D20 Modern & Spycraft

[Chingerspy]

Seems to me that the best course of action is grab the MSRD (I have) and then chop and change bits to suit. Never had to bother doing this with other games (I'm not much of a houseruler) According to most posts in here Modern is the best base for these tailored rules.

Thanks!

 

[AscentStudios]

Hey folks, saw your questions/comments and wanted to answer (not trying to pick on trancejeremy - I'm just lazy )

I think there are a couple of military books coming out for Spycraft.

Correct. US Militaries will be out towards the end of this month, I believe, followed by World Militaries in November. There is a third book following in 2005. What's better, these books also are fully compatible with Stargate: SG-1, allowing you to deepen the detail of SG-1 ops or add new explorers to go thru the gate!

OTOH, it's hard to run anything but a spy game with Spycraft. And only certain types of spy games. The classes aren't very broad at all.

I respectfully disagree. This certainly seems to be a popular opinion around this board that the game is "too genre" to do anything other than spies. Spycraft has worked quite well as a military game (SG-1), and does equally well in a modern horror setting (Dark Inheritance, due out this month). The tools are there to do cop games, which is the first thing I ran when I got my copy back in 2002, X-Files games (using Shadowforce Archer), etc, etc. I think that once 2.0 hits you will start to see more product that showcases the flexibility of the system as a modern engine beyond the spy genre.

 

[woodelf]

Hi,

I have a pretty large Spycraft collection but have recently been bitten by the bug to purchase PDFs from rpgnow. Great another outlet for my money I have a few wonderful documents now and more to get but its lead me to a quick question for you all...

Is the D20 Modern book worth getting if I already have lots of Spycraft? I also have the Stargate book.

I have not had much experience with D20 Modern, only playing with the rules in a homebrew setting ran at a local con. I liked some of the ideas but didn't immediately see any advantages over the Spycraft rules. Is it a case of stick to what I know and convert or are there some decent crunchy bits in D20 Modern and the purchase of the book is worth the hassle of not having to convert everything?

If you're a member, search for my post on this topic (D20M vs Spycraft)--i lost the link to it when they lost all the subscribed threads. Or perhaps someone who is a member could be helpful? Anyway, to sum up, but with little or no support: i think Spycraft is in every way superior to D20 Modern, both in specific areas, and overall. The only things that D20 Modern has that Spycraft doesn't, D&D3E (or Arcana Unearthed, or Conan OGL, or Grim Tales, or...) does better, so unless you don't have a single fantasy D20 System game, there's nothing in D20 Modern for you. Frex, D20 Modern has really stripped down versions of the magic and psionics systems from D&D3E. And, yes, i think that Spycraft is a better system for generic modern stuff than D20 Modern. Save your money.

 

[woodelf]

I respectfully disagree. This certainly seems to be a popular opinion around this board that the game is "too genre" to do anything other than spies.

But D&D3E can handle any flavor of fantasy...

Spycraft has worked quite well as a military game (SG-1), and does equally well in a modern horror setting (Dark Inheritance, due out this month). The tools are there to do cop games, which is the first thing I ran when I got my copy back in 2002, X-Files games (using Shadowforce Archer), etc, etc. I think that once 2.0 hits you will start to see more product that showcases the flexibility of the system as a modern engine beyond the spy genre.

Spycraft 2.0? When? Any idea what's changed? I was just about to finally get a copy of Spycraft (found one on sale), but if v.2 is soon...

 

[MythicJustice]

But D&D3E can handle any flavor of fantasy...


Spycraft 2.0? When? Any idea what's changed? I was just about to finally get a copy of Spycraft (found one on sale), but if v.2 is soon...

Spycraft 2.0 is going to be out sometime in the second half of 2005 (not sure when, haven't heard). I'd suggest picking up a copy of the current Spycraft if you are wanting to play or run it in the next 8-10 months.