d20 Modern Dark*Matter hardcover from WotC?!?

[Ranger REG]

Whatever it contains ... rewrites or just restats ... it'll probably contain at least a good part of the material from the original book ... and thus probably require consideration to the original authors and inclusion in the credits.

Oh, I'm sure they will be credited for the original product that the new d20 Modern book will be based/adapted from. I just wonder if fans want more [direct] collaboration into the new product.

And what's with the "end of the d20 Modern world" crap?

 

[jaerdaph]

And what's with the "end of the d20 Modern world" crap?

What he said. If anything, it looks like the only reason this particular product was dropped is because of the possibility of a Marvel Supers RPG next year.

 

[Welverin]

I've always loved Dark Sun, Planescape, etc. and think single (or multiple), hardcover volume treatments of these would be very nice.

You like Dark Sun, who knew?!

IIRC, there is a great story hour called "Drunk Southern Women with Guns" that was very much like Dark*Matter.

That's "Drunk Southern Girls with Guns, Zombie Toddlers, and Bad Aliens" to you mister!

 

[buzz]

Sounds like Dark Matter is more "Men in Black" than it is X-Files...

I would say the opposite. D*M is not wahoo alien-fighting; it's grim horror/fantasy/sf/conspiracy. Go read jonrog1's D*M story hour ("Drunk Southern Girls") for a good example.

The 160pp page-count puts me off a little bit, though there are many bits of the original setting that have appeared in Menace Manual and other palces, and the d20M version won't need the fast-play rules. The original also had more art and larger fonts than is d20M standard.

I'm cautiously optimistic. I really don't understand why this wasn't the first supplement released for d20M.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Dark Matter is a setting with a lot of "pieces". There were pieces I really liked, and pieces I didn't like.

Horror is one piece. If you're dealing with demonic cultists, it's very appropriate. If you're dealing with aliens, it may be appropriate. If you're dealing with greys and sasquatch, it is probably not appropriate.

Taking on aliens is another piece. Of the four best known adventures (Exit 23, Raw Recruits, Killing Jar, and The Final Church), none deal with aliens.

Magic is yet another piece. The four adventures that I mentioned all dealt with magic (or psionics) to a limited extent - in the case of the Killing Jar, very limited. It is not assumed that any of the PCs are going to be spellcasters.

I really don't understand why this wasn't the first supplement released for d20M.

Somebody liked Urban Arcana Maybe they thought it was a good marketing decision, tying it so strongly to DnD and hoping DnD players would jump into it.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I'm cautiously optimistic. I really don't understand why this wasn't the first supplement released for d20M.

To be honest, I don't think they realized that Dark*Matter would be as popular after its "death" as it was. They had the IP, but there was probably no impetus to republish something from a setting they had, pretty much, killed out of hand when they took over.

--fje

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Somebody liked Urban Arcana Maybe they thought it was a good marketing decision, tying it so strongly to DnD and hoping DnD players would jump into it.

Urban Arcana isn't really THAT bad. It just isn't very serious.

From the art, they were obviously going for a sort of D&D Punk thing, what with the body-mod dwarves and sk8ter drow.

Unfortunately, stuff like The Prancing Pony fast-food joint, magical cell phones, leather jackets of biker-studliness, and Kobold Kommando gave the whole thing the air of a big joke. And, really, I think they couldn't HELP but make D&D Is Coming Through The Rift! into a big joke. D&D is way over the top, right into the range of Fantasy Super Heroes. I can't think of any popular fiction that really puts fireballing mages against dragons in down-town NYC. Especially not kitted out with outrageous gear like magical cell phones and magical lick'n'stick tattoos.

I guess, to me, it had sort of a juvenile charm that might have attracted the 13-17 crowd. Y'know: "I wanna play a bugbear with an eyebrow ring who dual-wields katanas!" kind of stuff. The short run of it I played, the GM was new but good. He allowed it to be both tongue-in-cheek and rather serious, which is really the only way I could see a group of people 25+ playing that setting.

As to what the sales were like for Urban Arcana ... I haven't researched it. I know I bought it, just because it was the first setting book for d20Modern and it had Incantations in it. My secret hope at the time was that if enough people picked it up, they'd do full-size hardcovers of some of the setting ideas that DIDN'T suck ... so apparently it didn't sell well enough for that.

--fje

 

[DanMcS]

The only problem with this book is that, if the authors are Monte Cook and Wolfgang Bauer, then it's likely a rehash of the original, just with d20 stats. Seeing as the book is very stats lite, I would have very little use for it. The D*M book was all about the fluff.

I was looking through the d20 future SRD, since I haven't seen a copy of the book on any shelves locally, and was surprised to see that the PL descriptions were copied word for word from the original Alternity text. It works as well for d20 future as it did for Alternity, since it was never really system-specific.

I guess what I'm saying is that since they already have perfectly good material for Darkmatter, they'd be fools to rewrite it rather than just redoing the system-specific stuff. And that's all to the good, because the original was fantastic.

 

[Urizen]

Urban Arcana isn't really THAT bad. It just isn't very serious.

From the art, they were obviously going for a sort of D&D Punk thing, what with the body-mod dwarves and sk8ter drow.

Unfortunately, stuff like The Prancing Pony fast-food joint, magical cell phones, leather jackets of biker-studliness, and Kobold Kommando gave the whole thing the air of a big joke. And, really, I think they couldn't HELP but make D&D Is Coming Through The Rift! into a big joke. D&D is way over the top, right into the range of Fantasy Super Heroes. I can't think of any popular fiction that really puts fireballing mages against dragons in down-town NYC. Especially not kitted out with outrageous gear like magical cell phones and magical lick'n'stick tattoos.

I guess, to me, it had sort of a juvenile charm that might have attracted the 13-17 crowd. Y'know: "I wanna play a bugbear with an eyebrow ring who dual-wields katanas!" kind of stuff. The short run of it I played, the GM was new but good. He allowed it to be both tongue-in-cheek and rather serious, which is really the only way I could see a group of people 25+ playing that setting.

As to what the sales were like for Urban Arcana ... I haven't researched it. I know I bought it, just because it was the first setting book for d20Modern and it had Incantations in it. My secret hope at the time was that if enough people picked it up, they'd do full-size hardcovers of some of the setting ideas that DIDN'T suck ... so apparently it didn't sell well enough for that.

--fje

I agree.

I wish it was more serious than the "Bubble Gum" version they produced. It could have been a very gritty setting. I suspect Wizards wanted to draw in D&D fans to support the product, and it just sort of fell flat.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I agree.

I wish it was more serious than the "Bubble Gum" version they produced. It could have been a very gritty setting. I suspect Wizards wanted to draw in D&D fans to support the product, and it just sort of fell flat.

On top of that, they somehow tried to make it a kind of default setting (at least that's my impression), but I am afraid it doesn't work like that.
(Our group had a lot of fun in a short-lived German Special-Unit 2 rip-off campaign, though)

I think it would be good if they had actually made a default setting (and probably also for D20 Past and Future). But it might also prove very difficult, since - what is really your default assumption of "modern" (or future, or past) play?

How many modern games do actually exist and are succesful (beyond D20 Modern)? I can only think of Shadowrun (though that's stretching it a bit), and it clearly follows a similar "everything and the kitchen sink" approach as Urban Arcana does. (Which might be one of the weaknesses - if I want Guns and Magic, I can play Shadowrun, too.)*

Probably WotC needs to put a lot more effort and money into D20 Modern, and that's something they probably can't afford unless they want to weaken their other succesful line(s).