thefrostytinman said:
Personally I thought it was a very disappointing. However, I didn’t have very high hopes for it since it used the D20 modern core book.
As I see it, d20 Modern is bluntly superior to D&D 3.5. Adapting d20 into a system that combines the best elements of level-based progression, with the flexibility of a more open-endded progression system, including a lack of "classes-as-stereotypes" for starting characters. I would personally like for any theoretical 4th edition to be more akin to d20M, with it's base class/advanced class/prestige class setup, but I know traditionalists would throw a fit if it ever happened. I'm already working on adapting the d20M engine for use in fantasy/historic RPG's instead of D&D 3.5, when I finish it I'll probably never run D&D 3.x again, but run d20 Modern for everything.
d20 Future is a wondrous toolkit for the DM. It is vague and open-ended, but that's because there is a lot more to accomodate. The common concepts of fantasy gaming have been molded by three decades of D&D, and players know what to expect. It was seemingly revolutionary when Arcana Unearthed came out, largely for just doing things a little differently. Sci-Fi has a lot fewer, if any, common assumptions. d20 Future tried to be something that the resourceful DM could use for anything from Asimov's Robot and Foundation series, to Star Trek, Star Wars or B5 (if you didn't want or have the licensed games), post-apocalyptic (including the stuff for fans to home-brew d20 Rifts from, which I've seen plenty of times). The power level of it is a little higher than d20 Modern core, but when you've got starship weapons that can do hundreds of points of damage in a single hit, and even a 20th level uber-combat character is likely to die if the compartment he's in is vented to space, a few centuries or millennia of progress can up the ante.
If d20 Future was more specific, giving one or two detailed campaign settings with everything built around those, then you'd hear plenty of people complaining that the FTL drives don't work like in (insert TV show/movie/book here) or how robots aren't supposed to be like that, or how starships aren't supposed to do that ect. They tried to make it have the "best fit" to the largest number of settings and genres. Nothing short of a huge encyclopedia of RPG"s costing several hundred dollars could have provided everything everybody wanted (and then people would complain about the cost).
The D&D system as built, classes, CR's, ect was also built on the presumption of a high level of magic, either a D&D Modern game has enough magic to make Harry Potter feel at home (or even a litttle envious) or the game would need a lot of rebalancing. d20 Modern lowered the power scale to something heroic, but not superheroic, and made the game flexible to a wide variety of genres and settings.
Making a modern day game based purely off of D&D would have not worked really. How many base classes to describe people in the modern world, that would have fit every possible setting? How to deal with spellcasters who get full 9th level spells in a modern game? The outright superhuman power level of D&D isn't just "action movie" level in a modern game, it's high-end superhero. Batman or Superman probably couldn't stand up to a high teens level D&D party once they busted out powerful spells, their fighter was doing huge damage totals, and the rogue was forcing massive damage saves on every hit.
