Modern d20 Products and us...

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Well, we here at the Brood took Ultra-Modern Firearms and the Modern d20 handbook, and pushed them to the limits.
The ranges are FUBAR, but for most people, that won't matter (How many of you are going to be RP'ing one of the PC's acting as spotter and the other with a Barrett 50 waiting for someone to get off the airplane, with an APDS in the pipe?) and the vehicular combat system is workable (besides Hammerhead Matt making his rolls with crit successes to powerslide sideways into a group of zombies at 105 MPH in downtown Waco) and fun.
So, we've decided it's time to push the limit even further, and see what happens when you cross Modern d20 with testosterone laden teenagers...
Utter mayhem...
But fun.
Now, I've heard people say that Modern d20 is going to die, since there's no support for it.
I only have one thing to say: If there is no support for it, that's OUR fault.
So, with Hammerhead Matt pushing and whining and threatening the whole way, The Brood has pushed aside a few fantasy d20 books, putting them on the back burner, and decided on doing the following...
Quick Score-20 drop in, plug & play mini-adventures that the DM can expand on or adjust to taste. Includes 2 creatures and a couple templates.
And a few other projects.
See, where Modern d20 faces it's biggest challenge, is not too many people seem willing to support it, since they don't see any support...
"Why should I produce anything for it, it's going to fail because there is no support."
That's a very common saying as far as modern goes that I've seen.
That's OUR fault. How can anything succeed if nobody is willing to support it. Let's face it, modern should appeal to more people, since it's easier to understand.
From the gritty "PC's as Homeland Defense" to the "Urban Uber-Arcana with Mindflayers as FBI interrogators et al" we should be supporting it.
But instead, all I hear is: "There isn't any money in it because there isn't any support...."
THEN SUPPORT IT! QUIT WHINING! TAKE A RISK!
We, The Brood, intend on joining Green Ronin and a few others, and putting out material for it.
Come with us, it's gonna be fun.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

On a further note, let's take a look at why d20 Modern should be supported by us, and even further, why d20 Future should be supported.
Let's face it, many people (as evidenced in chat and a few polls) think that d20 Modern and d20 Future will NEVEr reach the popularity of D&D....
When Top Secret originally came out it couldn't stay on the shelves. BE JAMES BOND!! was the watchword.
When Gamma World came out, a lot of people (I lived near Fresno CA at the time) dropped D&D and started playing Gamma World (but then, Cold War fears had a grip on all of us at the time, whether we knew it or not) and people loved it.
Hero's Unlimited, Champions, Twilight 2000, Rifts, Ninja's & Superspies....
To say these never had the following of D&D is arrogance. I hate to tell all of you this, it was easier to get a copy of Mezzoberranzan than it was to get ahold of Rifts: Atlantis at the time they came out. And Ol' Mezzo was a hot product. So was Myth Drannor, it was tough to get Mechaniods, and the game shop got the same amount of each.

BUT, back on track...
Part of the problem with making a modern/future sourcebook is people don't like creating tables. Realistically, a lot of Gamers don't mind tables (Take a look in the back of 1E DMG or 1/2E Gamma World some time) and good, hard rules never bothered anyone.
If people didn't like tables, and hate complex construction rules, why was DalCon overrrun with Battletech Geeks! Every time I turned around, there was some guy with a Clans book!

Without support, Modern and Future will die.
WotC might now choose to take a big risk. They'll run with Urban Arcana, Gamma World, and thier version of Top Secret.
We, on the other hand, can take the chance, and push the envelope.
New campaign settings.
Adventures (Oh, I flipped through the channels and got FOURTY adventure ideas just formw aht's on TV, besides war coverage)
Sourcebooks.

There's a lot of potential.
Or am I just imagining things again?

 

[BrooklynKnight]

I totally agree. We need to support d20 modern ourselves, AND push others to support it.

TGM, Green Ronin, and one or two others are the only current 3rd party supporters.

the d20 market is saturated (as Hound pointed out at the CGM chat last night)

The d20 modern market is new and fresh. Its a GREAT oppourtunity for writers to make a niche for themselves.

 

[MythicJustice]

Mythic Dreams Studios supports d20 Modern. We feel extremely optimistic about the future of d20 Modern. The response from retailers at GAMA confirmed this as we had an incredible response to Dark Inheritance, our modern mythic horror setting. Retailers are really looking forward to d20 Modern support material as it is not a saturated market.

All our books are going to support the d20 Modern brand. Our second book, Modern Spellcraft, will be out in July and our third book, Allegiance Book: First Team, will be available in November.

 

[Krug]

Well there is support for it and people buying. Modern Player's Companion from The Game Mechanics is #1 on RPGNow.com and Blood and Relics is rapidly climbing the charts. Heartening to see.

 

[malladin]

Yep, it's particularly heartening to see these products doing well when we've got our own range of D20M support products coming out soon, too. Also worth mentioning is that our existing freebie D20M product Universal FX is 'selling' really well, with close to 200 picking it up in its first 3 months. Plus on top of this I've been approached by a publisher wanting to include some material from it in one of their upcoming releases (although I don't think I should reveal more at this point).

We're due to kick off our Modern Heroes line with Martial Avengers, a class supplement for Strong and Fast heroes. This is going to be a pretty big book, so fans of the Game Mechanics' Modern Player's Companion should get some more of the same, as well as a load of new stuff, including new talents and some combat-related FX abilities building on the system in UniversalFX.

 

[Vigilance]

Well there is support for it and people buying. Modern Player's Companion from The Game Mechanics is #1 on RPGNow.com and Blood and Relics is rapidly climbing the charts. Heartening to see.

As the author of Blood and Relics I would like to make one comment about this: I think d20 Modern will be supported- it's a great game with a lot to offer. I think the "lag" has come while writers and publishers worked with the system to see what its strengths were.

RPGobjects and I have Blood and Relics out, and Blood and Fists (a Martial Arts sourcebook) less than a month away.

I think in the days ahead we will see a lot of new and interesting books supporting the game.

Oh and Krug, thanks for the plug!

Ok that's several comments

 

[PosterBoy]

DW 2

Not to mention we also have Darwin's World 2nd Edition coming (Book I is in the final stages) that is a d20 Modern product.