Modiphius 2d20 System Opinions?

[zarionofarabel]

Someone mentioned in the Star Wars thread that combat was clunky. Thoughts on the system? The good and the bad?

For me it's pretty much all bad, sorry. I'm definitely not a fan of metacurrency being central to gameplay. I don't understand the need of GM metacurrency except for extra dice on rolls, which is a cheesy use of metacurrency IMHO. In the versions I have read (from what I remember) most of the attributes and skills are some kind of ephemeral things like concepts or ideas, which makes what attributes and skills apply in any given situation obtuse and the interpretation of that invites debate. The Dune version, which I read and watched an AP for, has the "sentence of description as bonus" and "scene tags/aspects give bonus" things, which is even more obtuse and invites even more debate. The AP I watched had the participants spend far more time discussing rules and whatnot, as opposed to the PCs actually doing things within the narrative. To watch it was very confusing, I can imagine trying to play it would be extremely frustrating. Which is too bad cause on the tin it sounded awesome, but once I dug into the mechanics it quickly became apparent that the mechanics are a confusing mess. Watching the AP just confirmed my suspicions. I did have a discussion with a "OSR Grognard" that has used the Fallout game and says it's pretty traditional if you ignore the metacurrency. The attributes and skills in Fallout are far more concrete and usable than the ones in Dune though. I also started watching a Star Trek 2d20 AP but immediately after the GM described the opening scene, before the PCs did a single thing within the narrative, the players immediately got into a rules debate so I gave up. I would much rather use something with the YZE system like Twilight 2000, or Bladerunner. YZE seems about as complex, but is much more straightforward and concrete in it's execution. The YZE games I have watched AP for, feature most of the runtime being the PCs actually doing things in the narrative, rather than the players debating mechanics. I want to play a game, not discuss rules.

 

[Staffan]

I don't understand the need of GM metacurrency except for extra dice on rolls, which is a cheesy use of metacurrency IMHO.

GM metacurrency is both a limit and an enabler for the GM: You're allowed and encouraged to screw the PCs over this much, but no more. It can also be useful as a limiter on various NPC abilities – in D&D something like a dragon's breath has a random recharge, but in 2d20 it would instead require spending Doom/Heat/Threat/whatever. IIRC, Infinity also uses it for NPC consumables – you'll define a particular NPC or NPC type as having "grenades", and then every grenade they throw costs X amount of Heat.

However, this usage does require that the rules for getting the GM metacurrency are reasonably balanced. I do remember when we were trying out Coriolis that I was swimming in Darkness points, because every challenge posed to the PCs ended up giving me more points than placing that challenge cost. I'm not sure if that was inherent to the game or just specific to that adventure.

In the versions I have read (from what I remember) most of the attributes and skills are some kind of ephemeral things like concepts or ideas, which makes what attributes and skills apply in any given situation obtuse and the interpretation of that invites debate.

This is one of the things that differ a lot based on the particular 2d20 implementation. For example, Infinity has a fairly traditional setup with "objective" stats (e.g. Agility, Brawn, Personality) and a fixed skill list (e.g. Extraplanetary, Ballistics, Hacking), with each skill having both an Expertise rating (added to the relevant stat to get a target number for success) and a Focus rating (rolling this or lower on a die gets two successes).

By contrast, Star Trek has a set of six Attributes for varying approaches to tasks (Control, Daring, Fitness, Insight, Presence, Reason) and six Disciplines reflecting wide competencies based on Starfleet departments (Command, Conn, Security, Engineering, Science, and Medicine), and these are combined ad-hoc based on the task – you could for example use Presence + Science to present a research proposal, or Insight + Engineering to analyze a device someone built and use it to understand the builder. You also have Foci which are more distinct areas of skill and knowledge (e.g. Small craft piloting, Trauma medicine, Psychoanalysis, Warp drive physics), which increases the chances of crits in these areas.

The Dune version, which I read and watched an AP for, has the "sentence of description as bonus" and "scene tags/aspects give bonus" things, which is even more obtuse and invites even more debate. The AP I watched had the participants spend far more time discussing rules and whatnot, as opposed to the PCs actually doing things within the narrative. To watch it was very confusing, I can imagine trying to play it would be extremely frustrating.

This seems like a fairly common thing when exploring a new game, particularly one which works differently from what you're used to.

 

[Reynard]

TL/DR = 2d20 is a game where players are in control of the flow of Metacurrency.
While dice rolls are the main generator of the Momentum, it is not the only way.
While the GM starts with Heat, the players from that point on "press their luck" and grant more, but also get to do more.
2d20 is far more rewarding of the flow of metacurrency

I had not considered that aspect. While I have never seen DH get bogged down the way you describe, I understand where you are coming from.

Thanks for the detailed reply.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I will tread lightly, as I don't want to derail... but in an attempt to stay on topic i will try to demonstrate where 2d20 succeeds as a system and Daggerheart fails (for us)=

Daggerheart has no player-choice for generating Hope and Fear. The metacurrency of the game is entirely dependent on luck of the roll. This leads to common problems we have seen in every daggerheart game session. If you roll Fear a few times in a row (success on roll or not) = you generate no Hope, with prevents you from using most aspects of a character, and prevents using player agency options for Hope spends. This happened 100% of all scenes to at least 1 player or more. Since most scenes only need about 3 rolls per player, it meant that every scene 1 or more players were unable to do much besides the most basics. not fun at all.
- Daggerheart has no mechanic to overcome this problem. And we saw it happen enough that it impeded fun in play.

Further, Daggerheart generates Fear per-player. Which given a nearly 50-50 chance of rolling with Fear most of the time, that meant that after 2 rounds of play the GM already had more Fear than they could spend. They could choose to spend it, but then the game became punishing and very much no fun at all.
- Daggerheart has no mechanic to overcome this problem. And we saw it happen enough that it impeded fun in play.

TL/DR = we have seen this enough in other people's games and online games that we don't think its uncommon, though we do think its often ignored since it seems some players are used to "roll, fail, nothing happens" so they are caught up in the high chance of success of the rolls, more than the use of Hope and Fear.
So for us, the Hope and Fear mechanics broke the game, because in too many cases the high success rate made the Hope and Fear problem worse as players who rolled Hope often, overly overly dominated the scene (since that allows them to use their abilities so much more than others)
...

2d20 Also grants players Momentum (metacurrency) based on rolls. The difference being major - it is not a 50-50 Momentum to Heat result. Heat is not generated by player rolls (with the rare exception of sorcery in Conan). So EVERY roll has a chance to generate Momentum by merely rolling number of success beyond the DR. Difficulty Ratings (DR) range from 0 to 5. With most being 1, 2 or 3. Dice are rolled at often Target Numbers of 10 to 14, we tend to see 30% to 50% of every die coming up a success. (even more so if the die comes up a "1") Since 2 to 5 dice are rolled, we tend to see players succeed on the roll AND generate Momentum. For systems that use Damage dice d6s, additional Momentum is gained on the Damage Die roll. Then there are Talents each system has which auto-grant 1 or more Momentum on a successful roll. It also has a few options for players to gain Momentum outside of dice rolls. Usually its "start action with 1 momentum automatically or some variant of that.

• The net result is that most every roll generates 1 to 4 momentum.
• additionally 2d20 has a Group Momentum pool you can add to. So this allows players to ensure everyone has Momentum to spend and gives players who generate a lot of Momentum an incentive and means to share the wealth so to speak. (you can only keep so much person Momentum, so any extra is wasted, might as well toss it into the Group Pool...)

The second part is that abilities and Talents often do not require Momentum to use in 2dd20. Instead most all spells, powers, and techniques have a core effect that is just useful and cool, and then you get to bump it up or customize it with Momentum spends.
- This led to players always being able to use all aspects of their character, and it became more of "how big do you go this time" kind of fun.

On to Heat...
Heat in 2d20 is generated two ways, at the start of a session, a pool of 2 or 3 per PC. The GM gets more when players, who are out of Momentum or want to do a risky tactic, offer to give the GM 1 or more Heat to do whatever it is the system allows. This goes a LONG ways towards ensuring 2d20 never has the problem Daggerheart has
- players can always have 'Momentum', thus they can always use all their special abilities. its just that sometimes it has a price.

...............

TL/DR = 2d20 is a game where players are in control of the flow of Metacurrency.
While dice rolls are the main generator of the Momentum, it is not the only way.
While the GM starts with Heat, the players from that point on "press their luck" and grant more, but also get to do more.
2d20 is far more rewarding of the flow of metacurrency.

Also, have you seen the Momentum spends in Conan? shoot howdy does that game do some bombastic and neat stuff!!!

That's a very strange account of DH that makes it sound like something pretty weird was going on, where people only got anything done by spending Hope (???), and constantly ran out. Also where the DM spending Fear made the game miserable, which sounds like straightforward bad DMing (the more Fear than you can spend issue is real if the PCs are taking out enemies efficiently but it's not game breaking - and it's easy for the DM to run low or out in a combat). Not sure why the players with lots of Hope weren't using it for tag team rolls or to give advantage to others either. Doesn't really make much sense to the rules or ethos of the game.

I will say Conan sounds less tedious than Achtung! Cthulhu was, mechanically.

 

[Professor Murder]

I attempted a Klingon ST game and it didn't go well. My table and I just bounced off the systems very hard. With more research by all parties perhaps we could have had a better experience. The issue was too many "spenders" to keep track of by both GM and players. Having multiple resources that can influence rolls in a very storytelling style presentation doesn't work well for me.

 

[cranberry]

It's been a while since I played Fallout 2d20, but I don't recall the combat being clunky.