Combining multiple D20 Systems (or I'm Delerious for D20!)

[Runesong42]

Why not?

Well it turns out that I won't be running a d20 guns campaign. My group presented me with the World's Largest Dungeon and the day was spent creating new characters and travelling to the site. So tonight, I'm cramming as much of section A as I can and prepping for another long session tomorrow.

The joy of d20 is that most settings are 90-100% compatible with one another. Why not have a twist... have them make their Spycraft heroes and give 'em all the gear they can muster, and then unleash them on the World's Largest Dungeon!

d20 Modern has an 'alternate' setting called Urban Arcana (and if you'd read your manual, you'd know that *tsk tsk* jk ) that deals specifically with throwing d20 Fantasy into d20 Modern. Picture your gunslinging pack of wolves as they mow down horror after horror until their little minds can't take it anymore... or having them opening a locked door with a shaped charge... Or having a watch to keep track of time

Really, combining modern and fantasy isn't everyone's cup o' tea, but my group enjoys it... so much so, that I am now in the works of making a crossover Old West/Mecha themed campaign. Mu ha ha.

 

[Storyteller01]

Running a DS campaign myself at the moment. A good source is the Horizon books FFG has. Virtual is a great setting I use for the mechanists (no one wants to be a sentient program yet). I let the users fashion their own 'avatar' using the Virtual rules (Virtual ECL is the users ECL-1) and jack in with a Full I/O brainport. Using the Use Device rolles would be simpler, but the Virtual setting gains a time advantage (one day in virtual is one minute in the real world), and the mechanists can be the center of the story once and a while. It also allows the mechanists to excel in combat as they 'fight' other programs with their modified avatar, giving the tech oriented characters some serious kick-butt time.

Quick note: I also use te sentient programs in my campaign (they're hiding at the moment), so users cannot choose a heritage. Only sentient programs gain those bonuses (they're the equivalent of races for standard D&D).

One other book: GR's Arcana: Societies of Magic. Even without DS, the groups presented in the book crossover well. Monks that cast spells with a punch, criminal organizations, ideas for punishments on crimes dealing with magic (and their enforces), etc.

 

[Von Ether]

Well it turns out that I won't be running a d20 guns campaign. My group presented me with the World's Largest Dungeon and the day was spent creating new characters and travelling to the site. So tonight, I'm cramming as much of section A as I can and prepping for another long session tomorrow.

Thanks for the Ideas though! I'll have to check out Grimm Tales sometime, it seems to be getting really good word of mouth. Dark*Matter I'm not familiar with at all, any links that can give me some info about the setting?

Take a lesson from //Hack.sign, the Outland saga from Tad Williams, and Dream Park by Niven/Burst. Have the dungeon be a virtual world where the players use their avatars to "beat the system" and then pop into the real world to do some physical damage with ... guns.

 

[Krieg]

I am a fanatic for Dark*Matter. Copies are available on ebay for reasonable rates. The Dungeon issue with D*M: Shades of Grey is also worth getting as a back issue from Paizo.

FWIW you can also pick up a .pdf of Dark*Matter on RPGNow for $4.95.

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=1250&

I failed to mention it before but as others have pointed out Dark*Matter is VERY well done and will not disapoint.

 

[scourger]

cross-genre gaming

I know exactly what you mean. I love cross-genre games. The d20 system should lend itself to it nicely, but it took me four years to figure out how to do it. The result is that I'm running the Shackled City adventure path from Dungeon magazine with characters from other games as outsiders. It could work for you with the World's Largest Dungeon, too. Here's how it came about.

I love D&D. I just get bored & tired of it. Fortunately, I love the d20 system and other d20 games, too. Recently, I found myself with a relative shortage of players. I thought I would have 2 regulars and 1 intermittent player. Not knowing how to run a standard game with so few players, 1 player suggested they could run 2 characters each. I thought this a great idea, especially when I realized that I could add in classes from other sources.

So I offered 1 of 2 games. The first was Judge Dredd--straight up from the core book in a continuatiuon of the modules they already started. The other was the Shackled City with each player runnign two characters from two tiers. The first tier allowed the players to select a character from one of three sources: a human street or psi judge from the Judge Dredd 20 game; a human jedi consular or guardian from the Star Wars Revised Core Rulebook; or a mutant human from Omega World published in the Polyhedron Side of Dungeon # 94. The second tier characters could be: any first tier type; an aasimar paladin; or any standard PHB race & class combo. They had to be good guys and knew what the game entailed. You know from the first paragraph what they chose.

The basic game is D&D 3.5. Mechanics from the other games are converted to fit the basic d20 rules. For us, that means AC, HP, etc. Conversion has been more an art and less a science, but it works. The judges shoot their guns just like in JDd20. The jedi swing their light sabers just like in the SW-R RPG. The mutants use their mutations and defects just like in OW. We've played for 3 months, and 6 of 10 PCs are KIA (I started putting stickers with a skull, date, PC name and campaign on my DM screen for each defeated PC--just like an old fighter plane!). This week sees 4 replacements that they rolled as soon as the others died, which I take as a good sign. I think they've figured out that they really need a cleric and a wizard. But, there's plenty of fighting power in the party. Obviously, they haven't overmatched the dungeon at all despite having powerfule abilities and equipment.

I think an option like this could work for you while running The World's Largest Dungeon, too. I don't have that module, though. My advice is to just take the stuff you like from other games and bring it over. Don't worry overmuch about how the rules work unless and until you need to do so. It should be very easy to drop in classes and equipment from DragonStar (I like DragonStar, too; but my players pretty much rejected it when I did a Rifts conversion with it). I would be happy to share my conversion particulars for these three sources as they have evolved if it would be helpful to you.

 

[Vindicator]

I'll definitely add my voice to Dark*Matter. Incredible book. In fact, I was just outbid on eBay for a mint condition copy. Grrrrrrrr....

If the as-yet-unleased Delta Green d20 actually sees the light of day, it could actually replace Dark*Matter in my heart...

Remains to be seen...

Also looking forward to GURPS Conspiracy by Kenneth "Suppressed Transmissions" Hite...

Need to go to bed...keep using ellipses...

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Well it turns out that I won't be running a d20 guns campaign. My group presented me with the World's Largest Dungeon and the day was spent creating new characters and travelling to the site. So tonight, I'm cramming as much of section A as I can and prepping for another long session tomorrow.

Nooooooo, not WLD! Our local gaming club bought that to run, which only lasted for five sessions.

Five sessions of fighting the same types of creature over and over and over and over and ... over ... between having to correct mistakes in the book and player boredom, along with some major flaws in the premise they canned it and are contemplating stealing my DMGenie worked-conversions to run Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil.

I was sort of sad to see WLD go, actually, since it was one of the few times I've gotten a chance to PLAY instead of DM some RPG action. But I have to say, even I wasn't finding it all that much fun.

--fje