Thanks everyone for your contributions so far. I really appreciate all your input, it's really helping me get my creative juices flowing.
To summarize, this is the list of alternate systems I pulled out of suggestions from earlier posts for me to check out.
- Savage Worlds
- World of Darkness
- e20
- Ultramodern
- NexusD20
- True20
- Modern20
- d20 Modern PF
- Some homebrews
I'll check these all out in time.
Today however, I do plan to move forward with a D20 Modern/Future campaign. I've also decided that I want to go with the near future campaign I mentioned in an earlier thread. I plan to base the campaign setting on the world portrayed in the book "Snow Crash" by Neil Stephenson. See the wiki if you haven't read it but are curious (
Snow Crash - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).
I just love the setting that Stephenson created in his novel. I have been searching all over the web looking to find if someone has already created a game world that is based on Snow Crash and was actually quite surprised that I didn't find one. I did find a thread on a different RPG board where people were talking about doing this, but I didn't get the impression anyone has actually gone forward with doing it.
I also determined that I will not require the character based rules (classes, professions, feats, etc.) from D20 Future for this campaign because much of that content is space related; space adventures won't be part of the "flavor" of this campaign setting.
I do expect to adapt the Mecha and Cybernetics rules from D20 for certain aspects from the novel (such as the "rat things").
I expect not to allow the FX abilities that are provided in D20 Modern since magic is not part of the flavor of the campaign setting.
Most of the classes, feats, skills, etc. that I will need will come directly from D20 Modern. My players will be able to find quite a bit of what they would need to duplicate characters similar to the ones in the novel. For example, when I look at the primary character in Snow Crash (Hiro Protagonist) I can easily see him fitting in to the current rules without even needing to create a new character class.
Hiro would have levels in the base classes of both Fast and Smart Hero. For his advanced classes, I would expect levels in Martial Artist, Investigator, and Techie. For his starting profession, I would expect "Technician". Feats might be a different story, he would use some standard ones, but some things would need to come from Snow Crash specific feats.
Instead of Techie from the D20 Modern book, Shadowjack levels from the Urban Arcana Campaign Setting book would be even better for Hiro.
As with the magic related items from D20 Modern, I plan to restrict any magic related classes, professions, feats from Urban Arcana and any other source books I do end up using.
I plan to create the things that go along with this specific campaign setting that don't already exist to ensure the flavor of the campaign world is what I want it to be.
Examples:
Starting occupations:
- Franchise Operator
- Security Guard
- Heavy Metal Band Member
- Corporate Computer Programmer
- Hacker
Base Character Classes:
Advanced Classes:
- Pizza Deliverator
- CIC Stringer
- RadisKS Kourier
Who else has read this book and can offer suggestions for items that should be in the setting? I'm interested in any classes, professions, skills, feats, weapons, etc. you think I should have.