Has enthusiasm died?

[Pagan priest]

D20M's biggest strength and greatest weakness is that it is more of a toolbox for creating the game you want, rather than flat out handing you a standard game right out of the gate. You need to read all the little bits, the campaign models, magic, psionics, monsters... all of it and then start figuring which fit into what you intend to run. Kind of like saying that the way to sculpt a masterpiece statue is to take a block of marble and carve away every thing that doesn't belong.

Spycraft is limited, it is focused on spy games. I haven't read it that closely, but I believe it is very good at being a spy game. The farther you want to get from a spy game, the harder it would be to use Spycraft.

As far as characters taking one or two levels from a dozen classes... ehh, it's one way to do things. So far all the characters I have run have been far more focused than that. Whether wild west gunslinger, cyberpunk ninja spy, or early cold war era CIA wizard, all of my characters have taken the most direct route into thier chosen advanced class.

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

As far as characters taking one or two levels from a dozen classes... ehh, it's one way to do things. So far all the characters I have run have been far more focused than that. Whether wild west gunslinger, cyberpunk ninja spy, or early cold war era CIA wizard, all of my characters have taken the most direct route into their chosen advanced class.

We where playing GI Joe and more of the combat ready people had classes in. Strong, Fast, Soldier, Gunslinger, and more than a few also had Tough, Dedicated, and/or Charismatic. It was a small nightmare. but mulitclassing in D&D no longer bugs me!

 

[takyris]

With proper multiclassing in Martial Artist and Soldier, you can get a guy who does 1d8(plus a bunch), crit 18-20/x3, and does not need to roll to confirm a critical. I recall it being something like Strong3, Fast1 (for Defense), Martial Artist 6, Soldier 10. He was a work of art... Until somebody with a gun came along, of course.

And I love Modern's flexibility. I can do CSI. I can do military. I can do historical. I can do modern fantasy. I can do a CSI-person riding a unicorn back in time to help an historical military campaign. It's all available.

Only thing I wasn't jazzed about was the amount of space dedicated to basic D&D stuff. I''d rather have seen it briefly as one way of constructing a fantasy campaign, along with guidelines for other ways -- balanced means of mana-generation by level, good guidelines for a "Cast whenever you want, save as you cast to avoid Stat Penalties"-type magic system, and so forth.

I kind of KNOW the magic system I want. I just need cleaner, crisper ways to make it. Heck, maybe I should put out my own PDF on this stuff...

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

With proper multiclassing in Martial Artist and Soldier, you can get a guy who does 1d8(plus a bunch), crit 18-20/x3, and does not need to roll to confirm a critical. I recall it being something like Strong3, Fast1 (for Defense), Martial Artist 6, Soldier 10. He was a work of art... Until somebody with a gun came along, of course.

I agree, I once saw a nice combo that could punch threw the hull of a tank.

And any addition to d20 Modern is a nice addition.

 

[baseballfury]

D20M's biggest strength and greatest weakness is that it is more of a toolbox for creating the game you want, rather than flat out handing you a standard game right out of the gate.

Totally agreed. It is to d20 games what Greyhawk used to be to campaign settings: a framework to build on.

 

[Ranger REG]

D20M's biggest strength and greatest weakness is that it is more of a toolbox for creating the game you want, rather than flat out handing you a standard game right out of the gate.

One can argue the same for Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition Core Rulebooks (original and revised).

That's why WotC offers pre-published campaign settings, from Greyhawk (granted, a poor example) to Forgotten Realms. Both of which have 20 years of materials published combined.

d20 Modern is fairly new (less than 1 year old), and we only have one campaign setting published by Wizards: Urban Arcana. Wizards hopes that this ruleset will get more support from third-party publishers. The question is: who is going to publish the hottest d20 Modern campaign setting? Wizards or someone else?

You need to read all the little bits, the campaign models, magic, psionics, monsters... all of it and then start figuring which fit into what you intend to run. Kind of like saying that the way to sculpt a masterpiece statue is to take a block of marble and carve away every thing that doesn't belong.

OR, you can take one of the three campaign models and start dressing it up or trimming it down to suit your kind of modern-day RPG. You can even mix-n-match them. It's a good place to start for any newbie gamers.

Spycraft is limited, it is focused on spy games. I haven't read it that closely, but I believe it is very good at being a spy game. The farther you want to get from a spy game, the harder it would be to use Spycraft.

Unless one treats the Spycraft ruleset the same way as we treat d20 ruleset (aka SRD) and produce a different kind of game. For example, AEG's Stargate SG-1 RPG which uses Spycraft rules engine at its core.

 

[buzz]

The question is: who is going to publish the hottest d20 Modern campaign setting? Wizards or someone else?

My guess is someone else, unless WotC have something really kickarse up their sleeve.

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

d20 Modern is fairly new (less than 1 year old), and we only have one campaign setting published by Wizards: Urban Arcana.

See, a lot of people will say this is cheating, but Urban Arcana is NOT the only D20M setting. The default campaign world for D20M is the one you're sitting in now.
New York, that's a part of the campaign world. Egypt? Yes, Egypt is too. It all is. That's where my friend's D20M campaign takes place, and that's where mine is set too.

Just because WoTC didn't necessarily have to create it doesn't mean it isn't a valid, interesting, well-developed campaign setting.

 

[takyris]

Definitely, Bran. That's the setting we're playing in -- we just changed corporate names and political figures to avoid turning somebody's favorite senator into a villain.

 

[The Lemon Merchant]

I think d20M appeals to a niche group of gamers. I know I can't convince anyone in my group to give it a try, which is pretty annoying. However, this hasn't curbed my enthusiasm for it. I'll admit my interest has its ups and downs, but I've recently become much more excited about it. Of course I attribute this to the release of Gamma World and Jonrog's awesome storyhour http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=4912.