Has enthusiasm died?

[Ranger REG]

Does anyone want to comment? What does "modern" mean? (Maybe I'll start a new thread)...

Does it really matter?

To me, the d20 Modern ruleset is nothing more than a second-generation d20 System (to steal the term from Kenneth Hite, columnist of GamingReport.com "Out of the Box"). I've seen many gamers using the ruleset for any time period or setting, including medieval.

It goesn't really matter what time period setting you're playing in. d20 Modern is one ruleset option you could use. Of course, tweaking the ruleset is for advanced users only. So newbies, don't even try.

 

[takyris]

Ditto the Ranger. I'm approaching it as I'd approach GURPS. If I want different time periods, I need a few new skills and the feats to go along with them, a few specific rules for setting-specific contests or important stuff, and a small book full of equipment and different advanced classes.

If I wanted to run a pirate adventure (and I know that there's stuff out there already, but this is hypothetical), then the ideal book for me would have the following:

- Wealth DCs and use options for a lot of common pirate/swashbuckling stuff
- A bunch of pirate weapons, from single-shot pistols to different variations of cutlasses
- New Skills (like, say, Use Rope) and New Feats
- "Official" rulings on how existing skills and feats would work in a pirate setting (ie, "The DC to walk out on the yardarm is xxx", "The DC to climb the rigging is xxx", "Being in the crow's nest gives you a circumstance bonus of xxx to Spot checks", and so on)
- Advanced classes (like the Buccaneer, who COULD be representated with basic classes, just like a Soldier could be, but who could also get some decent abilities with respect to ship-based combat, navigation, and piloting)
- Finally, in the back, a section on potential ideas for how to adapt these rules to a wide range of campaigns (how to add various levels of magic workably to a pirate campaign, how to change the flavors but keep the mechanics the same to get a Space Pirates campaign like that "Treasure Planet" movie, and so forth)

A bit like the GURPS approach.

The designers made a calculated plan to bring in D&D people instead of the Science Fiction people, but that doesn't mean that the game won't work for science fiction people. It's working fine for my campaign...

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Planescape-Stardrive, huh? I'm having trouble picturing it, but it could be fun. Stardrive was definitely a great book.

There are a lot of interesting similarities between the settings, which makes the differences more compelling. The idea that belief has power, in a "world" with thousands of gods, with philosophies, and cults contrasts powerfully with the mainly secular space opera setting. The magical urban setting contrasts with the wide open spaces of the frontier worlds. The parallels between the Factions (which are now defunct) and the Stellar Nations (whose influence is faint in the Verge) are interesting.

The Orlamists believe that drivespace is a representation of the Divine Unconscious-- it connects all sentients together. This seems awfully close to the mechanical purpose of the Astral Plane, as well as the beliefs associated with it. The many wars across the planes and the mostly backward, ignorant Prime worlds compare neatly with the end of the Second Galactic War and the colony worlds of the Verge.

Honestly, the more ideas I've played with in setting this thing up, the more excited I have become.

But do you really think they'll re-release it? Look at what they've done to d20 modern- rather than rerelease DarkMatter, which won accolades for being a great game book, and had a small but loyal pre-existing fan base, they give us Urban Arcana. Bah. And Stardrive was never even as popular as Darkmatter. I'd like to be wrong, but I'm afraid these two settings are dead and gone.

Well, licensing Gamma World to S&S gave me a lot of hope. Even if they don't pick them up themselves, I'm fairly optimistic someone will want to badly enough to get the license.

My understanding is, Urban Arcana was released mainly as a lure for D&D players, and as the third party development for d20 Modern provides more and more military and conspiracy games, WotC will want to capitalize on an already-popular setting that plays well to these themes. DarkMatter is far more likely than Star*Drive, I admit... but with d20 Future coming, I still remain pretty hopeful.

If not, well, with d20 Future and my old Alternity books, I ought to be able to put together enough conversion material to make a good go of it.

 

[DanMcS]

Well, licensing Gamma World to S&S gave me a lot of hope. Even if they don't pick them up themselves, I'm fairly optimistic someone will want to badly enough to get the license.

My understanding is, Urban Arcana was released mainly as a lure for D&D players, and as the third party development for d20 Modern provides more and more military and conspiracy games, WotC will want to capitalize on an already-popular setting that plays well to these themes. DarkMatter is far more likely than Star*Drive, I admit... but with d20 Future coming, I still remain pretty hopeful.

As I understand it, Wolfgang Baur and maybe a couple of other guys that worked on it originally tried to license DarkMatter from Wizards, and they wanted too much money for it. S&SS has licensed a couple things from Wizards, but they're part of White Wolf, and so are fairly large and wealthy, as RPG companies go. Anything could happen, but like you say, I'm hanging onto my old books for utility.

 

[King of Old School]

Stan! did Omega World.

Actually, Jonathan Tweet did Omega World.

As for the rest of it, I think that the heavy emphasis on fantasy elements in the d20M corebook was a marketing-driven error that has hurt the game, but we can to agree to disagree on that.

KoOS

 

[V_Shane]

I had several players who were interested in Modern, since they bought the books (3 months ago?) they really haven't said anything about it yet as far as wanting to play. Too busy? Not sure. But I'll pick up the books myself soon also.

 

[Xavim]

I'm just waiting to get home to get me some players. Up here its all D&D. Plus I like demon summoning too much not to play it.

 

[talien]

As for The Matrix, the Poly mini-game is pretty much Wizards' contribution to that genre, even though it is more like Tron meets the Matrix. Who knows? Maybe Wizards is one of many publisher competing for the license as we speak but did not want to give away until they are certain the deal is signed.

Incidentally, I made a d20 Modern campaign setting for The Matrix at http://michael.tresca.net under Freebies.