Modiphius 2d20 Advice

[zarionofarabel]

So I have very recently managed to aquire a sizable collection of second hand 2d20 materials. The core books are as follows; Conan, Dune, Fallout, Homeworld, John Carter Of Mars, and Star Trek.

Any advice on where to start? A quick skim of the interwebs has revealed that there is a disparity in crunch level and complexity of the various implementations. What game would be the best one to learn first? Note, I have no preference via IP as outside of Star Trek, I have passing knowledge of the IPs at best. I would start with Star Trek, but have informed by multiple sources that the layout is not good and can make it harder to learn the game.

Any help, including advice on system usage and pitfalls thereof would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

[overgeeked]

Oh boy.

There is a massive difference in the level of crunch. John Carter is the lightest of them. I don't know Homeworld, but Conan or Star Trek are tied for the heaviest. I'd recommend John Carter or Dune as places to start. As much as I dislike 2d20 and Modiphius, those two are really well done and much easier to read and lighter on mechanics.

I'm a big advocate for RPG books being written as reference manuals more than chatty, casual style...but Star Trek shows the downside of that. The reviewers you read were probably being gentle in their criticism of the layout and writing of Star Trek. The second edition is somewhat better, but 1E is kind of a nightmare to parse.

The gist of the version in Star Trek is roll low on 2d20. You add your attribute and discipline together, that's your target number. Roll that or lower on your 2d20 to succeed. Nat 1s count as two successes. If you have an applicable focus, any die showing that number or lower also counts as two successes. Nat 20s give you a complication. The difficulty of the roll is how many successes you need to accomplish the task.

That's the core of the task resolution mechanics. There are at least three metacurrencies to track. And then there's the d6s.

I'm sure you can find some tutorials on YouTube that give better rundowns of the system.

I know they just released Star Trek Adventures 2E, but after seeing the Narrativium System they did for Discworld I really hope they start using that for a lot more books.

Good luck.