Modiphius 2d20 Advice

[overgeeked]

What about Delta Green? I have that and read it but not played it. Or OpenQuest, which I have run on a couple of occasions when people considered Mythras a little too crunchy. I am familiar with several iterations of various Runequest derivative games including some Legend series and Age Of Shadow.

I'd say STA is less crunchy than Delta Green. But it's close.

 

[kronovan]

...I would suggest a 1-2 page cheat sheet of the system rather than reading the book itself. It's just so poorly written. If someone's familiar with Star Trek almost all of the non-mechanical stuff is general info they'll already have. A quick internet search or a few minutes on Memory Alpha or Memory Beta and they're set...

All of my STA players are middle aged or older and grew up on the idea of reading the CRB of handbook before you play. They all at least bought the Rules Digest (some the Klingon Empire rules) PDF, as they all eventually wanted to dig into the player targeted content. So for sure, my suggestion of 1st chapters to read would be more applicable to players that like to read TTRPG books. My players haven't mentioned finding the Rules Digest or Klingon Empire book poorly written. So I'm assuming the writing in them has been cleaned up similar to how the writing in the Captain's Log was.

And yes, using a cheat sheet is definitey a workable approach to playing with the STA rules.

 

[kronovan]

I'd say STA is less crunchy than Delta Green. But it's close.

IMO Delta Green is a better crunch comparison and I agree STA is a bit less. The big thing in comparing STA to Delta Green, or Call of Cthulhu for that matter, is that PCs don't have to contend with Sanity so there isn't sanity rules to learn. Which are crunchy in both DG and CoC; albeit IMO it's sweet crunch like peanut brittle. STA players do on the other hand have to learn the Starship rules. As I said before though, and dependent upon missions, they don't have to learn starship combat until they've played for a while.

 

[overgeeked]

IMO Delta Green is a better crunch comparison and I agree STA is a bit less. The big thing in comparing STA to Delta Green, or Call of Cthulhu for that matter, is that PCs don't have to contend with Sanity so there isn't sanity rules to learn. Which are crunchy in both DG and CoC; albeit IMO it's sweet crunch like peanut brittle. STA players do on the other hand have to learn the Starship rules. As I said before though, and dependent upon missions, they don't have to learn starship combat until they've played for a while.

Yeah, that’s fair. For us it was the three metacurrencies and all the little rules scattered throughout that tripped us up the most. How does this work? I dunno. Look it up. And the answers were never that intuitive. It mostly read like mechanics for mechanics’ sake. If you stripped the system way, way down…to say the basic task resolution I posted above…it would be fine. Throw in some clocks and you’re off to the races. Trouble is STA is designed with a rule for everything mindset. That works well for some, but I just absolutely bounce off that.

 

[haileris23]

I would totally love to Dune if I could find some Dune familiar players. However, I am very hung up on what to actually do in a Dune game. I've obviously watched the two movies (got chills when Paul asks "what's in the box" and the Witch say "pain" cause that scene got seared into my brain when I was a kid, and the movie showed it perfectly). Outside of the whole Quiznos Hatrack thing I am at a loss as to what to with a Dune game.

Yeah, in my opinion Dune as an RPG setting really suffers from Paul (and later Leto II) being such massive presences that it's easy for PCs to feel unimportant. Agents of Dune works around it by being set in an alternate timeline where the Emperor gives control of Arrakis to the PCs' House (Nagara) instead of the Atreides.

I haven't had a chance to run Dune (it's #1 on my list when I get the time though), but my tentative plan is to set the game a couple of centuries before Paul's birth and just have a big ol' Game of Thrones in space.

 

[jeffh]

Is there a 2d20 game suitable for a fantasy campaign? Not necessarily D&D style, could be urban etc., but a decent, player-accessible magic system is a must. Conan is very low-magic by RPG standards, and most of the others, from what I know of the settings, seem to have no overt magic at all, though Dune has some narrow, specific things that approach it. (Trek has it in all but name, but rarely if ever wielded by "PCs".)

 

[zarionofarabel]

Yeah, in my opinion Dune as an RPG setting really suffers from Paul (and later Leto II) being such massive presences that it's easy for PCs to feel unimportant. Agents of Dune works around it by being set in an alternate timeline where the Emperor gives control of Arrakis to the PCs' House (Nagara) instead of the Atreides.

I haven't had a chance to run Dune (it's #1 on my list when I get the time though), but my tentative plan is to set the game a couple of centuries before Paul's birth and just have a big ol' Game of Thrones in space.

That was basically my first idea too. However, unlike something like Star Wars and Tatooine, where I could at least point to Andor and say "look, no Tatooine" as the story never went to (or mentioned) Tatooine. With Dune it's a little different. The whole setting revolves around Arrakis. The whole "in universe" fiction revolves around Arrakis. Arrakis is not just an important world, it is the ONLY world that actually really matters. Plus Fremen are one of the most important features of the setting, and they are exclusive to Arrakis. I just think it would be hard to do a Dune game that is just Generic Space Soap Opera with Dune trappings. I feel that a Dune game, not set on, well, Dune, would ultimately fall flat. I like the idea of doing an "alternate universe" Dune, but that come with the problem of who gets to be the Quiznos Hatrack. If it's an NPC, then players might feel like the campaign isn't really about them, per se. If it is going to be a PC, which lucky player gets to be Quiznos Hatrack, and will that foster resentment amongst the other players. I'm sure an "alternate universe" game could work, but only with the right group of players. It definitely will be something worth discussing with potential players. I'll be honest, with the pool of players I have to work with, I will probably have more success with STA or Fallout. Which kind of makes me a little sad, cause Dune is the most intriguing of the games setting wise. By my interwebs searches, the most interesting iteration. And I have never run or played in a Dune game.

 

[kronovan]

Is there a 2d20 game suitable for a fantasy campaign? Not necessarily D&D style, could be urban etc., but a decent, player-accessible magic system is a must...

I'm not very familiar with all 2d20 settings, but to the best of my knowledge there isn't. To the extent that it seems Modiphius has deliberately chosen to avoid that style of Fantasy with the 2d20 rules. At one point I was hopeful that Dreams and Machines would have something like magic via weird tech, but it turned out not to.