs.

 

[Bill Zebub]

The 2d20 system is a lot easier to understand with Fallout than it was with Conan.

It may be that my poor experience with Conan was that I didn't fully sufficiently understand the system. But if so then I don't know what I don't know.

 

[Reynard]

It may be that my poor experience with Conan was that I didn't fully sufficiently understand the system. But if so then I don't know what I don't know.

Sometimes a different presentation can have a big impact. I didn't "get" Blades in the Dark at all until I read Scum and Villainy, for example.

 

[MGibster]

It may be that my poor experience with Conan was that I didn't fully sufficiently understand the system. But if so then I don't know what I don't know.

I don't fault you at all for this. I had to read Conan a few times over before I started to get it.

 

[kronovan]

I've bought Corvus Belli Infinity, Star Trek Adventures and Dishonored. I've never gotten any of them to the table and haven't bought the equivalent VTT ruleset to run a campaign online - only STA is available for the Fantasy Grounds VTT I use. So I chose the poll option of "I've never played it."

Of those I own, STA has impressed me the most. While Dishonored seems to capture it's setting well, it also seems to add some complexity to the core to do it. It's admittedly the 2d20 setting I've read the least, so my impression might be wrong. The STA book has impressed me enough to want to run a STA campaign, but I don't have enough local players that are keen for it. I could see myself eventually buying the VTT ruleset to run games online, but STA games are rare in the Looking for Group/Players forum for my VTT and I'd need some real-time gameplay before making the leap. A GM has recently advertised a 2d20 Dune campaign though.

I'm more of a homebrewer than anything, so I bought CBI because when I made a query on another forum as to which 2d20 game is most supportive of homebrewing, it was recommended. While it's true you could homebrew a Sci-Fi campaign with it, IMO it isn't suited to brewing anything outside that genre - at least not without a lot of heavy lifting. Not a big deal because Sci-Fi is one of my favorite genres, but I already can and have homebrewed that with Traveller, Savage Worlds+Sci-Fi Companion, The Cepheus Engine, FATE Core and my old but beloved True20+Handbooks. So CBI sits in a crowded space among the Sci-Fi RPGs I own and I've yet to use it. It doesn't help that some of its homebrewing tools are quite weak. CBI is the 2d20 book I've spent the most time reading, but the one that's impressed me the least.

I will say that the 2d20 settings I own have struck me as rules that would make sense once it was at the table and the dice started rolling.

 

[kronovan]

It's interesting. I'm a big Howard and Conan fan, too, and when I think of Conan from the actual stories (as opposed to comics and other media) I often think about how deliberate it is. He (unsurprisingly) dungeon delves like an D&D character. I think some crunch in combat is good for that milieu too because it helps differentiate what would otherwise be pretty similar characters in a lighter system.

I'd count myself among those who aren't convinced Conan requires a rules-light/lighter system. I ran a series of adventures set in Hyboria with Savage Worlds and dipped a bit into the Beasts & Barbarians setting for supporting tools. Those adventures ran well and all the players enjoyed them. I originally only intended to run 1 adventure, but ended up runing 3; seemed more like a mini campaign in the end. I think it comes down to how you adapt the setting to the underpinning ruleset, houseruling out features that seems too cumbersome or out of place.

To me Conan and the Hyboria setting are indicative of the early Sword & Sorcery of the pulps -some would argue it defnined much of it- where Heroes are defined by the personal baggage they carry and not where they came from, such as the highly distinct races and cultures of High Fantasy. IMO there's a lot of possibilites in a Hyboria campaign, which I could imagine a narrative ruleset like FATE Core doing justice to. I did tread lighter with some of my common Savage Worlds tools, like using the adventure deck, or using many soliloquies. Not that they couldn't work, but it wasn't what my audience of players were looking for. We were using the SW Deluxe edition of the rules and I'd houseruled an alternate shaken condition (similar to SWADE), had a damage cap. I wanted to run with gritty damage, but the players didn't, so that was omitted.

Would I play in a Conan Hyboria set adventure using DCC or BoL, heck yeah I would and I'd no doubt enjoy it. I can see those rulesets being effective too. Just as an example of a different 2d20 playing experience; the staff at my FLGS who surpisingly had never played or GMd a TTRPG (board gamers to the core), ran a Conan 2d20 campaign and absolutely loved it. While playing a TTRPG was a 1st time experience for them, they found the 2d20 rules to be very effective for what they considered the Conan verse.

 

[Reynard]

As a side not: it really bugs me that certain licensed games like STA and Dune get TONS of support and Fallout gets comparatively anemic support. I know it has more to do with Bethesda than it does Modiphius but DAMMIT.

 

[Parmandur]

As a side not: it really bugs me that certain licensed games like STA and Dune get TONS of support and Fallout gets comparatively anemic support. I know it has more to do with Bethesda than it does Modiphius but DAMMIT.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suppose that two of the most popular sci-fi franchises of all time move a lot of books.

 

[kronovan]

As a side not: it really bugs me that certain licensed games like STA and Dune get TONS of support and Fallout gets comparatively anemic support. I know it has more to do with Bethesda than it does Modiphius but DAMMIT.

Yep, creating TTRPGs based on a license can be a challenge for a publisher in regards to the IP creator they're working with. I remember buying into Green Ronin's Dragon Age box sets and due to a lot of lengthy deliberations by Bioware on approvals, it took 5 years for the 3rd/final boxset to be published!

I'm now hesitant about buying into TTRPGs that are based on a videogame license. I broke my hesitation with Dishonored becuase I really like the setting, but after 3 years there's only been 3 PDFs published for it. It doesn't personally matter too much, because I haven't even fully read the CRB. But I can imagine the lack of content frustrating GMs who have been trying to run campaigns.

 

[Reynard]

I'm going to go out on a limb and suppose that two of the most popular sci-fi franchises of all time move a lot of books.

Yes, and one of them is the most overrated sci-fi franchise of all time. Spoiler: it isn't Star trek.