Best Modern Game System

[Nadaka]

And Ars Magica.

I've never seen any ars Magica stuff...

Curious. What characteristics do you see in d20 that were derived from it?

 

[Greg K]

Heap,
Check out this thread from the Mutants and Masterminds board and see if it changes your opinion on how well M&M 2e can model the show. It seems to capture the charcters pretty well (although I 1) think Jessica is slightly stronger and more combat efficient than she is in the show; and 2) would have handled Hiro's power slightly different). Most of the characters are PL 1 and 2. Those that are not (e.g., Hiro) are only higher PL for the purpose of powers that exceed the PL cap, but for all other purposes they are pretty much in the PL 1-2 range- the exception being Jessica because her BAB and Damage truly make her a higher PL character when she is in control of Nikki's body.

Ehhhh, I've got both games and, honestly, to me, I think Blood and Vigilance would do a better job of modeling the things in the show.

M&M is 4-Color. It scales down toward "Street Level", but it seems to always do "common man on the street" with a bit too high of granularity for me.

Not that M&M is a bad game, not at all. I've run a TV show with it before: "Teen Titans". It did a VERY good job of that (perfect, I'd say).

Right now, in Heroes, there's very little difference between the heroes and the non-heroes. d20Modern characters with one power strapped on pretty much sums it up to me. More often than not, it seems, the characters' regular-joe real-life selves are just as, if not far more, important than their power. *Even going so far as to shape and direct what power they develop, goes my assertation. It's the Godlike method of superheroics.*

Seems more likely that an M&M character is defined by his power, versus a d20Modern/BV character if you start without powers. Feels like a M&M character without any powers is just a collection of tertiary numbers waiting for definition ... dunno. I'd probably start off with, say, regular d20Modern characters at 4th-5th level and do a special Origin that the "Heroes" would get at 6th.

 

[Committed Hero]

What characteristics do you see in d20 that were derived from [Ars Magica]

Bearing in mind that Jonathan Tweet designed large parts of both Ars and 3rd ed - the use of the +\- modifiers for ability scores comes from this game, as well as the skill+mod+roll vs. task number mechanic. True20 is even closer to the main system, since it omits the 3d6 score and has a damage save approximating the Soak roll of older White Wolf games.

 

[Psion]

Bearing in mind that Jonathan Tweet designed large parts of both Ars and 3rd ed - the use of the +\- modifiers for ability scores comes from this game, as well as the skill+mod+roll vs. task number mechanic.

Time to beat down this myth again.

In an interview by Tweet, he said the skill system was already in place when he joined the team, but mentioned that it resembled a system he already had.

 

[Committed Hero]

Time to beat down this myth again.

In an interview by Tweet, he said the skill system was already in place when he joined the team, but mentioned that it resembled a system he already had.

Cite please?

 

[C. Baize]

All I know (and care about) is that the skill system is VERY reminiscent of the system in Iron Crown Enterprise's "Space Master" system. Which I think has the best skill system in RPGs. If they had gone ahead and taken it one step further, and stole borrowed the last bit that makes it different, it would have been perfect.

 

[jaerdaph]

Thanks, but all I did was consult for a few weeks and write the third episode of one of the best new shows on television in years.

Fixed that for you. Welcome back, and keep up the great work!

 

[hobgoblin]

All I know (and care about) is that the skill system is VERY reminiscent of the system in Iron Crown Enterprise's "Space Master" system. Which I think has the best skill system in RPGs. If they had gone ahead and taken it one step further, and stole borrowed the last bit that makes it different, it would have been perfect.

is it in any way similar to what is/was (i only have a somewhat old basic set to refrence) used in rolemaster? if so, abandon all hope ye who enters here...

what a beast...

 

[C. Baize]

is it in any way similar to what is/was (i only have a somewhat old basic set to refrence) used in rolemaster? if so, abandon all hope ye who enters here...

what a beast...

I only played Rolemaster a handful of times, and don't own those books.
But the system was so simple and realistic, it was awesome.
The only thing that's missing in the D20 skill system is averaging the ability modifier of multiple abilities for a skill. Otherwise (if you take it as D20 instead of D100) it's identical, really.
For instance... if done in D20, it would be like this:

Jump [Str/Dex]
Gamble [Cha/Int/Wis]
Computer Use [Int]

So if a person had:
Str: 16
Dex: 12
Con: 12
Int: 16
Wis: 12
Cha: 8

Then for Jump, you'd average the modifiers for Str and Dex for a total of 5 divided by two skills for +2.5, rounded down to 2. For Gamble, you'd have -1, 3, and 1 for a total of 3 divided by 3 for a total modifier of +1.

Etc...
A SHADE more math, but ultimately much more representative of what attributes are required for differing skills.
It reads cumbersome because it's an extra step, but it's only that extra step at creation and level-up.
I could live with that.

 

[Psion]

Cite please?

"The other designers already had a core mechanic similar to the current one when I joined the design team, and I've seen the same basic idea in a few other games as well." - Jonathan Tweet, in Amazon interview with Therese Littleton.

You see, even though Tweet notes the similarity to Ars Magica, he also has his eyes open enough to realize it was not exactly unique. D&D had plus/minus modifiers a long time ago. 1e just jumbled them up, so lots of people don't recognize that.